The Commentariat -- Sept. 2, 2013

Carl Morris, 1942. Eugene, Oregon Post Office.... Paul Krugman: "... believe it or not, Labor Day actually had something to do with showing respect for labor.... Many of today's politicians can't even bring themselves to fake respect for ordinary working Americans.... There are evidently a lot of wealthy people in America who consider anyone who isn't wealthy a loser -- an attitude that has clearly gotten stronger as the gap between the 1 percent and everyone else has widened. And such people have a lot of friends in Washington." ...

... Pre-distribution: if the law required incomes to be distributed more evenly before taxes, fewer Americans would need the programs Krugman mentions. E. J. Dionne: "The genius of the labor movement has always been its insistence that if the law genuinely empowered workers to defend their own interests, the result would be a more just society requiring fewer direct interventions by government. This Labor Day could be remembered as the moment when that idea rose again."

AP: "The information the U.S. showed Moscow trying to prove that the Syrian regime was behind an alleged chemical weapons attack is 'absolutely unconvincing,' Russia's foreign minister said Monday." ...

... Steve Gutterman of Reuters: "Russia is sending a reconnaissance ship to the eastern Mediterranean, Interfax news agency reported on Monday, as the United States prepares for a possible military strike in Syria." ...

... Michael Gordon & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The Obama administration launched a full-press campaign on Sunday for Congressional approval of its plan to carry out a punitive strike against the Syrian government." ...

... Bradley Klapper of the AP: "President Barack Obama is inviting former foe Sen. John McCain to the White House, hoping one of Congress' most intractable foreign policy hawks will help sell the idea of a U.S. military intervention in Syria to a nation deeply scarred by more than a decade of war." ...

... Paul Kane & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Leading lawmakers dealt bipartisan rejection Sunday to President Obama's request to strike Syrian military targets, saying the best hope for congressional approval would be to narrow the scope of the resolution. From the Democratic dean of the Senate [Patrick Leahy] to tea party Republicans in their second terms, lawmakers said the White House's initial request to use force against Syria will be rewritten in the coming days to try to shore up support in a skeptical Congress. But some veteran lawmakers expressed doubt that even the new use-of-force resolution would win approval, particularly in the House." ...

... Ben Geman of the Hill: "Members of the Senate plan to narrow President Obama's authorization request for military action in Syria, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Sunday. Leahy told reporters about the planned rewrite of the resolution after attending a classified intelligence briefing on Sunday at the Capitol." ...

... Andrea Shalal-Esa of Reuters: "The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and other ships in its strike group are heading west toward the Red Sea to help support a limited U.S. strike on Syria, if needed, defense officials said on Sunday." ...

... Steve Coll of the New Yorker: "President Obama, in fashioning a response [to the Syrian chemical attack], has been burdened by the United States' recent history with Iraq. The Administration of Ronald Reagan stood by as 'Chemical Ali' waged his campaign against the Kurds.... The Administration of George W. Bush infamously claimed that Saddam Hussein still possessed chemical and biological arms. It soon became apparent that Saddam had abandoned them.... Last Thursday Britain's Parliament, citing the West's failures in Iraq, voted to reject an attack on Syria for now, because a majority did not judge the available evidence of Assad's guilt to be definitive.... The Reagan Administration's decision to tolerate Saddam's depravities proved to be a colossal moral failure and strategic mistake; it encouraged Saddam's aggression and internal repression, and it allowed Iraq to demonstrate to future dictators the tactical value of chemical warfare. The consequences of similar passivity in Syria now are unknowable."

Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government suspects that individuals with connections to al-Qaeda and other hostile groups have repeatedly sought to obtain jobs in the intelligence community, and it reinvestigates thousands of employees a year to reduce the threat that one of its own may be trying to compromise closely held secrets, according to a classified budget document. The CIA found that among a subset of job seekers whose backgrounds raised questions, roughly one out of every five had 'significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections,' according to the document, which was provided to The Washington Post by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden."

Scott Shane & Colin Moynihan of the New York Times: "For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans' phone calls -- parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency's hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.... The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice [Anthony] Kennedy has emerged as the most important judicial champion of gay rights in the nation's history, having written three landmark opinions on the subject, including this summer's Windsor decision, which overturned a ban on federal benefits for married same-sex couples. Those rulings collectively represent a new chapter in the nation's civil rights law, and they have cemented his legacy as a hero to the gay rights movement." CW: Evidently Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagan, not to mention gay rights advocates, don't count.

Jeffry Rosen in the New Republic: "Eric Holder's Suit Against Texas Gives the Supreme Court a Chance to Gut Even More of the Voting Rights Act."

Local News

Florida -- Home of America's Worst Mayors! Nick Madigan of the New York Times: "On Wednesday, Steven C. Bateman, 58, the mayor of Homestead, was arrested. He is accused of accepting under-the-table payments from a health care company that sought to build a clinic in town, the state attorney's office for Miami-Dade County said. Mr. Bateman was turned in by City Council members and staff, said employees interviewed Friday at City Hall. On Aug. 6, Manuel L. Maroño, 41, the mayor of Sweetwater and president of the Florida League of Cities, and Michael A. Pizzi, 51, the Miami Lakes mayor, were picked up along with two lobbyists. The United States attorney's office has accused them of involvement in kickback and bribery schemes concerning federal grants." CW: Yeah, I know, it's hard for three crooks to make up for one Bob Filner, but we're trying.

News Ledes

Wall Street Journal: "A collection of pro-Syrian government hackers apparently defaced a Marine Corps recruitment website Monday. The Syrian Electronic Army, which has hacked a series of websites, posted a letter on the Marines.com website arguing the Syrian government is 'fighting a vile common enemy.'"

AFP: "US Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the evidence for climate change was beyond dispute but it was not too late for international action to prevent its worst impacts.... [Kerry] was addressing climate experts meeting on the eve of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in the Marshall Islands, a low-lying nation where rising seas threaten to swamp many atolls."

AP: "Germany put a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS on trial Monday on charges that he executed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944. Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is now German, volunteered for the SS after the Nazis conquered the Netherlands in 1941. Bruins served as a member of the Sicherheitspolizei, or Security Police, in a unit looking for resistance fighters and Jews."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 1, 2013

Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "One day after Mr. Obama stunned the world by halting what had seemed an inexorable push toward a cruise missile attack, [Secretary of State John] Kerry, who has been the administration’s most forceful advocate for intervention, was left to defend the surprising reversal in a string of appearances on Sunday morning talk shows. The appearances -- Mr. Kerry was a guest on five morning shows -- underscored the administration's tenuous position after a week of fits and starts over Syria." ...

... Craig Whitlock & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Sunday that fresh laboratory tests indicate sarin nerve gas was used in an Aug. 21 attack in Syria that killed more than 1,400 people, the first time that U.S. officials have pinpointed what kind of chemical weapon may have been involved. Appearing on five television network talk shows, Kerry said blood and hair samples from emergency workers in east Damascus had tested positive for traces of sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent. He said that U.S. officials learned of the lab results in the past 24 hours, citing the evidence as yet another reason for Congress to pass President Obama's request to authorize the use of military force...." ...

... John Bresnahan of Politico: "The White House has sent Congress a draft resolution authorizing the use of American military force in Syria, with a narrow focus on interdicting chemical weapons -- or their use -- by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The draft resolution, crafted by White House officials, does not set any deadline for U.S. action, but it is clearly written to assuage some congressional concerns over open-ended American involvement in the two-year-old Syria civil war. The proposed resolution is here." ...

... Jonathan Allen of Politico: "The White House has provided a classified version of its intelligence estimate on the Syrian government's reported use of chemical weapons to Congress and will host an interagency classified briefing for all interested House members on Sunday, according to a memo circulated to House Republicans on Saturday." ...

... Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post: "President Obama said Saturday that the United States has decided to use military force against Syria, calling last week's alleged chemical weapons attack there 'an attack on human dignity,' but said he would to seek congressional authorization for an attack. The announcement puts off an imminent cruise missile strike, a prospect that had put the region on edge and stoked intense debate in the United States, where many dread getting dragged into a new war. It is not clear what the Obama administration would do if Congress declines to authorize a military operation":

 ... The New York Times story, by Peter Baker & Anne Barnard, is here. ...

... Josh Lederman of the AP: "Senior administration officials say President Barack Obama had planned to take military action against Syria without congressional authorization, but told aides Friday night that he had changed his mind." ...

... Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: the President's decision to put the question to Congress blindsided top aides like Susan Rice & Chuck Hagel. ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The Oval Office meeting [with top aides] ended one of the strangest weeks of the Obama administration, in which a president who had drawn a 'red line' against the use of chemical weapons, and watched Syrian military forces breach it with horrific consequences, found himself compelled to act by his own statements. But Mr. Obama, who has been reluctant for the past two years to get entangled in Syria, had qualms from the start."

The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. -- Barack Obama, December 2007 ...

... Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: "President Barack Obama's abrupt decision to hand over the choice to strike Syria to Congress ... has already struck a rare and dramatic blow against his own power. Presidents for decades have ignored the Constitutional requirement that Congress authorize acts of war, launching attacks from Kosovo to Libya without authorization. Presidents Bush and Obama took a 2001 authorization of the use of force against terrorists as a carte blanche for a global secret war from Rome to Pakistan; the last formal authorization came in 2003, for Iraq." ...

... Smith, et al., Irk Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian: "... what makes the celebratory reaction to yesterday's announcement particularly odd is that the Congressional vote which Obama said he would seek appears, in his mind, to have no binding force at all." ...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "Administration officials refuse to comment on what Obama will do if Congress doesn't authorize strikes on Syria. Officials say they're confident Congress will vote yes on Obama's war." ...

... According to Jonathan Allen: President Obama "is reserving the right to exercise his legal authority to launch limited reprisals in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's reported use of chemical weapons, even if Congress turns him down."

Congress is now the dog that caught the car. -- David Axelrod

Meant to run this yesterday & forgot. Justine Sharrock of BuzzFeed: "The U.S. Army has been aware for years of a major security flaw in the system soldiers use to access computers -- and has done nothing to fix it, two sources, including an officer who alerted superiors to the risk, told BuzzFeed. Update: Roy Lundgren, the Army's Deputy of Cybersecurity, confirmed with BuzzFeed that the security failure exists and has the potential to provide users unauthorized access.... Today countless computers, and the soldiers who use them, remain vulnerable to a simple hack, which can be executed by someone with little or no security expertise." ...

... Sharrock Update: "The United States Army's Deputy of Cybersecurity Roy Lundgren ... say[s] the best fix is to make soldiers aware of proper conduct, instead of fixing the technology itself.... The hack allows users with access to shared Army computers to assume the identities of other personnel, gaining their securities clearances in the process, and having their activity logged as that user." CW: this seems to be the same thing Edward Snowden did to access accounts & download top-secret data which someone at his level would not have clearance to access. Thanks to safari for the links.

Der Spiegel: The NSA ... hacked into Al Jazeera's internal communications system, according to documents from former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden...."

Karoli of Crooks & Liars lays out the evidence: the "IRS scandal didn't happen to the Tea party; It was invented by the Tea Party."

Nick Renaud-Komaya of the Independent: "A sign outside St. John's Anglican Church ... [in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada] has been viewed over 1,000,000 times after a user of the social entertainment site Reddit posted a photo of the sign online, the Huffington Post reports."

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "When courts can't even get the easy [rape] cases right, we're in big trouble." Last week was "a spectacularly awful week in rape."

Senate Race

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Mary Cheney, the younger sister of Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Senate candidate, sharply criticized her sister's stance on same-sex marriage.... Posting on Facebook on Friday evening, Mary Cheney, who is gay and married her longtime partner last year, wrote: '... I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage.' Their father..., Dick Cheney, supports same-sex marriage.... 'I am not pro-gay marriage,' Liz Cheney said in a statement [Friday] responding to an apparent push poll against her in Wyoming. 'I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.'" ...

     ... CW Translation: "I believe whatever it takes to win this seat in a state where I can't even get a fishing license; if it hurts my little sister's feelings, tough."

Local News

So Transvaginal Bob Is a Crook AND a Liar. Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Hilderman of the Washington Post: "Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell was aware of gifts and financial help provided by a wealthy Richmond area businessman during the same months the governor and his wife took steps to help his company..., contrasting with an assertion by McDonnell's attorneys that he was in the dark about the extent of the gifts [businessman Jonnie] Williams bestowed on his family.... Attorneys for the governor and first lady Maureen McDonnell argued to federal prosecutors two weeks ago that the governor should not be charged with any crimes, in part because of this ignorance...." Williams is apparently cooperating with investigators; McDonnell's attorneys say Williams -- whom McDonnell has described as a friend -- is not credible. Federal officials could decide this month whether or not to charge McDonnell.

Maureen Dowd profiles Cathy Lanier, the police chief of the District of Columbia.

David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "As he oversaw the city's $85 billion pension system, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, [Jr., a candidate for mayor,] steered the funds into a diverse range of new investment categories.... Yet performance was lackluster: nationwide, more than half of large public pension funds outperformed the five city funds.... Meanwhile, the city's roster of fund managers, and their fees, tripled -- and Mr. Thompson collected more than $500,000 in campaign donations from them.... [Records & interviews] suggest frequent overlap of Mr. Thompson's political ambitions and the comptroller's operation, and that like many pension overseers at the time, he raised campaign money aggressively from those seeking business from his office." ...

     ... CW: seems to be a more serious lapse than tweeting penis pix. Just sayin'.

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Egyptian prosecutors Sunday ordered deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to stand trial on murder-related charges, stepping up the military-backed government's purge of the Muslim Brotherhood amid weeks of unrest that have deeply divided the country.... Prosecutors referred Morsi and 14 others, including Essam Erian, former deputy of the Brotherhood's political wing, to criminal court on charges of inciting deadly violence during a December protest outside the presidential palace.

Guardian: "Radiation levels 18 times higher than previously reported have been found near a water storage tank at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing fresh concern about the safety of the wrecked facility."

BBC News: "Veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost has died at the age of 74 after a suspected heart attack while on board a cruise ship."

AP: "Nelson Mandela was discharged from the hospital on Sunday while still in critical condition and was driven in an ambulance to his Johannesburg home which has been set up to provide intensive care, South Africa's presidency said.... President Jacob Zuma said in a statement Sunday that Mandela's condition "is at times unstable. His home has been reconfigured to allow him to receive intensive care there,' ..."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 31, 2013

The President's Weekly Address:

Dial-a-Senator. Mark Mazzetti & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "The White House on Saturday moved to shore up domestic and international support for a possible military strike against the Syrian government.... Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other top aides to President Obama scheduled conference calls for Saturday afternoon with members of the United States Senate, where there was deep skepticism in both parties about the prospect of American involvement in another war in the Middle East, even the limited cruise missile strike under consideration.... There was no sign that the White House planned to seek a Congressional vote authorizing the use of force. In addition to Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel, both former senators, Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, and Susan E. Rice, the president's national security adviser, will participate." ...

I would like to address Obama as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate: Before using force in Syria, it would be good to think about future casualties. Russia is urging you to think twice before making a decision on an operation in Syria. -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, to news agencies

... Michael Falcone of ABC News: "President Obama [Friday] said he has 'not made any decisions' on whether to launch a military strike on Syria, but sought to assure the American public and the international community that if he does, it will be a 'limited, narrow act.... We're not considering any open-ended commitment,' Obama said, adding, 'In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign":

Here's the "Government Assessment of the Syrian Government's Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013." ...

Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack. And I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment. -- Secretary of State John Kerry, yesterday

... Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "Unknown to Syrian officials, U.S. spy agencies recorded each step in the alleged attack, from the extensive preparations to the launching of rockets to the after-action assessments by Syrian officials. Those records and intercepts would become the core of the Obama administration's evidentiary case linking the Syrian government to ... the use of outlawed toxins to kill nearly 1,500 civilians, including at least 426 children. Pulling back the curtain on some of the United States' most sensitive collection efforts, the Obama administration released on Friday its long-awaited intelligence assessment [above] of the Aug. 21 event, explaining in rare detail the basis for its claim that Syria was behind the release of deadly gas, the grisly effects of which have been documented in more than 100 amateur videos. The four-page assessment and accompanying map revealed for the first time how communications intercepts and satellite imagery picked up key decisions and actions on the ground." CW: doesn't sound like a Colin Powell smoke-&-mirrors ops to me. ...

... Glenn Thrush of Politico: "Many of the leaks about U.S. strike plans for Syria ... have been authorized as a way for President Obama to signal the limited scope of operations to friends and foes. But a number of leaks have been decidedly unauthorized -- and, according to Obama administration sources, likely emanating from a Pentagon bureaucracy less enthusiastic about the prospect of an attack than, say, the State Department, National Security Council or Obama himself. 'Deeply unhelpful,' was how one West Winger described the drip-drip of doubt. 'They need to shut the f--k up,' said a former administration official." ...

It is clear that the American people are weary of war. However, Assad gassing his own people is an issue of our national security, regional stability and global security. -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

George W Bush couldn't have said it better. -- Digby

... Adam Serwer of NBC News: "... the administration's case that the Assad regime is responsible for the chemical weapons attack is persuasive. Less persuasive however, is the administration's case for a military response.... If Assad was willing to use chemical weapons to maintain his grip on power, it's unclear how 'limited strikes' not aimed at deposing him would dissuade him from doing so again...."

Barton Gellman & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Washington Post. That disclosure, in a classified intelligence budget provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, provides new evidence that the Obama administration's growing ranks of cyberwarriors infiltrate and disrupt foreign computer networks. Additionally, under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, U.S. computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious U.S. control." ...

... Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "The British government has asked the New York Times to destroy copies of documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden related to the operations of the U.S. spy agency and its British partner, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).... The British request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by Abramson with silence, according to the sources." ...

... Robert Booth of the Guardian: "The [British] government took more than three weeks to act on authoritative information about the whereabouts of a collection of secret intelligence data leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, despite now claiming the information risks 'grave damage' to the security of British intelligence and armed forces, the Guardian said on Friday. Guardian News and Media's editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, hit back at Downing Street's claims made in the high court that it 'urgently' needed to access leaked intelligence data seized at Heathrow this month from the partner of Glenn Greenwald...." ...

... Rory Carroll of the Guardian: "Microsoft and Google are to sue the US government to win the right to reveal more information about official requests for user data. The companies announced the lawsuit on Friday, escalating a legal battle over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), the mechanism used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other US government agencies to gather data about foreign internet users." Here's a statement from Microsoft. ...

... How Irresponsible Is This? David Barrett of the Telegraph: "David Miranda, [Glenn Greenwald's partner,] ... who was detained carrying thousands of British intelligence documents through Heathrow airport was also holding the password to an encrypted file written on a piece of paper, the government has disclosed." CW: I think it was contributor Haley S. who said she watched an interview of Miranda & he didn't appear to be very smart.

In an LOL column, Gail Collins encourages you to run for the U.S. Senate. And, hey, just because you live in, say, Brooklyn & have never been west of Buffalo, (New York, that is) don't think you can't be the Democratic candidate for Idaho. CW: I'm sensing Collins is just trying to encourage Anthony Weiner to consider a run. Aah, he's probably already filled out the paperwork. ...

... Meanwhile, There's Trouble on the Other Side of the Aisle. Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Despite their careful efforts, some of the best-known and most influential Republicans in the Senate have been unable to shake threats from the right and have attracted rivals who portray these lawmakers as a central part of the problem in Washington. In Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, the party's Senate leader, is fending off a charismatic and wealthy conservative challenger. In South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate's most reliably conservative voices on foreign policy, is being painted by primary opponents as a veritable clone of President Obama. In Tennessee, Tea Party activists have vowed to take out Lamar Alexander, the veteran senator, former cabinet officer and two-time presidential candidate."

Society Page

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will become the first Supreme Court member to conduct a same-sex marriage ceremony Saturday when she officiates at the Washington wedding of Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser. The gala wedding of Kaiser and economist John Roberts at the performing arts center brings together the nation's highest court and the capital's high society and will mark a new milepost in the recognition of same-sex unions."

Allie Jones of the Atlantic: "Bowing to Tea Party pressure, Alabama State Senator Bill Holtzclaw said this week that he thinks The Bluest Eye, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's novel about a little black girl who wishes for blue eyes, should be banned in schools.... The Bluest Eye is on the 11th grade reading list for the Common Core, a set of standards that has been adapted by more than 40 states."

Jonathan Landay of McClatchy News: In Egypt, yellow journalism takes over as media outlets make laughable claims in support of the military regime & against the Muslim Brotherhood. "It's succeeding. A mid-August poll measured support for the breakup of the sit-ins at nearly 70 percent of Egypt's 90 million people, reflecting massive popular backing for the coup.... With almost no professional news outlets to present a balanced picture, the relentless vilification of the Brotherhood and its exclusion from politics could help drive members into the ranks of jihadists, risking a return of the Islamist insurgency that bloodied Egypt in the 1990s and bred some of al Qaida's top leaders." Thanks to James S. for the link.

Local News

Craig Gustafson & Mark Walker of the San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Mayor Bob Filner left office Friday. Council President Todd Gloria took over as interim mayor.

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Pope Francis has taken a key step in reshuffling the Vatican's bureaucracy by replacing his much-criticized top aide with a career Vatican diplomat who has seen service on three continents. The Vatican said Saturday that Archbishop Pietro Parolin, 58, currently nuncio in Venezuela, will take office as Vatican secretary of state, the pope's prime minister, on Oct. 15, replacing Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, 78."

Guardian: "University of South Florida researchers began work to exhume dozens of graves on Saturday at a former Panhandle reform school, in the hope of identifying the boys buried there and learning how they died." The Tampa Bay Times story is here.