The Commentariat -- Aug. 26, 2013

Laura Poitras, et al., in Der Spiegel: "President Obama promised that NSA surveillance activities were aimed exclusively at preventing terrorist attacks. But secret documents from the intelligence agency show that the Americans spy on Europe, the UN and other countries." The documents come from Edward Snowden. CW: First, Obama did not promise that the NSA wouldn't spy on other countries. He was talking about specific NSA programs that target terrorists in the cited remark. No one in the world thinks that the U.S. limits its spying to Al Qaeda & Friends. Second and more important, exactly how is Patriot Snowden (not to mention Poitras, who is a U.S. citizen, too) helping the U.S. public by revealing E.U. building floor plans obtained from the NSA? Are Americans shocked, shocked, that their government wants to know what other governments are saying? This whole article is infuriating crap. ...

... Spreading the Wealth. Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: "The non-profit investigative reporting group ProPublica is among the media organizations with access to some NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden, another suggestion that the reportorial investigation into the National Security Agency's programs and practices is broader than previously known.... ProPublica's president, Richard Tofel, confirmed the collaboration in an email, and suggested the group has quietly been in the mix for some time."

NYC's CIA. Matt Apuzzo & Adam Goldman in New York: "After 9/11, the NYPD built in effect its own CIA -- and its Demographics Unit delved deeper into the lives of citizens than did the NSA." And it was Ray Kelly's bright idea. "The activities Kelly set in motion after 9/11 pushed deeply into the private lives of New Yorkers, surveilling Muslims in their mosques, their sporting fields, their businesses, their social clubs, even their homes...."

Oh, great. Tweeting foreign policy while on vacation. Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News: "This week, the Barack Obama administration's most eloquent and ardent advocate for humanitarian intervention overseas, Samantha Power, the ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted the following about the alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack: 'Reports devastating: 100s dead in streets, including kids killed by chem weapons. UN must get there fast & if true, perps must face justice.' Since then, she's been publicly silent. Apparently, she's on a previously scheduled, and unfortunately timed, vacation (which a handful of Republicans are casting as a scandal of some sort, Democrats not being allowed to take vacations in August)." ...

... Shane Harris & Matthew Aid of Foreign Policy: "The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.... [Recently declassified] CIA documents ... show that [during the Reagan administration] senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched."

Mary Shinn, et al., of the Washington Post: "While veterans waited longer than ever in recent years for their wartime disability compensation, the Department of Veterans Affairs gave its workers millions of dollars in bonuses for 'excellent' performances that effectively encouraged them to avoid claims that needed extra work to document veterans' injuries, a News21 investigation has found. In 2011, a year in which the claims backlog ballooned by 155 percent, more than two-thirds of claims processors shared $5.5 million in bonuses, according to salary data from the Office of Personnel Management. The more complex claims were often set aside by workers so they could keep their jobs, meet performance standards or, in some cases, collect extra pay, said VA claims processors and union representatives."

Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker: "There's a bizarre dissonance that comes with watching the first black Attorney General give a speech to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington and recognizing that the themes of his speech might have fit well with those given at the original march, in 1963." ...

... Bryce Covert of Think Progress: "On Face the Nation this Sunday, Colin Powell ... warned his fellow Republicans that the continuing push to restrict voting rights is going to 'backfire' and harm the Republican Party." ...

I'd like to see [President Obama] be more passionate about race questions.... I mean, in my lifetime, over a long career in public life, you know, I've been refused access to restaurants where I couldn't eat, even though I just came back from Vietnam, we can't give you a hamburger, come back some other time. And I did, right after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, I went right back to that same place and got my hamburger, and they were more than happy to serve me now.... But we're not there yet. We're not there yet. And so we've got to keep working on it. And for the president to speak out on it is appropriate. I think all leaders, black and white, should speak out on this issue. -- Colin Powell

What’s going on about voting rights is downright evil because it is something that really needs to keep going forward not backward. -- Cokie Roberts, on "This Week" yesterday

First smart thing Roberts has said in 50 years. -- Constant Weader

E. J. Dionne: "... after three years of congressional dysfunction brought on by the rise of a radicalized brand of conservatism, it's time to call the core questions: Will our ability to govern ourselves be held perpetually hostage to an ideology that casts government as little more than dead weight in American life? And will a small minority in Congress be allowed to grind decision-making to a halt?" CW short answer: Yup.

Paul Krugman on the fall of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the travails of Microsoft & dynastic history. "Even though Microsoft did not, in fact, end up taking over the world, those antitrust concerns weren't misplaced. Microsoft was a monopolist, it did extract a lot of monopoly rents, and it did inhibit innovation. Creative destruction means that monopolies aren't forever, but it doesn't mean that they're harmless while they last. This was true for Microsoft yesterday; it may be true for Apple, or Google, or someone not yet on our radar, tomorrow."

In the August 24 Commentariat, contributor Trish Ramey writes a sensitve & informative response to my query about whether or not to honor Chelsea (ne Bradley) Manning's request to refer to her as a female.

Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker on the large-scale chemical-weapons attack in Syria last week.

Senate Race

Kim Severson of the New York Times: "Conservatives in South Carolina are eager to oust [South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham [R], who has enraged the far right for, among other things, reaching across the aisle on immigration and supporting President Obama's nominations for the Supreme Court. Tea Party supporters called him a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood when, instead of heading home for the Congressional break this month, he went to Egypt at the request of the president.... At least 40 [South Carolina] groups align themselves along Tea Party and Libertarian lines, and trying to unify them to topple the state's senior senator will be no easy task."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Red Burns, an educator who gained wide recognition for pushing for more creative uses of modern communications, helping to lead the movement for public access to cable television and starting a celebrated New York University program to foster Internet wizards, died on Friday at her Manhattan home. She was 88."

Washington Post: "An aerial drone ... crashed Saturday ... into the grandstand at Virginia Motorsports Park during the Great Bull Run.... Four or five people suffered very minor injuries...." It was apparently being used to videotape the event. Or not.

AFP: "Firefighters reported progress Monday battling a huge blaze on the edge of Yosemite National Park, but warned it remains an 'extreme' threat as it nears the top US tourist destination and San Francisco's water supply. The Rim Fire, which began nine days ago, has grown to become the 13th largest in California's recorded history and has sparked the closure of one of the main roads into the spectacular natural beauty spot."

AP: "The Air Force has removed the commander of a nuclear weapons unit at a Montana base following a failed safety and security inspection that marked the second major misstep this year for one of the military's most sensitive missions.Military leaders say the decision to relieve Col. David Lynch of command at Malmstrom Air Force Base stems from a loss of confidence."

New York Daily News: "A bigoted thug brutally beat a transgender woman to death in Harlem just moments after realizing his friend was actually born a man, the victim's family and officials said Friday. It was the latest in a series of troubling bias attacks in the city, which is on pace to double the number of crimes against the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual community in 2013 compared with last year."

Washington Post: "U.N. inspectors attempting to visit the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack in eastern Damascus were forced to turn back on Monday after their convoy came under what the United Nations described as intentional fire. The team plans to try again to access the area within a few hours, the statement said. In the meantime, three key U.S. allies, [Britain, France & Turkey,] indicated on Monday that they would back the Obama administration if it decides to take action against Syria without a United Nations mandate." ...

     ... Update: "U.N. chemical weapons inspectors on Monday successfully entered a Damascus suburb that was allegedly hit last week with poison gas, part of an assault on three rebel strongholds that left hundreds of people dead." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the use of chemical weapons in attacks on civilians in Syria last week was undeniable and that the Obama administration would hold the Syrian government accountable for what he called a 'moral obscenity' that has shocked the world's conscience."

CNN: "An 8-year-old Louisiana boy intentionally shot and killed his elderly caregiver after playing a violent video game, authorities say. Marie Smothers was pronounced dead at the scene with a gunshot wound to the head in a mobile home park in Slaughter, Louisiana, the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Department said in a prepared statement.... Authorities identified the woman as the boy's 'caregiver,' without stating whether she is a relative. But CNN affiliate WBRZ reported that the woman was the boy's grandmother." The gun belonged to her.

The Commentariat -- Aug. 25, 2013

John Lewis, speech at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. The text of the speech:

... Danny Glover reads John Lewis's prepared speech for the March on Washington, 1963. The March leaders persuaded him to tone down his rhetoric:

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Saturday:

** Maureen Dowd is in excellent form today: "For some of the rodeo clowns clamoring for impeachment around the country, Barack Obama's real crime is presiding while black." ...

... Gee, maybe MoDo cribbed her column from this report by Jennifer Steinhauer of the Times. In any event, it is nice to see the Times ridiculing these ignorant Tea Party reprobates.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 80, vowed in an interview to stay on the Supreme Court as long as her health and intellect remained strong, saying she was fully engaged in her work as the leader of the liberal opposition on what she called 'one of the most activist courts in history.'"

** Steve Coll of the New Yorker: "In American courthouses this summer, a vitally important ... struggle over the First Amendment's scope is taking place between the Obama Administration and the press. At issue is whether the Administration will fulfill a recent pledge to end its heavy-handed pursuit of professional journalists' sources. The ripest case concerns a Times reporter, James Risen.

CW: I missed Frank Rich again this week, but he's interesting -- on Egypt, the NSA & the Clintons.

Art by Jen Sorensen for Daily Kos. Thanks to Kate M. for the link.... Also read the post Sorensen wrote to accompany her cartoon. It ain't so funny (links that follow are original -- and interesting): "There are so many egregious moments from [Summers'] career that I wanted to include in this cartoon, but couldn't -- the fact that he sided with Ken Lay and Enron during the California energy crisis, even after some economists were raising the possibility of market manipulation; his dismissive attitude toward climate change while Chief Economist of the World Bank, and subsequent opposition to the Kyoto Protocol; his opposition to the Volcker Rule as part of the Dodd-Frank banking reforms; his memo to Obama significantly underestimating the amount of stimulus needed.... Seriously, no woman who has been as wrong about as many things as Larry Summers would ever be considered to lead the Fed."

CW: I missed this, but Matt Yglesias earlier this week addressed an issue we briefly discussed here: "Let's tax churches! All of them, in a non-discriminatory way that doesn't consider faith or creed or level of political engagement." Via Steve Benen. ...

... ** Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post: "Ryan T. Cragun, a sociologist at the University of Tampa, and two of his students ... estimate the total subsidy [to religious institutions] at $71 billion [annually]. That's almost certainly a lowball, as they didn't estimate the cost of a number of subsidies, like local income and property tax exemptions, the sales tax exemption, and -- most importantly -- the charitable deduction for religious given." Via Benen. CW: viewed this way, the separation of church & state is really a farce. We do have an "established" religion: it's all of them.

Amanda Marcotte, in Salon: "To hear activists on the Christian right tell the story, the conservative Christian American -- especially the male conservative Christian American -- is the most oppressed, victimized person in the country, and perhaps in the history of the world. It's all utterly disingenuous, of course: Painting themselves as victims creates a cover to actually victimize other people, usually by imposing their fanatical religious views." Marcotte provides "a rundown of various ways Christian conservatives paint themselves as victims, and who the real victims actually are." Also via Benen.

Right Wing World

Canada, the 51st State. According to Teabagger logic, the reason it's okay that Ted Cruz was born in Canada is that "Canada is not really foreign soil." President Obama's "strong ties" to Kenya, however, are "disturbing." CW Translation: lots of nice white people in Canada; not so many in Kenya.

Steve M. of NMMNB: "Bob Filner has finally resigned as mayor of San Diego -- but they're not happy over at Free Republic, because the president of the city council will become the interim mayor, and he's gay." Steve republishes some of the Free Republic comments. Extremely sickening.

News Ledes

** New York Times: "Moving a step closer to possible American military action in Syria, a senior Obama administration official said Sunday that there was 'very little doubt' that President Bashar al-Assad's military forces had used chemical weapons against civilians last week and that a Syrian promise to allow United Nations inspectors access to the site was 'too late to be credible.'"

New York Times: "Muriel Siebert, who became a legend on Wall Street as the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of the exchange's member firms, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 80."

AFP: "A war of words erupted Sunday over Syria as Washington said it is ready to take action over chemical weapons attacks and Tehran warned US intervention would carry 'harsh consequences'. Pressure mounted on Damascus to allow a UN probe of chemical attacks, with French President Francois Hollande saying evidence indicated the regime in war-ravaged Syria was to blame and Israel demanding action against its neighbour."

AP: "New York's attorney general sued Donald Trump for $40 million Saturday, saying the real estate mogul helped run a phony 'Trump University' that promised to make students rich but instead steered them into expensive and mostly useless seminars, and even failed to deliver promised apprenticeships."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 24, 2013

The President's Weekly Address:

This is probably controversial to say, but, what the heck, I'm in my second term, so I can say it. Law schools would probably be wise to think about being two years instead of three years. -- President Obama, in Binghamton, New York ...

... Ed Kilgore, a lawyer, on why this seems like a good idea to him, too.

Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "Faced with steep cuts to their budgets, federal public defenders around the country have furloughed or laid off hundreds of lawyers and other staff members, spent less on expert witnesses and cut back on case-related travel.... The result, said lawmakers, judges and public defenders, are court delays that might violate defendants' rights to speedy trials and could lead to the dismissal of criminal cases.... The federal public defenders system is buckling under the effects of the $85 billion across-the-board cuts known as the sequester, threatening the integrity of the criminal justice system, which guarantees the right to a court-appointed lawyer for those who cannot afford one." See also a brief discussion of this in yesterday's Commentariat.

Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: "The New York Times ... -- which NSA leaker Edward Snowden deliberately avoided over his fear that it would cooperate with the United States government -- is now working with the Guardian on a series of stories based on documents that detail National Security Agency cooperation with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ. 'In a climate of intense pressure from the UK government, The Guardian decided to bring in a US partner to work on the GCHQ documents provided by Edward Snowden,' Guardian spokeswoman Jennifer Lindenauer said in an email.... The Times's involvement in the story also brings into sharp relief a ... question: Whether carrying classified documents across national borders can be an act of journalism.... it appears likely that someone at one of the two papers physically carried a drive with Snowden's GCHQ leaks from London to New York or Washington -- exactly what [David] Miranda was stopped at Heathrow for doing." ...

... Both Smith & Marcy Wheeler note that the Times assigned Scott Shane to the story, rather than James Risen or Charlie Savage, both of whom have been writing NSA stories. Wheeler notes that "Shane has an increasingly consistent ability to tell grand tales that serve the interests of The Powers that Be. And somehow his stories about extremely sensitive subjects like drones don't get chased for leaks." So she figured out "how to get the government to ease up: involve Scott Shane." ...

Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian: "The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred the costs to meet new certification demands in the wake of the ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court. The October 2011 judgment, which was declassified on Wednesday by the Obama administration, found that the NSA's inability to separate purely domestic communications from foreign traffic violated the fourth amendment.... Material [passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden] provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA." Facebook denies having received any compensation. ...

... Glenn Greenwald thinks U.K. national security personnel have conspired with the British newspaper the Independent to demonstrate that Ed Snowden is harming national security. Specifically, he charges that government officials leaked damaging information to the Independent, then got the Independent to claim Snowden was the source. Snowden denies ever working with the Independent. Greenwald might be right or his beanie might be snapped on too tight(ly)....

... Chris Strohm of Bloomberg News: "The leaders of U.S. congressional intelligence committees said they want to probe the intentional abuses of surveillance authority committed by some National Security Agency analysts in the past decade.... The compilation of willful violations, while limited, contradicts repeated assertions that no deliberate abuses occurred.... President Barack Obama told CNN in an interview broadcast yesterday he is confident no one at the NSA is 'trying to abuse this program or listen in on people's e-mail.' 'There's a pattern of the administration making misleading statements about its surveillance activities,' Jameel Jaffer, a deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a phone interview. 'The government tells us one thing, and another thing is true.'" ...

... Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal: "National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency's enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said. The practice isn't frequent -- one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade -- but it's common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT.... The LOVEINT violations involved overseas communications, officials said, such as spying on a partner or spouse. In each instance, the employee was punished either with an administrative action or termination." ...

... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Asked by CNN interviewer Chris Cuomo on Thursday whether he was 'confident that you know everything that's going on within that agency and that you can say to the American people, "It's all done the right way'?"', Obama insisted he was. 'Because there are no allegations, and I am very confident -- knowing the NSA and how they operate -- that purposefully somebody is out there trying to abuse this program or listen in on people's email,' he said in the interview that aired on Friday." ...

... D. S. Wright of Firedoglake: "So at least ten times, and if the way this story has been going is any indication -- drip, drip, drip -- it is probable there will be even more intentional abuses revealed. But what we know for sure now is that the Obama Administration and members of Congress have been lying to the American people about this program. Full stop."

Gail Collins remembers when she couldn't get a credit card in her own name because she was just a girl. "Monday we will celebrate Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment and women’s right to vote." CW: I remember when my (female) professor told me I shouldn't pursue an advanced degree -- even though I was at the top of my class (you know, ahead of all the boys) -- because I would either have to stay single or follow my husband around to the places he worked. I took her advice. It changed my life. And not for the better. BTW, Collins doesn't say so, but it wasn't Macy's fault she had to give her husband's name. In most states, the law was that a husband was responsible for his wife's debts (but a wife wasn't responsible for her husband's -- or for her own).

"Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts." Erica Goode of the New York Times: "... an anti-government ideology known as the 'sovereign citizen' movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices." Their principal tactic is to file (fradulent) liens against officials who aggravate them. "Cases involving sovereign citizens are surfacing increasingly .. in Minnesota and in other states, posing a challenge to law enforcement officers and court officials, who often become aware of the movement -- a loose network of groups and individuals who do not recognize the authority of federal, state or municipal government -- only when they become targets.... The sovereign citizen movement traces its roots to white extremist groups like the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s, and the militia movement.... The ideology seems to attract con artists, the financially desperate and people who are fed up with bureaucracy...."

Local News

Craig Gustafson of the San Diego Union-Tribune: "Bob Filner announced his resignation Friday as San Diego's 35th mayor following a tumultuous six weeks in which lurid allegations of repeated sexual misconduct against women crippled his ability to lead and turned him into a subject of national ridicule. Filner will to step down on Aug. 30 as part of a deal approved Friday afternoon by the City Council on a 7-0 vote in closed session that limits his legal and financial exposure stemming from a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former aide."

We certainly would not have advised [George Zimmerman] to go to the factory that made the gun that he used to shoot Trayvon Martin through the heart. That was not part of our public relations plan. -- Shawn Vincent, spokesman for attorney Mark O'Mara, who defended George Zimmerman in his murder trial

Alyssa Newcomb of ABC News: "George Zimmerman, who is already packing a pistol, toured a gun maker's factory this week and asked whether he could buy a shotgun. Zimmerman, acquitted a month ago of killing teenager Trayvon Martin with a Kel-Tec 9 mm pistol, toured the Kel-Tec plant on Thursday in Cocoa, Fla. The plant is about an hour's drive from Sanford, the community where Martin was killed. Zimmerman, 29, took a tour of the assembly plant and asked about the legality of buying a shotgun and smiled in a photograph with an employee, according to TMZ, which first reported the visit." ...

... CW: you can blame the right-wing, racist press for Zimmerman's bravado. Instead of condemning him, as any normal person would, they have made him a hero & a victim of racial prejudice. As a result, the bastard thinks he did no wrong. And a special thanks to the NRA & ALEC, who promoted the stand-your-ground law that makes murder legal in Florida. And a hat-tip to the Florida legislators & Gov. Jeb Bush who passed & signed the bill into law. ...

... BTW ... KTVU: "An overwhelming number of Florida legislators have rejected a call for a special session to repeal the state's 'stand your ground law.'" Video. ...

... AND Agence France-Presse: following Zimmerman's acquittal, Florida "Governor Rick Scott, who met Thursday with protesters occupying the state Capitol building, said in a statement that he opposes efforts to repeal Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law and other measures allowing residents to use lethal force to defend themselves." ...

... Brian Beautler of Salon has a good piece on the right's obsession with black-on-white crime, & how the right misstates facts & gins up false equivalences to justify their OUTRAGE that liberals don't go nuts every time a black person victimizes a white person.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Julie Harris, the unprepossessing anti-diva who, in the guises of Joan of Arc, Mary Todd Lincoln, Emily Dickinson and many other characters both fictional and real, became the most decorated performer in the history of Broadway, died on Saturday at her home in Chatham, Mass."

NBC News: "A raging California wildfire has grown to 200 square miles, threatening the San Francisco power grid, spreading into Yosemite National Park, and prompting Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency and secure federal funding to assist in batting back the roaring flames."

Doctors without Borders: "Three hospitals in Syria's Damascus governorate that are supported by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have reported ... that they received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, August 21, 2013. Of those patients, 355 reportedly died."

Washington Post: "Thousands are expected to head to the Mall on Saturday to attend a rally and participate in a march to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The rally will include speeches from Attorney General Eric Holder, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the Rev. Al Sharpton, among others. At 12:30 p.m., a march will leave the Lincoln Memorial, pass the memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and travel to the Washington Monument." The page is a liveblog of events.

AP: "U.S. naval forces are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers military options for responding to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. The president emphasized that a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the international considerations that should precede a military strike."