The Commentariat -- July 20, 2013

Mark Landler & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "On Friday, reading an unusually personal, handwritten statement, Mr. Obama summed up his views with a single line: 'Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.' That moment punctuated a turbulent week marked by dozens of phone calls to the White House from black leaders, angry protests that lit up the Internet and streets from Baltimore to Los Angeles, and anguished soul-searching by Mr. Obama. Aides say the president closely monitored the public reaction and talked repeatedly about the case with friends and family":

     ... The transcript is here.

... Charles Blow: "On Friday the president reached past one man and one boy and one case in one small Florida town, across centuries of slavery and oppression and discrimination and self-destructive behavior, and sought to place this charged case in a cultural context." ...

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. -- W. E. B. Du Bois

Substitute 'woman' for 'Negro.' Trust me, gentlemen; it works. -- Marie ...

Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog: David Brooks listened to the President's speech, & though he learned something he absolutely never ever thought of because, well, freeeeedom, he managed to mishear or misinterpret about everything else. ...

... By contrast with President Obama, we could have President Limbaugh. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link:

... Ta-Nehisi Coates in the New York Times: because President Obama has been repeatedly subjected to racial profiling, "it is hard to comprehend the thinking that compelled the president, in a week like this, to flirt with the possibility of inviting the New York City Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, the proprietor of the largest local racial profiling operation in the country, into his cabinet. Kelly's name has been floated by New York politicians of both parties as the ideal replacement for Janet Napolitano, who resigned last week. The president responded by calling Kelly 'well-qualified' and an 'outstanding leader in New York.'" CW: racial profiling aside, the nicest thing I can say about him is that he's an A-No. 1 prick. No matter who you are, he's better than you are. Just ask him. ...

... Digby has more: Kelly's "dabbling in the neocon swamp completely disqualifies him for anything remotely associated with anti-terrorism policy. Remember: this is their credo: 'Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran.' This person shouldn't be anywhere near a national police agency charged with monitoring terrorism. Who knows what his agenda is?"

Harriet Sherwood of the Guardian: "The US is to host talks with Israel and Palestinian negotiators in the next week following a breakthrough in the drive to revive the moribund Middle East peace process. John Kerry, US secretary of state, called the move a 'significant step forward'. The agreement, announced on Friday evening after four months of intensive diplomacy, fell short of a hoped for face-to-face meeting between leaders of the two sides."

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday sharply and repeatedly challenged the Obama administration's claim that courts have no power over targeted drone killings of American citizens overseas. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the United States District Court here was hearing the government's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by relatives of three Americans killed in two drone strikes in Yemen in 2011: Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical cleric who had joined Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; Mr. Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who had no involvement in terrorism; and Samir Khan, a 30-year-old North Carolina man who had become a propagandist for the same Qaeda branch. Judge Collyer said she was 'troubled' by the government's assertion that it could kill American citizens it designated as dangerous, with no role for courts to review the decision."

Matt Zapotosky & Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: "In a divided decision that will probably rile journalists across the country, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that reporter James Risen [of the New York Times] can be forced to testify at the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who is charged with 10 felony counts in a federal leak case. The majority of judges ruled, effectively, that neither the First Amendment nor common law offer protection to journalists who promise anonymity to their sources from having to testify about them in criminal proceedings."

In case you missed Paul Krugman yesterday, he writes that "China is in big trouble." Economy-wise, that is.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Helen Thomas, a wire service correspondent and columnist whose sharp questions from the front row of the White House press room annoyed nine presidents but pried loose information about the workings of the federal government, died July 20 at her home in Washington. She was 92." The Post's slideshow is here. ...

... Thomas's New York Times obituary is here. The Times has a slideshow here.

AP: " Israel will release some 'hardcore' Palestinian prisoners as part of the new breakthrough by Secretary of State John Kerry in efforts to restart Mideast talks, a senior Israeli official said Saturday. The remarks by Yuval Steinitz were the first Israeli comment detailing the terms for the negotiations since Kerry on Friday night announced that the two sides will meet soon in Washington to formalize an agreement on relaunching peace talks that collapsed in 2008."

Guardian: "Venezuela said it was ending efforts to improve ties with Washington after the Obama administration's nominee for envoy to the United Nations vowed to oppose what she called a crackdown on civil society in the 'repressive' OPEC nation."

Reuters: "Trayvon Martin's parents joined celebrities and hundreds of protesters on Saturday in rallies across the country to express anger over the acquittal of the man who shot and killed the unarmed black teenager."

AP: "Five employees of an Italian cruise company were convicted Saturday of manslaughter in the Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 people, receiving sentences of less than three years that lawyers for victims and survivors criticized as too lenient. The guilty verdicts for multiple manslaughter and negligence were the first reached in the sinking of the cruise liner carrying more than 4,000 crew and passengers near the Tuscan shore in January 2012."

The Commentariat -- July 19, 2013

Another day with no postings, although it's possible I'll be able to do something very late today. Sorry about that. -- Not-So-Constant Weader ...

... I will leave you with this "reason to smile":

Karen Bates of NPR: "In late July 1973, Joseph Crachiola was wandering the streets of Mount Clemens, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, with his camera. As a staff photographer for the Macomb Daily, he was expected to keep an eye out for good feature images — 'those little slices of life that can stand on their own.' The slice of life he caught that day was a picture of five young friends in a rain-washed alley in downtown Mount Clemens. And what distinguishes it are its subjects: three black children, two white ones, giggling in each others' arms." Crachiola posted the photo on his Facebook page Sunday, after the Zimmerman verdict. It has gone viral.

News Lede

New York Times: "After a long-running investigation into insider trading at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, an inquiry that has produced several guilty pleas and a record $616 million civil penalty, the government on Friday brought a case for the first time against the fund’s billionaire owner, Steven A. Cohen."

The Commentariat -- July 18, 2013

James Risen of the New York Times: "The Obama administration faced a growing Congressional backlash against the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operations on Wednesday, as lawmakers from both parties called for the vast collection of private data on millions of Americans to be scaled back. During a sometimes contentious hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans and Democrats told administration officials that they believed the government had exceeded the surveillance authorities granted by Congress, and warned that they were unlikely to be reauthorized in the future." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed. John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform 'a second or third hop query' through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations. 'Hops' refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with." ...

... Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Millions of Americans are having their movements tracked through automated scanning of their car license plates, with the records held often indefinitely in vast government and private databases. A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union has found an alarming proliferation of databases across the US storing details of Americans' locations. The technology is not confined to government agencies -- private companies are also getting in on the act, with one firm National Vehicle Location Service holding more than 800m records of scanned license plates."

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), will be just one of several witnesses at a Thursday hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, but he will likely command the spotlight. That's because over the past few weeks, George has come under increased scrutiny for his report on the IRS' screening of groups applying for tax-exempt status."

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: "The 112th Congress got less done than any Congress in more than six decades."

Laura Kellman of the AP: "The House Republican sponsor of the Voting Rights Act updates said Wednesday that Congress must pass a new anti-discrimination law before the 2014 elections that restores the federal supervision the Supreme Court struck down in June. 'The Supreme Court said it's an obligation of Congress to do this. That's a command of a separate but co-equal branch of government to do that,' Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., told reporters Wednesday after urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to get moving on the issue." CW: I don't foresee any problems with getting it done. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? ...

... Adam Serwer of NBC News: "Shortly after the Supreme Court gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act, Republican Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona told Politico that the best way to handle the ruling was to keep a low profile.... But keeping a low profile may be difficult for Franks, who chairs the subcommittee tasked with crafting the new voting legislation. In a 2010 interview, Franks claimed that African-Americans were better off under slavery than today because more black children are aborted now than in that era.... Franks also has a history of opposition to the Voting Rights Act, in 2006 he was one of 33 Republicans who voted against reauthorization the act -- which passed Congress overwhelmingly and was signed by President George W. Bush."

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are readying a flurry of bills in response to George Zimmerman's acquittal on charges in last year's fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin. The lawmakers are drafting proposals intended to rein in racial profiling; scrap state stand-your-ground laws; and promote better training for the nation's neighborhood watch volunteers, among other anti-violence measures."

In the courtroom, it's called profiling. In the real world, it's called common sense. -- Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Kathleen Parker ...

... Hamilton Nolan of Gawker: "One might imagine that after everyone in America who is not a white supremacist slammed Richard Cohen's blatantly bigoted racial profiling apologia yesterday, the WaPo's op-ed editors might think twice before publishing yet another inane and bigoted racial profiling apologia by a clueless white columnist today. Not so! Today, blonde upper middle class white woman Kathleen Parker steps up to once again justify the shooting of an innocent black teenager -- while couching this justification, of course, in the language of sympathy and realism." ...

... CW: in the minds of Kathleen Parker & George Zimmerman, black = suspicious. AND Parker, Pulitzer Prize-winner & all, gives you permission -- nay, urges you to use your common sense & -- to regard every black teenager as suspicious. The Washington Post, which does business in a majority-black city, thinks it's fine to publish this crap, day after day.

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Wednesday passed bills delaying two crucial parts of his health care overhaul that require most Americans to have insurance and many employers to offer it." ...

... Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post explains why health insurance rates for individuals living in New York state will likely plummet under ObamaCare. ...

... Paul Krugman: "... unless the GOP finds even more ways to sabotage [ObamaCare], this thing is going to work, it's going to be extremely popular, and it's going to wreak havoc with conservative ideology."

Tom Edsall of the New York Times: even Republicans realize the Republican party is no longer a mainstream party.

Congressional Race

Gail Collins: "'Over the last several years, citizens across our great state have urged me to consider running for the Senate,' Liz Cheney said.... But a couple of problems with that statement. One is that Cheney only moved to Wyoming last fall, so people were apparently begging her to represent them while she was there on vacation."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The military judge in the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning is expected to decide Thursday whether to drop a charge accusing Private Manning of 'aiding the enemy' that could put him in prison for life. Civil liberties advocates said the judge's decision could set a precedent for whistle-blowers who leak information that gets posted on the Internet."

Washington Post: "A judge in the city of Kirov Thursday found Russia's most effective anti-corruption campaigner and opposition leader guilty of stealing about half a million dollars from a timber company, and then sent shock waves throughout the country by sentencing him to five years in prison. Alexei Navalny, a 37-year-old with a penchant for exposes and cutting jibes, has said since before his trial began in April that he expected to be convicted on what he and his legions of supporters contend are trumped-up charges."