The Commentariat -- June 24, 2013

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday ordered lower courts to take a fresh look, under a more demanding standard, at the race-conscious admissions policy used to admit students to the University of Texas. The 7-to-1 decision was simultaneously modest and significant, and its recalibration of how courts review the constitutionality of affirmative action programs is likely to give rise to a wave of challenges to admissions programs at colleges and universities nationwide." Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion. "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who announced her lone dissent from the bench, said the race-neutral part of the Texas program worked only because of 'de facto racial segregation in Texas's neighborhoods and schools.' She said she would have upheld the appeals court decision endorsing the entire admissions program."

The Travels of Snowden, Ctd.

Where's Ed? Spencer Ackerman & Mirian Elder of the Guardian: "The Obama administration urged Russia not to allow the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden to leave the country, as his attempted escape to South America descended into confusion and farce on Monday."

... The Guardian is liveblogging the Mysterious Odyssey of Ed. ...

... Jethro Mullen & Michael Pearson of CNN: "Pleading for asylum from U.S. officials he says want to persecute him, NSA leaker Edward Snowden told Ecuadorian officials that he fears a life of inhumane treatment -- even death -- if he's returned the United States to answer espionage charges, the country's foreign minister said Monday." ...

... Kathy Lally, et al., of the Washington Post: "Despite a direct request from the United States to return Edward Snowden to U.S. soil to face charges of leaking government secrets, Russian officials said Monday that they had no legal authority to detain the fugitive former government contractor, who arrived in Moscow on Sunday and was seeking asylum in Ecuador, reportedly by way of Havana. News services said Snowden was expected to board an Aeroflot flight to Havana, scheduled to depart Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport at 6:05 a.m. Eastern time Monday. But reporters on board the flight said on Twitter that he had not been spotted among the passengers." ...

... Max Seddon of the AP: "A plane took off from Moscow Monday headed for Cuba, but the seat booked by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was empty, and there was no sign of him elsewhere on board. An Aeroflot representative who wouldn't give her name told The Associated Press that Snowden wasn't on flight SU150 to Havana. AP reporters on the flight couldn't him." ...

... Keith Bradsher: "For Edward J. Snowden..., the path to a sudden departure from Hong Kong late Sunday morning began over a dinner last Tuesday of a large pizza, fried chicken and sausages, washed down with Pepsi.... Staying cooped up in the cramped Hong Kong home of a local supporter was not bothersome to Mr. Snowden, but the prospect of losing his computer scared him." ...

... Ellen Barry & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for leaking classified documents, foiled his American pursuers on Sunday by fleeing a Hong Kong hide-out for Moscow aboard a commercial Russian jetliner, in what appeared to be the first step in an odyssey to seek political asylum in Ecuador." ...

     ... The story has been updated, & credited to reporters Ellen Barry & Peter Baker. The new lede: "The American authorities scrambled Sunday to figure out how to catch Edward J. Snowden, the former national security contractor accused of espionage, as he led them on an international chase, frustrating the Obama administration and threatening to strain relations on three continents." ...

... Tania Branigan & others at the Guardian have details about Snowden's flight. ...

... Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "The authorities in Hong Kong made a political decision to wash their hands of ... Edward Snowden and used quibbles about U.S. legal documents as cover to allow him to fly to Moscow despite a direct plea from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to make an arrest, U.S. officials said.... [Snowden] skillfully placed his fate in the hands of WikiLeaks and countries that nurse animosities toward the United States. And Snowden's odyssey is likely to exacerbate the United States' strained relations with China and Russia." ...

... Jane Perlez & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "The Chinese government made the final decision to allow Edward J. Snowden ... to leave Hong Kong on Sunday, a move that Beijing believed resolved a tough diplomatic problem even as it reaped a publicity windfall from Mr. Snowden's disclosures, according to people familiar with the situation. Hong Kong authorities have insisted that their judicial process remained independent of China, but these observers ... said that matters of foreign policy are the domain of the Chinese government, and Beijing exercised that authority in allowing Mr. Snowden to go....Two Western intelligence experts, who worked for major government spy agencies, said they believed that the Chinese government had managed to drain the contents of the four laptops that Mr. Snowden said he brought to Hong Kong, and that he said were with him during his stay at a Hong Kong hotel." ...

... Greenwald for the Defense: "... the people who are actually bringing 'injury to the United States' are those who are waging war on basic tenets of transparency and secretly constructing a mass and often illegal and unconstitutional surveillance apparatus aimed at American citizens - and those who are lying to the American people and its Congress about what they're doing - rather than those who are devoted to informing the American people that this is being done." ...

... Crack "journalist" David Gregory asks Greenwald on Press the Meat why he (Greenwald) shouldn't be "charged with a crime" for "aiding & abetting" Edward Snowden. Greenwald responds appropriately:

... Gregory, you may recall spent several years as Court Stenographer during the reign of Bush II NBC White House correspondent. ...

... Paul Fahri of the Washington Post: "Although Greenwald has appeared frequently on TV to plead Snowden's case as a whistleblower -- an advocacy role many mainstream journalists would be uncomfortable with -- there is no evidence that he has helped Snowden evade U.S. authorities who are now seeking Snowden's arrest.... Edward Wasserman, dean of the University of California at Berkeley's journalism school, said having a 'social commitment' doesn't disqualify anyone from being a journalist. But the public should remain skeptical of reporters who are also advocates." CW: thank you, Dean Wasserman. Couldn't have said it better myself. But I did say it. (Actually, I agree with Jay Rosen on the issue of whether or not an activist can be a good reporter; see comments by Denis Neville & me under the post "I Don't Have Time for This.") ...

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: David Gregory don't know much about journalism. CW: not exactly a news flash, is it? ...

... NEW. Evan Osnos of the New Yorker: "Last week, I was asked ... whether I thought Snowden's revelations have affected U.S.-China relations. I said no, on the principle that both sides already knew the general parameters of each others' espionage efforts. After watching the events of this weekend, I'm quite sure I was wrong: Snowden has indeed altered U.S.-China relations, by giving China new strength on an issue [cyber-security] of which it was struggling to gain any leverage at all. And that -- more than any single secret -- may be the greatest legacy of Snowden's visit to Hong Kong." ...

... Netroots Roots for Snowden. Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was heckled and booed by liberal activists Saturday when she said that Edward Snowden broke the law when he revealed classified information about secret surveillance programs. Another round of disapproval came when the former House speaker said Americans' rights to privacy must be balanced with the nation's security needs. Snowden 'did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents,' she said during a luncheon Q-and-A on the closing day of Netroots Nation, an annual gathering of thousands of liberal activists and bloggers. The crowd erupted in boos." ...

... Report-a-Friend. Marisa Taylor & Jonathan Landay of McClatchy News: "Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans' phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions. President Barack Obama's unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It ... extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of 'insider threat' give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct." Thanks to Denis Neville for the link. ...

... Charles Pierce: "You want "Nixonian"? This, right here, this is Nixonian, if Nixon had grown up in East Germany. You've got the entire federal bureaucracy looking for signs of "high-risk persons or behaviors" the way Nixon sent Fred Malek out to count the Jews. You've got created within the entire federal bureaucracy a culture of spies and informers, which will inevitably breed fear and deceit and countless acts of interoffice treachery.... This is giving Big Brother a desk in every federal agency and telling him to go to work."

NEW. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Immigration reform has gotten a new burst of life as a growing number of Senate Republicans have embraced the 1,000-page-plus legislation, setting up President Obama for a big victory this week.... Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the leaders of the Gang of Eight, are marching toward 70 votes, a target intended to put maximum pressure on the House to act."

E. J. Dionne: "The roof fell in on John Boehner's House of Representatives last week. The Republican leadership's humiliating defeat on a deeply flawed and inhumane farm bill was as clear a lesson as we'll get about the real causes of dysfunction in the nation's capital."

Paul Krugman: "Lately, Fed officials have been issuing increasingly strong hints that rather than doing more, they want to do less, that they are eager to start 'tapering,' returning to normal monetary policy. The impression that the Fed is tired of trying so hard got even stronger last week, after a news conference in which Mr. Bernanke seemed quite happy to reinforce the message of an imminent reduction in stimulus. The trouble is that this is very much the wrong signal to be sending given the state of the economy."

Elisabeth Dias of Time: "In a wide-ranging interview, the former president [Jimmy Carter] calls on Catholics to accept female priests, America to denounce the death penalty, and Obama to stay out of the Syrian war."

Michael Hastings Adds Fuel to Michael Hastings Conspiracy Theories. Daniel Politi of Slate: "Journalist Michael Hastings wrote an e-mail to his colleagues hours before he died last week in which he said his 'close friends and associates' were being interviewed by the FBI and he was going to 'go off the radar for a bit.' The 33-year-old journalist said he was 'onto a big story,' according to KTLA that publishes a copy of the e-mail that Hastings sent at around 1 p.m. Monday June 17. Hastings died at around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in a fiery one-vehicle car crash." The KTLA report is here. ...

... Andrew Blankstein & Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times: "The FBI said Thursday that journalist Michael Hastings, who died in an auto crash this week, was never under investigation by the agency."

Fran Jeffries & Wayne Washington of the Atlanta Journal Constitution: "An attorney for the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition said current and former Paula Deen employees told him the famous cook and her brother discriminated against black employees, one of whom was consistently referred to as 'my little monkey.' ... Robert Patillo, an attorney for Rainbow/PUSH, a civil rights group founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., said one current and two former employees told him white employees are routinely paid more than black employees and are promoted more quickly. A black man who had threatened to go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Deen's brother told him 'you don't have any civil rights here,' Rainbow/PUSH said in a press release." ...

... If you think these people might just be complainers & whiners piling on poor Paula, bear in mind that this is a woman who warms herself on "Confederate Bean Soup" & had to be dissuaded from whipping up a "Sambo burger" on her cooking show. Both links via Dan Bernstein of CBS Chicago, whose opinion is worth reading. ...

... CW: I got to Bernstein's piece via Juanita Jean, who recalls how normal white Southern people of Deen's age -- and their grandmothers! -- understood white-black relations.

Local News

Corrie MacLaggan of the Reuters: "The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives gave preliminary approval early Monday to sweeping restrictions on abortions, including a ban on most after 20 weeks of pregnancy and stricter standards for clinics."

News Ledes

Reuters: "A Milan court sentenced Italian former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Monday to seven years in prison after convicting him of paying for sex with a minor but he will not have to serve any jail time before he has exhausted appeals."

Reuters: "Lebanese soldiers fought Sunni Islamist gunmen in the southern city of Sidon for a second day on Monday in one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence fuelled by sectarian rifts over the civil war in neighboring Syria."

AP: " Nelson Mandela's condition in a Pretoria hospital remained critical for a second straight day Monday, said South Africa's president who described the stricken anti-apartheid hero as being 'asleep' when he visited Mandela the previous evening."

I Don't Have Time for This

See updates below.

Commenter Gleb asks,

Marie, What's with the hate towards Snowden? He revealed US spying on Chinese? Believe me, they already knew. And remember a couple of months ago there was talk of 'cyber war'? Well seems now the high horse is no longer there. So the end result is Snowden revealed something that might stop a confrontation with China. Something we did not need to know? Come on, we needed to know this, Marie!

Commenter WaltWis sez,

I've already expressed my disappointment with the comments expressed here about the Edward Snowden story, which seem to support the view of him as a 'traitor' or a 'wuss.' The comments based on the initial reports and a hostility toward G. Greenwald. Here is Max Frankel's take on Snowden and his importance in providing the public with information that the public ought to know.

Marie-- Please answer Gleb's question.

As regular readers of Reality Chex know, I am one person, & my day is the same length as yours. I link to news items that I think might be of interest to readers and to commentary on those news stories, whether or not I agree with the commentary. Readers of Reality Chex, as the Comments section proves every day, are pretty damned smart, and they form their own well-considered opinions. If I thought my readers needed constant guidance, maybe I'd spend more of my limited time expressing my opinions in posts like this one. Instead, I write opinion pieces only occasionally, and then it is usually to clarify or synthesize something I've noticed. I certainly don't write to lay down the law as to what is “correct” or “wrong” thinking. I merely add to the conversation. But it is a conversation, and readers are bound to disagree with me. Sometimes they say so, sometimes not.

To more or less demand that I defend my positions is fairly intrusive. If I make a comment on a news item or opinion piece, the reason for my comment is usually self-explanatory – if you read the underlying story I've linked. Moreover, this is my site. I get to write stupid stuff as long as it's lawful stupid stuff.

I don't know where Gleb gets the idea I hate Ed Snowden. I think Snowden is a naïve, selfish, careless jerk, but that doesn't mean I hate him. I don't. It's rather silly to make charges about my feelings when they are not feelings I've ever expressed but are ones someone has decided to attribute to me. I've wasted a whole minute-and-a-half of my life here refuting something I didn't write or say.

I also don't know where WaltWis gets the notion I am hostile to Glenn Greenwald. I'm not. But I have warned readers that Greenwald is not a commentator like, say, Jim Fallows or Steve Benen. Those writers look at issues in a balanced, sensible way. They consider – and acknowledge – factors that might mitigate against their views and they may alter their views in light of new information. Greenwald, by contrast, is an advocate. He has a point of view, and he attacks it as an attorney representing a client would do; that is, he shades, obfuscates, elides, misdirects, assails, etc., to get his guy off, without outright lying to judge & jury. That doesn't make Greenwald a bad guy, but it does mean that the reader must be skeptical of everything he writes. Greenwald does not write to illuminate as much as he does to convince. His objective is to get you to acquit or convict, not to get you to a place of greater understanding.

I think the comment to which Gleb & WaltWis are objecting was my remarking about “more info we don't need to know,” my response to this:

Toby Helm, et al., of the Guardian: 'Edward Snowden, the former CIA technician who blew the whistle on global surveillance operations, has opened a new front against the US authorities, claiming they hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies to access millions of private text messages.'

WaltWis seems to suggest that Max Frankel disagrees with me. Really? As far as I can tell, there is nothing in Frankel's essay that contradicts what I wrote. In fact, I fully agree with Frankel's op-ed. Frankel does not change my opinion of Snowden (nor does he attempt to). Perhaps Gleb & WaltWis should read Henry Blodgett's take, also linked today. Blodgett expresses what I – and subsequently many other commentators – have said since Snowden surfaced & began giving up information of interest to the Chinese.

Gleb (and Roger Henry – see today's Comments) argue that Snowden's revelations about the U.S. & U.K. spying on others don't matter because “they already knew.” This argument shows a complete lack of understanding of human nature, diplomacy and the honor/shame code. Snowden's revelations have embarrassed the Chinese as well as our allies & frenemies who attended the 2009 G-8, not to mention the U.S. & U.K. It is not in our national interest to have to publicly acknowledge spying on countries with whom we wish to maintain or establish good relations. (For some reason, Angela Merkel, by the way, was not all that reassured to learn that Obama claimed the NSA was only listening in on “foreigners.”) As long as China, et al., could pretend things were going along swimmingly, their “honor” remained intact. Snowden's revelations “shamed” them. So now, some heads will likely roll in China's version of the NSA, & China will shore up their software systems. We, in turn, will have to expend a pile of dough paying Booz Allen programmers to hack their newly-encrypted systems.

Maybe you can better understand this dynamic if I personalize it. Fred & Maude are married. Fred has been fooling around for years, and that's okay with Maude because she isn't all that into Fred but she likes the style of living to which he has accustomed her. Maude busies herself collecting things for the church bazaar & going to the garden club. She considers herself a pillar of the community, an admirable, “honorable” woman. One day at a garden club meeting, Maude's friend Agnes blurts out what Maude has known for years: “Fred has a girlfriend; he's had lots of girlfriends. You deserve better, Maude.” Agnes has shamed Maude. Because of this public shame, Maude feels she has to change her comfortable life to regain part of her honor. She'll never get it all back. Whatever decision she makes, she'll never again be that pillar of the community who deserves the admiration of others. Oh, and she won't be friends with Agnes anymore. In Maude's view, it was Agnes who ruined Maude's life, not Fred.

I don't think Ed Snowden gets that. Hong Kong may or not protect him,* but China is going to blame Snowden, not the U.S., for embarrassing them. China will, however, use Snowden's revelations as a chip against the U.S. & U.K. any & every time it is convenient for them to do so.

The danger in taking a hardline approach on anything is that it can blind you to reason. Some people think they have to take a “stand” on Ed Snowden, for instance. He's either a good guy or a bad guy. Once they decided he's a good guy, then everything he does is good. Then, if somebody says, “Well, Snowden did the nation a service by revealing X,” the hardliner assumes that somebody is on Snowden's side. I don't know what Max Frankel's thinking is on Snowden's character, but at this point, I have no reason to think Frankel's view is different from mine. Frankel didn't address the issue. He probably doesn't care. Snowden provided some information that Frankel – and I – think is important to know. And from there, as Frankel writes, we need to learn more. Russ Tice is moving us in that direction.

Now I have to go feed the stray cat and clean the pool.

* Update: I guess we more or less know now how Hong Kong deals with a sticky wicket.

Update 2: "Are too" is not conversation; it's the wail of a brat in a sandbox. So if there are any other zealots, wingers or Glennbots who would like to -- again -- repeat what I've already rebutted, it would be in your interest to stifle yourself. I'm trolled out, and as noted above, I don't have time for this shit. I'll just delete your comment.

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The Commentariat -- June 23, 2013

New York Times Editors: "The 2014 spending bills now emerging from the House Appropriations Committee are worse than in any previous year and would make some programs and departments unrecognizable.... The White House, urging compromise, has threatened to veto any Republican spending bill outside of a negotiated budget agreement that increases vital investments. The House, apparently, would rather drag the country through yet another budget showdown."

Oh, Excellent. Keith Bradsher & Ellen Berry of the New York Times: "The Hong Kong government announced on Sunday afternoon that it had allowed the departure from its territory of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has acknowledged disclosing classified documents about United States government surveillance of Internet and telephone communications around the world. The government statement said that Hong Kong had informed the United States of Mr. Snowden's departure. A Moscow-based reservations agent at Aeroflot, Russia's national airline, said that Mr. Snowden was aboard flight SU213 to Moscow, traveling on a one-way ticket to Moscow. The Aeroflot flight landed in Moscow on Sunday afternoon.... Russia's Interfax news service, citing a 'person familiar with the situation,' reported that Mr. Snowden would remain in transit at an airport in Moscow for 'several hours' pending an onward flight to Cuba, and would therefore not formally cross the Russian border or be subject to detention. Someone close to Mr. Snowden later told Interfax that he planned to continue on to Caracas, Venezuela." ...

... The Guardian story, by Tania Branigan & Miriam Elder, is here. ...

... The New York Times' The Lede is liveblogging The Travels of Snowden. ...

... Mark Felsenthal of Reuters: "The United States has been told by Hong Kong that former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong for 'a third country' and will seek cooperation with countries Snowden may try to go to, a Justice Department official said on Sunday." ...

... Thomas Ferraro of Reuters: "Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer charged on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely knew and approved of fugitive Edward Snowden's flight from Hong Kong to Russia and that it will likely hurt U.S.-Russian relations." ...

... Toby Helm, et al., of the Guardian: "Edward Snowden ... has opened a new front against the US authorities, claiming they hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies to access millions of private text messages." CW: more info we don't need to know. ...

... Phil Stewart of Reuters: "Edward Snowden was in a 'safe place' in Hong Kong, a newspaper reported on Saturday, as the United States prepared to seek the extradition of the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor after filing espionage charges against him. The South China Morning Post said Snowden ... was not in police protection in Hong Kong, as had been reported elsewhere." ...

... OR, as Henry Blodgett of Business Insider puts it in a headline, "Snowden is just hanging out in Hong Kong, giving more U.S. intelligence secrets to the Chinese." Blodgett writes, "When he first revealed himself..., Snowden cast himself as an American patriot.... In the weeks since..., Snowden's moves have suggested that his actions aren't motivated by loyalty to his country, but, instead, by a personal view of how the world should work. By explaining to the Chinese how the U.S. is hacking their computers, and revealing that the U.S. spied on world leaders at a G20 summit, Snowden is making clear that he is basically against spying of any kind. By giving U.S. secrets to the Chinese, Snowden is also, presumably, looking out for himself." ...

... Michael Kelley of Business Insider: Russ Tice, an NSA agent from 2002 to 2005, "appeared on the Boiling Frogs Show [this past week] and ... claimed that he held NSA wiretap orders targeting numerous members of the U.S. government, including one for a young ... Barack Obama.... Tice added that he also saw orders to spy on Hillary Clinton, Senators John McCain and Diane Feinstein, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Gen. David Petraeus, and a current Supreme Court Justice." Tice is best known as the source "for this [2005] Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times article exposing NSA domestic spying." Thanks to Jeanne B. ...

... Ralph Nader: "Given the value and importance of privacy to American ideals, it is disturbing how the terms 'privatization' and 'private sector' are deceptively used.... 'Privatization' is a soft term. Let us call the practice what it really is -- corporatization. There's big money to be made in moving government-owned functions and assets into corporate hands." Thanks to contributor Whyte O. for the link. ...

... Max Frankel, the former editor of the New York Times, has a very good op-ed on what we should be asking about the NSA operation. We should be getting answers, too; not vague reassurances.

Roger Lowenstein in a New York Times op-ed: the Federal Reserve Board ain't what it used to be -- nor what it was intended to be a hundred years ago.

Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times' public editor: "An obituary of the journalist Michael Hastings missed an opportunity to convey to Times readers what a distinctive figure he was in American journalism. The obituary ... has drawn criticism -- most notably in a strongly worded e-mail from Mr. Hastings' widow, Elise Jordan, to the executive editor, Jill Abramson, and others at The Times, including the public editor's office...."

Local News

Rosalind Helderman & Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "Federal authorities are asking Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's associates about previously undisclosed gifts given by a campaign donor to McDonnell's wife that total tens of thousands of dollars and include money and expensive designer clothing, according to people familiar with the inquiry. The questions are part of broad federal and state investigations into gifts to the governor and his family and whether McDonnell (R) took official action on behalf of anyone who gave gifts, people with knowledge of the investigation have said."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Nelson Mandela is in a 'critical' condition, the South African president's office said on Sunday evening, just over two weeks after the former president was hospitalized with a lung infection."

New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry urged India on Sunday to begin to address climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases even as it attempts to bring electricity to tens of millions of its citizens now living without it."

The Denver Post has several stories on fires engulfing parts of the state. Here's one: "Tiny towns in southwest Colorado that are normally flush with tourists this time of year were practically ghost towns, fully or partially evacuated Sunday by a trio of fires called the West Fork complex."

Denver Post: "The Colorado Civil Rights Division has ruled in favor of Coy Mathis, a transgender 6-year-old boy who was was barred from using the girls' bathroom at Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain." The New York Times has more background here.