The Commentariat -- July 4, 2013

... ABC News: "When he was invited to sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' before Game 3 of the NBA finals Tuesday night, he donned his mariachi outfit and wowed the crowd inside the San Antonio Spurs’ AT&T center with his rendition of the national anthem. Online, however, Sebastien was torn apart by Twitter users who erupted in outrage about the sight of a Mexican-American boy singing the national anthem dressed in a traditional Mexican outfit. 'This kid is Mexican why is he singing the national anthem #yournotamerican #gohome,' wrote on[e] user, @Gordon_Bombay24. Includes a good video report of the story.

... AND, since this is a day when revolutions are on our minds, it might be useful to reflect on what Canadian Paul Pirie, in a Washington Post op-ed, says about ours -- it was a flop. CW: what Pirie doesn't address is the obvious: most of our problems & backwardness come at the behest of the South. The U.S. would be as functional & progressive as Canada (which ain't perfect -- ask a Quebecois) if not held back by Southern politicians & their patriarchal values. The war I thought was a flop was the Civil War.

** Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "... Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States -- about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images." This program, together with a long-standing "mail cover" program, "show that snail mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail."

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "Two US senators on the panel overseeing the National Security Agency said intelligence officials were 'unable' to demonstrate the value of a secret surveillance program that collected and analyzed the internet habits of Americans. Senators Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon) and Mark Udall (Democrat, Colorado), the chief inquisitors of US intelligence officials during the current surveillance scandal, added a sharp warning late Tuesday that senior intelligence officials 'are not always accurate' in their public statements about the scope and utility of their wide-ranging surveillance efforts.... Senior intelligence officials told the Guardian that the program..., [which] that gathered and analyzed bulk internet 'metadata' records from Americans, such as the subject lines of their email communications and their internet protocol (IP) addresses..., ended in 2011." ...

     ... . The New York Times story, by James Risen, is here: "Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado said the Internet surveillance was discontinued only after administration officials were unable to provide evidence to them, in closed-door hearings in 2011, that the program was useful." ...

... Angelika Gruber & Emma Farge of Reuters: Bolivia accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to 'kidnap' its president, Evo Morales, after his plane was denied permission to fly over some European countries on suspicion he was taking fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to Latin America.... The White House declined to comment...."

... Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "The United States has yet to comment, but the longer it remains silent, the stronger suspicions will be that it leaned on France, Spain, Portugal and Italy to deny permission for [Bolivian President Evo] Morales's plane to fly through their airspace, in effect putting the hunt for US whistleblower Edward Snowden above international law and the rights of a president of a sovereign nation." ...

... CW: This column by Glenn Greenwald is a perfect example of what I've written about Greenwald's methodology. He makes some valid, important points, but he dilutes them with incessant, sneering invective against the clueless Paul Krugman & everyone else who isn't totally on board with -- Glenn Greenwald. I find Greenwald's perpetual snit annoying & tedious -- and ultimately counterproductive, to the extent that he excites & frightens well-meaning but unsophisticated readers & discourages reasoned discussion.

Jamelle Bouie in the Washington Post: parts of the Affordable Care Act, like the employer mandate, need fixing, but that won't happen as long as the GOP controls the House. Republican "indifference guarantees that -- when the administration hits roadblocks in implementing the Affordable Care Act -- it will have no choice but to power through them, even when legislation is a better option."

In an AlterNet piece republished in Salon, Les Leopold argues that a financial transaction tax should fund college tuitions. CW: Sounds good to me.

President Obama said Monday his government makes decisions on aid to Egypt based on that government's respect for democracy and the rule of law. The record suggests otherwise.

Josh Rogin & Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "President Obama said Monday his government makes decisions on aid to Egypt based on that government's respect for democracy and the rule of law. The record suggests otherwise. In nearly every confrontation with Congress since the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the White House has fought restrictions proposed by legislators on the nearly $1.6 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt. Twice in two years, the White House and the State Department fought hard against the very sorts of conditions for aid that Obama claimed credit for this week."

Nitaska Tiku of Gawker: "ExaroNews a British investigative web site, has just published the full transcript of a secretly recorded meeting between media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the staff of The Sun, a U.K. tabloid owned by News Corp., in which Murdoch admitted that he was aware for decades that journalists from his newspapers had been bribing both police and public officials." ...

... The New York Times story, by Alan Cowell, is here. ...

... Nancy Tartaglione of Deadline: "British Labour Party MP Tom Watson, a vocal and enduring Rupert Murdoch critic, has called on the News Corp boss to be questioned by police following yesterday' s revelations about comments he made to Sun staffers last March."

Paul Krugman is influential!

Local News

Lynn Bonner & Craig Jarvis of the Raleigh News & Observer: "The [North Carolina state] Senate, after a long debate that invoked faith, constitutional rights and health statistics, approved a bill that would restrict abortions by stepping up requirements for clinics and doctors. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 29-12 as opponents filled the gallery above and hundreds more waited outside. The bill now goes to the House. After the vote, people in the hall began chanting, 'Shame, shame, shame.' ... The provisions [were] tacked onto an unrelated bill about Islamic law" late Tuesday." ...

... Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress has more. ...

... Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post: even "Republican Gov. Pat McCrory [expressed] concern that the Senate had unfairly rushed the amendments on Tuesday night."

News Ledes

Guardian: "Belgium's King Albert II announced his abdication from the throne on Wednesday, ending months of speculation about an early end to his 20-year reign which has been marked by political strife between northern Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking southern Wallonia."

New York Times: in Egypt, "Adli Mansour, the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, was sworn in as the acting head of state in a ceremony broadcast live on state television, news reports said." ...

     ... New Lede: "Egyptian prosecutors escalated what appeared to be a widespread roundup of top Muslim Brotherhood members on Thursday, acting hours after the military deposed Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist who became the country's first democratically elected president just a year ago." ...

... The New York Times The Lede is liveblogging developments in Egypt.

... New York Times: "... with no prior presence on Egypt's political or public scene, many experts said, Mr. Mansour could serve as little more than a figurehead." Here's Al Jazeera's brief profile.

... Al Jazeera's main story here. ...

... Guardian: "Egypt's new military rulers have issued arrest warrants for up to 300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood hours after ousting the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and taking him and his aides into military custody. The morning after a momentous night in Cairo has revealed the full extent of the military overthrow, with key support bases of the Muslim Brotherhood, including television stations, closed down or raided. A focal point for Morsi's supporters in the east of the city was approached by troops who fired into the air near angry Brotherhood members on Wednesday night." ...

... The Guardian's liveblog is here. ...

... President Obama's statement on Egypt. ...

     ... The Hill: "President Obama late Wednesday declared himself 'very concerned' by the Egyptian military's overthrow of the country's democratically elected president and said his administration was reviewing U.S. military aid as a result. In his first statement since the Egyptian army and the opposition overthrew President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government, Obama repeated that the United States was not taking sides in the dispute and avoided using the word 'coup.' He called on the military to quickly restore power to a 'democratically elected civilian government.'"

Denver Post: "Authorities Wednesday located the body of U.S. Sen. Mark Udall's brother, Randy, who was reported missing on a solo backpack trip to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. The body of the 61-year-old Carbondale resident was found at 10,700 feet, his poles still in his hand, his sister, Dodie Udall of Boulder, said. Randy appeared to have died from a medical condition, she said."

The Commentariat -- July 3, 2013

NSA Director Forgot All About the Patriot Act. Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The most senior US intelligence official told a Senate oversight panel that he 'simply didn't think' of the National Security Agency's efforts to collect the phone records of millions of Americans when he testified in March that it did 'not wittingly' snoop on their communications. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, made the comments in a letter to the Senate intelligence committee, released in full for the first time on Tuesday." The letter is here (pdf). ...

Seriously, does James Clapper seem like the kind of guy who's got a handle on all this stuff? Even if you believe it's a good idea, wouldn't it be prudent to at least have competent people in charge of it? -- Digby

Did nobody think that hiring hackers to hack might result in being hacked themselves? -- Digby

     ... When she's not pointing out that idiots run the NSA, Digby raises the important issue of the secret cyberwar the NSA seems ready to wage. The New York Times story that Digby cites, by David Sanger & Scott Shane, is here. ...

... Up in the Air. Carlos Valdez of the AP: "The plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria on Tuesday after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the country's foreign minister said." ...

     ... Update. This is an ongoing (at 5 am ET) diplomatic air war. The Guardian is liveblogging it. ...

... David Herszenhorn & Andrew Roth of the New York Times: "Asylum options appeared to narrow further on Tuesday for Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor on the run from American authorities, as at least nine countries reacted unfavorably to his requests for sanctuary and the Kremlin said he had withdrawn his application to Russia. Only Venezuela and Bolivia appeared to offer him a hint of hope for a way out of his limbo inside the international airport transit lounge at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, where he has been ensconced out of public view for nine days." ...

... Max Fisher of the Washington Post: "Edward Snowden's father Lon Snowden, in an open letter co-authored with his lawyer, compared his son’s leaks to Paul Revere warning of incoming British troops, 'summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny and one branch government.'" The Post article cites Lon Snowden's letter in full. CW: one of my ancestors answered the call of Paul Revere; I guess I'm a black sheep descendant, as I'm not shouldering my musket for Ed. ...

... ** Jon Chait of New York on Glenn Greenwald's brand of analysis: "Greenwald, like [Ralph] Nader, marries an indefatigable mastery of detail with fierce moralism. Every issue he examines has a good side and an evil side.... Nader and Greenwald believe their analysis not only completely correct, but so obviously correct that the only motivation one could have to disagree is corruption." Thanks to Haley S. for the link. CW: this is precisely the style of "journalism" about which I've written. While this style can occasionally be close to accurate (think a monkey typing a Shakespeare sonnet), it usually is a cringe-inducing, unreliable polemic. Unfortunately, these disputatious diatribes "work" on the unwary, & Greenwald has led many a naive reader astray. ...

... Leonard Schrank & Juan Zarate, in a New York Times op-ed, on how the NSA could balance security & privacy concerns. CW: I don't like their model at all (which gives more power to a private corporation than to government workers), but they do claim to have overseen a program that worked because it had built-in safeguards. So if that's true, it seems likely Congress could structure the NSA programs in ways that would protect Constitutional freedoms while still being effective security operations. ...

... Contributor Ken W. helpfully points us to this May 22 post by David Cole of the Nation on why the courts & Congress have not accorded Fourth Amendment protections to e-mails, cellphone data, etc., that are routed & collected through third parties. CW: I would add that the original non-governmental purpose of e-mails was intra-company communication; the third party that maintained the network was the corporation or other entity, & the e-mails were business memos, not private notes among friends (or spam!). The writers were as careful in writing e-mails as they were in writing paper memos. The e-mails were conceived & sent with no expectation of personal privacy. Here's a brief history of e-mails, but you can take the concept back to the telegraph & telegrams, where a third party obviously read & keyed in messages of a private nature.

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration will not penalize businesses that do not provide health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday. Instead, it will delay enforcement of a major Affordable Care Act requirement that all employers with more than 50 employees provide coverage to their workers until 2015. The administration said it would postpone the provision after hearing significant concerns from employers about the challenges of implementing it." ...

... Elise Viebeck, et al., of the the Hill: "Delaying the requirement until 2015 is an enormous victory for businesses that had lobbied against the healthcare law. It also means that one of healthcare reform's central requirements will be implemented after the 2014 midterm elections, when the GOP is likely to use the Affordable Care Act as a vehicle to attack vulnerable Democrats." ...

... ** Ezra Klein: "Delaying Obamacare's employer mandate is the right thing to do. Frankly, eliminating it -- or at least utterly overhauling it -- is probably the right thing to do. But the administration executing a regulatory end-run around Congress is not the right way to do it." Klein lays out what he finds wrong with the employer penalty, most important, that it's a disincentive to hire full-time, low-wage workers.

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "Vacancies at district courts are so high right now that they're 'breaking with historical patterns' and burdening the judicial system like never before, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.... A major reason for the district court vacancies is that senators -- namely Republican senators -- simply aren't making recommendations to the president in the first place." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "What happened here is simple: Republicans, in January 2009, extended the war over the judiciary down to the bottom level. Supreme Court judges and Circuit Court judges have been battlegrounds for some years, and rightly so: There's plenty at stake in these lifetime appointments.

Benjy Sarlin of TPM has a good (long) piece on why the GOP thinks throwing Latinos under the bus is an excellent plan. One flaw in their "logic" Sarlin doesn't mention: if the GOP does toe the righty-white line, where are moderate suburbanites to go? Most will not jump on the anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-minority, anti-government bus. Plenty of disaffected middle-class dads voted for that nice Mitt Romney, but they're not apt to vote for Rand & Ted ticket in 2016. ...

... Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg News: "Republican policies already cater to an increasingly narrow tranche of American society: the rich and the old (who, not coincidentally, happen also to be white). When they wax nostalgic over the era of institutional racism and sexism, it sounds like moral obtuseness to most younger, more diverse voters. And so it is."

Philosopher Gary Gutting of the New York Times explains governance to shut-ins -- & revolutionaries on the far-right & far-left. Gutting's explanation is simple & simply-put, but it's a straightforward lesson for radicals.

Missed this, but last week Ian Millhiser of Think Progress posted a list of 10 reasons that "no one should lionize Justice Kennedy."

Local News

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "PPP's new Texas poll finds that Wendy Davis made a good impression on voters in the state last week- but that Rick Perry has also enhanced his political standing considerably over the last five months, making him tough to beat for reelection.... Davis would trail Rick Perry by 14 points in a hypothetical match up, 53/39." ...

... Peter Hamby of CNN: "Rick Perry is inviting close friends and supporters to an event next Monday in San Antonio where he is expected to announce if he plans to seek an unprecedented fourth full term as Texas governor...."

Steve Benen on North Carolina Republicans' trashing of democracy. "Originally, GOP lawmakers in North Carolina held back on pursuing voter-ID laws, knowing how racially discriminatory they are. But thanks to the Supreme Court, they no longer care. What's especially interesting to me as how thin the pretense is." CW: if you want to know how Republicans really plan to be successful as a whites-only party, North Carolina provides a few clues. It's not about getting out the white vote; it's about brazenly suppressing the votes of minorities & other Democratic-leaning groups. And doing it "legally" provides evah-so-much better optics than the traditional clubbing, hosing & murdering methodology. Thanks, Supremes! ...

... Mark Binker's headline on a WRAL post is a classic: "Senate tacks sweeping abortion legislation onto Sharia law bill." Just to let you know that the gerrymandered representatives of the people are racists AND misogynists.

Reader Lyle K. sends along this photo (which I've cropped) of a sign "at Milwaukee's Billy Mitchell Field. After disrobing to go through the security checkpoint, this space is provided to help travelers put themselves together again." Lyle says he "thought this photo might help people appreciate that Wisconsin has some good things about it, not just nasty people that make the news to give WI a bad reputation." CW: One thing Wisconsin obviously has is some government or airport employees with both a sense of humor & compassion for their customers; that's well-worth noting:

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Douglas C. Engelbart, a computer science visionary who was credited with inventing the mouse, the now-ubiquitous device that first allowed consumers to navigate virtual desktops with clicks and taps, died July 2 at his home in Atherton, Calif. He was 88."

Orlando Sentinel: "Jurors heard from evidence analysts and George Zimmerman's college professors today as prosecutors came close to wrapping up their case against Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Court recessed for the day about 5:30 p.m. The trial resumes Friday at 8:30 a.m."

New York Times: "As [Egypt] edged closer on Wednesday to a return to rule by the generals, with a military deadline only hours away for President Mohamed Morsi to cede power, both the Egyptian leader and army commanders pledged to spill their blood to achieve their aims, propelling the crisis further toward a showdown." ...

... Reuters: "Egypt's armed forces would suspend the constitution and dissolve an Islamist-dominated parliament under a draft political roadmap to be pursued if Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and his opponents fail to reach a power-sharing agreement by Wednesday, military sources said." ...

     ... ** New York Times Update: "Egypt&'s military on Wednesday deposed Mohamed Morsi, the nation's first freely elected president, suspending the constitution, installing an interim government and insisting it was responding to the millions of Egyptians who had opposed Mr. Morsi's Islamist agenda and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood." ...

     ... The Times is liveblogging Egyptian events. The Guardian's liveblog is here. ...

     ... ** New York Times Update: "Increasingly alarmed about the violent Egyptian political upheaval, the United States sharply raised the threat level in its travel advisory to Egypt on Wednesday, warning [U.S.] citizens to defer visits and advising American residents there to leave."

The Commentariat -- July 2, 2013

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, laid a wreath at the U.S. embassy [in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,] in a solemn memorial for victims of a 1998 terrorist bombing that killed dozens." ...

... Nedra Pickler of the AP calls the joint event "an unprecedented chance encounter a world away from home.... While the two U.S. leaders didn't say anything publicly, their wives engaged in a warm and chatty joint appearance at a summit on African women. Initially the two presidents weren't even planning to meet while in town, but first lady Michelle Obama joked as she sat next to her predecessor: 'They're learning from us.'"

... Nicholas Kulish & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "After receiving the most ecstatic welcome [in Tanzania] of his weeklong trip to Africa, President Obama on Monday called for a new partnership with the continent, one that would help sustain its recent run of tremendous economic growth while broadening the rewards to as many people as possible."

David Herszenhorn, et al., of the New York Times: "President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela said Tuesday that he had not yet received an application for political asylum from Edward J. Snowden..., and that he would not use his plane to ferry Mr. Snowden to Caracas. Still, Mr. Maduro, who is visiting Moscow, seemed to hold out the possibility that Venezuela might ultimately agree to shelter Mr. Snowden. Speaking to legislators and reporters at the Russian Parliament, Mr. Maduro said that Mr. Snowden deserved protection under international law." ...

... MEANWHILE, Rory Carroll of the Guardian: "Ecuador is not considering Edward Snowden's asylum request and never intended to facilitate his flight from Hong Kong, president Rafael Correa said as the whistleblower made a personal plea to Quito for his case to be heard.... The president, speaking at the presidential palace in Quito, said his government did not intentionally help Snowden travel from Hong Kong to Moscow with a temporary travel pass. 'It was a mistake on our part,' he added." ...

... AND, Kathy Lally of the Washington Post: "Fugitive Edward Snowden has withdrawn his request for Russian political asylum, a presidential spokesman said Tuesday, apparently because he was unwilling to go along with President Vladimir Putin's requirement that he stop any activity damaging to the United States." ...

... Charles Pierce makes sport of these developments. CW: As for me, I continue to believe that Ed's Traveling Circus will makes the last stop of its tour a blockbuster U.S. appearance. ...

... ** Frank Rich: Americans just don't care about their privacy; in fact, many want to share their private travails with others. "After the news of the agency's PRISM program broke, National Donut Day received more American Google searches than PRISM. There has been no wholesale (or piecemeal) exodus of Americans from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Skype, or any of the other information-vacuuming enterprises reported to have, in some murky fashion, siphoned data -- meta, big, or otherwise -- to the NSA. Wall Street is betting this will hold. A blogger on the investment website Motley Fool noticed that on the day PRISM was unmasked, share prices for all the implicated corporate participants went up." Thanks to Diane for the link. ...

... CW: I must admit I'm not as sanguine about NSA spying as are the "average Americans" Rich captures in this excellent piece, but his conclusion -- "little short of a leak stating that the NSA is tracking gun ownership is likely to kindle public outrage" -- is exactly right. Rich doesn't mention it, but there is a great irony in Ed Snowden's revealing his identity, a move that is rare among whistleblowers. Snowden claims he leaked the details of the NSA's spying ops because he was outraged by the invasion of individual privacy. But Snowden could not help but want to be famous, even as it put him at great risk. It must have galled him in those first days after publication of the first stories to see Glenn Greenwald basking in the glory, when he -- Ed Snowden -- should be the star. ...

... Edward Snowden, via Wikileaks: Barack Obama is violating his right to seek asylum. "Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum." CW: "Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Snowden refers in his statement, states that "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution."

... Man Without a Country. Andrew Roth & Ellen Barry of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin said on Monday that Edward J. Snowden, the former national security staffer accused of espionage, would not receive political asylum in Russia unless he stopped publishing classified documents that hurt the interests of the United States. At a news conference here, Mr. Putin said that since it appeared Mr. Snowden was going to continue publishing leaks, his chances of staying in Russia were slim. Mr. Putin also pushed back against efforts by the United States to persuade the Russian government to extradite Mr. Snowden, making it clear that Russia would not comply. 'Russia never gives up anyone to anybody and is not planning to,' Mr. Putin said." Thanks to Barbarossa for the link. ...

... Sergi Loiko of the Los Angeles Times: "Snowden ... met Monday morning with Russian consular service officials and handed them an appeal to 15 countries for political asylum, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official didn't name the countries, but said that Russia was among them.... Putin stressed that Snowden is not a Russian agent and that he is not cooperating with Russian special services." ...

... David Nakamura & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "At a news conference [in Tanzania] Monday during his African tour, [President] Obama said he has asked aides to look more closely at the revelations in the story, and he declined to comment on the specifics. But more generally, the president said all spy agencies gather information beyond that which is publicly available from large media organizations such as the New York Times and NBC News.... In Asia, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said he was taken by surprise when E.U. foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton questioned him about the reported eavesdropping." ...

... Steve Benen doesn't exactly put it this way, but it's clear to me that NSA director James Clapper lied about lying to Congress. How can you "misunderstand" a straightforward question that you knew in advance would be asked? ...

... Stephen Castle & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The leaders of France and Germany added their voices on Monday to the growing outrage over reports that the United States has been spying on its European Union allies, raising new suggestions that talks on a new trans-Atlantic trade agreement may be at risk.

** "A House Divided Against Itself...." Steve Benen on the GOP's warning sports leagues against helping people learn about ObamaCare. The losers: everybody but Mitch McConnell, intimidator-in-chief. & his gang of irregulars. "If Republicans can successfully sabotage the law, they win -- even if you and your family lose. We're watching one of those unusual dynamics in which federal officials actively and deliberately try to undermine other federal officials in the hopes of sabotaging federal law. And no one seems to find this scandalous, or even surprising."

War on Libruls. Jamelle Bouie in the Washington Post: "What's missing in the Republican Party is [a] willingness to compromise for anything, even if it benefits the particular interests of individual lawmakers or the interests of the party writ large. And this seems to stem from an attitude that emerged during the 1994 elections and has only grown since -- the idea that conservatives aren't just opposed to liberals but that they're at war with liberalism." ...

... "The Koch Club." Charles Lewis, et al., of Investigative Reporting Workshop: "Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held corporations in the world and principally owned by billionaires Charles and David Koch, has developed what may be the best funded, multifaceted, public policy, political and educational presence in the nation today. From direct political influence and robust lobbying to nonprofit policy research and advocacy, and even increasingly in academia and the broader public 'marketplace of ideas,' this extensive, cross-sector Koch club or network appears to be unprecedented in size, scope and funding. And the relationship between these for-profit and nonprofit entities is often mutually reinforcing to the direct financial and political interests of the behemoth corporation -- broadly characterized as deregulation, limited government and free markets." ...

... Jane Mayer of the New Yorker hits some of the highlights of the report, including the pledge the Kochs got Tea Party Republicans to sign which commits them to blocking all meaningful climate change legislation. ...

... Charles Pierce: "The academic and intellectual superstructure that grew out of the Powell Memo years ago is stronger than ever, better financed than ever, and utterly self-perpetuating. No victory won by any progressive president at any time ever should be seen as being a permanent one. You can ask John Lewis if you don't believe me." CW: here's more on the Powell memo. Pierce's reference to John Lewis, of course, is to the Supremes' gutting of the Voting Rights Act.

** Louis Menand of the New Yorker writes an excellent, long article on how the Voting Rights Act of 1965 destroyed "the central pillar of Jim Crow." CW: Should be assigned reading for Paula Deen.

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "The biggest, most profitable American companies paid only a fraction of the taxes they would owe under the official corporate rate, according to a study released on Monday by the Government Accountability Office. Using allowed deductions and legal loopholes, large corporations enjoyed a 12.6 percent tax rate far below the 35 percent tax that is the statutory rate imposed by the federal government on corporate profits. The findings come amid rising criticism of the tactics that some big companies use to lower their tax bills."

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation. Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has emphatically denied seeking to shield church funds as the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. He reiterated in a statement Monday that these were 'old and discredited attacks.' However, the files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, 'I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.' The Vatican approved the request in five weeks...." ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "Dolan certainly doesn't come out looking great, but did repeatedly urge the Vatican to defrock priests who sexually abused children, only to be met with years of silence in some instances. The Wall Street Journal reports that in one case, Dolan's bosses wanted to suspend an admitted sex offender for just ten years, but he pushed for him to be defrocked.... The Vatican barred the priest from ministry indefinitely."

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog: "Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law yesterday one of the most draconian anti-gay laws on the planet. The new law, coming only seven months before Russia is to host the Winter Olympics in Sochi, would ban anything considered pro-gay, from gay-affirmative speech, to gays holding hands in public, to even wearing rainbow suspenders. The law also contains a provision permitting the government to arrest and detain gay, or pro-gay, foreigners for up to 14 days before they would then be expelled from the country."

Congressional Race

Jessica Taylor of NBC News: "Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes made her bid official on Monday, with the Democrat announcing she'll challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014.... For Democrats who face a daunting Senate map that puts them in a considerable defensive crouch, Kentucky is now their best offensive opportunity: Grimes decision finally gives them a top recruit against the Republican McConnell, who faces dwindling approval ratings and a lukewarm reception among conservatives." ...

... More from Alex Altman of Time. Both the ads embedded in his story are fairly funny.

Local News

Tim Eaton of the Austin, Texas, American-Statesman: "Thousands of orange-clad abortion rights supporters packed the south lawn at the Capitol on Monday, cheering and fighting GOP-sponsored legislation that would make it more difficult for women to get abortions. The star of the show -- state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who helped derail an abortion bill in the last special session of the Legislature -- addressed the crowd after the chants of 'Wendy, Wendy' subsided."

Sure wonder why all but one of these guys are positioned to protect their own privates.Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "Flanked by a group of other male officials, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a contentious two-year budget bill into law on Sunday evening. The governor vetoed 22 amendments to HB 59 before approving it, but he left intact several provisions that will severely limit women's reproductive access. The new budget, which takes effect on Monday, includes at least five new anti-abortion provisions."

Annals of the Fourth Estate

Driftglass: "Like it or now, in our brave new world of Truthinews, the job of fact-checking, source-vetting and the basic editorial function of bullshit-testing has been outsourced to you the reader. So on the plus side, congratulations on your promotion! On the minus side, your new job duties do not come with a raise, a park[ing] space or dental coverage." ...

... Driftglass also points to this piece by the Daily Beast's Michael Moynihan. Moynihan shows how the MSM begets conspiracy theories. And employs lousy "journalists."

News Ledes

Orlando Sentinel: "Jurors heard testimony this afternoon from a medical examiner who said that the injuries George Zimmerman suffered on the night he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin were 'insignificant.'"

New York Times: "The Egyptian foreign minister was reported Tuesday to be the latest in wave of high-ranking officials to quit the government following days of mass protests that have shaken President Mohamed Morsi's hold on power, and the president denied that a 48-hour ultimatum by the country's powerful military signaled an imminent coup." ...

... Al Jazeera story here. ...

     ... Al Jazeera Update: "The Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has demanded the army withdraws an ultimatum to resolve the nation's political crisis, saying that he will not be dictated to. Morsi insisted on his 'constitutional legitimacy' on his Twitter account on Tuesday night, hours after the Army published a plan to dissolve parliament, rewrite the constitution and hold new elections if he could not end protests against his rule by Wednesday." ...

     ...Washington Post Update: "President Mohamed Morsi was under growing pressure Tuesday to offer political concessions, facing a Wednesday deadline set by Egypt's powerful military, a phone call from President Obama urging him to be responsive and an announcement by the Islamist Nour party that it supports both the army's threat of intervention and a call by protesters for early elections. Addressing the nation in a televised speech late Tuesday, Morsi acknowledged that he had made mistakes during his year in office as Egypt's first democratically elected president. But he appealed to Egyptians to give him more time to deal with the country's problems."

AP: "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday thatboth the U.S. and Russia are seriously committed to having an international conference on Syria and setting up a transitional government to end the bloodshed and 'save the state of Syria.'"

AP: Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, "a Vatican accountant arrested in a 20 million euro ($26 million) smuggling plot, acknowledged Monday during questioning that his behavior was wrong but said he was only trying to help out friends, his lawyer said." CW: See also today's Commentariatfor Archbishop Dolan's little financial scheme.