The Commentariat -- June 26, 2013

Adam Liptak has the New York Times story.

The Los Angeles Times liveblog is here. "President Obama this morning tweeted: "Today's DOMA ruling is a historic step forward for #MarriageEquality. #LoveIsLove"

     ... Update: here's President Obama's statement. The working part: "... I've directed the Attorney General to work with other members of my Cabinet to review all relevant federal statutes to ensure this decision, including its implications for Federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly."

... Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog: "Here's a Plain English take on Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage: After the two same-sex couples filed their challenge to Proposition 8 in federal court in California, the California government officials who would normally have defended the law in court, declined to do so. So the proponents of Proposition 8 stepped in to defend the law, and the California Supreme Court (in response to a request by the lower court) ruled that they could do so under state law. But today the Supreme Court held that the proponents do not have the legal right to defend the law in court. As a result, it held, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the intermediate appellate court, has no legal force, and it sent the case back to that court with instructions for it to dismiss the case." ...

... Pete Williams: 5-4 vote; Supreme Court decided it cannot take up challenge to Prop 8. Kennedy dissents, joined by Thomas, Alito & Sotomayor. Sets no precedents for other states. Allows trial judge's decision to stand. So same-sex marriage legal in California. ...

... Opinion: The case is remanded. The Ninth Circuit had no jurisdiction to review the state law. ...

... SCOTUSblog: "Majority is Roberts with Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan." "From the opinion: 'We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.'" ...

... The opinion & dissent are here.

Court Strikes Down DOMA

The Guardian profiles Edith Windsor, the gutsy 84-year-old widow of Thea Spyer. Windsor brought the DOMA suit, which is captioned "UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR, EXECUTOR OF THE ESTATE OF SPYER, ET AL."

Leahy Gets the Last Laugh. Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post has an overview of the decision. CW: Here's something cool: "... comprehensive immigration reform probably need not include a provision specifically tailored to making sure bi-national partners of same-sex couples can get visas automatically, the same as opposite-sex partners." Take that, Marco Rubio. & the rest of you bigoted GOP Senators who forced Pat Leahy to remove his amendment guaranteeing equal immigration rights to same-sex couples. ...

The New York Times' liveblog on DOMA is here. ...

... SCOTUSblog's liveblog is here. Decision is 5-4; Kennedy wrote the opinion, joined by Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagen. "DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment." "Justice Scalia is reading from his dissent right now. [10:10 am ET] The Court's opinion both in explaining its jurisdiction and its decision 'both spring from the same diseased root: an exalted notion of the role of this court in American democratic society.'" ...

... NBC expert Kenji Yoshino: will not affect states that don't recognize same-sex marriage, so same-sex couples will not get federal benefits (that come thru marriage) in those states. ...

... The opinion & dissents are here. ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... shortly after 10 a.m. [today] the [Supreme Court] justices will announce their rulings on challenges to two laws that define marriage to include only unions of a man and a woman."

The Blue Marble. "The snapshot taken by astronauts on December 7, 1972, at 5:39 a.m. EST (10:39 UTC) -- is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence.[2] The image is one of the few to show a fully illuminated Earth, as the astronauts had the Sun behind them when they took the image. To the astronauts, Earth had the appearance and size of a glass marble, hence the name." -- WikipediaPresident Obama speaks on his plan for reducing the effects of climate change. The transcript is here. The New York Times story, by Mark Landler & John Broder, is here:

... Al Likes It. Al Gore: "This was a terrific and historic speech, by far the best address on climate by any president ever. I applaud the new measures announced by President Barack Obama this afternoon to help solve the climate crisis -- particularly the decision to limit global warming pollution from existing as well as new power plants." CW P.S. Take that, Bill Clinton.

Jackie Calmes, et al., of the New York Times: "President Obama on Tuesday said he was 'deeply disappointed' with the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision ruling a central piece of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, and he called on Congress to pass legislation protecting access to voting." The President's statement is here. ...

... Attorney General Eric Holder responds to the Supreme Court's decision to decimate the Voting Rights Act. Worth listening to:

... Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post has a rundown of expert opinions on the effects of the Shelby County decision. ...

... Ari Berman of the Nation takes a look back at the many failed attempts -- until yesterday -- to gut the Voting Rights Act: "The VRA hasn't changed, but the Republican Party has. Today's 5-4 decision by the Roberts Court gutting the VRA was the result of three factors, as I wrote in February: 'a whiter, more Southern, more conservative GOP that has responded to demographic change by trying to suppress an increasingly diverse electorate; a twenty-five-year effort to gut the VRA by conservative intellectuals, who in recent years have received millions of dollars from top right-wing funders, including Charles Koch; and a reactionary Supreme Court that does not support remedies to racial discrimination.'" ...

... CW: underlying all that is the strongly-held (and barely-hidden) belief that the United States was perfect in 1790, right before the Bill of Rights was adopted. It has been downhill from there, what with allowing non-propertied white men to vote, abolishing slavery, letting women vote, then ensuring that minorities could vote, too. Slowly, slowly, the right is returning the U.S.A. to the "perfection" of its birth.

... ** "A Decision as Lamentable as Plessy or Dred Scott." Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic: "Five unelected, life-tenured men this morning declared that overt racial discrimination in the nation's voting practices is over and no longer needs all of the special federal protections it once did. They did so, without a trace of irony, by striking down as unconstitutionally outdated a key provision of a federal law that this past election cycle alone protected the franchise for tens of millions of minority citizens. And they did so on behalf of an unrepentant county in the Deep South whose officials complained about the curse of federal oversight even as they continued to this very day to enact and implement racially discriminatory voting laws." ...

... Richard Hasan, in a New York Times op-ed: "... The chief justice couches his opinion in modesty, stating that the court is striking only the Section 4 coverage formula and not Section 5. But don't be fooled: Congress didn't touch the formula in 2006 because doing so would have doomed renewal. Congress avoided the political issue then, and there's no way today's more polarized Congress will agree upon a new list of discriminatory states." ...

... ** Jamelle Bouie of the American Prospect: "... our long history of apartheid, discrimination, and white supremacy requires an equally long attempt at repair and reconciliation. It's why the 2006 reauthorization extended the VRA for another quarter century: because '40 years has not been a sufficient amount of time to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination following nearly 100 years of disregard for the dictates of the 15th amendment,' the law's authors note. The last three years are proof positive of this assessment." ...

... Washington Post Editors: "LED BY Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court on Tuesday gutted a key element of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most potent anti-discrimination tools Congress ever devised. It was an audacious ruling devoid of the restraint the chief justice and his colleagues in the majority should have shown." ...

... Rep. John Lewis and others react to the ruling. (You could skip what the American Enterprise guy says. Like the Stephen Colbert character, he evidently doesn't see color.) ...

... Scott Lemieux in the American Prospect: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) is arguably the most important and successful civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress. Today, without remotely adequate justification, a bare majority of the Supreme Court cut the heart out of the centerpiece of the Great Society. That this outcome was expected doesn't make it any less outrageous." CW: Roberts is a smooth operator who is very good at pretending to be "reasonable & fair." You will not catch him making faces at Ginsberg. ...

... Ah, Adam Serwer of NBC News makes that point about Roberts, too. "By kicking the decision of whether Section 5 the Voting Rights Act lives or dies to Congress, Roberts avoids the blame for its demise.... Rather than killing a landmark civil rights law by borrowing the racial resentment of Scalia or the historical inversions of Thomas, Roberts chooses a route that appears more narrow but may be no less final, one that better insulates the high court from criticism. Roberts didn't kill Section 5, he simply anesthetized a terminally ill patient and left her in the operating room, waiting for a surgeon who will never arrive." ...

Huh. My experience with John Lewis in Selma earlier this year was a profound experience that demonstrated the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all. I'm hopeful Congress will put politics aside, as we did on that trip, and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected. -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), in a statement ...

... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declined to comment...." ...

... "Ku Klux Kourt." Greg Palast in Truth-Out: "The Jim Crow majority on the Supreme Court just took away the vote of millions of Hispanic and African-American voters by wiping away Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965." CW: this sounds about right to me. The white supremacists who dominate state legislatures & administrations, along with their loyal ALEC assistants, must be busy little bees tonight initiating new plans to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters. What is needed is a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote & giving the Justice Department the same responsibilities for all states that it had under the Voting Rights Act for some. Thanks to James S. for the link. ...

... If You Think the GOP Is Bad Now.... Joshua Green of BusinessWeek: "The Supreme Court's decision to strike down a central provision of the Voting Rights Act will make it easier for Republicans to hold and expand their power in those mainly Southern states. That will, in turn, make it easier for them to hold the House. It will also intensify the Southern captivity of the GOP, thereby making it harder for Republicans to broaden their appeal and win back the White House." ...

... Via Ed Kilgore:

... See also today's Local News.

Quote of the Day. The speaker [Boehner] has said, within a period of a little over 24 hours, we're going to pass immigration but we're going to have Democratic votes to do it. As soon as his crazies heard that, I guess they talked to him and next day he comes back and said: 'I will only pass it if I have the majority of the majority.' So the point is, I'm not sure that he -- or anyone else in leadership in the House -- really know what they're doing. -- Harry Reid, speaking to reporters Tuesday

Mark Hosenball, et al., of Reuters: "Even as U.S. intelligence agencies and their global partners assess potential damage from Edward Snowden's disclosures about surveillance programmes, militants have begun responding by altering methods of communication, a change that could make it harder to foil attacks, U.S. officials say. Intelligence agencies have detected that members of targeted militant organizations, including both Sunni and Shi'ite Islamist groups, have begun altering communications patterns in what was believed to be a direct response to details on eavesdropping leaked by the former U.S. spy agency contractor, two U.S. national security sources said." ...

... Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "... Edward Snowden ... has a plan B. The former NSA systems administrator has already given encoded files containing an archive of the secrets he lifted from his old employer to several people. If anything happens to Snowden, the files will be unlocked. Glenn Greenwald ... told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden 'has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.... If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.' The fact that Snowden has made digital copies of the documents he accessed while working at the NSA poses a new challenge to the U.S. intelligence community...." ...

... Diane Bartz & Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters: "Government auditors discovered four years ago that a select group of private contractors conducting background checks for high-security jobs were not doing enough to ensure the quality of their investigations. Some investigators hired by the companies were not adequately trained or closely supervised, and the background reports they turned over to agencies for hundreds of thousands of prospective employees had missing information that could lead to risky hiring, the inspector general for the Office of Personnel Management said in a 2010 report that got little attention. Now ... the report's findings are drawing new attention. Some lawmakers are calling for a full review of how security clearances are done."

Congressional Race!

Michael Levenson, et al., of the Boston Globe: "Veteran Democratic US Representative Edward J. Markey edged past Republican businessman Gabriel E. Gomez today in a special election for US Senate in Massachusetts that had been marked by its brevity and by low voter interest. The Associated Press called the election at about 9:15 p.m." CW: Thanks to contributor Julie, et al., for your good works. ...

... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post profiles Sen. William "Mo" Cowan, the man Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick chose to keep Secretary of State John Kerry's Senate seat warm until voters picked a replacement.

Local News

Kate Alexander of the Austin Statesman: "Hundreds of orange-clad abortion rights supporters filed into the gallery of the Texas Senate Tuesday morning to support state Sen. Wendy Davis' planned filibuster to kill a controversial abortion bill. And there to greet them was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards." ...

... CW @ 11 pm ET Tuesday: State Senate Republicans are being beyond cruel to Davis, attempting to end her filibuster because she put on a back brace. ...

     ... Austin Statesman Update (4:12 am ET): "Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst returned to the Senate floor at 3:01 a.m., banged the gavel and announced that, 'regrettably, the constitutional time expired' on the special session. Senate Bill 5 cannot be signed because it passed after midnight, he said.... The crowds in the Capitol, loudly cheering early word that the bill had failed, let loose with another rousing cheer when told that it was official. Speaking to reporters afterward, Dewhurst said he was furious about the night's events. 'An unruly mob, using Occupy Wall Street tactics, disrupted the Senate from protecting unborn babies,' he said." CW: all hail the unruly mob. And Wendy Davis. ...

... Manny Fernandez & Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Hours after claiming that they successfully passed some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country, Republican lawmakers reversed course on Wednesday and said a disputed late-night vote on the bill did not follow legislative procedures, rendering the vote moot and giving Democrats a bitterly fought if short-lived victory. The reversal capped a remarkable day in the Texas Legislature here. A petite Fort Worth Democrat in pink sneakers staged a 10-hour-plus filibuster marathon in which she never sat down. Abortion rights activists succeeded in disrupting Republican senators, and the fate of a bill that Gov. Rick Perry had made a priority devolved into a legislative mess...." ...

... Huffington Post: "Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), who captivated the country with her attempted 13-hour filibuster of a sweeping anti-abortion bill, likely would have lost her seat in 2012 to redistricting if not for the Voting Rights Act that was gutted Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court."

Voter Suppression Now! Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Officials in Texas said they would rush ahead with a controversial voter ID law that critics say will make it more difficult for ethnic minority citizens to vote, hours after the US supreme court released them from anti-discrimination constraints that have been in place for almost half a century. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, declared that in the light of the supreme court's judgment striking down a key element of the 1965 Voting Rights Act he was implementing instantly the voter ID law that had previously blocked by the Obama administration.... The provocative speed with which Texas has raced to embrace its new freedoms underlines the high-stakes nature of the supreme court ruling." ...

... Gary Robertson of the AP: " Voter identification legislation in North Carolina will pick up steam again now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, a key General Assembly leader said Tuesday." ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "The eagerness with which Abbott and others are certain that now they'll be able to get away with things that the federal government wouldn't let them get away with before puts a rather large dent in the Court's theory that we can stop being quite so diligent against the efforts now."

Another Texas Milestone. Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle: "For the second time in two days, Texas' highest appeals court on Tuesday rejected Dallas killer Kimberly McCarthy's request that it consider irregularities in the selection of her jury. McCarthy, 52, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday for the July 1997 robbery-murder of a 71-year-old Dallas woman. McCarthy would be the 500th killer put to death since the state resumed executions in 1982."

Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "A prominent political donor purchased a Rolex watch for Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, according to two people with knowledge of the gift, and the governor did not disclose it in his annual financial filings. The $6,500 luxury watch was provided by wealthy businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr.... He is the chief executive of dietary supplement manufacturer Star Scientific and the person who paid for catering at the wedding of the governor's daughter.... Williams's gift came in August 2011 -- about two weeks after he met with a top state health official to pitch the benefits of his company's health products at a meeting arranged by first lady Maureen McDonnell.... Williams bought the watch at the urging of Maureen McDonnell, who admired Williams's own Rolex and suggested that he buy her a similar one she could give to her husband.... Her proposal occurred moments before the meeting she had arranged with the state official...."

News Ledes

Orlando Sentinel: "From the witness stand Wednesday, the state's star witness in the George Zimmermanmurder trial, Rachel 'Diamond' Jeantel, gave her account of Trayvon Martin's last seconds -- and they were dramatic."

AP: "Moscow's main airport swarmed with journalists from around the globe Wednesday, but the man they were looking for -- National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden -- was nowhere to be seen."

New York Times: "The former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday pulled off one of the most sensational political comebacks in this country's history, ousting in a party vote the woman who replaced him as leader of the Labor Party in a 2010 party coup, Prime Minister Julia Gillard." The Sydney Morning Herald's liveblog is here.

Reuters: "More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, now the longest and most violent of the recent Arab uprisings, a monitoring group said on Wednesday." ...

... Reuters: "Talks between the United States and Russia to set up a Syrian peace conference produced no deal on Tuesday, with the powers on either side of the two-year civil war failing to agree when it should be held or who would be invited."

Bloomberg News: "Marc Rich, the commodities trader who fled the U.S. to avoid federal indictments during the 1980s before President Bill Clinton pardoned him two decades later, has died. He was 78."

The Commentariat -- June 25, 2013

John Broder of the New York Times: " President Obama will propose a sweeping plan to address climate change on Tuesday, setting ambitious goals and timetables for a series of executive actions to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and prepare the nation for the ravages of a warming planet. The plan, to be announced in a policy address at Georgetown University, is the most far-reaching effort by an American president to address what many experts consider the defining environmental and economic challenge of the 21st century. But it also could provoke a backlash from some in Congress and in states dependant on coal and other industries, who will say that it imposes costly, job-killing burdens on a still-fragile economy." ...

     ... CW: More accurate analysis: "... it will provoke a backlash from some in Congress who are climate-change-denying cranks and from some who object to every fucking word the President utters."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "The bipartisan push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws took a major step forward Monday evening when the Senate endorsed a proposal to substantially bolster security along the nation's southern borders as part of measure that would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country." ...

... CW: when it becomes available, I'll put up a Chris Hayes segment on the Social Security provision of the bill. It's a shocker. Update: here it is:

** Eric Holder will make a statement at noon about the Shelby County decision. ...

... SCOTUSblog is liveblogging today's decisions. ...

     "Holding. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance." Roberts wrote the opinion. In a concurring opinion, Thomas would strike down Section 5 as well. "Thomas concurs. Ginsburg dissents, joined by Breyer Sotomayor, and Kagan." ...

     ... "The Court makes clear that: 'Our decision in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting found in [Section] 2. We issue no holding on [Section] 5 itself, only on the coverage formula. Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions.'" ...

     ... Justice Ginsberg read her dissent from the bench. ...

     ... Pete Williams of NBC News says the Court struck down the map. The Court is leaving it up to Congress. NBC News expert: this is a huge moment in civil rights history. Section 5 upheld. Chris Hayes calls the conservatives' decision "a remarkable act of hubris." ...

     ... Update: here's a print report from Williams & Erin McClam. ...

     ... The decision & other opinions in Shelby County v. Holder are here (pdf). ...

     ... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, ruling that Congress had not provided adequate justification for subjecting nine states, mostly in the South, to federal oversight."

... Justice Clarence Thomas compares affirmative action to segregation & slavery. Al Sharpton speaks with Jeffrey Rosen:

     ... The decision, concurring opinions & Ginberg's dissent, are here (pdf). Thomas's opinion begins on page 18.

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Monday was a great day for sexual harassers and for bosses who retaliate against workers claiming discrimination. The rest of us did not fare so well in the Supreme Court.... The most lasting impact of today's decisions likely will be the twin blows struck against women and minorities in the workplace. Taking advantage of employees just became a whole lot easier."...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "A familiar scenario at the Supreme Court on Monday resulted in a familiar result: liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg calling for Congress to reverse two employment rulings just issued by the court's conservative majority. In both cases, the court voted 5 to 4 to make it harder for employees to challenge what they considered workplace harassment and retaliation for complaints of discrimination, violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act." ...

... Jeff Toobin has a good piece in the New Yorker on Ginsberg's opinion. ...

... "Justice Alito's Middle-School Antics." Dana Milbank: "Samuel Alito..., a George W. Bush appointee, read two opinions, both 5-4 decisions that split the court along its usual right-left divide. But Alito didn't stop there. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, Alito visibly mocked his colleague.... Alito, seated immediately to Ginsburg's left, shook his head from side to side in disagreement, rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling. His treatment of the 80-year-old Ginsburg, 17 years his elder and with 13 years more seniority, was a curious display of judicial temperament or, more accurately, judicial intemperance.... Days earlier, I watched as he demonstrated his disdain for Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the two other women on the court.... At the various oral arguments I've watched over the past few years, Alito's eye-rolling, head-shaking and other expressions of exasperation are a fairly common occurrence, most often when Sotomayor has the floor."

The Travels of Snowden, Ctd.

Alexei Anishchuk & Timothy Heritage of Reuters: "Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden was still in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, was free to leave and should do so as soon as possible. Putin told a news conference during a visit to Finland that he hoped the affair would not affect relations with Washington, which wants Russia to send him to the United States, but indicated Moscow would not hand him over. He dismissed U.S. accusations against Russia over the case as 'rubbish.'" ...

... ** Guardian liveblog: "Vladimir Putin says Snowden is in a transit zone at Sheremetyevo International Airport.... Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Snowden will not be extradited to the United States." ...

** Miriam Elder of the Guardian: "Russia's foreign minister has said the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden never crossed the border into Russia, deepening the mystery over his suspected flight from Hong Kong. 'I would like to say right away that we have no relation to either Mr Snowden or to his relationship with American justice or to his movements around the world,' Sergei Lavrov said. 'He chose his route on his own, and we found out about it, as most here did, from mass media,' he said during a joint press conference with Algeria's foreign minister. 'He did not cross the Russian border.'" ...

... Oh. Snowden was in Russia actually but not technically. Maybe. Kathy Lally & Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Snowden had not actually crossed into Russian territory, apparently remaining in a secure transit zone inside the airport or in an area controlled by foreign diplomats. Moscow therefore has had no jurisdiction over his movements, Lavrov said." ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told reporters in a 75-minute telephone conference call on Monday that Edward Snowden is 'healthy and safe.' Assange also made clear he is relishing Snowden's defiance of the U.S. 'I have personal sympathy with Snowden, having gone through similar personal experiences,' he said. But Assange had few new details to offer about Snowden's dramatic voyage. He couldn't say where Snowden is now, where he's going or even whether Assange had spoken directly to the former NSA contractor." ...

... Ellen Barry & Mark Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "... a stream of reports from unnamed Russian officials, disseminated over Russian news agencies, had been an exuberant deception, throwing up a cloud of dust while Mr. Snowden quietly evaded the United States government. At nightfall, it was impossible to say with certainty where Mr. Snowden was. By contrast, everyone knew where half of the Moscow press corps was: halfway to Havana, on one of the few regular Russian flights that does not serve alcohol. It was the kind of plan that the F.S.B., and the K.G.B. before it, would describe as a 'special operation.' And somewhere in Moscow, it was clear, someone was laughing." ...

... ** Lana Lam of the South China Morning News: "Edward Snowden secured a job with a US government contractor for one reason alone -- to obtain evidence of Washington's cyberspying networks, the South China Morning Post can reveal. For the first time, Snowden has admitted he sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the US National Security Agency's secret surveillance programmes ahead of planned leaks to the media. 'My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,' he told the Post on June 12. 'That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.'" ...

... Greg Sargent: "... in an interview [with me] this afternoon, [Glenn] Greenwald dismissed the significance of the new revelations [in the South China Morning Post report], saying they fit in logically with the chronology that's already publicly known about Snowden -- and he challenged critics to show proof of any wrongdoing on his part. 'Anybody who wants to accuse me or anyone at the Guardian of aiding and abetting Snowden has the obligation to point to any specific evidence to support that accusation,' Greenwald told me. 'Otherwise they're just spouting reckless innuendo.'" ...

... Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "U.S. intelligence agencies are worried they do not yet know how much highly sensitive material is in the possession of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, whose whereabouts are unclear, several U.S. officials said. The agencies fear that Snowden may have taken many more documents than officials initially estimated and that his alliance with founder Julian Assange increases the likelihood that they will be made public without considering the security implications, they said." ...

... Peter Baker & Ellen Barry of the New York Times: "The Obama administration escalated its criticism of Russia, China and Ecuador, all of which appeared to be protecting the fugitive leaker Edward J. Snowden." ...

... CW: notice how Guardian reporters continue to describe Snowden as a "whistleblower," while the Times labels him a "fugitive leaker" in its front-page blurb. In the body of the Times story, the reporters call Snowden "a self-described whistle-blower" Words matter. ...

... Update: Jonathan Kaiman of the Guardian does describe Snowden as a "fugitive": "China's top state newspaper has praised the fugitive US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden for 'tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask' and rejected accusations Beijing had facilitated his departure from Hong Kong." ...

... Julie Pace of the AP: "For President Barack Obama, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's globe-trotting evasion of U.S. authorities has dealt a startling setback to efforts to strengthen ties with China and raised the prospect of worsening tensions with Russia." ...

... ** John Cassidy of the New Yorker has a good piece on why he's on Ed Snowden's side. "The puzzle is why so many media commentators continue to toe the official line." ...

... Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog observed a Sunday ago that "... Obama's failure to get [Ed Snowden] back will be deemed by the right as effectively canceling out the killing of bin Laden." ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Obama's critics argue that Obama has lost influence internationally. [Eliot] Cohen -- a top foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney, Obama's 2012 Republican opponent -- said Snowden's escape was 'a humiliation' for the president." ...

... CW: All that means Snowden is coming back to face the music. Maybe not tomorrow, but certainly before the end of Obama's presidency. The biggest leak-squelcher evah will get the biggest leaker evah, if only to once again prove his political opponents wrong. The Ed Snowden story will not end well for Ed Snowden. ...

... Michael Kelley & Gus Lubin of Business Insider: "At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 13, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) asked FBI Director Robert Mueller if the National Security Agency (NSA) needs specific court approval before listening to a domestic phone call. Mueller said yes. Analysis of leaked NSA documents by Glenn Greenwald and James Ball of the Guardian suggests that this is not true." Nadler disputed Mueller's testimony but later retracted his claim. Looks like Nadler was right. ...

... When Satire Is True. Andy Borowitz: "A U.S. intelligence agency was so busy spying on three hundred million Americans that it failed to notice one dude who was working for it, a spokesman for the agency acknowledged today."

The Incredible Shrinking IRS Scandal. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The instructions that Internal Revenue Service officials used to look for applicants seeking tax-exempt status with 'Tea Party' and 'Patriots' in their titles also included groups whose names included the words 'Progressive' and 'Occupy,' according to I.R.S. documents released Monday. The documents appeared to back up contentions by I.R.S. officials and some Democrats that the agency did not intend to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny. Instead, the documents say, officials were trying to use 'key word' shortcuts to find overtly political organizations -- both liberal and conservative -- that were after tax favors by saying they were social welfare organizations.... House Democrats seized on the documents to question why the Treasury inspector general, in the audit that began the scandal, omitted any mention of scrutiny that did not focus on conservatives. Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee demanded a second hearing with the inspector general, J. Russell George, to allow him to 'explain the glaring omission in his audit report.'" CW: Weisman doesn't say so, but Dubya appointed George, who has compared the IRS "scandal" to Richard Nixon's misuse of the IRS. ...

... Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has more detail.

Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Federal regulators are poised to sue Jon S. Corzine over the collapse of MF Global and the brokerage firm's misuse of customer money during its final days, a blowup that rattled Wall Street and cast a spotlight on Mr. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor who ran the firm until its bankruptcy in 2011."

Frank Bruni on Paula Deen, (Former) Teevee Racist.

Congressional Race

Eric Moskowitz & Martin Finucane of the Boston Globe: "Voters are headed to the polls today to cast their ballots in the US Senate special election pitting veteran Democratic US Representative Edward J. Markey and Republican businessman Gabriel E. Gomez. The compressed election, held because of the departure of John Kerry to become US secretary of state, has struggled to capture the public's attention because of other news events in recent months.... Turnout is expected to be low on a sizzlingly hot day." ...

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post on "why Ed Markey will (almost certainly) win." (CW: which doesn't mean Massachusetts Reality Chex readers should stay home from the polls to prepare for victory parties.)

Local News

Will Weissert & Jim Vertuno of the AP: "A sweeping bill that would effectively shut down most abortion clinics across the nation's second most-populous state has stalled in the Texas Senate, and a Democratic filibuster that will only need to last a seemingly manageable 13 hours Tuesday looks like it will be enough to talk the hotly contested measure to death. After thwarting two attempts Monday by majority Republicans to bring the abortion bill to a floor vote ahead of its scheduled time Tuesday morning, Democrats are turning to Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, to stage the marathon speech.... She will have to speak nonstop, remain standing, refrain from bathroom breaks or even leaning on anything. Other Democrats can give her voice a break by offering questions to keep conversation moving." ...

... Mike Ward of the Austin Statesman profiles Davis.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Singing crowds gathered outside the hospital where Nelson Mandela, South Africa's former president, lay in a critical state for a third consecutive day on Tuesday, as family members held an emergency meeting at his ancestral village."

Orlando Sentinel: "Prosecutors in the George Zimmerman trial will continue calling witnesses today, hoping to convince jurors Zimmerman is guilty of second-degree murder in 17-year-old Trayvon Martin's shooting. Attorneys in the case returned to court about 8:30 a.m. today. Before testimony resumes, Circuit Judge Debra Nelson will hear argument on whether prosecutors can play for the jury Zimmerman's calls to police to report suspicious people in the months before the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting." ...

     ... Update: the Sentinel reports on today's developments in the trial. With videos.

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."