The Commentariat -- May 21, 2015

Internal links removed.

Mike DeBonis & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "A bitter ideological divide in Congress appeared destined Wednesday to at least temporarily end the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records as government officials warned they would have to begin shuttering the program after Friday if lawmakers do not act. In a memorandum, the Justice Department said the National Security Agency would need to act 'to ensure that it does not engage in any unauthorized collection' or use of the data should the program not be extended before a June 1 deadline. The memo, along with comments Wednesday by FBI Director James B. Comey, puts pressure on lawmakers to act at a time when congressional Republicans remain divided over the NSA's controversial gathering of private telephone records for counterterrorism purposes.... Comey warned the June 1 'sunset' affects not only the NSA's bulk collection but also three legal tools that he said are 'critical' to the bureau's investigations of terrorists and spies. They are 'noncontroversial,' he said, and are getting drowned out by the focus on the NSA program." ...

... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "... the National Security Agency (NSA) will begin winding down a controversial program run under that law this week, according to the Justice Department.... Patriot Act provisions that the NSA uses to justify its controversial bulk collection of metadata about U.S. phone calls are among those slated to expire at month's end."

Randal Archibold of the New York Times: "The United States and Cuba are closer than ever to reaching an agreement to fully restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies, officials in both countries say, as negotiators prepare to meet Thursday in Washington for another round of talks to iron out remaining details and discuss possible dates."

Jason Burke of the Guardian: A "library-sized cache of declassified material seized at Osama bin Laden's compound paints a portrait of a man past his prime who obsessed over security, micromanaged staff and enjoyed an eclectic mix of literature." The Washington Post story, by Greg Miller & Julie Tate, is here. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times reviews bin Laden's reading list.

Manny Fernandez, et al., of the New York Times: "The bikers involved in the biggest and bloodiest clash of motorcycle gangs in recent decades brought an astonishing arsenal to the Twin Peaks restaurant in south Waco on Sunday, the police said Wednesday. Investigators have recovered more than 300 weapons in and around the restaurant, Sgt. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police Department said.... As the authorities on Wednesday released names of people involved in the melee, which left nine dead and 18 injured, a picture of the group began to emerge, including many men who fit the stereotyped image of bearded, tattooed, intimidating bikers but also including a number of minorities and women, a former police detective, and people who may not have belonged to any gang." ...

... Charles Blow: "... the tone and tenor of the rhetoric the media used to describe [the deadly Waco biker shootout] -- particularly early on -- were in stark contrast to the language used to describe the protests over the killings of black men by the police.... Does the violence in Waco say something universal about white culture or Hispanic culture? Even the question sounds ridiculous -- and yet we don't hesitate to ask such questions around black violence, and to answer it, in the affirmative. And invariably, the single-mother, absent-father trope is dragged out.... Is anyone asking about the family makeup of the bikers in Waco?" ...

... CW: The Waco gangsters do invoke in some of us broader cultural -- if not racial -- implications. As Fernandez, et al., point out, there is a "stereotyped image of bearded, tattooed, intimidating bikers" that the Waco massacre only reinforces. For me, it isn't about bikes -- anybody can love going riding on a bike -- but about the guns & violence culture prevalent among a broad swath of confederates." ...

... But What if the Cops Were the Principal Shooters? AP: "According to restaurant security video shown to the Associated Press, only one of the dozens of bikers was seen firing a gun from the patio of the Twin Peaks restaurant where nine people were killed on Sunday.... The video shows bikers on the restaurant patio ducking under tables and trying to get inside. At least three people were holding handguns.... None of the nine video angles shows the parking lot.... Police have said that all those arrested were part of criminal motorcycle gangs. But based on court records and a search of their names in a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety, only five of the nine people killed had criminal histories in Texas. Police have acknowledged firing on armed bikers but has not yet been made clear how many of the dead were shot by gang members and how many were shot by officers."

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "Until recently, the perception has ... been that the Democrats had the largest political stake in [King v. Burwell,] the case [designed to take healthcare subsidies away from 13 million Americans]. After all, the A.C.A. is the signature achievement of the Democratic President. Suddenly, though, and paradoxically, it has come to seem that Obamacare's Republican opponents are most at risk if the decision goes their way.... Blaming the President ... may be unfair, but it's the way American politics works." ...

... CW: Toobin is right. Glenn Greenwald (April 2015): "An Annenberg Public Policy Center poll from last September found that only 36 percent of Americans can name the three branches of government, and only 38 percent know the GOP controls the House. The Center's 2011 poll 'found just 15 percent of Americans could correctly identify the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts, while 27 percent knew Randy Jackson was a judge on American Idol.'" They sure as hell have no idea what Roberts' or Kennedy's political philosophy is. All the majority "knows" is that if the Supreme Court says something is "illegal," then the guy who did it -- say, Obama -- must be at fault. ...

     ... P.S. The notion that the administration does not have a Plan B is ridiculous. Every once in a while a dumb guy says something smart, so if you want to know Obama's Plan B, ask Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.). He's got it right. No, the administration might not do this on Day One, because (a) they've been pretending they have no idea what to do, & (b) they want to see how much Republicans will squirm. ...

... Greg Sargent: "By now you may have learned of the plight of one Luis Lang, a South Carolina man whose story went viral after it was reported that he couldn't afford to treat an illness that was threatening to make him blind -- and blamed Obamacare for it.... In a subsequent interview with Think Progress, Lang said he now thinks opposition to the Medicaid expansion is the culprit, is rethinking his GOP affiliation, and is going to try to get coverage from the law, though he still says he has issues with its implementation and blames both parties.... Lang also told Think Progress that he now supports universal health care. As Steve Benen notes, he is only the latest example of people 'who thought they hated "Obamacare," right up until they needed it.'... But if the Court strikes subsidies for millions of people in three dozen states on the federal exchange -- one of which includes South Carolina -- it could put Obamacare even further out of reach for Lang."

Jill Lepore, in the New Yorker, on how the right to privacy is a poor -- and historically dubious -- basis for deciding the constitutionality of cases involving women's rights. (I disagree with her suggestion that the Nineteenth Amendment should be invoked, except perhaps as a ferinstance.) "There is a lesson in the past fifty years of litigation. When the fight for equal rights for women narrowed to a fight for reproductive rights, defended on the ground of privacy, it weakened. But when the fight for gay rights became a fight for same-sex marriage, asserted on the ground of equality, it got stronger and stronger." Also, Justice Ginsburg's logic is flawless. That the confederate deadheads have the nerve to repeatedly ignore it is unconscionable.

Gail Collins: "All of our paper money feature white men, at least half of them slave-owners.... A website called Women on 20s recently conducted a poll to find a woman to replace Jackson.... But about the poll: Harriet Tubman won. Pretty perfect. Replace the slave-owner with the escaped slave who returned to the South -- again and again and again -- to lead other slaves to freedom.... [However,] Changing American paper currency turns out to be a huge ordeal.... Maybe [one-time U.S. Treasurer] Ivy Baker Priest understood what a heavy lift change is when she said women didn't care about having their pictures on money 'as long as we get our hands on it.' 'Getting our hands on the money is equally important,' said Senator [Jeanne] Shaheen [D-N.H.] mildly. But, really, we can go for both."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Kelsey Rupp & David Mastio of USA Today: "Yet another high-profile TV newsman may find himself embroiled in controversy over his connections to the Clinton Foundation. Until late Tuesday afternoon, the Clinton Foundation website listed CNN anchor Jake Tapper as a 'speaker' at a Clinton Global Initiative event scheduled for June 8-10 in Denver. After USA TODAY asked CNN about the event, Tapper's name was swiftly removed from the Clinton Foundation website.... A CNN spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said Tapper was improperly listed as a speaker on the foundation website; he is scheduled to interview former president Clinton at the event and later moderate a panel discussion. The spokesperson said the network-approved interview will be televised. There will be no restrictions on the questions, and Tapper will not be paid by the foundation." CW: So, if true, what exactly is the matter with that? This appears to be a fine example of the non-story story. The authors expended some effort to gather data for their report, & when the story fell apart, the paper printed it anyway, assuming few would read past the first graf. ...

... Count, for instance, Jim Warren, who now writes for the media watchdog Poynter.

Presidential Race

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The State Department is expected to release the first batch of emails from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private email address in the coming days. The emails set for release, drawn from some 55,000 pages and focused on Libya, have already been turned over to the special House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on the United States outposts in Benghazi..... The Times obtained about a third of the 850 pages of emails. They appear to back up Mrs. Clinton's previous assertions that she did not receive classified information at her private email address. But some of the emails contain what the government calls 'sensitive' information or 'SBU' -- sensitive but unclassified."

Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "After more than a decade bearing the political burden of Iraq, Republican [presidential candidates] are making a dogged effort to shed it by arguing that the Islamic State's gruesome ascent is a symptom of Obama's foreign policy, rather than a byproduct of the 2003 invasion they once championed."

What? No Carly? No Bobby? Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Fox News announced guidelines Wednesday that will winnow the field of participants in the first Republican debate of the 2016 presidential campaign. The network will require contenders to place in the top 10 in an average of the five most recent national polls in the run-up to the event, narrowing what is expected to be a field of 16 or more by the Aug. 6 event in Cleveland. The rule could trigger an early rush of spending by lower-tier candidates.... Meanwhile, CNN laid out a different approach for the second debate on Sept. 16, which will be split into two parts -- one featuring the top 10 candidates in public polling and a second that will include lower-tiered candidates who garner at least 1 percent in polls."

Scott Neuman of NPR: "Protesting the soon-to-expire Patriot Act, presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul held the floor of the Senate for 11 hours late Wednesday in a filibuster-like speech railing against the law and the government's continued surveillance of Americans' phone records." ...

When Is a "Filibuster" Not a Filibuster? Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post: "... a filibuster by any other name is just a Long, Self-Indulgent Speech. And until it actually starts holding up Senate business, that is exactly what this is.... It's nice that [Ted] Cruz and Paul have such strong feelings and want to share them at such length, but they need to use another word for these speeches -- 'pointless harangues,' maybe?"

Ashley Killough of CNN: "Jeb Bush hit back against President Obama's claim that climate change runs an immediate risk, saying Wednesday that while it shouldn't be ignored, it's still not 'the highest priority.' A he has before, Bush acknowledged 'the climate is changing' but stressed that it's unknown why. 'I don't think the science is clear of what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It's convoluted,' he said at a house party in Bedford, New Hampshire." CW: One known factor: Ideology, political expediency & big-oil (& other polluter-industry) backers force GOP candidates to bury their heads in the sand. What percentage each of these elements contributes to the head-in-the-sand approach is unknown.

Nick Gass of Politico: "Mike Huckabee will not participate in Iowa's 2016 Republican straw poll, writing in an op-ed for The Des Moines Register that the contest, set for Aug. 8 in Boone, only 'weakens conservative candidates' and strengthens 'the Washington ruling class and their handpicked candidates.'"

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told The Hill on Wednesday that it was a mistake for the U.S. to invade Iraq, arguing that the nation should have found a different way to remove Saddam Hussein from power." ...

... Steve M. "I don't know how this is going to go over when Carson is participating in the presidential debates. (And yes, right now it looks as if he's going to make the cut.) But it's going to be entertaining." Steve notes that Carson has previously written -- including in a letter to then-President Bush! -- that he opposed the invasion of Afghanistan & has said that the Vietnam War was a mistake, too.

Beyond the Beltway

Julie Cart, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Plains Pipeline, the large Texas-based company responsible for the pipe that ruptured in Santa Barbara County, has accumulated 175 safety and maintenance infractions since 2006, according to federal records. A Times analysis of data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration shows Plains' rate of incidents per mile of pipe is more than three times the national average.... Over the last 10 years, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which is part of the Department of Transportation, has assessed $115,600 in civil penalties against the company.... It reported $43 billion in revenue in 2014 and $878 million in profit." See also today's News Ledes. ...

... CW: So averaging the fines per years, that works out to $11,560 in fines per $878,000,000 in profits. In other words, the fines are a teeny nuisance cost of doing business.

Mark Hensch of the Hill: "The mayor of Ferguson, Mo., announced on Wednesday that his city would construct a permanent memorial to Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager shot and killed by a police officer there last summer. Mayor James Knowles III said that the tribute would honor Brown's memory at Canfield Drive, according to the Associated Press."

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story reports on a 70-year old couple who are finally able to marry after going through various maneuvers over the years -- including one of the couple legally adopting the other -- to circumvent laws against same-sex marriage. So you've gotta laugh at the way World Net Daily leads with the same story: "The Pandora's box of same-sex marriage has just released a new pairing unimaginable a few short years ago. Norman MacArthur and Bill Novak, father and son, though not biologically, will soon be husband and ... whatever...."

The Commentariat -- May 20, 2015

Internal links removed.

Mitch Folds. Donna Cassata of the AP: "The Senate will vote on legislation that ends the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' phone records as Congress scrambles to renew the Patriot Act before it expires on June 1. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has opposed the House bill to reauthorize the post-Sept. 11 law while significantly changing the NSA's bulk collection, preferring to simply renew the Patriot Act. But he told reporters Tuesday that he will allow a vote on the measure that passed the House overwhelmingly last week and has the backing of the Obama administration.... Congress must deal with the law's fate before lawmakers leave town for the weeklong Memorial Day recess." ...

... Scott Shane of the New York Times on Ed Snowden's virtual "travels" & his successes in altering even Members of Congress's views of NSA bulk collection of phone records.

When Confederate "Values" Are Inconvenient. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Both houses of Congress are moving to guarantee greater access to contraceptives for women in the military, actions that lawmakers say are prompted in part by concern about unplanned pregnancies in the armed forces. The annual defense policy bill, passed on Friday by the House, says military clinics and hospitals must be able to dispense any method of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration." CW: Pretty amazing how pliable the old boys' "values" are. Of course they let Democratic women sponsor the bills, then they quietly went along.

Here's some more confederate "values" for you. David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "Ten minutes after President Barack Obama announced he would be personally tweeting from his new Twitter account, the right began calling him a 'n*gger.'... Of course, the 'n' word wasn't the only ugly slur the right threw at @POTUS. We counted eleven instances of tweets calling @POTUS a 'fag,' five with 'faggot' or 'faggots,' and you can imagine the rest of the tweets from the right." Stupidly, Facebook took down Badash's report on the tweets. CW: Values voters, my ass. Via Jonathan Capehart. ...

... Oh, there's more. Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "A reader points out that if you enter a search for 'N***** king' -- which contains a particularly offensive racial epithet for African Americans — Google Maps will point you to the White House. We tested the claim on Tuesday night and confirmed that, yes, this is a thing. It even zooms the camera in, automatically.... Other reports suggest that you get the same result if you search for 'n***a house.' We've tested this, as well. 'Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize for any offense this may have caused,' said a Google spokesperson. 'Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.' A mounting list of such pranks has led Google to suspend people's ability to submit edits to Google Maps for the time being."

Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "Doug Elmendorf, the director of the nonpartisan CBO at the time of the law's drafting and passage, says the idea that the subsidies would be limited to states creating their own exchange was never brought up while his office was estimating the cost of the law. 'It was a common understanding on the Hill, again on both sides of the Hill, on both sides of the aisle, in late 2009 and early 2010, that subsidies would be available through the federal exchange as well as through state exchanges,' Elmendorf said in an interview...." CW: It would have been nice if the DOJ had bothered to interview Elmendorf before King v. Burwell -- the case challenging this aspect of the law -- had its final hearing in the Supreme Court. Of course as Sullivan points out, "... congressional intent is not the entire consideration.... The more conservative justices are more inclined to look at the plain text of the law itself, which the challengers argue clearly limits the subsidies to state exchanges." When it suits them.

Ken Vogel of Politico: "Bill Clinton's huge post-White House paydays loomed over a congressional panel's vote on Tuesday to slash taxpayer-funded benefits to former presidents.... Clinton's post-presidential earnings, which have dogged the presidential campaign of his wife Hillary Clinton, provided the backdrop for consideration of the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act, and seemed to be on the minds of Republican committee members.... Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) [said,] 'The thing I like about this bill is that, if people begin to earn outside income trading on their office, the income that we give them begins to drop and hopefully it will restore some dignity to the office of ex-president.' After the mark-up, Grothman's office acknowledged that he was, in fact, talking about Bill Clinton.... Clinton and his office by Election Day 2016 will have received more than $16 million through the Former Presidents Act, according to a Politico analysis.... Since former George W. Bush left office in 2009, though, he has outpaced Clinton in the value of total benefits received through the program...."

AND now for a brief word from our Dumbest Senator. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Sen. Ron Johnson, the Homeland Security Committee chairman, says when it comes to a nuclear deal with Iran, he's 'not so sure' he trusts President Obama over the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'Now, a President who was awarded the 2013 Politifact Lie of the Year, if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it, period. If you like your doctor you can keep it, period. They lied boldfaced to the American public repeatedly with Obamacare,' the Wisconsin senator said at a recent town hall in Cerdarburg, Wisconsin." ... CW: I suspect Sen. Dummkopf would be shocked to learn that Bloomberg & the World Health Organization both rated Iran's healthcare system better than the U.S.'s & that basic healthcare is a constitutional right in Iran. To guarantee healthcare to all Iranians, President Hassan Rouhani introduced "RouhaniCare" last year. Obummer. ...

     ... Nick Gass of Politico: "Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that he would not tolerate 'unreasonable demands' from world powers during nuclear negotiations, making clear that he would not allow inspectors to interview the country's scientists." CW: Which is way okay, because Khamenei is probably more trustworthy than our own President.

Just a reminder that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is still kind of a jackass. Marc Caputo of Politico: "Florida Rep. Alan Grayson recently called his estranged wife a 'gold digger,' but a review of the potential Senate candidate's soap-opera divorce case shows he unsuccessfully tried to have her criminally charged for far less: ringing up grocery, gasoline and car-repair expenses on his credit card. Grayson's previously unreported effort to have Lolita Grayson arrested on credit-card fraud charges was revealed in one of her court filings that complained about the wealthy Democrat's tactics to withhold money from her."

Justin McCarthy of Gallup: "Sixty percent of Americans now support same-sex marriage, as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on its constitutionality next month. This is up from 55% last year and is the highest Gallup has found on the question since it was first asked in 1996." See also Ted Cruz's comments, linked under Presidential Race below. CW: Looks as if Gallup -- a traditionally conservative polling outfit -- is now part of the "liberal media" "obsessed with sex," Ted. Also, 60 percent of Americans. ...

... BTW, Ted, it isn't only MSNBC-indoctrinated lefties who are "obsessed with sex." Queerty: "Until 2 p.m. on Monday, the 'Our Church Staff' section of St. John's Lutheran Church and School's website described Reverend Matthew Makela as an associate pastor who enjoys, 'family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and sports.' Screenshots obtained by Queerty ... shed light on some of the Reverend's other favorite past times -- namely nude make out sessions and sex with other men." ...

... Gabrielle Bluestone of Gawker: "In the meantime, the church is urging its congregation not to read or turn on the television so that they might avoid inadvertently discovering what happened to that nice pastor man." Makela "resigned" his post.

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "A federal grand jury has indicted six Chinese citizens for what authorities say was a long-running conspiracy to steal valuable technology from two U.S. firms for the benefit of the Chinese government."

Hugh Naylor of the Washington Post: "The fall of Ramadi amounts to more than the loss of a major city in Iraq’s largest province, analysts say. It could undermine Sunni support for Iraq's broader effort to drive back the Islamic State, vastly complicating the war effort.... A bloc of Sunni parties in the Iraqi parliament issued a statement Tuesday saying they 'blame the government' for Ramadi's capture by the Islamic State. The bloc, called the National Forces Union, demanded an investigation and called on the government to send arms to Anbar and pay salaries to pro-government fighters in the province." ...

... See also Dexter Filkins' assessment in the New Yorker. Filkins is a highly-knowledgeable, reliable reporter. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link.

Presidential Race

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "For close to an hour on Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton talked with owners of small businesses [in Cedar Falls, Iowa,] about the issues on their minds, like whether they would enjoy better access to credit if small local banks were given regulatory relief and whether a major trade deal up for debate in Washington could wind up hurting American workers. Then Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for president, took a handful of questions from reporters, and the topics were sharply different, and sharper in tone: her personal wealth, her use of a private email while she was secretary of state, her family foundation's acceptance of foreign donations and the 2003 invasion in Iraq. She called her own vote in the Senate to authorize the invasion 'a mistake.'" ...

... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton broke a long drought to take a few questions from the traveling press [in Cedar Falls, Iowa,] Tuesday, distancing herself from President Obama's trade pact and defending the millions of dollars she and her husband have made from giving speeches.... Clinton also said in response to a reporter's question that she favors having the State Department release e-mails from her time as secretary of state as soon as possible: 'I want those e-mails out.'" ...

... Eric Bradner of CNN: "Hillary Clinton took aim Tuesday at two core components of a massive free trade pact that President Barack Obama is negotiating — signaling some agreement with the deal's liberal critics. The Democratic front-runner in the 2016 presidential race said she wants to see rules included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would penalize countries for driving down the value of their currencies in order to give their exports a price advantage in the U.S. market. And she said she's concerned about a provision that would give 'corporations more power to overturn health and environmental and labor rules than consumers have.'" ...

... Jack Shafer of Politico is fairly pissed-off at President Hillary: "What the press still fails to appreciate about Hillary Clinton is that she’s not running for president, she's running as president, and all the usual rules about when and how she should speak don't apply to her. In her mind -- and who can blame her? -- she's the incumbent, this is a reelection campaign, and she occupies a place miles above the liquescent bogs of petty politics into which reporters would dunk her." CW: Anyhow, thanks, Jack, for teaching me a new word, which thanks to Merriam-Webster's audio, I can now even pronounce. ...

... AND of course Ron Fournier is in a lather over All Things Hillary. This time it's the e-mails. ...

... Laura Clawson of Daily Kos: "A federal judge said no to the State Department's plan to release Hillary Clinton's work-related emails to the public in January 2016. That's the date by which State said it could have reviewed all of the emails, but U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras said that instead, there should be a 'rolling production' of the emails." CW: Excellent. A horror story a week. And, as Clawson figures, "Look for House Benghazi Czar Trey Gowdy to come up with new demands about 10 minutes after each step of this process." ...

... Justin Fishel of ABC News: "With voracious campaign reporters and now Hillary Clinton herself demanding to know when her emails will finally be made public, deep within the State Department lies a small factory of workers tasked with the laborious task of sorting, reading, redacting and reviewing paper copies of what now amounts to hundreds of thousands of pages of documents."

... Dana Milbank: "... the fact that [Hillary Clinton] was unveiling her Citizens United litmus test [for nominees to the Supreme Court] with party fat cats at an exclusive soiree (four days later, she mentioned it to voters in Iowa) tells you all you need to know about Clinton's awkward -- and often hypocritical -- relationship with campaign-finance reform. Even as she denounces super PACs, she;s counting on two of them, Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record, to support her candidacy -- a necessary evil, her campaign says.... If she really thinks money is corrupting politics, she can take concrete steps right now." ...

... Benghaazi! Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "Congressional investigators have issued a subpoena demanding that former Clinton White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal testify next month before the House of Representatives committee investigating the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya." CW: Not sure whom I'm rooting for. It's the Jerks versus the Jackass. ...

     ... Charles Pierce: "There are two things I can guarantee about this event. 1) Nothing will come of it except for some grandstanding by Gowdy's committee because there's really nothing there.... 2) Blumenthal will say or do something before the hearings or during the hearings that will make matters worse." ...

... Margaret Talev of Bloomberg: "Iowa Democrats are rallying around Hillary Clinton with pragmatic enthusiasm, acknowledging distaste and concern over some of her tactics and ethics while embracing her strengths, experience, and policies heading into the 2016 presidential election. A focus group of 10 Democrats -- five women and five men -- assembled this week in Des Moines by Bloomberg Politics and Washington-based Purple Strategies was mostly willing to look past Clinton's paid speeches, her Wall Street ties, the controversy over her use of private e-mail while secretary of state, and her refusal so far to weigh in as a candidate on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that has turned many Democrats against President Barack Obama."

Bernie Sanders has a little chat with Wolf Blitzer about what to do about income inequality. The segment begins about 1:15 min. in. I love Bernie!:

For a Big Guy, Chris Christie Can Do an Amazing Flipflop. Kira Lerner of Think Progress: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Monday that he does not support finding a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, making a complete shift from his previous position ahead of his likely presidential campaign announcement. The governor's comments come less than two years after he won re-election in his immigrant-filled state by reaching out to minorities and promising benefits for undocumented immigrants." Of President Obama's executive action to grant relief to an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants, Christie said, "I think that's an extreme way to go. And I think that, quite frankly, what Hillary Clinton's doing right now is pandering. That's pandering." CW: Apparently nearly half of Americans, including millions of Republicans, are crazed immigration extremists. Good luck with your pander-free flipflop, Guv.

Bobby Blanchard of the Texas Tribune: Sen. Ted Cruz "visiting Beaumont[, Texas,] to meet privately with county officials and others, got in a light sparring round with reporters, mainly working on his attacks on Hillary Clinton and defending his views on same-sex marriage. 'Is there something about the left -- and I am going to put the media in this category '' that is obsessed with sex?' Cruz asked after fielding multiple questions on gay rights. 'ISIS is executing homosexuals -- you want to talk about gay rights?...' 'With respect, I would suggest not drawing your questions from MSNBC. They have very few viewers and they are a radical and extreme partisan outlet,' Cruz told a reporter. He cited the expansion of 'mandatory same-sex marriage' as an assault on religious liberty in the United States." CW: Still waiting for "the government" to make me marry some lucky lady under the "mandatory same-sex marriage" rule. If I don't care for the match, I'm voting for Ted. Meanwhile, Bobby Jindal seems pretty "obsessed with sex." See Beyond the Beltway link below.

Gubernatorial Race

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The bitter Kentucky Republican gubernatorial primary is going into overtime. Businessman Matt Bevin edged state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer by only 83 votes -- less than a tenth of a percentage point of the more than 214,000 votes cast -- with all precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. Comer quickly declared his intent to request a recanvass, which will give election officials a chance to check their math. If he wants a full recount, Kentucky law requires him to post a bond to support the cost.The expected influx of absentee and military ballots could further complicate the process.... Democrat Jack Conway, the state attorney general ... cruised to his party's nomination on Tuesday.... Establishment Republicans have worried that Bevin is the actually the party's weakest option against Conway, suggesting he escaped serious scrutiny while his opponents focused on each other and never had to answer for the flaws that sank his [2014] Senate [primary] campaign [against Mitch McConnell] -- including revelations he attended a rally for cockfighting supporters."

Beyond the Beltway

Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, to the dismay of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), Louisiana's proposed Marriage and Conscience Act failed in the state's house. The legislation ... would have prohibited 'the state from taking any adverse action against a person on the basis that such person acted in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction about marriage.'" Jindal said he would issue an executive order "that will ... prevent the state from discriminating against persons or entities with deeply held religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman." CW: Maybe this link should go under Presidential Race, but really, Bobby's "deeply held religious beliefs" have knocked him out of the running, if he was ever in it. ...

... The Times-Picayune story, by Emily Lane, is here. An updated story, by Lane, is here: "The order was issued Tuesday afternoon and went into effect immediately, said Jindal at a meeting with reporters in his office that evening." Jindal's order is here.

Peter Jamison & David Zahniser of the Los Angeles Times: "The Los Angeles City Council tentatively agreed Tuesday to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 per hour, joining a trend sweeping cities across the country as elected leaders seek to address stagnating pay for workers on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. The ordinance would boost the $9 an hour base wage to $15 by 2020 for as many as 800,000 workers, city officials say, and make L.A. the largest U.S. city to adopt a major minimum-wage increase. Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle already have adopted similar laws."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Nearly 34 million cars and trucks nationwide were declared defective Tuesday because of deadly air bags made by auto-parts giant Takata, in what is expected to be the biggest recall of any consumer product in U.S. history. The expanded recall doubled the number of vehicles believed to have the air bags, which can blast out sharp metal shrapnel when deployed, a flaw that has been linked to six deaths and more than 100 injuries." ...

... The Post has a partial list of the vehicle makes that may have the dangerous air bags. "But neither automakers nor the government has made it easy to find out whether your car is included -- and how it should be fixed.... Consumers reported Tuesday that they got conflicting answers or no answers at all when they called dealerships about the recall. Meanwhile, car manufacturers said people should continue to drive their vehicles -- even those with the deadly defect -- until the parts arrive at their local dealerships." CW: Comforting. You can still get to work, but do watch for flying shapnel.

ABC News: "Vice President Joe Biden's son, Beau Biden, is undergoing treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Office of the Vice President told ABC News."

Guardian: "Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has cancelled a pilot scheme banning Palestinian workers from Israeli buses in the occupied territories -- denounced as tantamount to apartheid -- only hours after it was announced. The plan had been approved by Netanyahu's defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, but was cancelled amid fierce criticism from Israeli opposition figures, human rights groups and a former minister in Netanyahu's own party, who said it was a 'stain on the face of Israel' that would damage its international image."

The Commentariat -- May 19, 2015

Internal links removed.

Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "Fossil fuel companies are benefitting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, equivalent to $10m a minute every day, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF calls the revelation 'shocking' and says the figure is an 'extremely robust' estimate of the true cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world's governments."

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Monday banned the federal provision of some types of military-style equipment to local police departments and sharply restricted the availability of others. The ban is part of Mr. Obama's push to ease tensions between law enforcement and minority communities in reaction to the crises in Baltimore; Ferguson, Mo.; and other cities.... Mr. Obama promoted the effort on Monday during a visit to Camden, N.J. The city, racked by poverty and crime, has become a national model for better relations between the police and citizens after replacing its beleaguered police force with a county-run system that prioritizes community ties":

... Sarah Wheaton & Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "The nation's largest police union is fighting back against a White House plan to restrict local police forces' ability to acquire military-style gear, accusing President Barack Obama's task force of politicizing officers' safety.... James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, told Politico on Monday that ... in particular he objects to a measure that would require police departments to get permission from city governments to acquire certain equipment, including riot batons, helmets and shields, through federal programs." ...

... CW: Right. Because police departments should be armed, independent organizations unaccountable to civilian authority. Also because there's nothing wrong with this photo that accompanied the Politico story:

... See also Rand Paul's remarks, linked below. Looks as if he'll be holding Hillary Clinton responsible for all this. ...

... UPDATE: See Akhilleus' & D. C. Clark's commentary in today's thread on these things.

Jordan Fabian & Kristina Wong of the Hill: "President Obama's strategy in fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is facing fresh scrutiny after the militant group toppled government forces in the major Iraqi city of Ramadi. The city's fall represented the biggest military gain for ISIS this year. The White House on Monday acknowledged the seizure represents a 'setback' but signaled it is unlikely to alter its approach to combatting ISIS, which relies on U.S.-led airstrikes and training Iraqi security forces to fight the ground war." ...

... Nick Gass of Politico: "Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that when it comes to the Middle East, he does not think the United States has a strategy 'at all.'"

Seung Min Kim of Politico: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) released a report Monday "that accuses both GOP and Democratic administrations of reneging on labor provisions in previous free-trade agreements -- dating to the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993." ...

... Michael Wessel, a Democratic trade specialist & former Congressional aide, in Politico Magazine: "I've actually read the TPP text provided to the government's own advisors, and I've given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can't share my criticisms with you. I can tell you that Elizabeth Warren is right about her criticism of the trade deal."

Jim Dwyer of the New York Times: "Immigrants are the pilings of the New York economy, the providers of low-cost, seamless comforts like 24-hour takeout food, cheap nail salons, all-night gas stations, nonunion construction workers. Some entered the United States legally; others did not. The ability of unscrupulous employers to steal wages can take your breath away."

Good Health Is a Terrible Thing. Rachana Pradhan of Politico: "More than 12 million people have signed up for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act since January 2014, and in some states that embraced that piece of the law, enrollment is hundreds of thousands beyond initial projections.... The federal government is picking up 100 percent of the expansion costs through 2016, and then will gradually cut back to 90 percent. But some conservatives say the costs that will fall on the states are just too big a burden, and they see vindication in the signup numbers, proof that costs will be more than projected as they have warned all along."

Maureen Dowd: Justice Ginsburg presides at a wedding. ...

... MEANWHILE, Ted Cruz is pretty sure Dimmocrats are going to make you get hitched to a person who shares your chromosome set. What Steve Benen missed in the linked analysis is the fact that "mandatory" is a Tea-Party-approved scare word unless it appears in a phrase like "mandatory sentences for crack users" or "mandatory drug tests for lazy moochers." Because freeedom.

Alex Ronan of New York: "Tennessee representative Scott DesJarlais opposes abortion, has run repeatedly as a pro-life candidate, and routinely votes in favor of restricting reproductive rights.... DesJarlais just doesn’t believe anyone should get an abortion. Except for his wife and mistress.... The contradictions between his personal views on abortion and his public stance drew renewed attention last week, when he voted in favor of the 20-week abortion ban. But DesJarlais's behavior is indicative of a larger contradiction between pro-lifers' professed views and their personal behavior. ThinkProgress points to a statistically supported dynamic in which people who identify as pro-life frequently find themselves choosing abortion when confronted with reproductive decisions in their own lives."

Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Eric Schlosser of the New Yorker: A Sixth Circuit panel "threw out the sabotage convictions [of three peace activists], and their view of the government's arguments was scathing."

J. K. Trotter of Gawker: "Three weeks ago, a Nassau County Supreme Court justice ended a bitter three-year custody dispute between Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly and his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, by granting custody of the couple's two minor children to McPhilmy. Though nearly all documents pertaining to New York family court cases are sealed, Gawker has learned that the justice in the case heard testimony accusing O'Reilly of physically assaulting his wife in the couple's Manhasset home." ...

... Dylan Byers of Politico: "Bill O'Reilly says the allegation that he physically assaulted his ex-wife is '100% false.'" CW: And everything O'Reilly says is 100% true.

Krugman-Brooks Feud, Ctd. Brooks today: "There’s a fable going around now that the intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was all cooked by political pressure, that there was a big political conspiracy to lie us into war." Krugman yesterday: "We were, in a fundamental sense, lied into war." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "The Bush administration's strategy from the outset has been to hide behind this failure of intelligence.... This is how the dodge works. Step 1: Prevent a Senate report from looking into whether the administration lied. Step 2: Ignore the existence of the report that did show the administration lied. Step 3: Pretend that an intelligence failure and a deliberate effort to cook the intelligence are mutually exclusive. It was a mistake, therefore it could not have also been a crime." ...

... CW: It is worth bearing in mind that all of the GOP candidates' dodges (except maybe Jeb's first three or four answers) follow Dubya's own strategy to rewrite/whitewash history. Jeb's flubs haven't instigated a new intraparty "candid discussion" of the Iraq War but rather continued the GOP coverup. And that nice David Brooks is still the company spokesman.

Presidential Race

Hillary's Shady Friend Sidney. Nicholas Confessore & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Sidney Blumenthal advised her "about events unfolding in Libya.... Mrs. Clinton ... took Mr. Blumenthal’s advice seriously, forwarding his memos to senior diplomatic officials in Libya and Washington and at times asking them to respond. Mrs. Clinton continued to pass around his memos even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were often unreliable.... While advising Mrs. Clinton on Libya, Mr. Blumenthal, who had been barred from a State Department job by aides to President Obama, was also employed by her family's philanthropy, the Clinton Foundation.... During the same period, he also worked on and off as a paid consultant to Media Matters and American Bridge, organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Mrs. Clinton's 2016 campaign. Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government." ...

... Here's a related story by Schmidt. Looks as if even Secretary Clinton was skeptical of Blumenthal's "intel." ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The State Department is proposing a deadline of January 2016 to complete its review and public release of 55,000 pages of emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchanged on a private server and turned over to her former agency last December. The proposal came Monday night in a document related to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Vice News filed in January seeking all of Clinton's emails." ...

... Sins of the Husband. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul says he will bash Hillary Clinton over her husband's record of putting 'a generation of black men in prison' if he is the nominee. Paul ... says he will compete with [Hillary] Clinton in Philadelphia, where Democrats have a 7-to-1 registration advantage, and other impoverished cities by highlighting his support for criminal justice reform." ...

... CW: Other than in a few areas like health care reform, in which Hillary was actively involved, how responsible is Hillary for Bill's policies? Sure -- just as Jeb has to answer questions about Dubya's horrible misadventures -- she should state her current position on policies that are now some two decades old. (Let me add here that most of us of a certain age would do some things differently than we did two decades ago.) But "bashing" her "over her husband's record" doesn't make a lot of sense to me any more than it makes sense to "bash" Jeb over Dubya's policies -- unless, um, he agrees with them.

Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "The quotations he posts, rarely pithy, are often sayings he thinks up in the shower. The photographs he puts up sometimes show him frowning, while others show him gazing oddly into the horizon. And he does not seem to care about the importance of videos. But somehow, Bernie Sanders, the 73-year-old senator from Vermont, has emerged as a king of social media early in the 2016 presidential campaign, amid a field of tech-savvy contenders."

Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: Knowing what he knew then, Dubya should not have invaded Iraq. Marco "Rubio's depiction of Bush as a guy forced to invade because he 'was presented with intelligence that said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction' is absurd.... [But] Let's imagine that Bush had possessed irrefutable proof that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. Those weapons would still have presented no grave threat to the United States.... By claiming that the United States was right to invade Iraq given what its leaders thought they knew at the time, Rubio and his fellow GOP candidates are making George W. Bush's radical departure from past American practice the new normal.... The toxic spirit of the last Bush presidency still thoroughly infects today's GOP."

Roger Simon of Politico: "Now that we know whether Jeb would have launched his brother's invasion of Iraq -- yes, I don't know, I'm not saying, and no -- I want to know if Jeb would have launched his father's campaign against Willie Horton.... The 1988 presidential campaign pitt[ed] George H.W. Bush against Michael Dukakis and use[d] ... race to transform a losing campaign into a winning one.... The Bush campaign was run by Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes...."

Charles Pierce: Uh oh, the Supremes decline to help out Scotty. "Where that will end up is anyone's guess but, for now, unlike, say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Scott Walker remains under actual criminal investigation. Just thought everyone should remember that."

Live Free AND Die. "You can't enjoy your civil liberties if you're in a coffin." Scott Conroy of the Huffington Post: "Hours after delivering a hawkish foreign policy speech, in which he lambasted critics of post-Sept. 11 domestic surveillance tactics, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) ramped up his rhetoric further against those whom he derided as 'civil liberties extremists.'" Via Greg Sargent.

More Exciting GOP News. Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) on Monday formally launched a presidential exploratory committee, theclearest indication yet that he is gearing up for a White House run." ...

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker (who seems to be about the only public commentator who even noticed Jindal's planned exploration): "Presumably he'll be exploring outside the state he governs, because as much as Louisianans hate Democrats and Obummer, they hate Bobby more, a new poll shows." ...

... Even More Exciting News. Bill Barrow of the AP: "South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham all but confirmed Monday he will run for president in 2016, saying he believes he would be the best choice to serve as commander in chief amid continued unrest in the Middle East. 'I'm running because I think the world is falling apart,' Graham said in an interview on 'CBS This Morning.'" ...

... Dana Milbank: Apparently the CBS morning news producers thought a tweeting shark was more compelling teevee than Graham's announcement of his announcement.

Senate Race

Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "With her U.S. Senate campaign off to a bumpy start, Loretta Sanchez refused Sunday to rule out the possibility of running instead for reelection to the House of Representatives. At a brief question-and-answer session with reporters, Sanchez (D-Santa Ana) first declined to elaborate on her apology to state Democratic convention delegates Sunday morning for making a stereotypical Native American 'war cry'; gesture in remarks to a crowd the day before." ...

... CW: This is the weird (and egregious) part. Finnegan: "Sanchez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, made the controversial gesture Saturday while joking with a group of Indian Americans about confusing an Indian American with a Native American. [The "Indian American" who was the subject of the war whoop: Kamala Harris, California's attorney general & a candidate for Senate. Harris's mother is from India.] Video of the gaffe on Twitter and YouTube showed Sanchez tapping her hand to her mouth in an imitation of a war cry."

Beyond the Beltway/American Violence

Manny Fernandez, et al., of the New York Times: "The police charged about 170 people on Monday in the shootout among rival motorcycle gangs at a busy shopping plaza in [Waco, Texas,] on Sunday that left at least nine bikers dead and 18 others wounded.... The people arrested after the shootout at the Twin Peaks Restaurant, in south Waco, were charged with engaging in organized crime linked to capital murder.... It will be up to prosecutors and a grand jury to decide what charges they will ultimately face, but capital murder charges can carry the death penalty....

Bikers, their lawyers and other supporters say that the constitutional rights of many club members are constantly under assault by law enforcement authorities, whom, they say, harass them because they are such a visible presence and because they are conspicuous in their disdain and distrust of the police and officers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the main federal agency that monitors biker organizations.

... CW: Yup, they're the victims. Because freeedom. ...

... ** Karoli of Crooks & Liars writes an excellent piece pointing out how officials, police & the media are treating the above-mentioned "victims" differently from the way they treat & cover minority protesters. ...

... Charles Pierce noticed the same thing. But he's totally optimistic! "I am sure that, when the dust settles, and the 200-odd (!) people who were arrested get arraigned, we will hear a great deal from the usual suspects about the cultural pathologies inherent in white society that are at the root of episodes like this one. David Brooks will notice that white people -- many of whom wear ponytails and mullets -- also tend to fk without his approval, and Ross Cardinal Douthat will wonder whether we'd even have motorcycle gangs if Pius XII were still alive. Earnest pundits on television will agree that we must discover immediately how many of the assembled grew up in two-parent homes." ...

... Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "as police worked to book and process the gang members, lawmakers in the state's capital debated whether to further expand firearm 'open carry' rights. One bill, HB910, passed the Texas house and was debated on Monday in a state senate committee. It would allow people to carry handguns and pistols in the open and would bar police from asking whether the person carrying the gun is licensed. Texans can already carry so-called 'long guns', such as rifles, in public. Another bill, SB11, would allow 'concealed carry' of weapons on college campuses. Hours after the shootout, gun lobbyists called the legislation 'great bills by great bill authors'... A spokesman for the National Rifle Association said that he didn't see a connection between Texas;s legislation and the outlaw gangs' behavior....

WESH Orlando: "The man accused of shooting at George Zimmerman bonded out of jail over the weekend and has surrendered his guns and ammunition to law enforcement, police said."

Way Beyond

Ari Shapiro of NPR: "Ireland could make history this week. Same-sex marriage is legal in about 18 countries around the world. In all of those countries, the decision was made by the legislature or the courts. Ireland appears poised to become the first country to legalize same-sex marriage through a national popular vote set for Friday.... Ireland is one of the most socially conservative countries in Western Europe. It has nearly the highest church-going rate on the continent. Abortion is still illegal. Divorce was outlawed until the mid-1990s. That makes Ireland a less-than-obvious place for same-sex marriage but the polls indicate the Yes voters are favored by a wide majority."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Happy Rockefeller, the socialite whose 1963 marriage to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York, soon after both had been divorced, raised a political storm in a more genteel time and may have cost him the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, died on Tuesday at her home \in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was 88."

Washington Post: "Iran's judiciary plans to open the trial next week of the Washington Post's bureau chief in Tehran after being detained nearly 10 months on charges that include 'espionage,' his lawyer said Tuesday."