The Commentariat -- March 7, 2015

Internal links removed.

"Bloody Sunday." John Lewis (on the ground at right) among those police attacked on the Edmund Pettis Bridge during the March 7, 1965 voting rights march.... Don Gonyea of NPR: "This weekend, the president; first lady Michelle Obama; and their teenage daughters, Malia and Sasha, will help mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala. It was there in 1965 -- on the Edmund Pettus Bridge -- that state troopers violently attacked a peaceful civil rights march. Obama will speak Saturday, putting a spotlight on the issue of race relations in the United States -- something he has not done frequently in his presidency." ...

... The President is scheduled to speak at 12:15 pm ET.

... Christopher Sheridan of Al Jazeera. The killers of Pastor Jim Reeb, who was in Selma to participate in the march across the bridge, never paid for their crime. The Rev. Clark Olsen, whom white segregationists attacked at the same time, remembers Reeb's murder. On March 15, 1965, the same day Reeb was buried, President Johnson went before Congress to urge them to pass the Voting Rights bill." CW: That is the same bill, which became law, that Republicans in Congress are refusing to restore after the Supremes gutted it last year. ...

... The Shame of the Confederates. Mary Troyan of USA Today: "Many of the Republican members [of Congress] will be participating for the first time in the annual commemoration of the 1965 voting rights marches in Selma. But back in Washington, GOP lawmakers have mostly resisted efforts to advance a bill -- the Voting Rights Amendment Act.... The legislation pending in Congress would restore a Voting Rights Act provision nullified by the Supreme Court in 2013. That provision had required states with a history of voting-related discrimination -- including Alabama -- to get federal permission, or 'pre-clearance,' before making any changes to their election systems. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act last year when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has yet to find a Republican cosponsor." ...

... Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: In Shelby County, Alabama, north of Selma, black leaders say they have nothing to celebrate. "It was here in 2013 that local officials won a major victory when the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the federal law that resulted from those historic marches in Selma.... Civil rights leaders locally and nationally were incensed [by the ruling]. One of the movement's biggest victories -- won in no small part due to the blood shed and lives lost during the Selma marches -- had been invalidated.... The impact of the decision was near-immediate as Southern states, now freed of their federal chaperone, began rapidly upending their voting policies -- passing new voter identification laws, and curbing early voting and same-day registration." ...

... The difference between the cops who beat the marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the confederates in the Congress, in state legislatures, in the governors' mansions, in local political circles and on the Supreme Court is that the batons & billy clubs wielded by today's confederates are metaphorical. But they are just as brutal. There is no such thing as "genteel bigotry," and the smug bastards from Steve Scalise to Sam Alito to Ferguson Judge Ronald Brockmeyer might as well be swinging nightsticks at innocent Americans. ...

... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday the Department of Justice is ready to take any and all steps that are needed to reform the Ferguson, Mo., police department, including the potential dismantling of the force. Speaking to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base after a trip to South Carolina with President Obama, Holder said he was stunned by what the investigation uncovered, and will go to all necessary lengths to address racial bias and other systemic issues within the force." ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday backed his attorney general's decision not to indict the white police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., last year, but said the city must work to correct a broader pattern of racial misconduct":

... Video of the full event is here. President Obama begins speaking about 2:45 min. in. CW: Although I do love Jimmy Carter, every time Obama gets up to speak, I am reminded we have never had a president I personally liked as much as I do Barack Obama. ...

A toast for Ronald Brockmeyer, the Worst Worm of the Week.... Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "The judge in Ferguson, Missouri, who is accused of fixing traffic tickets for himself and colleagues while inflicting a punishing regime of fines and fees on the city's residents, also owes more than $170,000 in unpaid taxes. Ronald J Brockmeyer, whose court allegedly jailed impoverished defendants unable to pay fines of a few hundred dollars, has a string of outstanding debts to the US government dating back to 2007, according to tax filings obtained by the Guardian from authorities in Missouri." ...

... Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Two police supervisors in Ferguson, Mo., have resigned after being linked to racist emails turned up by a Justice Department investigation, city officials said on Friday. The two supervisors, Capt. Rick Henke and Sgt. William Mudd, left the force on Thursday, the city's information office said. A third employee, Mary Ann Twitty, clerk of the Municipal Court, was fired on Wednesday for her role in the emails."

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "John O. Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is planning to reassign thousands of undercover spies and intelligence analysts into new departments as part of a restructuring of the 67-year-old agency, a move he said would make it more successful against modern threats and crises."

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The Justice Department expects to file corruption charges against Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, a law enforcement official said Friday, culminating an investigation that has dogged the senator for two years. The investigation has focused on his relationship with a Florida eye doctor who is a longtime friend and political benefactor. Federal prosecutors said Mr. Menendez did political favors for the doctor, Salomon Melgen." CW: Gee, a crooked New Jersey politician (alleged). What a shocker. ...

... The Washington Post story, by Sari Horowitz & others, is here. Evan Perez & Shimon Prokupecz of CNN broke the story. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post "spoke with Richard Briffault, a professor ... who works in the area of public corruption. Briffault summarized the question at stake: 'Is there a connection between the donation and some relatively specific thing that the officeholder is expected to do, or says he will do?' As in all legal cases, the element of burden of proof weighs in. Can the government prove beyond a reasonable doubt, through whatever evidence it can present, that Menendez was 'influenced to commit a specific use of his office' on behalf of the likely donor at the center of the case, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen? 'The phrase is quid pro quo. The question on this one is the pro,' Briffault said." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "... in 2006, a young Republican U.S. attorney was accused of launching an investigation into Menendez right before an election in an attempt to sway the result. The investigation went nowhere, but the prosecutor, Chris Christie, did. If Menendez were forced to step down or was removed from office, Christie -- now governor and himself dogged by scandal -- would have the chance to fill the seat temporarily, until a special election was held."

Here's why the pizza lobby doesn't like the Obamas. (See Krugman's column, linked yesterday):

White House: "In this week's weekly address, President Obama discusses an issue close to his heart: education for adolescent girls around the world":

David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "When the Supreme Court justices met in private Friday to cast their votes and decide the reach of President Obama's healthcare law, the outcome probably turned on the person who spoke first: Chief Justice John G. Roberts.... Roberts uncharacteristically said little when the case was argued Wednesday. But the one substantive comment he did make has received intense scrutiny from lawyers and others trying to forecast whether the healthcare law will survive or be largely unraveled." ...

... Audio of the oral arguments is here. ...

... Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "New Hampshire on Friday became the sixth state to earn approval from the federal government to launch its own version of the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. The plan will help about 35,000 uninsured people to buy private insurance plans. The program was negotiated by both the state's Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan, and its GOP-controlled legislature."

Nancy Pelosi, Unsung Hero. Or How Pelosi Got the Best of Boehner. Again. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "With a partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown looming, Pelosi saw a way to torpedo Boehner, and get exactly what she and other Democrats wanted for President Obama. The plan was simple: when Boehner needed her the most, she would not be there for him. She explained her plan to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) in a private meeting in Reid's office. He concurred.... Five days later, Democrats got exactly what they wanted: DHS was fully funded without any rollback of Obama's executive actions on immigration." ...

... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "On the same day that she helped the vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security sail through the House thanks to Democratic support, Ms. Pelosi, the minority leader, served as the embodiment of White House rage over a speech by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to a joint meeting of Congress.... Ms. Pelosi's continued reign often surprises, but it is based largely on her ability to manage her members, one at a time." ...

     ... CW: AND NOW, our report turns to diminishing Pelosi's accomplishments. Because balance: "It is generally easier to maintain cohesion in the minority, where members live to block the will of the majority. Further, two Republican waves in the House swept out most moderate Democrats, rendering the caucus more ideologically unified against Republicans, and more aligned with her brand of liberalism. 'I don't think it takes a lot of skill to vote against an agenda,' said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania." Oh yeah? When Pelosi was majority leader of a "less unified" caucus, she held it together, too. We have -- unless the Supremes knock it out -- ObamaCare because she (a) pressured the President & Senate to go for it, and (b) whipped the votes needed for passage in the House.

Presidential Race

Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: "The White House, State Department and Hillary Clinton's personal office knew in August that House Republicans had received information showing that the former secretary of state conducted official government business through her private email account -- and Clinton's staff made the decision to keep quiet.... But those involved deferred to Clinton's aides, and they decided not to respond. In the end, Clinton's staff waited six months -- until after the New York Times published a story on Tuesday about the email account and the possibility that it hampered public access to official records -- to begin their response.... White House press secretary Josh Earnest took care to point out that Obama himself was unaware of any issues with Clinton's email." ...

... Jack Shafer in Politico Magazine: "Clinton's political foes and the press tend to view her glacial strategy as stonewalling -- without acknowledging that good stonewalls make good politics and sometimes even better press coverage. Everybody knows the press has a short attention-span.... The only time you need to 'get ahead of bad news' is when you can't avoid doing so."

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "In a reversal, the State Department acknowledged Friday that a Congressional investigation into the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi played a role in the agency's decision to ask Hillary Clinton and three other secretaries of state to turn over copies of all work-related emails they sent or received on private accounts during their tenure.... Earlier this week, [State spokeswoman Marie] Harf and other state department officials said the decision to approach the former secretaries about searching their personal email accounts stemmed solely from a broad effort to update the State Department's electronic recordkeeping efforts." ...

... Do as I Say, Not as I Do. Josh Rogin & Eli Lake of Bloomberg View: "As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton repeatedly criticized other governments for not living up to high standards of openness and transparency with their citizens, while shielding her own e-mails from the U.S. archives.... In fiscal year 2012, Clinton's last full year in office, the State Department ranked last out of the top 15 government agencies for its handling of FOIA requests, earning an 'F' grade, according to the Center for Effective Government." ...

... Definition of Insanity. Dana Milbank: "In trying so hard to avoid mistakes -- in this case, trying to make sure an embarrassing e-mail or two didn't become public -- [Hillary] Clinton made a whopper of an error. What's troubling is that she's been making a variation of this mistake for nearly a quarter-century." ...

... Jonathan Chait isn't sure Hillary Clinton can manage a successful presidential campaign -- or an administration. ...

... Ken Thomas of the AP: "Former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala has been tapped to run the Clinton Foundation as Hillary Rodham Clinton prepares for her expected 2016 presidential campaign and the philanthropy faces scrutiny of its fundraising practices. Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that he had chosen Shalala, the outgoing president of the University of Miami, to serve as the next president and chief executive officer of the sprawling philanthropy. He announced his choice during a weekend meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University in Coral Gables, Florida."

Senate Race

Adrian Carrasquillo of BuzzFeed: "A major Democratic donor and activist Friday blasted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's endorsement of Rep. Chris Van Hollen in the Maryland Senate race, which could feature high-profile black Democrats Rep. Donna Edwards and former NAACP head Ben Jealous, who are mulling a run in the state that is 30% black. 'For Harry Reid to come out and endorse Van Hollen is insulting period,' said Steve Phillips, the founder of the progressive group PowerPAC+.... 'But to do it on the anniversary of the Selma 50th anniversary -- to make an endorsement that would make the Senate less diverse -- is outrageous and insulting.'"

News Ledes

New York Times: "Two male suspects have been detained in the murder of the opposition leader Boris Y. Nemtsov, the head of Russia's internal law enforcement agency announced on Saturday. Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service..., named the two suspects as Anzor Kubashev and Zaur Dadayev and said they were residents of the southern Caucasus, state-run television reported."

ABC News: "A fire outside the White House prompted Secret Service agents into a lock-down shortly before President Obama and the first family left for Selma, Alabama, today. Washington, D.C, firefighters had contained the blaze at a vendor cart east of the North Lawn, said Secret Service officials. The first family was scheduled to leave the White House at 10:30 a.m. but left about an hour later than planned."

CNN: "Former Vice President Walter Mondale has been hospitalized with influenza, his former boss said. Mondale, 87, was diagnosed after he went to the hospital for a routine checkup following a fever, former President Jimmy Carter said Friday."

Reuters: "An Ohio man claiming sympathy with Islamic State militants and charged with plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol said in a television interview that he would have shot President Barack Obama in the head. Christopher Cornell, 20, told Cincinnati's FOX 19 WXIX TV that if he had not been arrested by FBI agents in January, he would have carried out an alleged plot to plant pipe bombs on the Capitol and at the Israeli Embassy."

The Commentariat -- March 6, 2015

Internal links removed.

Whistling Dixie. Anna Palmer & Lauren French of Politico: "Scores of U.S. lawmakers are converging on tiny Selma, Alabama, for a large commemoration of a civil rights anniversary. But their ranks don't include a single member of House Republican leadership -- a point that isn't lost on congressional black leaders.... Georgia Rep. John Lewis, who participated in the 1965 march alongside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, said he was disappointed that House Republican leaders wouldn't make the trip. But Lewis said he looked forward to hearing from former President George W. Bush, who is set to speak Saturday. President Barack Obama is also scheduled to attend the ceremonies on Saturday." ...

... CW: The WTF leadership is probably too busy in Washington, where they are cooking up bills to further curb the Voting Right Act. ...

... Steve Benen: "Republican leaders declined to participate in the Lincoln Memorial event in 2013; they've declined invitations to Selma; they had no public concerns after learning Steve Scalise attended a white-supremacist event; they're slow walking the first African-American woman to ever be nominated as Attorney General; and they're blocking a proposed bipartisan fix to the Voting Rights Act while their brethren at the state level impose new voting restrictions that disproportionately affect people of color."

** Leaving a Fox to Guard the Foxes in the Henhouse. John Eligon & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "On Thursday..., a [Ferguson, Mo.,] spokesman revealed that the fired official was ... the city's top court clerk, Mary Ann Twitty.... Her involvement in the emails and their wide distribution illustrate how difficult fixing the Ferguson Police Department and municipal court will be when many city officials led, participated in or tolerated the most controversial practices uncovered by the Justice Department. Those city employees include the police chief who authorized arrests without probable cause; the municipal judge who adds new charges when people contest their citations, yet quietly got his own traffic ticket wiped away; and the city manager who was the force behind the financially driven policies that led to widespread discrimination. Many of those same officials will now be the ones attempting to carry out the reforms demanded by the Justice Department." Read the whole story. ...

... ** Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "One should understand that the Justice Department did not simply find indirect evidence of unintentionally racist practices which harm black people, but 'discriminatory intent' -- that is to say willful racism aimed to generate cash. Justice in Ferguson is not a matter of 'racism without racists,' but racism with racists so secure, so proud, so brazen that they used their government emails to flaunt it." Coates see Ferguson in Lockean terms, & he's right. ...

... Tiny Castles. Henry Farrell, in a Washington Post op-ed, sees Ferguson in the context of government racketeering through the ages: The economist & social scientist Mancur "Olson failed to be charmed by the picturesque castles lining the German river Rhine, because he knew that each castle had been built by some local lord to threaten violence to traders going up and down the river if they didn't pay him a tariff. Local government in St. Louis appears to have been constructed along similar lines, with the victims mostly being poor African Americans rather than wealthy traders."

... Jack Healy, et al., of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. cast doubt on the 'hands up' account [of Michael Brown's shooting death] even as he described Ferguson as having a racially biased police department and justice system."

Danny Vinik of the New Republic puts a damper on celebrations of today's positive jobs report: "Wages, the key metric that economists are watching to determine the slack in the labor market, ticked up just 0.1 percent. Over the past year, they've grown 2 percent. Thanks to falling oil prices, which have lowered inflation, real wage growth is positive over the past year. But that's still not a particularly strong number. Wages must grow at a 3 to 4 percent rate to keep up with both inflation and productivity growth. We're still not close to that."

New York Times aids & abets Scalia, et al., with top story, "As Health Law Is Weighed, GOP Plans to Replace It." No link. Because that's bull. As Greg Sargent amply documents this morning. "Perhaps we should celebrate the 50-month anniversary of the GOP vow of an alternative by showing a bit of skepticism towards similar claims being made over four years later," Sargent suggests. ...

     ... Update. Also read Victoria D.'s comment in today's thread. ...

(For context, go here.)

... Moops! Greg Sargent: "... during oral arguments, the idea (floated by Scalia) that Congress might provide such a contingency plan [to fix the language in the ACA which is the subject of the King v. Burwell case] was basically laughed out of the Court. Understandably so: No one who watched the chaos around Homeland Security funding could possibly imagine Congress producing any such plan." ...

... Scott Lemieux in the Week: "Scalia's argument, of course, came straight from a land of willful fantasy.... Scalia has long shown an affinity for the most witless Fox News talking points. Republicans have been making a conscious effort to reassure the court that they have a plan should the court gut the ACA. Needless to say, they don't actually have any plan -- pretending to have a plan is their only plan. Indeed, Republicans in Congress are so dysfunctional that they can barely even pretend to have a serious alternative, and any attempt to fix the law would assuredly be stillborn." ...

... CW: I was a bit surprised by Justice Moops' support for the plaintiffs because (1) this reading of the ACA goes against Moops' previous opinions on the breadth of textual analysis, & (2) even though the tax subsidies reduce income inequality (something Moops no doubt hates, because socialism!), the people who get the subsidies aren't poor layabout slackers; they are low- and middle-income workers. But then. I looked into the demographics of it. The people Justice Moops & his nasty friends want to relieve of health insurance (because freeedom!) are disproportionately women and minorities. So it all makes sense. If you're a twisted SOB. ...

     ... Update: This post by David Leonhardt of the New York Times suggests I didn't paying enough attention to the inequality part: "... the law is the most aggressive attack that the federal government has launched against inequality since inequality began rising four decades ago. It taxes the affluent (and corporations, which are disproportionately owned by the affluent) in order to subsidize health insurance for middle-class and poor households that lack it. If you sometimes wonder why the law has generated such political heat, that fact is the main reason." ...

... Abbe Gluck, in a Politico Magazine piece explains how textual analysis must and has worked in regard to federalism questions: "... the court has a set of doctrines that tell it how to interpret statutory text when a federalism question is at issue. Those doctrines prohibit the court from reading a statute to intrude on the states or to impose a drastic condition or consequence on the states unless the statute is crystal clear. The relevance of these doctrines to King, and the textual interpretation question at the heart of the case, is obvious: For the challengers to win, the drastic penalty their reading would impose on the states must be absolutely clear in the statute. The ACA comes nowhere close to meeting this requisite standard of clarity." Gluck cites other established doctrines of interpretation, each of which requires "a far higher bar for textual clarity than the challengers' reading of the law can possibly reach." CW: All of the justices know this. ...

... Noah Feldman, in Bloomberg View, explains why Solicitor General Don Verrilli conceded the plaintiffs' standing during oral arguments: he thinks Hillary is going to lose! CW: Okay, that's not exactly how Feldman phrased it. But that's the idea.

Paul Krugman: Blame pizza!

Civil Disobedience, Snow-Day Edition. Tim Devaney of Hill: "From sledding to snowball fights, dozens of children and their parents took to Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon to protest a controversial sledding ban. Capitol Police have refused to lift the sledding ban, but some parents organized a 'sled in' on the west lawn of the Capitol to put a spotlight on the unpopular rule." ...

British Gen. Frederick Haldimand meets his match. Boston 1775.... Yoni Appelbaum of the Atlantic provides some enchanting historical & contemporary context, as well as the illustration above. "Thursday's protest was a small act, but it stands in [a] grand tradition." ...

... More about Kids' Rights! Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link:

Presidential Race

Worse Than Reported. Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "The administration of Gov. Chris Christie offered details for the first time on Thursday about its settlement of a longstanding legal battle with Exxon Mobil Corporation over contamination in which the company agreed to pay a fraction of the damages that the State of New Jersey was seeking. A statement, issued jointly by the state's attorney general and environmental commissioner, said Exxon had agreed to pay $225 million to resolve the 2004 lawsuits. The state's own experts had placed the cost of environmental restoration and other damages resulting from the company's refinery operations in northern New Jersey at $8.9 billion." ...

... S. P. Sullivan of NJ Advance Media: "The $225 settlement also resolves some liability regarding contamination at 16 Exxon gas stations around the state.... Debbie Mans, head of NY/NJ Baykeeper, said it was puzzling why the state was including the other facilities in their agreement with Exxon. 'Those weren't part of the original litigation, so they're doing a big favor to Exxon by including them in the settlement,' she said. She also criticized the size of the settlement, claiming Christie had 'turned his back' on the Union and Hudson county residents who have lived near the two sites for decades." ...

... Charles Pierce: "Chris Christie, currently residing down in the netherworld of Rick Perryland in the latest 2016 form charts, also still has his job as governor of New Jersey. As such, he apparently has made sure that his administration doesn't dreadfully inconvenience any corporation that might want to chip in for firewood when he and his campaign are huddled around a burning oil barrel in a trainyard outside of Council Bluffs next December."

Brent Johnson of NJ Advance Media: "A group of unions representing New Jersey state troopers are the first to sue Gov. Chris Christie to force him to make a larger payment to the state's public-worker pension system than he has included in his latest state budget proposal."

** Tim Egan defines what's wrong with Hillary for President. CW: I don't fault Hillary for this. Yes, she's a rather ruthless entitled person. But the Democratic party, not the ruthless power player, is the entity responsible for leaving the bench empty. After all, Barack Obama was a rookie called up in extraordinary circumstances in 2008: a very freshman U.S. Senator who won his seat in 2006 because one GOP opponent self-destructed & the next was dangerously insane. He had absolutely no significant accomplishments under his belts. On paper, the party has much better than that to offer, but it has not put them at center stage.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The State Department has had a policy in place since 2005 to warn officials against routine use of personal email accounts for government work, a regulation in force during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state that appears to be at odds with her reliance on a private email for agency business, Politico has learned. The policy, detailed in a manual for agency employees, adds clarity to an issue at the center of a growing controversy over Clinton's reliance on a private email account." ...

... CW: I'm not sure how much "clarity" the policy adds. I don't think the department's "rules" apply to a Cabinet secretary. ...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "An aide said former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood used both personal and professional email on his Blackberry -- with both going into the archives.... LaHood's experience, related in detail to BuzzFeed News, was similar to that of other senior administration officials, officials and staff said." CW: If you read the post, I think you'll find that LaHood's practice makes sense. Hillary's, not so much. ...

... Mark Drajem & Indira Lakshmanan of Bloomberg Business: "The question advocates for open government are asking now is how the public will know if all the relevant e-mails have been sent to the State Department. Instead of a government employee reviewing the records, Clinton staff members did the work." ...

... Martin Matishak of the Hill: "Democrats are scrambling to try and limit the damage from the escalating controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of personal email accounts while she was secretary of State. With their likely presidential nominee now facing congressional subpoenas, Democrats began to circle the wagons Thursday, seizing on Clinton's statement late Wednesday that she wants her emails released to the public as soon as possible.... Republicans moved quickly Thursday to turn up the heat on Clinton over the personal emails, with the Republican National Committee (RNC) asking the State Department to open an independent investigation into whether she broke the law." ...

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), Chair of the Select Committee to Emulsify Hillary Clinton.... Tim Mak & Jackie Kucinich of the Daily Beast: "... suddenly, Democrats are terrified -- terrified that the Benghazi panel is about to become the House Select Committee to take down Clinton, their presumptive presidential nominee." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic has an excellent rundown of Democrats' reactions to #emailghazi. ...

... Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Republicans believe Hillary Clinton's fundamental political weaknesses have been exposed by the controversy surrounding her use of personal email while secretary of State -- and they couldn't be more delighted.... Republican strategists say that Clinton's political abilities have long been exaggerated. They contend she displays an unusual capacity to make trouble for herself and, unlike her husband, no great degree of nimbleness in getting out of it." ...

... Charles Pierce is unimpressed with the Beltway Buzz, especially as it is embodied in one "Ron Fournier, a breezy conversationalist and one-time father confessor to Karl Rove, [who] has waded into the Hillary Clinton E-Mail blogswarm with a take so hot it could melt cold steel. Maybe Clinton doesn't want to run. Maybe she shouldn't." Pierce, contra Fournier: "Look, I'm not sold on Clinton as a candidate, either.... This was an unforced error. Anybody who tries to make it into a moral disqualification for office has a very short memory for what a moral disqualification for office actually is." ...

... Tone-Deaf. Dee Hall of the Wisconsin State Journal: "Gov. Scott Walker’s political nonprofit slammed Hillary Clinton for using a private email system during her time as secretary of state -- even though Walker employed a similar practice as Milwaukee County executive.... Democratic and liberal groups immediately responded, noting the extensive use by Walker and his county executive staff of private email accounts and a secret wireless router in his county office in an effort to skirt the state's open records laws. The secret system was uncovered during an investigation into illegal campaign activities by Walker's staff and associates that led to six convictions. Walker was not charged." Thanks to Nadd2 for the link. ...

... Brian Mahoney of Politico: "Scott Walker's likely pending victory over organized labor -- passage of a right-to-work law in Wisconsin -- will be just the latest milestone in a resurgent anti-union movement marching across the industrial heartland." ...

     ... Update. Mary Spicuzza, et al., of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The Republican-controlled state Assembly passed Wisconsin's so-called right-to-work bill Friday morning after a marathon debate that began Thursday and stretched overnight.... The measure, which bans labor contracts requiring workers to pay union fees, now heads to the desk of Gov. Scott Walker, who has said he will sign the bill by Monday. The Assembly voted 62-35 along party lines in favor of the bill."

CW: You might think that Jeb Bush's egregious treatment of Terri Schiavo & her husband Michael is an impediment to his Bush III hopes. And it is! In Iowa, movement crazies think it was horrible that he "let her die."

Beyond the Beltway

Richard Fausset & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "As it looks increasingly likely that the Supreme Court will establish a nationwide right to same-sex marriage later this year, state legislatures across the country are taking up bills that would make it easier for businesses and individuals to opt out of serving gay couples on religious grounds."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Labor Department reported on Friday that employers added 295,000 workers to their payrolls in February and that unemployment fell to 5.5 percent. The report was a big improvement from January's...."

New York Times: "A 23-year-old British man has been arrested over a cyberattack in which data was stolen from the United States Department of Defense, the police said on Friday. The man was detained Wednesday morning by detectives from the National Crime Agency of Britain on suspicion of offenses linked to a hacking that took place in June...."

USA Today: Actor "Harrison Ford was injured Thursday afternoon when his vintage single-engine airplane crashed on a golf course shortly after taking off from Santa Monica Airport."

Detroit News: "A federal judge was shot outside his west side home Thursday night in what police believe was an attempted robbery or home invasion.U.S. District Judge Terrence G. Berg was shot in the leg about 9:10 p.m. outside his home on the west side of Detroit...."

New York Times: "Liberia's last Ebola patient was discharged on Thursday after a ceremony in the capital, Monrovia, bringing to zero the number of known cases in the country and marking a milestone in West Africa's battle against the disease.... The disease had flared up recently in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, the two other countries hardest hit by it."

Guardian: "A court order from the US army court of criminal appeals instructs the military to refer to [Chelsea Manning] in all future official correspondence either using the gender neutral 'Private First Class Manning' or employing the feminine pronoun."

The Commentariat -- March 5, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

Links to reports & commentary on the Supreme Court hearing in the King v. Burwell case are in the previous post.

American "Justice," Ctd. Adam Lerner of Politico: "Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that the Justice Department's investigation provided a 'searing' account of unconstitutional police practices in Ferguson, Missouri and that 'all options are on the table' in pursuit of reform."

Matt Apuzzo & John Eligon of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Wednesday called on Ferguson, Mo., to overhaul its criminal justice system, declaring that the city had engaged in so many constitutional violations that they could be corrected only by abandoning its entire approach to policing, retraining its employees and establishing new oversight. In one example after another, the report described a city that used its police and courts as moneymaking ventures, a place where officers stopped and handcuffed people without probable cause, hurled racial slurs, used stun guns without provocation, and treated anyone as suspicious merely for questioning police tactics." ...

... Evan Perez of CNN: "A Justice Department civil rights investigation has concluded that the Ferguson Police Department and the city's municipal court engaged in a 'pattern and practice' of discrimination against African-Americans, targeting them disproportionately for traffic stops, use of force, and jail sentences." ...

... The Guardian has more details. The New York Times has an annotated rundown of key findings of the report. The Washington Post has a graphic summary of the report's statistical findings. The full report is here. ...

... Eliana Dockterman of Time: "Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said Wednesday that one police official had been fired and two others were on administrative leave over racist emails that were cited in the Justice Department's scathing new report on the city's police department." ...

... More key findings from Anna Brand & Amanda Sakuma of NBC News. ...

... CW: Justice Is Color-Blind. The findings are appalling. What with the big case argued before the Supremes yesterday, it's a good day to remember that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't think horrendous racial discrimination of the type seen in Ferguson -- and most definitely elsewhere in this great nation of ours -- are important, or maybe even possible: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," John Roberts wrote in a 2007 decision. Because racism is so over that we can just faggedaboudit. (You might want to read the linked column, by Dahlia Lithwick, because Justice Sotomayor's response was so apt & so cutting that it hurt the Chief's widdle feewings.) ...

... "Pigment Tax." Charles Blow: "The report contained charges that the Police Department and the municipal courts treated citizens less like constituents and more like a revenue stream, violating citizens' constitutional rights in the process.... The report read like one about a shakedown gang rather than about city officials.... Once again, the oppression people feel as part of their lived experiences, and can share only by way of anecdote, is bolstered by data." ...

... ** Jamelle Bouie goes after "the real criminals." And he's right.

Matt Apuzzo & Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Offering the most definitive account yet of the shooting of an unarmed black teenager that stirred racially charged protests across the country, the Justice Department has cleared a Ferguson, Mo., police officer of civil rights violations in the death last August of Michael Brown. The decision, announced on Wednesday, ends a lengthy investigation into the shooting last August...."

Tim Devaney of the Hill: "Congressional Republicans opened a new front Wednesday in their fight against Obama administration regulations, with the Senate voting to strike down a contentious rule meant to speed up union elections."

Gail Collins: "... this appears to be the path to the future: Senate Democrats will block anything they don't like, forcing the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to compromise. In the House, the Labradorians won't vote for any Senate compromises, so Boehner will need the Democrats to pass any legislation that could actually make it into law." CW: ... interrupted by confederate histrionics leading to multiple threats of government shutdowns followed by Boehner caving each time to some measure of minimal governance.

Nick Gass of Politico: Edward "'Snowden is ready to return to the States, but on the condition that he is given a guarantee of a legal and impartial trial,' his Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, said at a news conference Tuesday, as quoted by Russian state media outlet TASS.... Jesselyn Radack, one of Snowden's American legal advisers, says Kucherena's statement echoes what they've been saying all along. Were Snowden to return, he would face charges under the World War I-era Espionage Act.... Snowden would be amenable to coming back to the United States for the kind of plea bargain that Gen. [David] Petraeus received,' Radack said, reacting to news that the former general admitted to providing classified information to his mistress while he led the Central Intelligence Agency." ...

... CW: Ha! Sorry, Ed. You have to be a top-level spy who gets caught sending reams of classified material to his girlfriend, or maybe one with top-secret original documents stuffed in his pockets, then lies to investigators about it, to get a deal like Petraeus's.

Presidential Race

Michael Mathes of the AFP: "Hillary Clinton, facing criticism over her exclusive use of a private email account while US secretary of state, has called for her emails to be made public after Republicans subpoenaed the documents. 'I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They (the State Department) said they will review them for release as soon as possible,' Clinton said in a tweet late Wednesday night." ...

... BenghaaaziMail! Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The House Select Committee on Benghazi, which first discovered [Hillary] Clinton's use of a personal e-mail based on a home server in its inquiry into a fatal 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, is asking for all e-mails related to the attack from all Clintonemail.com accounts and any other staff members' personal accounts." ...

... Homebrew. Jack Gillum & Ted Bridis of the AP: "The development on Capitol Hill came the same day AP reported the existence of a personal email server traced back to the Chappaqua, New York, home of Clinton. The unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton -- who is expected to run for president in the 2016 campaign — significant control over limiting access to her message archives. The practice also would complicate the State Department's legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests.... Homemade email servers are generally not as reliable, secure from hackers or protected from fires or floods as those in commercial data centers." On the other hand, "in 2006 and 2014 that the [State Department's e-mail system] ... suffered significant electronic break-ins." ...

... Michael Riley, et al., of Bloomberg Business: "Although Clinton worked hard to secure the private system, her consultants appear to have set it up with a misconfigured encryption system, something that left it vulnerable to hacking, said Alex McGeorge, head of threat intelligence at Immunity Inc., a Miami Beach-based digital security firm." ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The mystery man linked to Hillary Clinton's personal e-mail account appears to be a Washington, D.C. stockbroker and former aide to the Clintons who played a walk-on role in controversies that dogged the former first family soon after it left the White House in 2001." ...

... The Word from Anonymous: Nedra Pickler & Josh Lederman of the AP: "The White House counsel's office was not aware when Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state that she relied solely on a private email account.... A person familiar with the matter ... says Clinton's exclusive use of personal email was inconsistent with guidance given to agencies that official business should be conducted on official email accounts. The person says the counsel's office only became aware when some of her messages were turned over to congressional investigators looking into the Benghazi attack. The person said the White House counsel's office then asked the State Department to ensure that her email records were properly archived." ...

... Frank Rich: "... the more important question is why the Clintons, who more than anyone in American politics understand the high risks of perceived improprieties, have left Hillary's campaign so vulnerable even before it is officially out of the gate.... What is the Democrats' Plan B if their presumed presidential candidate falls by the wayside? Answer: None.... The Democrats ridicule the GOP field at their own peril; they have no field at all." ...

"... She's Going to Die by a 1,000 Cuts." Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "One of Vice President Biden's most prominent supporters said Wednesday that twin controversies swirling around Hillary Rodham Clinton should give Democrats serious pause about anointing her as the party's presidential nominee." ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "Even if she did nothing illegal, the sheer stupidity of this blows my mind. I mean, she just had to know this would be an issue. And if she didn't, is she just that insulated from reality by her shield of aides and see-no-evil supporters?" ...

... Oh, the Irony. Annie Lowrey of New York: "You loathe the idea of your personal correspondence getting out to a press you consider pathological, so you jury-rig a private email account and end up in the midst of a massive media cluster[fuck] anyway."

... Brendan Nyhan in the New York Times: "... the conversation quickly veered from matters of policy into ominous speculation about the political consequences for Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, including hyperbolic suggestions that the emails could 'shake up the 2016 race,' cause irreparable damage to her, cause her to lose the general election, or even help force her out of the race. The actual public response to the controversy is likely to be a combination of apathy and partisanship. Few Americans are paying attention to any aspect of the campaign at this point." ...

... Andy Borowitz: "A new poll indicates that the American people are deeply disappointed in Hillary Clinton's State Department e-mail flap because it does not live up to the high standards of sordidness set by Clinton scandals of the past." ...

... The E-Mail Daemon. Katie Glueck of Politico: "If it seems like the GOP presidential field has been unusually silent this week as scrutiny mounts over Hillary Clinton's email practices, there's a logical explanation: Many of them are tormented by their own email demons."

Famous Doctor Explains the Gay. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Possible Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Wednesday asserted that homosexuality was a choice because people who went to prison 'come out gay.'" Includes video. ...

... Ed Kilgore: "Gee, aren't you glad we have a presidential candidate with some serious scientific training?" Also, liberal/gay (same thing) Nazis.

... Luke Brinker of Salon: "Neurosurgeon-turned-GOP presidential hopeful offers further evidence that an MD doesn't guard against stupidity." Also, too: "The renowned neurosurgeon's latest remarks are the latest to put him at odds with the scientific consensus. A creationist, Carson suggested on 'Meet the Press' this Sunday that scientific notions like evolution may be 'just propaganda." ...

... The "Choice of Words" Non-Apology Apology. Eric Bradner & Alexandra Jaffe of CNN: "Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson apologized for commenting Wednesday that prisoners' changes after they leave jail proves being gay is a choice, but said that the science is still murky on the issue. In a statement, Carson said he 'realized that my choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues.'" ...

... Steve M.: "When the story went viral, he did the right thing, as far as the voters he's targeting are concerned: He blamed the media and said he was quoted out of context." ...

... Andrew Kirell of Mediaite: "... during a radio discussion this afternoon with Sean Hannity, Carson blamed the ordeal on CNN. 'It was a 25 minute interview they chopped, and you see what part they emphasized,' he said. 'I did learn something very important: For certain networks, never do a pre-taped interview. Always do it live.' The problem with his attempt to play victim here is that, during that sequence of the CNN interview, there were clearly no jump-cuts and no edits -- just a straight back-and-forth about whether homosexuality is a choice. Playing this off with a 'gotcha media vs. poor ol' Ben Carson' spin isn't exactly going to cut it. Sometimes your words are just your words."

The Image of Corruption in the New Gilded Age. Illustration by Donkey Hotey.Quid Pro Quo. Bradley Camptell in a New York Times op-ed: After Exxon gave the Republican Governors Association, which Chris Christie headed, Christie's personal lawyer 'inserted himself" into New Jersey's decade-old environmental disaster case against Exxon. The lawyer, Christopher Porrino, "elbowed aside the attorney general and career employees who had developed and prosecuted the litigation, and cut the deal" settling the case for pennies on the dollar. CW: Great pro on the quid, Exxon! ...

... Dustin Racioppi of the Bergen County, New Jersey, Record: “State lawmakers are trying to block a reported pennies-on-the-dollar settlement with Exxon Mobil and get answers as to why Governor Christie's administration reached that deal after a decade of litigation. Days after the news of that settlement -- a reported $250 million to end an $8.9 billion claim against the oil company for widespread contamination across Bayonne and Linden -- legislators said they still don't know why the state would strike a deal for a fraction of the estimated cost of damages, especially after the oil giant was found liable."

Senate Race

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen on Wednesday became the first formal Democratic entrant in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Cardinal Edward M. Egan, a stern defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy who presided over the Archdiocese of New York for nine years in an era of troubled finances, changing demographics and a priesthood of dwindling, aging ranks shaken by sexual-abuse scandals, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 82."

NBC News: "The Supreme Court has set April 28 as the date for historic arguments on gay marriage."

AP: "On the first day of testimony Wednesday in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose lawyer admitted he committed the crime, three women who suffered severe injuries described their memories of the blasts, their wounds and the terror they felt."

NBC News: "'We are very close [to reaching a nuclear agreement] if the political decision can be made to get to yes, as President Obama said,' [Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif] said. The minister spoke a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the U.S. Congress, warning against a deal, which he said 'paves Iran's path to the bomb.'"