The Commentariat -- Sept. 25, 2014

Internal links removed.

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will resign his post, the Justice Department said Thursday. Mr. Holder will remain in office until a successor is nominated and confirmed." CW: Good luck with that. See Justice Ginsburg's remarks below. Maybe Republicans senators would be okay with returning Ed Meese to the job. ...

... Charles Pierce: "There is a decent chance ... that his successor will have to be confirmed by a Senate with a Republican majority, at least some of whom, I suspect, would be perfectly happy if the president didn't have an Attorney General for the rest of his term. Which, it appears, would leave Holder in place. In any event, they're already erecting the big top and lining up the elephants for a three-ring confirmation process that will embarrass every enlightened political leader back to Pericles. I can't wait."

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama on Wednesday charted a muscular new course for the United States in a turbulent world, telling the United Nations General Assembly in a bluntly worded speech that the American military would work with allies to dismantle the Islamic State’s 'network of death' and warning Russia that it would pay for its bullying of Ukraine":

... Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The United Nations security council agreed on Wednesday to launch a concerted effort to staunch the flow of radicalised jihadists from around the world to the cause of Islamic State and other terrorist groups. In a rare session of the security council attended by heads of state – only the sixth of its kind in the organ’s 68-year history – all 15 member states voted for a US-backed resolution that seeks to step up the battle against 'foreign terrorist fighters', as US president Barack Obama described them":

... President Obama opens the special session of the U.N. Security Council:

... AND closes it:

... Karen DeYoung, et al., of the Washington Post: "U.S. missile strikes against an obscure al-Qaeda cell [Khorasan] in Syria killed at least one of the group’s leaders, [Mushin al-Fadhli,] delivering what U.S. officials described as a significant but not decisive blow to a terrorist group accused of plotting attacks against Europe and the United States." U.S. intelligence agencies have not yet confirmed the report. ...

... Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "... in moral terms, [Obama's] war is nothing like [Bush's] war, and if this war doesn’t end up like Bush’s and somehow actually solves more problems than it creates, that will happen precisely because of the moral differences.... The first and most important difference, plainly and simply: Obama didn’t lie us into this war.... Difference number two: This war doesn’t involve 140,000 ground troops.... Difference number three: This coalition, while still in its infancy, could in the end be a far more meaningful coalition than Bush’s." ...

... CW: With Friends Like These. Here's something I learned in reading Tomasky's column. Amel Ahmed of Al Jazeera (September 11): "The beheading of Pakistani national Izzat Gul for drug trafficking was Saudi Arabia's 46th such execution for 2014, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). In August alone, Saudi Arabia decapitated 19 people, eight of them for nonviolent offenses, including sorcery, the rights group added." ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: Bombing terrorists is good politics!

CW: Thanks to the commenters to yesterday's Commentariat who provided links to good stuff. I'm relinking some here in case you missed them:

Frank Rich: "In truth, we already have boots on the ground [in Iraq] in the form of 'special forces' and 'advisers.' The moment they start returning to America in body bags, or are seen being slaughtered in ISIS videos, is the moment when the recent polling uptick in support for this war will evaporate. That support is an inch deep, and Congress knows it, which is why members of both parties fled Washington for the campaign trail last week rather than debate Obama’s war plan." Thanks to MAG.

Charles Pierce on why we should vote -- "every time and in every election, no matter how apparently minor the office or how apparently insignificant the issue." Thanks to James S. ...

... "The Arrogance of Ignorance." Pierce also links to Kurt Eichenwald's excellent Newsweek piece on Texas's "Textbook Case of Bad Textbooking": "Yes, professional historians know more than you about American history. Yes, professional biologists know more than you about evolution. Yes, professional climatologists know more than you about climate science. To argue otherwise is merely a reflection of the relentless self-worship of the untrained, a rapidly spreading malady that might best be called 'the arrogance of ignorance.'” ...

... CW: One fairly humorous outgrowth of the "arrogance of ignorance" is Republican politicians' pained efforts to cater to their ignorant base: When asked if they "believe" in evolution or man-made climate change, the politicians' stock answer is, "I'm not a scientist." (Or the even more hilarious Bobby Jindal version: "I was not an evolutionary biologist.") So they are telling the same ignoramuses who think "experts" are suspicious librul propagandists that you have to be a highly-trained suspicious librul propagandist to know enough about evolution or climate change to form an opinion. Privileging the arrogance of ignorance requires a mastery of circular logical.

Here's the creepy ad that is going to make us "Democrat ladies" vote for Republicans this year. Thanks to Akhilleus:

... Joan Walsh of Salon: "Obviously [the ad's sponsors] think we’re idiots who put romance before reason, even in politics.... Maybe the worst thing about the ad is that its sponsors are utterly clueless about how demeaning it is. ...

The goal here is to communicate with women voters in a way that outside groups and campaigns haven’t. -- John Jordan, a wealthy California vintner who bankrolled the ad

CW: As several observers have pointed out, even that isn't true: "... the spot is very similar to a Web ad the Republican National Committee did in 2012 called 'The Breakup':

CW: It totally pisses me off when people like Joan Walsh suggest that John Jordan would produce a sexist ad that "demeans women." Jordan is the big blond guy in the sunglasses:

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Tom Edsall: "In developed countries like the United States, however, there are legitimate and growing doubts about the beneficence of the market and the ability of the system to distribute the rewards of growth to those who make growth possible." Thanks to Ken W. CW: Edsall would not be a good fit for the Jefferson County, Colorado, school board (see Charles Pierce's post, linked above) which "call[s] for teaching materials promoting patriotism, respect for authority and the free-market system."

Gail Collins: "Only 3 percent of current Republican members of Congress have been willing to go on record as accepting the fact that people are causing global warming.... That includes Representative Michael Grimm of New York, who while laudably open-minded on this subject, is also under indictment for perjury and tax fraud. So we may be pushing 2 percent in January." Collins prominently mentions Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who makes weekly speeches on the Senate floor about climate change. Here's one of Whitehouse's floor speeches, whacking today's Republicans, "who let pollutors cast their dark shadows over Republicans in Congress." President Reagan's views on conserving the environment, Whitehouse notes, "would make him a fringe liberal candidate in today's Republican party":

... CW: Whitehouse is my nominee for president. Has been for several years. Not a chance.

Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says that if she steps down now, President Obama would not be able to appoint an acceptable replacement.... 'Who do you think President Obama could appoint at this very day, given the boundaries that we have? If I resign any time this year, he could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court,' she said. '[Senate Republicans] took off the filibuster for lower federal court appointments, but it remains for this court. So anybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they’re misguided.'" Excerpts of the Elle interview, by Jessica Weisberg, are here. ...

     ... CW: Sorry, Ruth. Thanks an excuse, not a reason to hold onto your seat. Assuming the next president is a Democrat, why would she have been luck with Senate Republicans. Because she might be white??? You blew a chance to preserve your legacy with a Democratic Supreme Court appointee. Souter & Stevens did the right thing. ...

... Liberal women disagree with me. This may be because they don't understand a basic human characteristic: even more than young people, who often think of themselves as immune from mortal danger, old people want to go on living & doing. The will to live can give them exaggerated views of their capacities. This is probably especially true of people who are extremely successful, like, say Supreme Court justices. I'm not saying Ginsburg is on death's door; I deeply hope she is not. But individuals, no matter how wise they may otherwise be, are not necessarily the best judges of their own mortality. ...

... AND Jon Walker of Firedoglake puts the Ginsburg debate in its larger context: the problem is lifetime appointments. "Ginsburg has been on the Supreme Court since 1993. That means she has already played a huge role in shaping American policy for over 20 years, but even that is not enough. Her lifetime appointment gives her the freedom to decide when to retire enabling her to play a massive role in determining who her replacement will be. This should easily extend her influence by another 30 years...."

Oops! Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) discovered secret documents revealing the names & level of contributions of corporate donors to the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, a 501(c)(4) group "which is allowed to shield its supporters from the public." The documents also reveal the remarkable level of access to GOP governors the corporations have purchased with their "membership" in the committee. “'This is a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money, hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the governors association is selling it,' said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan group that advocates more transparency and controls over political money." The documents CREW obtained are here (pdf).

Jay Michaelson of the Daily Beast: "The Gathering is a conference of hard-right Christian organizations and, perhaps more important, funders. Most of them are not household names, at least if your household isn’t evangelical. But that’s the point: The Gathering is a hub of Christian Right organizing, and the people in attendance have led the campaigns to privatize public schools, redefine 'religious liberty' (as in the Hobby Lobby case), fight same-sex marriage, fight evolution, and, well, you know the rest. They’re probably behind that, too." Among the speakers at this year's gathering of the Gathering: David Brooks of the NYT. Brooks makes a bundle on these speaking engagements, but lending the imprimatur of the New York Times to this gang is pretty unseemly. Thanks to Bonita for the link.

Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "In the largest settlement with a single American Indian tribe, the Obama administration will pay the Navajo Nation $554 million to settle claims that the U.S. government has mismanaged funds and natural resources on the Navajo reservation for decades. The settlement, to be signed in Window Rock, Ariz., on Friday, resolves a long-standing dispute between the Navajo Nation and the U.S. government, with some of the claims dating back more than 50 years."

Beyond the Beltway

Chris Caesar of the Boston Globe: "The trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will stay in [Boston], a federal judge ruled Wednesday night. Lawyers for the 21-year-old man told the court last week their client wouldn’t receive a fair trial in Boston, and requested the case be moved to a Washington, D.C. courtroom. 'The defendant has not proven that this is one of the rare and extreme cases for which a presumption of prejudice is warranted,' the decision reads."

Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Surveillance footage from an Ohio Walmart store, where police killed a young black man[, John Crawford III,] who was holding an unloaded air rifle and talking on his cellphone, shows he was was [sic.] shot from the side as he moved to run away from advancing officers.... A grand jury in Greene County declined on Wednesday to indict Sean Williams, the police officer who shot Crawford, on charges of murder, reckless homicide or negligent homicide.... An attorney for Crawford’s family described their decision as 'absolutely incomprehensible'. The US department of justice quickly announced that it would review the case with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the possibility of federal criminal charges." CW: The video is embedded in the Guardian story. In addition to disproving the claim that Crawford was brandishing the airgun & walking around pointing it at other customers, the video appears to me to show that officers continued shooting him after he dropped the gun. It's sickening.

CBS News: "A former state trooper faces a felony charge in the shooting of an unarmed man during a traffic stop in Columbia earlier this month." Includes video of the shooting. CW: One striking thing: the victim Lavar Jones, who is black, knew almost reflexively to raise his hands in surrender -- after trooper Sean Groubert shot him without provocation. ...

... CW: When a cop stops me for an (alleged!) traffic violation & asks me for my license & registration, I always tell him (so far, it's always been "him") I don't have a weapon in the car & that I'm going to get the docs from my purse/glove box, but if he would feel safer in getting them himself or first checking out the place I keep them, he is free to do so. This means of course that I am ceding certain rights, but I'd rather be alive than constitutionally correct. P.S. If you do like to travel with a controlled substance, or if you keep a weapon in the glove box, plan ahead & keep your documents someplace else. ...

... Yes We Cam. Josh Marshall of TPM: "Would Groubert have lost his badge and be facing charges had there not been a dashcam video revealing the reality of what happened? Let's put that down as a rhetorical question."

John Schwartz of the New York Times: "The oil giant BP cannot recoup hundreds of millions of dollars it claims to have overpaid victims of a 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. At a hearing in Federal District Court in New Orleans, Judge Carl J. Barbier rejected BP’s request that it be allowed to claw back the extra money paid out under an old accounting method."

Gubernatorial Race

Monica Davey of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court on Wednesday removed an injunction halting an investigation into whether the campaign of Gov. Scott Walker illegally coordinated with conservative groups on fund-raising and spending as he sought to overcome a recall effort two years ago. The decision by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit raised the prospect that prosecutors could eventually resume the investigation even as Mr. Walker, who has been mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, is engaged in a tight battle for re-election."

Presidential Election

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: Jeb [Not His Real Name] Bush goes to North Carolina in support of Tea party Senatorial candidate Thom Tillis, & finds out Tillis & N.C. Republicans are not all that fond of Bush's supposed librul views on immigration & education. ...

... Ed Kilgore: "I betcha Tillis’ people were close to throttling Jebbie’s people backstage; the last thing they need right now is to have someone come into North Carolina and offend Tillis’ 'base.' One thing Bush should have learned from Mitt Romney’s travails in 2012 is that when you are stuck with an issue position at odds with the dominant sentiment in your party (as with RomneyCare), you really just have three choices: flip-flop, lie or simply don’t talk about it." ...

... Speaking of Mutt & Jeff Mitt & Jeb... Bryon York of the Washington Examiner: Mitt "Romney is talking with advisers, consulting with his family, keeping a close eye on the emerging '16 Republican field, and carefully weighing the pluses and minuses of another run. That doesn't mean he will decide to do it, but it does mean that Mitt 2016 is a real possibility.... Romney is said to believe that, other than himself, [Jeb] Bush is the only one of the current Republican field who could beat Hillary Clinton in a general election. If Bush jumps in the race, this line of thinking goes, Romney would not run."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 24, 2014

Internal links, illustration removed.

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "U.S. military leaders said Tuesday their aerial bombardment of Syria was only the beginning of a prolonged campaign ... and will become more difficult as targeted militants seek refuge in populated areas. The United States is now attacking two sets of enemies in the region: the Islamic State..., and the Khorasan Group, a smaller network affiliated with al-Qaeda that officials say is plotting against Europe and the United States.... Whether the coalition's intervention in Syria will eventually help or hurt [Syrian President Bashar al]Assad represents one of the greatest unknowns in a military campaign filled with uncertainty." ...

... Rosie Gray & others at BuzzFeed try to explain who Khorasan is. ...

Somini Sengupta & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The United States said on Tuesday that the American-led airstrikes against the Islamic State -- carried out in Syria without seeking the permission of the Syrian government or the United Nations Security Council -- were legal because they were done in defense of Iraq. The American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, officially informed the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, of the legal justification in a letter...."

... Hey, Kids! Let's get some perspective from Glenn Greenwald: "... Syria becomes the 7th predominantly Muslim country bombed by 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate Barack Obama -- after Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Iraq. The utter lack of interest in what possible legal authority Obama has to bomb Syria is telling indeed: Empires bomb who they want, when they want, for whatever reason (indeed, recall that Obama bombed Libya even after Congress explicitly voted against authorization to use force, and very few people seemed to mind that abject act of lawlessness; constitutional constraints are not for warriors and emperors)." ...

... CW: Please don't bother to remind me I'm a jerk. I know that. Greenwald raises valid points here, but his overdramatization of everything makes it impossible for me to take him seriously. The imperial presidency, my ass.

President Obama made public remarks Tuesday at a meeting of Arab Coalition leaders in New York City:

Josh Lederman of the AP: "Ordinary citizens will often have a more lasting impact on their community than their presidents and prime ministers, President Barack Obama said Tuesday as he promoted civil society at the annual Clinton Global Initiative in New York." The video below includes President Clinton's introductory remarks:

Mark Landler & Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "President Obama, emboldened by the use of his executive powers to fight climate change at home, sought on Tuesday to marshal more than 100 world leaders behind a vast international effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and curb global warming. But Mr. Obama, in pledging that the United States would set ambitious new targets to cut emissions in advance of critical global climate talks next year, will leave much of the hard work to his successor, or even the president after that":

What Outrageous, Unpresidential Act Did Obama Commit Tuesday? Bomb Another Country? (See Greenwald.) Sign an Unconstitutional Executive Order? Nah. Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "Some are calling it the 'latte salute.' When President Obama stepped off Marine One at the Wall Street landing zone in New York City, en route the United Nations, he saluted two Marines at the bottom of the stairs as he held a coffee cup in the same hand." ..

... Steve M. "Coffee-cup-ghazi!"

Dana Milbank: "Friday's [White House] fence-jumping episode ... has the Secret Service considering extraordinary remedies.... The Secret Service is preparing to punish the public for the agency's mistakes.... A deeper problem may explain those mistakes. As The Post reported: 'Former agents said they fear the breach may be related to a severe staffing shortage the agency has struggled with in the last year in its Uniform Division.' To plug the holes, the Secret Service has been flying in agents from other locations who don't know the White House as well." ...

... CW: Yeah, this is why I especially enjoy it when Tea party Republicans like Jason Chaffetz (Utah), who proudly self-identifies as a budget-cutting phenom, turn around & blame President Obama for "perhaps failing to take security as seriously as it should." Chaffetz, BTW, is not one to learn from his egregious mistakes: Here's the little prick in 2012, post-Benghazi, self-righteously explaining why he voted to cut $300 million in funding for embassy security: "Absolutely. Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country." Nonetheless, Chaffetz has made so many Benghaaazi! charges against the administration that I can't possibly link them.

Nate Raymond of Reuters: "Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza avoided prison on Tuesday when a U.S. judge sentenced him to serve eight months in a community confinement center after he pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law. D'Souza, 53, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan to live in a center, which would allow him to leave during non-residential hours for employment, for the first eight months of a five-year probationary period.... 'I'm not sure, Mr. D'Souza, that you get it,' Berman said before announcing the sentence. 'And it is still hard for me to discern any personal acceptance of responsibility in this case.'" ...

... AND, if one is to believe the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. D'Souza, D'Souza is a serial liar & a wife-beater. ...

... The Smoking Gun: "During the sentencing hearing, [Judge] Berman read from a blistering letter submitted to the court by D'Souza's estranged wife. In the missive, Dixie D'Souza alleged that her ex-spouse forged her signature on one campaign contribution form, and that he had an 'abusive nature.'"

CW: Jonathan Chait writes what looks like a good takedown of Paul Ryan's New Fuzzy Math, but I didn't have time to read it.

CW: I keep missing Charles Pierce's posts because Wendy's, the wholesome place where I do most of my Internetting, has blocked that dirty publication Esquire. However, via Driftglass, I learn that Pierce did quite a number of Chuck Todd. Driftglass wraps Pierce's prose in a nice ribbon -- and also links to the original.

Senate Race

Does Pat Roberts Think Democrats Are Nazis? Ed Kilgore: "... Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, no ideological firebrand but rather the most hackish of time-servers, casually said that under Democratic governance 'this country is heading for national socialism'.... You have to wonder what Bob Dole, who was sitting nearby Roberts when he made this incredibly offensive remark -- and who fought against actual National Socialists in World War II -- thought of it." ...

... CW: It would appear, based on Philip Rucker's tweets added as updates to Dylan Scott's TPM post, that Roberts just has no idea who the National Socialists were. Rucker's tweets suggest Roberts is clueless & doesn't understand why Rucker asked him about the National Socialism question. ...

     ... Update: Robert's campaign tried to "clarify" his remarks without indicating the candidate is a dope.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Rowena Mason of the Guardian: British PM "David Cameron has been caught on camera talking about how the Queen 'purred down the line' after he phoned her to say Scotland had voted no to independence. The prime minister's remarks suggesting the Queen was pleased with the result are a rare, albeit accidental, breach of the convention that the prime minister never speaks about his conversations with the monarch. It also jeopardises her traditional neutrality.... Cameron's exchange with Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, was accidentally picked up by Sky News as they walked through an office in the businessman's media empire."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 23, 2014

Valerie Volcovici of Reuters: "... the United Nations on Tuesday will zero in on climate change, giving leaders from 125 countries a platform to explain how they plan to address the issue.... The White House announced on Tuesday that Obama would issue an executive order to require federal agencies to ensure their international development programs and investments are designed to help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change." ...

... Jon Stewart explains climate change to Republican deniers. Thanks to P. D. Pepe:

     ... As Victoria D. comments, Stewart should have said "Republican" more because it's House Science Committee Republicans who need third-grade visuals to understand the obvious.

President Obama made remarks late this morning about strikes on ISIS. Politico has a brief report here:

     ... Update. The New York Times report, by Mark Landler & others, is here. ...

David Kirkpatrick & Omar Al-Jawoshy of the New York Times: "After six weeks of American airstrikes, the Iraqi government’s forces have scarcely budged the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State from their hold on more than a quarter of the country, in part because many critical Sunni tribes remain on the sidelines. Although the airstrikes appear to have stopped the extremists' march toward Baghdad, the Islamic State is still dealing humiliating blows to the Iraqi Army. On Monday, the government acknowledged that it had lost control of the small town of Sichar and lost contact with several hundred of its soldiers who had been besieged for nearly a week at a camp north of the Islamic State stronghold of Falluja, in Anbar Province." ...

... Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: An ISIS suicide attack on an Iraqi army base in Anbar Province -- the attackers arrived in bomb-rigged Humvees & hundreds of Iraqi soldiers may have died -- "has highlighted shortcomings in an army that the United States has spent billions of dollars training and equipping, and it has further undermined the force's reliability as a partner as President Obama expands airstrikes into provinces including Anbar.... 'There were no reinforcements, no food supplies, no medicine, no water, and then our ammunition began to run out,' said 1st Lt. Haider Majid, 28. 'We called our leaders so many times. We called our commanders, we called members of parliament, but they just left us there to die.'"

... Michael Hirsh in Politico Magazine on "America's new war president." Hirsh looks at the realities, including the political realities, that have led President Obama to begin what Hirsh calls a "new war" against ISIS. CW Note: Hirsh works for Politico now, but he has been a level-headed, nonpartisan reporter & opinionator for a long time. My one disagreement with Hirsh here is that he ignores conditions that invited an ISIS-type jihad, most notably Bush's Stupid War. Worth a read. ...

... Juan Cole: "Some 80% of Raqqah[, Syria]’s 240,000 inhabitants, i.e. about 190,000 people, are said to have remained after ISIL took over the city.... It is inevitable that US and allied bombing on important Raqqah military targets will kill a certain number of civilians.... The some 22 sorties flown on Monday will have killed some ISIL terrorists, blown up some weapons warehouses, and destroyed some checkpoints. But ISIL are guerrillas, and they will just fade away into Raqqah's back alleys. The US belief in air power is touching, but in fact no conflict has ever been quickly brought to an end where US planes have been involved." See also today's News Ledes.

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Federal prosecutors alleged Monday in federal court that a man who jumped a fence and ran into the White House's unlocked front door Friday night posed a threat to President Obama and was keeping 800 rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete in his car, parked blocks away.... After a 15-minute hearing, [U.S Magistrate Judge John] Facciola ordered [Omar Jose] Gonzalez held until Oct. 1, pending revocation of bond by authorities in an unrelated July 19 incident in Wythe County, Va. In that case, he was arrested while allegedly carrying a sawed-off shotgun, two sniper rifles and several other firearms, as well as a map of the Washington area with the Masonic Temple in Alexandria, Va., circled and a line pointed toward the White House, a local prosecutor said. Earlier, on Aug. 25, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Mudd said, U.S. Secret Service officers saw Gonzalez carrying a hatchet in the back waistband of his pants along the south fence of the White House and questioned him." ...

... The New York Times report, by Michael Shear & Michael Schmidt, is here. "Among the items found in Mr. Gonzalez's vehicle in July was a mini-arsenal of 11 guns including two shotguns and four rifles, some equipped with scopes and bipods that a sniper would use and 'a map of Washington, D.C., with writing and a line drawn to the White House,' law enforcement officials said. He also had four pistols, three of them loaded, and a revolver." ...

... CW: Only in America could a guy get away with carrying a "mini-arsenal" & a map to the home of the head of state. The only illegal item he was carrying, according to Virginia police, was a sawed-off shotgun. Everything else was cool. Instead of investigating Secret Service policies, we should be looking at our culture of violence, one in which the police "did not regard ... as dangerous or mentally unstable" a veteran carrying a mini-arsenal who led them on a high-speech chase. Apparently they took his word that he was a veteran & that made everything fine. ...

... AND, yes, this post is related. Charles Pierce: "I would wager that, in every state where there is a close election, and where open-carry laws of one kind or another are in force, you will see armed men at precincts 'protecting' the vote. It's the logical confluence of voter-suppression and unlimited gun rights.... And then, in 2016, there will be more guns at the polls. They really don't miss a trick." ...

... CW: I was thinking of observing that most of the country is becoming Dodge City. Then I remembered that Dodge City & other Western towns actually had strict gun control laws. Luckily, the Supreme Court of the day -- not exactly a bastion of liberal ideology -- did not pretend the Second Amendment expressed an individual's right to pack heat.

Gregory Korte of USA Today: "The Treasury Department will crack down on so-called tax 'inversions,' targeting companies that try to avoid taxes by moving their headquarters overseas. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the new rules would help close what he called a 'glaring loophole in the U.S. tax code' in which U.S. companies acquire foreign businesses and then switch their citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the lead.

John Boehner Thinks the Jobless Are Lazy. But the House passed a "jobs" bill! Danny Vinik of the New Republic: "Last Thursday, House Republicans passed a 'jobs' bill that includes a smorgasbord of traditional conservative ideas. But it would also increase the deficit by $590 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And these aren't temporary costs, like the stimulus (which wasn't that much larger, money-wise than this new GOP 'jobs' plan anyways). After the first decade, the costs will only increase.... It would make permanent a collection of tax breaks.... It would require Congressional approval for any regulation with estimated costs over $100 million. The bill would also change Obamacare's definition of a full-time employee from 30 to 40 hours and, oh yeah, repeal the medical device tax." Read the whole post.

Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times: "Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said Monday that his biggest mistake in the handling of the Ray Rice situation is that he didn't get an earlier look at the surveillance video from inside the elevator -- and had no interest in seeing it. '"I lacked a whole lot of interest. Zero desire to see that tape,' Bisciotti said in a news conference called to address and dispute a lengthy story by ESPN's 'Outside the Lines' that said the Ravens knew the details of Rice striking his future wife inside the casino elevator within hours of the incident." A transcript of the full rebuttal, published in the Baltimore Sun, is here.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Sen. Rand Paul's lawsuit over National Security Agency surveillance was put on hold Monday, pending an appeals court ruling on a parallel case brought before the senator's. Judge Richard Leon did not explain the rationale for his ruling but granted a Justice Department motion to halt the case while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit considers the NSA surveillance issue in separate lawsuits brought by conservative activist Larry Klayman." CW Working Theory: Leon just wanted to cut the billable hours of Ken Cuccinelli, who brought the suit on behalf of Paul & Freeeedom Works.

Senate Race

Charles Pierce comments on Rep. Tom Cotton's (RTP) challenge to Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) CW: It's a great commentary, but I do wish to warn readers of the foolishness of the idea that we all would be living in the Kingdom of Heaven if only So-&-So had won/lost a particular election. I suppose this view is an offshoot of the "great man" theory of history, infused with wishful thinking/I-told-you-to-vote. Obviously, elections matter, but the dynamics that tip the balance one way or the other don't vacillate all that much. Voters are still conservative or liberal, dumb or dumber, etc. To assume that defeating Newt Gingrich -- as Pierce does -- would have radically changed history is a mistake. We'll never know but -- more than likely House Republicans, whose makeup would have remained essentially the same, would have chosen another jerk for Speaker. The show goes on no matter the players.

Presidential Election

Steve M.: "... the Washington Free Beacon wants you to realize that ... Hillary Clinton's youthful correspondence with Saul Alinsky proves that she's an unreconstructed radical leftist.... Let's see: Hillary Clinton was a top adviser to her husband, the governor of Arkansas, for twelve years; she was America's First Lady (and a top adviser to the president) for eight years; she was a U.S. senator for eight years; and she was secretary of state for four years -- and in all that time she's been a Third Way left-centrist and a relatively hawkish Democrat. But she was just fooling us! She knew that, one day, the full flower of her evil leftist scheme to communize America would bloom, because ... she knew her time would come." ...

... CW: I'll admit I ignored this shocking story; I'm grateful to Steve M. for explaining it. It isn't just that the right lives in an "intellectual closed loop," as Krugman wrote in his column yesterday, but also that within that loop, the loopy do not adhere to basic logic thinking or simple common sense. ...

... Like Every Lefty, Clinton Is a Party Animal. Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "... the Clinton Global Initiative now outshines the U.N. gathering, at least when it comes to star wattage. It also serves as an annual company picnic and convocation of the faithful for the Clintons' far-flung political and business networks." CW: I find the Clinton conglomerate extremely creepy. I suppose to some extent most of us are phony self-promoters, but the Clintons have carried vainglory to a mawkish, tawdry extreme. ...

... Molly Ball of the Atlantic, last week: "Everywhere Hillary Clinton goes, a thousand cameras follow. Then she opens her mouth, and nothing happens."

News Ledes

Der Spiegel: "German-American journalist Michael Scott Moore has been freed two-and-a-half years after he was kidnapped in Somalia. German officials received Moore, who worked for Spiegel International years before his abduction, on Tuesday afternoon local time." Via Gawker.

New York Times: "The United States and five Arab allies launched a wide-ranging air campaign against the Islamic State and at least one other extremist group in Syria for the first time early Tuesday, targeting the groups' bases, training camps and checkpoints in at least four provinces, according to the United States military and Syrian activists. The intensity of the attacks struck a fierce opening blow against the jihadists of the Islamic State, scattering its forces and damaging the network of facilities it has built in Syria that helped fuel its seizure of a large part of Iraq this year." ...

... AP: "Syria said Tuesday that Washington informed President Bashar Assad's government of imminent U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State group, hours before an American-led military coalition pounded the extremists' strongholds across northern and eastern Syria."

New York Times: "The Israeli military said Tuesday morning that it had shot down a Syrian fighter jet that had 'infiltrated into Israeli airspace,' the first such incident in at least a quarter of a century."

New York Times: "Israeli forces early Tuesday killed the two men they suspected of abducting and murdering three Israeli teenagers from the occupied West Bank in June, according to a military spokesman, closing a crucial chapter in what became the bloodiest period of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades.Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said Marwan Qawasmeh, 29, and Amer Abu Aisha, 33, 'came out shooting' around 6 a.m. as troops breached a two-story structure in Hebron where the suspects had been holed up for a week."