The Commentariat -- July 14, 2014

Internal links, photo, graphics removed.

Billy House in the National Journal: "The House and Senate this week will take up several long-awaited legislative items, though they will do so amid the circus atmosphere surrounding the House GOP's buildup to a vote later this month on suing President Obama over his executive actions." ...

... Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama and other top administration officials will pressure Congress to strike a deal on the Highway Trust Fund in a series of events this week, looking to coerce a deal before the financing for road, bridge, and mass-transit projects is exhausted next month. The president will speak twice on the importance of funding infrastructure...."

Michael Corkery of the New York Times: "Citigroup and the Justice Department have agreed to a $7 billion deal that will settle a federal investigation into the mortgage securities the bank sold in the run-up to the financial crisis. The settlement, announced on Monday morning, includes a $4 billion cash penalty to the Justice Department -- the largest payment of its kind -- as well as $2.5 billion in so-called soft dollars earmarked for aiding struggling consumers and $500 million to state attorneys general and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation."

Massimo Calabresi of Time: "... the Internal Revenue Service has decided it will no longer screen approximately 80% of the organizations seeking tax-exempt charitable status each year, a change that will ease the creation of small charities while doing away with a review intended to counter fraud and prevent political and other noncharitable groups from misusing the tax code.... IRS commissioner John Koskinen said the change would result in 'efficiencies [that] will translate into a faster and better review' of bigger nonprofits, while clearing a 66,000-application backlog that has resulted in yearlong waits for groups seeking to start a charity.

Pierre Thomas of ABC News interviews AG Eric Holder on a number of topics:

     ... Jaime Fuller of the Washington Post has a summary.

Caitlan MacNeal of TPM: On "Fox 'News' Sunday" Britt Hume grills Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) on Perry's proposal to line the border with National Guardsmen:

But the question I'm trying to get at with you is this: if these children, who have undergone these harrowing journeys to escape from the most desperate conditions in their home countries, have gotten this far, are they really going to be deterred by the presence of troops along the border who won't shoot them and can't arrest them? -- Hume to Perry

It's the visual of it.... -- Perry's best answer

... CW: Cruelly, digby likens Perry to (Commander) Neidermeyer there. Personally, I'm pretty sure Perry has already been whacked on the head by a golf ball & dragged across a field by a horse. Come to think of it, I suspect Perry is sporting those new specs because he had "a traumatic brain injury" which caused brain damage. (Where is Karl Rove when we need him to raise the issue?):

I find Governor Perry interesting in that Republicans keep saying, 'Well, we can't fix the immigration issue because we don't trust the President to enforce the law,' And then, when the president actually follows the law in 2002 and 2008, the very law that was signed by President Bush, they said, 'Well, he should do something different.' -- Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) on "Face the Nation" Sunday

... apparently his new glasses haven't altered his perception of the world, or allowed him to see it any more clearly. -- Rand Paul, in a Politico Magazine opinion piece ...

... Here Gov. Rick Send-in-the-Troops Perry & here Sen. Rand Paul knock each other's views on foreign policy. Paul has the better argument in his piece titled "Rick Perry Is Dead Wrong."

Danny Vinik of the New Republic has "definitive proof that Republicans don't care about the long-term unemployed": Speaker John Boehner rejected the Senate's unemployment extensions bill because it used a gimmick called "pension smoothing" to fake-pay for it (since Republicans demanded the funds not add to the deficit); now Boehner is praising the House-crafted bill to extend the Highway Trust Fund -- a bill that uses that same gimmick to fake-pay for it. ...

... And here's proof -- also in the New Republic -- that Republicans especially don't care about working women. Bryce Covert: "A simple solution [to gender pay inequality] may still be unfeasible, at least politically: the Paycheck Fairness Act, which has been introduced a handful of times, starting in 2009, but has always been blocked by Republicans. [Emphasis added.] It would, most importantly, prohibit employers from telling their workers they can't discuss pay with peers, tighten the rules for what counts as a legitimate reason for gender pay disparities, and increase the penalties for unfair pay." Women can't sue for equal pay if they don't know what their male peers are making. Covert suggests numerous other policies that also would help reduce the pay gap.

Allie Grasgreen of Politico: "The American Federation of Teachers approved a resolution [Sunday] afternoon calling for Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign if he does not improve under a plan to be implemented by President Barack Obama. The 'improvement plan' would include the requirement that Duncan enact the funding and equity recommendations of the Equity Commission's 'Each and Every Child' report; change the No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top 'test-and-punish' accountability system to a 'support-and-improve' model; and 'promote rather than question' teachers and school staff.... The resolution comes on the heels of one earlier this month by members of the National Education Association calling for Duncan to step down."

George Packer of the New Yorker: The U.S. is leaving behind Iraqis who helped Americans during & after the Iraq War despite a Congressional mandate to grant them special visas. "... surely America has the capacity to save its Iraqi friends whose war never ended, before ISIS or the militias kill them first."

Laurel Calkins of Bloomberg News: The trial of Perez v. Perry, a fight over Texas redistricting, will begin in federal court in San Antonio today. "It will be the first voting rights trial since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year [in Shelby County v. Holder] that states with a history of racial discrimination no longer need federal approval to change their election rules.... If [the plaintiffs] succeed, Texas might be forced back under federal electoral oversight for as long as 10 years under a largely untested part of the Voting Rights Act left in place by the Supreme Court." ...

... Miriam Rozen of Salon on what she calls "the smoking gun emails" that make the plaintiffs' case.

Kathryn Pogin has an excellent op-ed in the New York Times on the hypocrisy of "Christian" organizations like Hobby Lobby & the University of Notre Dame that are using economic coercion to discriminate against women, a practice that she writes are at odds with Christian principles. "Hobby Lobby offered coverage for some of the contraceptives it now claims its religious faith forbids it to have any association with, until shortly after the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom asked it if it would be interested in filing suit. The company continues to profit from investments in the manufacturers of the 'objectionable' contraceptives through the 401(k) plan it offers its employees. Recently, Hobby Lobby has faced legal trouble for false advertising. It has built a fortune, in large part, by selling goods manufactured in China, infamous for its poor labor conditions and related human rights violations. These are the practices of a corporation that will emphasize the Christian faith of its owners when convenient and profitable, but set that faith aside when it would be costly to do otherwise."

If you are trying to run a whorehouse in the sky, get a license. -- Former Rep. Martha Griffiths (D-Mich.), ca. 1966, on the airlines' practice of limiting jobs for flight attendants to young, single women ...

... ** Louis Menand of the New Yorker on "the sex amendment": how "sex" got added to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

Paul Krugman: "The usual suspects will keep crying failure, but the truth is that health reform is -- gasp! -- working." ...

     ... CW: Krugman focuses on the fact that "an immense policy success is improving the lives of millions of Americans, but it's largely slipping under the radar." Here I'm in limited agreement with Chuck Todd, who said it was not the media's job to correct the GOP's lies about ObamaCare. Todd is wrong on that, of course, but it isn't up to the media to cheerlead the success of ObamaCare. The Obama administration needs to do that. And they're not. Their failure to tout the program's success hurts all Democratic candidates. Meanwhile, Republicans are still pushing repeal.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Six weeks after being released from five years in Taliban captivity, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is expected to return to life as a regular Army soldier as early as Monday, Defense Department officials said late Sunday." ...

     ... CW: Excellent call. A guy who never should have been enlisted in the Army in the first place is being rushed back into active duty after years as a POW. SNAFU.

Jonathan Chait wrote an excellent piece last week in which he documented "7 Ways Paul Ryan Revealed His Love for Ayn Rand." In it, he also demonstrates how "Ryan defenders on the center-right like Ross Douthat, who other public figures say or imply things they don't really mean. The New York Times' official Vatican emissary should revisit Matthew 7:16: "By their fruit you will recognize them."

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Elon James of Salon writes that New York Times opinion columnists really need editors. Exhibit A: David Brooks.

CW: The New Republic's top story today is headed with a screaming invitation to ignore it -- "Did We Just Watch the Last Great World Cup? by Franklin Foer. (1) Foer is TNR's editor. He decides what ledes, so his story is not necessarily the most important in today's online magazine. (2) Any headline framed in the form of a question promises you won't get much of an answer. I usually don't read 'em (& I certainly won't read this one). (3) Any story that relies on predicting the future -- especially the distant future (four years!) -- is most likely pure folly.

Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast: Some mysterious [semi-literate] person leaked the entire text of a new book/hit job on the Clintons by the Weekly Standard's online editor Daniel Harper. The book, Grove writes, "is juicy and gossipy, yet scrupulously researched, drawing on numerous on-the-record conversations (as well as many not-for-attribution interviews) with prominent Democrats and Clinton insiders, past and present."

The man is a shark. -- Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, on President Obama's pool game. Obama beat Hickenlooper -- twice -- at his own game in his own bar last week.

Presidential Election

Brent Johnson of the New Jersey Star-Ledger: "The WMUR Granite State Poll of residents in New Hampshire -- which hosts the nation's first presidential primary -- showed [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie leading all possible candidates for the 2016 Republican nomination for president. Christie drew 19 percent of the vote, followed by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky (14 percent) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (11).... But if [Mitt Romney] were to declare his candidacy, Romney would lead Christie 39 to 7 percent, according to today's poll." CW: In other words, those polled aren't too sold on Christie.

Mark Barabak of the Los Angeles Times: Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is in Iowa "warming up" for the 2016 presidential campaign: "... he is running one of the most vigorous noncampaign campaigns of any 2016 possibility in either party -- raising money, stumping in early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, traveling abroad to boost his foreign policy credentials and honing a message that might be characterized, for brevity's sake, as compassionate competence."

Beyond the Beltway

WFTV Orlando: "Two Fruitland Park[, Florida] police officers are off the job following FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports that they were members of a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Deputy Police Chief David Borst resigned Thursday, and Cpl. George Hunnewell was fired Friday."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Both the Israeli government and leaders of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, said late Monday that they would consider a plan for a cease-fire put forward by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry."

New York Times: "Nadine Gordimer, the South African writer whose literary ambitions led her into the heart of apartheid to create a body of fiction that brought her a Nobel Prize in 1991, died on Sunday in Johannesburg. She was 90."

Los Angeles Times: "A planeload of single mothers and children arrived in [the] gang-ridden Honduran city [of San Pedro Sula] on Monday, ferried back on a U.S.-chartered flight as an unprecedented surge of Central American migrants has overwhelmed U.S. border enforcement officials in recent months.... Their return to Honduras came at President Obama's direction, according to an official at the Department of Homeland Security, who requested anonymity...."

The Commentariat -- July 13, 2014

Internal links, photo removed. 

Everything Is Obama's Fault. Steve Peoples of the AP: "Partly blaming unrest in the Middle East on President Barack Obama, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Saturday that Obama has not spoken firmly and forcefully on Israel's behalf and that the country no longer trusts it has the full support of the United States because of him." CW: He added that Obama is also responsible for the Peloponnesian Wars, MSG in Chinese food & Bridgegate. ...

... Christie also said ObamaCare is "a failure on a whole number of levels" and should be repealed.

Maureen Dowd is still pissed off that Chelsea Clinton makes so much money: "With her 1 percenter mother under fire for disingenuously calling herself 'dead broke' when she left the White House, why would Chelsea want to open herself up to criticism that she is gobbling whopping paychecks not commensurate with her skills, experience or role in life?" ...

     ... CW: According to the report Dowd cites, by Amy Chozick of the Times, "... unlike her parents' talks, Ms. Clinton's speeches 'are on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, and 100 percent of the fees are remitted directly to the foundation,' said her spokesman, Kamyl Bazbaz, adding that 'the majority of Chelsea's speeches are unpaid.'" So I'm not sure why Dowd accuses Clinton of "wanton acquisitiveness."

Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch: "In response to the influx of Central American children fleeing to the southern border of the U.S., the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is repeating his belief that all national borders were determined by God and therefore anybody who crosses them without permission is directly offending the Creator." Via Steve Benen. CW: Apparently God wrote the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo & negotiated the Gadsden Purchase. It was a long, sloppy piece of work, I might add.

Here's the New York Times article, by Jason Horowitz, on Jewish Congressional Republicans, to which Citizen 625 refers in today's Comments.

Beyond the Beltway

I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), May 2014

Marco Rubio is an idiot. -- Mayor Philip Stoddard of South Miami, who is also a biology profressor ...

... ** Robin McKie of the Guardian: "Low-lying south Florida, at the front line of climate change in the US, will be swallowed as sea levels rise. Astonishingly, the population is growing, house prices are rising and building goes on. The problem is the city is run by climate change deniers." ...

... Let's See if Marco is a Good Catholic Boy. Tara Burton of the Atlantic: "In a talk at the Italian university of Molise, [Pope] Francis characterized concerns about the environment as 'one of the greatest challenges of our time' -- a challenge that is theological, as well as political, in nature. 'When I look at ... so many forests, all cut, that have become land ... that can [no] longer give life,' he reflected, citing South American forests in particular. 'This is our sin, exploiting the Earth.... This is one of the greatest challenges of our time: to convert ourselves to a type of development that knows how to respect creation.' And the pontiff isn't stopping there; he's reportedly planning to issue an encyclical, or papal letter, about man's relationship with the environment." Via Steve Benen. CW: This is your sin, Marco. Get right with Jesus. You, too, John I-Am-Not-a-Scientist Boehner. Et al.

Michael Wines of the New York Times: "... Alabamians who vote in Tuesday's runoff election will be able to pack heat openly and with confidence in many of the state's polling places."

Hunter Schwartz of the Washington Post: "Eight state constitutions include restrictions on people who don't believe in a supreme being. However, the Supreme Court ruled in a 1961 case that a Maryland man appointed as a notary public didn't have to declare his belief in a supreme being to hold office, arguing it violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Since then, these restrictions haven't been enforced, said Dave Muscato, a spokesman for American Atheists."

News Ledes

Washington Post: In a 1-0 match, Germany bested Argentina at the end of a 23-minute extra time to win the World Cup.

Reuters: "Thousands fled their homes in a Gaza town on Sunday after Israel warned them to leave ahead of threatened attacks on rocket-launching sites, on the sixth day of an offensive that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 160 people."

Reuters: "Heavy fighting broke out between rival militias near the airport of the Libyan capital Tripoli on Sunday, residents and officials said, reporting explosions and gunfire that forced the suspension of all flights."

The Commentariat -- July 12, 2014

Internal links, photo removed.

White House: "Expanding opportunity -- it's time for Republicans to do their part":

... Worth noting: the gloves are off.

"Taxpayer-Funded Bigotry." New York Times Editors: "President Obama should resist a pressure campaign by some religious groups to weaken a promised executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against gay men, lesbians and transgender people in their hiring practices.... The Civil Rights Act gives religious groups some leeway to favor members of their own faith in hiring. In 2002, President George W. Bush extended that leeway to faith-based service organizations receiving federal money, and Mr. Obama has failed to keep a campaign promise to rescind Mr. Bush's order." The Cheneys' Weekly Standard piece is here. It is titled, ironically, "The Truth about Iraq."

Warren Bass of the Wall Street Journal & a former 9/11 Commission staff member: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz, a former U.S. Senate candidate, have written a piece on Iraq in the Weekly Standard that resuscitates an old argument about Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda.... The Cheneys write: 'It is undisputed, and has been confirmed repeatedly in Iraqi government documents captured after the invasion, that Saddam had deep, longstanding, far-reaching relationships with terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda and its affiliates.' In fact, the 9/11 Commission disputed it 10 years ago." ...

     ... CW: Isn't it rich that Cheney tries to rehabilitate himself with an essay in which he claims to be imparting the "truth" & which is based on at lease one obvious lie. Even if you think Saddam & bin Ladin were BFFs, to claim that the supposed Saddam-al Qaeda relationship is "undisputed" is an undisputed lie:

     ... Paige Lavender of the Huffington Post documents a few others: "In 2002, the New York Times claimed the Bush administration was 'sowing a dangerous confusion' by saying al Qaeda had a relationship with Hussein's regime.... And a 2008 military report released by the Pentagon also showed no connection between the two." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "The Cheneys have seen nothing, heard nothing, and learned nothing since 2002. And they don't even seem to understand they are undermining the credibility of Obama's legion of Republican critics. The word 'incorrigible' comes to mind. Gaze in awe."

Gail Collins has some advice for political candidates, based on the stupid tricks & remarks by politicians around the country. For instance, take your own photos for your campaign ads instead of using various European people (or pigs) to illustrate how great the locals are.

Annals of "Journalism," Megyn Kelly Edition

Megyn Kelly of Fox "News" booked Breitbart's radical winger columnist Ben Shapiro to talk about the Obama administration's response to the violence between Israel & Palestine & specifically the murder of three Jewish teens -- after Shapiro had written a post titled "The Jew-Hating Obama Administration" in which he opined on Obama's response to the murder of the teens, one of whom, Naftali Frenkel, was an American. Here's an excerpt from Shapiro's post:

Presumably Frenkel did not look enough like Barack Obama's imaginary son [a reference to Trevon Martin] for him to give a damn.... Jewish blood is cheap to this administration.... Jew hatred is as old as the Jewish people. It's just found a new home in the White House.

     ... During the Kelly segment, Shapiro said, "It's borderline a Jew-hating administration," to which Kelly responded, "Wow! That's strong," as if she had no idea Shapiro might say something like that. Then her staff tweeted out Shapiro's remark on Kelly's Twitter feed. Oddly enough, some criticized the tweet, & Kelly responded, via Twitter, "Critics have point-@benshapiro quote tweeted by staff during show; not a cmt I wish 2 recirc which is why I challenged on air& deleted tweet." Tom Kludt of TPM has the story. Here's the thing, Megyn. When you book a guy like that who's written crap like that, you invite him to go there on the air, then publicize his remarks, IT'S ALL YOU FUCKING FAULT. You can't "distance yourself" (Kludt's characterization) from sentiments you did everything to encourage & air.

Kendall Breitman of Politico: "Fox News host Megyn Kelly is charging House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with being 'guilty' of sexism after her comments on the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling. 'The latest installment of misleading hysteria comes from the House minority leader,' Kelly said Thursday.... Kelly's comments came after Pelosi called the ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby 'a frightening one.... We should be afraid of this court, that five guys are determining which contraceptions are legal or not,' Pelosi said Thursday." ...

     ... CW: Yo, Megyn, to claim a woman suffers from "hysteria" is way sexist, too. You could look it up.

Beyond the Beltway

Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: Arizona Attorney Gen. Tom Horne (R), who has a Koch-backed primary challenger in his bid for re-election, "has been caught by F.B.I. agents leaving the scene of a parking-garage fender-bender after a lunchtime tryst, a mishap that exposed not only the affair, but also a federal investigation into alleged campaign finance violations, which ended unceremoniously and without any charges.... The Arizona secretary of state's office said this week that there was enough evidence to support a full investigation of accusations that Mr. Horne used his staff in his re-election campaign." But he can play the piano (begins about 4 min. into the video)!

Senate Race

McDaniel Wins Mississippi Primary! Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) said Friday that his campaign and his supporters have found 'over 8,300 questionable ballots cast' in the runoff election for U.S. Senate, which Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) won.... Cochran won the runoff by 7,667 votes.... McDaniel, in the Friday statement, also called on the Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann (R) to allow McDaniel's campaign access to voting records which McDaniel said they have not had access to yet." CW: Uh, how do you know the ballots are "questionable" if you haven't seen the voting records? ...

Presidential Election 2016

Nicole Lafond of TPM: "The Republican Party of Virginia denied on Friday that it was behind a bumper sticker that appeared to take a shot at Hillary Clinton by describing her as 'Monica Lewinsky's X-Boyfriend's Wife.' The bumper sticker was discovered by Reuters political correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti, who tweeted a photo of it on Friday morning and said he found it in Fairfax County, Va. In fine print beneath the Lewinsky line were the words 'Authorized By Republican Party Of Virginia.'" ...

... Update. Nicole Lafond: "A Virginia woman told TPM on Friday that she recently discovered a stack of anti-Hillary Clinton bumper stickers at a local GOP office, despite denials from the state party that it had anything to do with the stickers. Carole Donoghue, a retired journalist, said she found the bumper stickers at Fairfax County Republican Committee headquarters in Fairfax, Va. The bumper stickers read 'Monica Lewinsky's X-Boyfriend's Wife for President.'" Donoghue said that last Sunday she came upon a GOP campaign worker who was ill, so she drove him to the campaign office, where she saw the stack of bumper stickers. "Donoghue said she wanted to speak out about her discovery after the state party denied being involved. 'They are just cheap and stupid, and if you are going to be cheap and stupid at least be honest about it,' Donoghue told TPM. 'The denial was dishonest.'"

Marie's Sports Report

Chris Fedor in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "LeBron James stunned the NBA on Friday around noon when he announced his long-awaited free agency decision, choosing to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers and leaving the Miami Heat. According to reports, he will sign a four-year, $88 million max contract." ...

... James explains why he's "coming home" in a Sports Illustrated "as told to" sports writer Lee Jenkins. ...

... Michael Powell of the New York Times: "... even taking into account that he was working with the skilled and guiding hand of the Sports Illustrated writer Lee Jenkins, James offered a rather stunning display of soul-baring from a man who should, by reasonable expectation, possess a dirigible-size ego."

News Ledes

AP: "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says both of Afghanistan's presidential candidates are committed to abiding by the results of the 'largest, most comprehensive audit' of the election runoff ballots possible."

Los Angeles Times: "Israel and Palestinians continued to trade airstrikes and rocket fire Saturday with the death toll in the Gaza Strip climbing to 121 on the fifth day of Israel's military offensive targeting Palestinian militants." (CW: As far as I can tell, & I may be wrong, all of those killed were Palestinians.) ...

... New York Times: "As Israel's air war against Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza entered its sixth day on Saturday, a pair of bombings threw the difficulties of the campaign into painful relief: Israel bombed a mosque, which its aerial photos indicated was harboring a weapons cache, and a center for the handicapped, killing two handicapped patients and wounding three, as well as a caretaker."

New York Times: "After potentially serious back-to-back laboratory accidents, federal health officials announced Friday that they had temporarily closed the flu and anthrax laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and halted shipments of all infectious agents from the agency's highest-security labs."

Guardian: "US authorities have charged a Chinese businessman with hacking into the computer systems of companies with large defence contracts, including Boeing, to steal data on military projects including some of the latest fighter jets, according to officials. Su Bin worked with two unnamed Chinese hackers to get the data between 2009 and 2013, then attempted to sell some of the information to state-owned Chinese companies, prosecutors said."

AP: "Tracy Morgan has sued Wal-Mart over last month's highway crash that seriously injured him and killed a fellow comedian. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, claims Wal-Mart was negligent when a driver of one of its tractor-trailers rammed into Morgan's limousine van."

Guardian: "Germany is determined to extract a public commitment from the US over future spying activity during talks with John Kerry this weekend, despite a White House preference to try to mend their battered diplomatic relationship behind closed doors."