The Commentariat -- May 23, 2015

All internal links removed.

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "After vigorous debate and intense last-minute pressure by Republican leaders, the Senate on Saturday rejected legislation that would end the federal government's bulk collection of phone records. With the death of that measure -- passed overwhelmingly in the House earlier this month -- senators then scrambled to hastily pass a short-term measure to keep the program from going dark when it expires June 1 but failed. The disarray in Congress appeared to significantly increase the chances that the government will lose systematic access to newly created calling records by Americans, at least temporarily, after June 1.... The measure failed in the Senate 57 to 42, with 12 Republicans voting for it, shortly after midnight because [Rand] Paul, a candidate for the White House, dragged the procedure out as he promised to do in fund-raising tweets and emails." ...

... CW: I read Steinhauer's lede three times, & I still didn't get it. ...

... Mike DeBonis & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Senators left Capitol Hill early Saturday morning without taking action to extend or replace a controversial surveillance program set to expire at month's end, paralyzed by a debate over the proper balance between civil liberties and national security. In an after-midnight vote, the Senate turned back a House-passed bill that would end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of private telephone records, the only legislation that offered a smooth transition ahead of a June 1 deadline.... That led Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to recall senators to the Capitol a day earlier than planned, on May 31, for a rare Sunday session hours ahead of the deadline." ...

... Alan Rusbridger, et al., of the Guardian: In an interview with the Guardian, "Edward Snowden has hailed landmark shifts in Congress and the US courts on NSA surveillance but cautioned that much more needs to be done to restore the balance in favour of privacy. He also warned this was only the beginning of reform of the NSA, saying there are still many bulk collection programmes which are 'even more intrusive', but expressed hope that the Senate would act to curb the NSA, saying retention of the status quo is untenable."

Danielle Ivory, et al., of the New York Times: "Justice Department investigators have identified criminal wrongdoing in General Motors' failure to disclose a defect tied to at least 104 deaths, and are negotiating what is expected to be a record penalty, according to people briefed on the inquiry.... Former G.M. employees, some of whom were dismissed last year, are under investigation as well and could face criminal charges."

Deborah Sontag of the New York Times: "In what appeared to be a reversal of his predecessor's position, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas wrote to Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch last week to assure her that his state intended to abide by national standards to prevent, detect and respond to prison rape 'wherever feasible.'... But the Justice Department said late Thursday that it had rejected his assurance. Texas, which has a high rate of reported sexual abuse against inmates, is expected to be financially penalized for a second straight year for failing to follow the procedures that the federal government has established to document progress in eliminating prison rape." CW: No doubt Lynch's actions are part of the federal government's plan to declare martial law in Texas. She'll probably release a bunch of alleged rape victims & have them do their Count of Monte Cristo thing under all the Texas WalMarts.

Dana Milbank: "After more than three decades of income growth for the wealthiest 10 percent and stagnation for everybody else, the top 3 percent now has more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.... An International Monetary Fund study released in March found that the decline in union membership has been responsible for half of the rise in the share of income going to the top 10 percent.... Straws in the wind suggest a building backlash."

CW: I do not know how I missed it, but last week Frank Rich wrote a marvelous feature piece on race riots. There are few writers of English prose who can so seamlessly wrap their personal stories into the broader cultural context (without making the piece All About Me). ...

     ... The photo that accompanies Rich's essay is striking. Looking at it, I thought, "This photographer should get a Pulitzer." Then I noticed that the credit went to someone named Devin Allen, with no affiliated media outfit designated. So I looked up Allen. Here's another post on Allen. (Its author, Charise Frazier, & her copywriter should look up the meaning of "notoriety.") And another. I hope most of those media who used Allen's photos have paid him handsomely.

White House: "In this week's address, the President commemorated Memorial Day by paying tribute to the men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our country":

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Dean Baker in FAIR: "In a Washington Post column (5/22/15), Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and Third Way president Jonathan Cowan took a swipe at the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in arguing for a set of ill-defined centrist proposals.... There is much about their piece that is wrong or misleading ... but the best part is in the last paragraph, where they tell readers, 'Nine years ago, Borders Books had more than 1,000 stores and more than 35,000 employees. Four years ago, it liquidated. Those stores ... closed because technology brought us Amazon and the Kindle.' Actually, Border Books did close in large part because the economic system is rigged against ordinary Americans. One of the main reasons Amazon has been able to grow as rapidly as it did is that Amazon has not been required to collect the same sales tax as its brick-and-mortar competitors in most states for most of its existence." CW: Three things: (1) Jeff Bezos, the billionaire who started & owns Amazon, also owns the Washington Post, which is the point of Baker's piece; (2) likely Borders wasn't the slavedriver that Amazon is;* & (3) Jack Markell has to be one of the dumbest elected Democrats in the country. Thanks to Bonita for the lead.

     ...* There are other reasons Borders failed, of course, & one of those reasons is its partnership with Amazon.

Presidential Race

CW: As usual, our own Commentariat was excellent yesterday. I particularly appreciated Akhilleus's putting the Clintons' fortune into context. As he noted, in the course of some 16 months, the accumulated earnings of all three Clintons amounted to "a third of what Robert Downey, Jr. made in a few months for making 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'." To extend Akhiilleus's commentary, I would ask: Is a former President earns $250K for a speech in which he tries to talk some fat cats & lesser richy-riches into forking over some of their millions to, say, reduce mortality rates in parts of Africa, doing pretty much the same as an oil company exec taking in a multi-million-dollar salary so he can buy a yacht, etc. -- while his company begrudgingly pays a pittance in fines for multiple safety violations until it ends up polluting the beaches, the wetlands & the oceans? And if Bill Clinton is so smart, why can't he out-earn a guy who "was a lot more interesting when he was on drugs"? ...

... (Less appreciated: Akhilleus's extensive commentary on Josh Dugger, although Akhilleus did manage to tie that repulsive, repeat child-molester to the leading lights of the Republican party, just to show you how dim those lights are. Anyhow, unless one of those dim bulbs comments on the Dugger boy, I'm leaving staying clear of him. And, no, I don't really mind Akhilleus's post on a sanctimonious punk who would tell most Reality Chex readers we were going to hell.)

Gail Collins: August 6 is "the [70th] anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the date of the first Republican presidential debate." Collins notes that not all of 2,376 candidates will make the cut, meaning there may be no Carly Fiorina or Rick Santorum.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Henry McDonald of the Guardian: "Voters in Ireland appear to have voted strongly in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in the republic's referendum, the country's equality minister said on Saturday shortly, after counting began. 'I think it's won. I've seen bellwether boxes open, middle-of-the road areas who wouldn't necessarily be liberal and they are resoundingly voting yes,' equality minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin told Reuters at the main count centre in Dublin." ...

News Ledes

New York Times: "The United States and China on Friday escalated their dispute over contested territory in the South China Sea, after the Chinese repeatedly ordered an American military surveillance plane to abandon flights over areas where China has been building artificial islands. The continued American surveillance flights in areas where China is creating new islands in the South China Sea are intended to challenge the Chinese government's claims of expanded territorial sovereignty. Further raising the challenge, Pentagon officials said they were discussing sending warships into waters that the United States asserts are international and open to passage, but that China says are within its zone of control."

Guardian: "An inflatable dam in drought-stricken California was damaged on Thursday, causing the loss of nearly 50,000,000 gallons (190m litres) of water. Police said vandals caused 'irreversible damage' to the inflatable dam in Fremont, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area. The vandalism caused water meant for local residents to instead flow into San Francisco bay."

Washington Post: "The man convicted in the 2001 killing of federal intern Chandra Levy is likely to get a new trial after prosecutors on Friday dropped their long-standing opposition to defense efforts to have a new jury hear the case. Since 2013, attorneys for Ingmar Guandique, 34, have argued that a key witness in the 2010 trial had lied when he testified that Guandique, his onetime cellmate, confessed to him that he killed Levy."

The Commentariat -- May 22, 2015

Internal links removed.

Paul Kane & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Republicans and a small band of Democrats rescued President Obama's trade agenda from the brink of failure Thursday, clearing a key hurdle in the Senate but leaving the final outcome in doubt. Supporters must still navigate a set of tricky-but-popular proposals that could torpedo the legislation's chances, and its fate in the House remains a tossup because Obama faces entrenched opposition from his own party." ...

... Paul Krugman: "I don't know why the president has chosen to make the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership such a policy priority.... Reasonable, well-intentioned people have serious questions about what's going on. And I would have expected a good-faith effort to answer those questions.... Instead, the selling of the 12-nation Pacific Rim pact has the feel of a snow job. Officials have evaded the main concerns about the content of a potential deal; they've belittled and dismissed the critics; and they've made blithe assurances that turn out not to be true.... The main thrust of the proposed deal involves strengthening intellectual property rights -- things like drug patents and movie copyrights -- and changing the way companies and countries settle disputes. And it's by no means clear that either of those changes are good for America.... The fact that the administration evidently doesn't feel that it can make an honest case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests that this isn't a deal we should support."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Obama administration is expected in the coming days to announce a major clean water regulation that would restore the federal government's authority to limit pollution in the nation's rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands. Environmentalists have praised the new rule, calling it an important step that would lead to significantly cleaner natural bodies of water and healthier drinking water. But it has attracted fierce opposition from several business interests, including farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers and a national association of golf course owners. Opponents contend that the rule would stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners' rights."

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "With the federal government's bulk collection of phone records set to expire in June, senators remained deeply divided on Thursday over whether to extend the program temporarily or accept significant changes that the House overwhelmingly approved last week."

Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic: "'Look, 20 years from now, I'm still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it's my name on this,' [President Obama] said [to Goldberg during a interview], referring to the apparently almost-finished nuclear agreement between Iran and a group of world powers led by the United States. 'I think it's fair to say that in addition to our profound national-security interests, I have a personal interest in locking this down.'..." Read the whole post, which covers a lot of Middle East territory.

Eric Licthblau & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Karl "Rove's Crossroads PAC is no longer [the' GOP's 'big dog.'... The nonprofit arm of Crossroads is facing an Internal Revenue Service review that could eviscerate its fund-raising. Data projects nurtured by Mr. Rove are being supplanted in Republican circles by a more successful initiative funded by the Koch political network, which has leapfrogged the Crossroads organizations in size and reach. And the group faces intense competition for donors from a new wave of 'super PACs' that are being set up by backers of the leading Republican candidates for president, who are unwilling to defer to Mr. Rove's authority or cede strategic and fund-raising dominance to the organizations he helped start."

Greg Sargent: If the Supreme Court knocks out the Medicaid subsidy for states without their own exchanges, "Republicans do have a plan of sorts.... [They] may try to pass a temporary patch for the subsidies, packaged with something like the repeal of the individual mandate, in hopes of drawing a presidential veto -- so Republicans can then try to blame Obama for failing to fix the problem. Today, the Wall Street Journal editorial page helpfully confirms that this idea is very much in circulation, urging Republicans to carry out this strategy. The editorial suggests Republicans rally behind plans such as the one offered by GOP Senator Ron Johnson, which would temporarily grant subsidies to those who lose them." ...

... Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "A number of states are quietly considering merging their healthcare exchanges under ObamaCare amid big questions about their cost and viability. Many of the 13 state-run ObamaCare exchanges are worried about how they'll survive once federal dollars supporting them run dry next year. Others are contemplating creating multi-state exchanges as a contingency plan for a looming Supreme Court ruling expected next month that could prevent people from getting subsidies to buy ObamaCare on the federal exchange."

Charles Pierce: "... anyone who wonders why Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina is an odious presence in our politics should have caught his act this week. The House Judiciary Committee was holding hearings concerning the current state of America's police as regards their relationship with communities of color.... Gowdy's questioning [of a witness] was one prolonged and demagogic sneer, listing off the names of police officers who have died in the line, and of African Americans who were killed by other African Americans.... Gowdy played every old and familiar tune on the House organ."

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Robert M. Gates, the president of the Boy Scouts of America and former secretary of defense, called on Thursday to end the Scouts' ban on gay adult leaders, warning the group's executives that 'we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.' Speaking at the Boy Scouts' annual national meeting in Atlanta, Mr. Gates said cascading events -- including potential employment discrimination lawsuits and the impending Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, as well as mounting internal dissent over the exclusionary policy -- had led him to conclude that the current rules 'cannot be sustained.'"

Ian Black of the Guardian: "Islamic State's victories in Palmyra and Ramadi have been painful blows for the US-led coalition in both Syria and Iraq respectively, underlining the flaws in a strategy that has been widely criticised as both wrong-headed and half-hearted." ...

... Juan Cole: "... the whole debate about 'who lost Ramadi?' assumes facts not in evidence, i.e. that Ramadi has ever been 'pacified' or somehow a United States protectorate, sort of like Guam or Puerto Rico.... So it completely escapes me why John McCain, Lindsey Graham, John Boehner or Tom Cotton (who helped personally with the berlinization of Iraq) think that if only US troops had remained in country after 2011, the people of Ramadi would have been delirious with joy and avoided throwing in with radical anti-imperialist forces." ...

... Gene Robinson: "President Obama's critics are missing the point.... The simple truth is that if Iraqis will not join together to fight for a united and peaceful country, there will be continuing conflict and chaos that potentially threaten American interests. We should be debating how best to contain and minimize the threat. Further escalating the U.S. military role, I would argue, will almost surely lead to a quagmire that makes us no more secure. If the choice is go big or go home, we should pick the latter." ...

... See also Jeffrey Goldberg's interview of President Obama, linked above. ...

... if the Iraqis themselves are not willing or capable to arrive at the political accommodations necessary to govern, if they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them. -- President Obama, in the Goldberg interview

... Steve Benen: "Last week, Republicans were heavily invested in a specific talking point: don't blame George W. Bush for the disastrous war in Iraq, blame the intelligence community. This week, this has clearly been replaced with a full-throated replacement talking point: don't blame George W. Bush or the intelligence community, blame President Obama."

Charles Pierce recommends this "Frontline" documentary on the CIA torture program.

Presidential Race

Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "The Clinton Foundation reported Thursday that it has received as much as $26.4 million in previously undisclosed payments from major corporations, universities, foreign sources and other groups. The disclosure came as the foundation faced questions over whether it fully complied with a 2008 ethics agreement to reveal its donors and whether any of its funding sources present conflicts of interest for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins her presidential campaign. The money was paid as fees for speeches by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. Foundation officials said the funds were tallied internally as 'revenue' rather than donations, which is why they had not been included in the public listings of its contributors published as part of the 2008 agreement." CW: As a slap-dash, after-the-fact, keeper of my own financial records, I appear to be overqualified to serve as the Clinton Foundation's accountant. ...

... Friends of Bigwigs. Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg: "Republican complaints about Clinton's wealth and connections are presumably intended to turn the left wing of the Democratic Party against her. But in November 2016 the Republican candidate for president will almost certainly be a man who will have not only accepted hundreds of millions from 'big wigs' -- just as Clinton will have -- but who will also have promised, in an age of burgeoning plutocracy and rising inequality, to engineer a massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich to provide those big wigs with a windfall on their political investment.... But Clinton's policy platform ... will not, for example, take money out of middle-class voters' paychecks, undermine their health insurance, ramp up carbon pollution in their air or leave their children with additional trillions in national debt to finance better living for billionaires.... The 2016 Republican candidates are vastly superior to those of 2012.... It's unclear how much the higher quality of candidates will matter, however, because the party is very much the same. Its donors and activists continue to make demands -- more tax cuts! never compromise! -- that no rational, public-spirited candidate for national office should ever honor."

Cheap Little Rich Girl. Michelle Conlin of Reuters: "Twelve of about 30 people who worked on [Carly] Fiorina's failed 2010 California Senate campaign, most speaking out for the first time, told Reuters they would not work for her again.... The reason: for more than four years, Fiorina - who has an estimated net worth of up to $120 million - didn't pay them.... 'I'd rather go to Iraq than work for Carly Fiorina again,' said one high-level former campaign staffer...."

Beyond the Beltway

Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun: "Baltimore grand jury returned indictments against the six officers charged earlier this month in the in-custody death of Freddie Gray, State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced Thursday. Prosecutors presented evidence to the grand jury over the course of two weeks, Mosby said. Reckless endangerment charges were added against all six officers, while false imprisonment charges against three were removed. The remaining charges are largely the same ones her office filed May 1, following an independent investigation."

Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post shows just how bad Kansas's latest punative poor law is for poor families & adds, "... the new provision limiting what the poor can do with their debit cards is causing particular problems for Kansas because it could conflict with federal rules that appear to require that states provide beneficiaries with 'adequate access' to their benefits, putting more than $100 million in funding for the program in jeopardy." CW: Think about this: the law limits beneficiaries from withdrawing more than $25/day from their debit cards, but ATMs dole out cash only in $20 increments, plus there's a fee. In addition, the poor person has to get herself to an ATM, & there may not be one in her neighborhood. And what about the kids? I guess she'll have to pay a babysitter while she walks to an ATM half-an-hour away? So $18 minus sitter fees. Try paying the rent with that.

Way Beyond

Henry McDonald of the Guardian: "Polls have opened in Ireland, where voters are making history as the republic becomes the first nation to ask its electorate to legalise gay marriage. More than 3m voters have been invited to cast ballots in Ireland's 43 constituencies, with the result to follow on Saturday. Polling stations opened at 7am BST and they close at 10pm." ...

... Douglas Dalby of the New York Times: "In 1993, Ireland was among the last countries in the Western World to decriminalize homosexuality. Some 22 years later, it could become the first to legalize same-sex marriages by popular vote.... A vote in favor is far from assured."

The Commentariat -- May 21, 2015

Internal links removed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presidential Race

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond the Beltway

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

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

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

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