Before There Was a Beltway

Photos & related text removed.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "For much of the history of the United States, the White House grounds have been reasonably open to the public, resulting in breaches far more astonishing than the one on Sept. 19, when an Iraq war veteran, Omar J. Gonzalez, rushed past a Secret Service agent at the North Portico and ran through much of the State Floor before being tackled."

In the 1920s, my grandparents had a touring car with running boards. When they traveled with the family, they fitted wooden pens to the running boards, & the family dogs rode in the pens. 

My grandparents' practice would be regarded as animal cruelty today, but as Gail Collins has happily reminded us, Mitt Romney was pretty certain dogs enjoyed such fresh-air adventures.  

I don't know if my grandmother thought driving great distances with dogs on the running board was cruel to the family pets, but she did think the appearance of dogs on the running board was evah-so tacky. My grandmother was always one for keeping up appearances.

There was no going around Washington, D.C., in those days, so on trips south, my grandfather drove through the city. I suppose the signage wasn't all that good back then. In any event, on one such trip, my grandfather got lost driving through Washington.

Eventually he spied a couple of policemen standing around in front of a porticoed mansion. My grandfather pulled alongside the front steps, stuck his head out the window & asked the officers just where they were. 

"You're at the White House, sir," said one of the officers.

"Oh, dear," my grandmother gasped. "Drive on quickly, Asbury. I shouldn't want Mrs. Coolidge to see us like this."

If you or someone you know has breached the White House gates, do tell.

The Commentariat -- October 1, 2014

Internal links & graphic removed.

Scarier & Scarier. Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "A security contractor with a gun and three prior convictions for assault and battery was allowed on an elevator with President Obama during a Sept. 16 trip to Atlanta.... The private contractor first aroused the agents' concerns when he acted oddly and did not comply with their orders to stop using a cellphone camera to record the president in the elevator.... The Secret Service director, Julia Pierson, asked a top agency manager to look into the matter but did not refer it to an investigative unit that was created to review violations of protocol and standards...." In hearings Tuesday, Pierson told House members that she brief President Obama 100 percent of the time when his security is breached. But she didn't tell him about the Atlanta incident. ...

... AND Scarier. Carol Leonnig: "The man who jumped over the White House fence and sprinted through the main floor of the mansion could have gotten even farther had it not been for an off-duty Secret Service agent who was coincidentally in the house and leaving for the night. The agent who finally tackled Omar Gonzalez had been serving on the security detail for President Obama's daughters and had just seen the family depart via helicopter minutes earlier. He happened to be walking through the house when ... the intruder dashed through the main foyer.... [Julia] Pierson did not reveal during her testimony that the agent who tackled him was not actually assigned to the post where he confronted Gonzalez." ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: Democrats notice that Republicans are using "concern for the President's security" to undermine the President. No kidding.

... New York Times Editors: "... the Secret Service has revealed itself to be as bungling and dysfunctional as many other once-revered Washington institutions. It not only failed in its most fundamental task of protecting the White House premises, but it has failed to properly investigate threats after they occurred, and has not been forthcoming with the public about those lapses. The agency initially said [Omar] Gonzalez was subdued at the White House door, only admitting the truth about the extent of his intrusion after it was uncovered on Monday by Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post. 'I wish to God you protected the White House like you're protecting your reputation here today,' Representative Stephen Lynch, a Democrat of Massachusetts, told the Secret Service director, Julia Pierson, at a hearing Tuesday morning. Ms. Pierson was unimpressive in her testimony at the hearing on security breaches, delivering passive, pro forma answers and failing to persuade questioners of either party that she has either the strategy or the will to right an essential but troubled agency." ...

... Frank Bruni: "The guard dogs didn't guard. The alarm boxes didn't alarm. The front door couldn't be locked automatically as he sprinted toward it, because it wasn't rigged that way. We can fly drones over Pakistan, but we can't summon a proper locksmith to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?... In the end, it's people who make the difference. The Secret Service needs better ones." ...

... Dana Milbank: "... Julia Pierson "was brought in to change the frat-house culture seen in the Miami and Amsterdam. She claims to have improved that problem ('We've instituted an Office of Professional Integrity'), but she's now allowing an equally pernicious culture to flourish -- a culture of concealment and coverup." ...

... CW: Milbank doesn't mention that Pierson neglected to tell Congress that the agent who stopped Gonzalez was off-duty & just happened to be near the Green Room when he saw & tackled the intruder. It was after Pierson's testimony that the press revealed this relevant detail, which she chose not to share. Nor does Milbank note that Pierson lied to Congress when she said she informs the President "100 percent of the time" of security breaches: she didn't tell him about the Atlanta incident, according to Leonnig. So, more "concealment & coverup," including an outright lie to a Congressional committee. ...

    ... Update: Josh Voorhees of Slate: "Tuesday's hearing ... was an example of lawmakers doing a job only they could do, not in spite of their desire for political theater but because of it." CW: Voorhees makes all the same points I do above. ...

... Charles Pierce blames the attacks on President Obama on "a dark energy on the other side."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Steve M. points out that the Washington Post editorial board thought it would be an excellent idea to publish an op-ed by a former Secret Service agent who suggests that the Allen West would be a "perfect" choice to head up he Secret Service. Steve mentions a couple of things to suggest West might not be the best person for the job....

     ... CW: It is hard to credit a newspaper as a serious journalistic enterprise when its editors make such decisions. The media not only fail to ID the "complete fking loons" as such, as Charles Pierce complained recently, but a major outlet like the Post is actually encouraging the looniest among them. I guess this is what we can expect from the Post's new publisher & former Reagan aide Fred Ryan. ...

... digby: "But if the fellow who wrote [the] op-ed for the Washington Post is indicative of the sort of people who are protecting the president, I am now truly afraid for him.

Jonathan Cohn: "The latest legal challenge to Obamacare just won a round in court. On Tuesday, a federal district judge ruled in favor of a lawsuit challenging the federal government's authority to provide millions of people with tax credits for buying private health insurance. The decision, in a case called Pruitt v. Burwell, came from a Republican-appointed judge in Oklahoma. His opinion was succinct, strongly worded and betrayed not a hint of self-doubt.... The judge stayed his ruling, pending the Obama Administration's likely appeal to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The real question now is what effect (if any) Tuesday's announcement has on the justices of the Supreme Court, who are contemplating whether to hear a similar lawsuit and make a definitive ruling on the matter."

Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: On Hobby Lobby, Justice Ginsburg "was right: the decision is opening the door for the religiously observant to claim privileges that are not available to anyone else." One example: "Just days after the decision, the Court's majority allowed Wheaton College, which is religiously oriented, to refuse to fill out a form asking for an exemption from the birth-control mandate -- while retaining the exemption.... If just filling out a form can count as a 'substantial burden,' it's hard to imagine any obligation that would not." CW: Also obvious, Sam Alito is a lying snake. If you didn't read Chermerinsky's piece, linked yesterday, on Our Crappy Supreme Court (possible not the actual title), read it soon.

CW: A couple of days ago, I said the trial of Hank Greenberg's case against the federal government should be entertaining. Here's John Cassidy of the New Yorker with the first installment: "Most news organizations are covering the trial straight, as if it were a deadly serious affair. It is, in fact, an absurdist comedy, rich in ironies, worthy of the Marx Brothers or Mel Brooks." Greenberg made in the neighborhood of $300MM on the bailout. "That's three hundred million dollars he wouldn’t have had if Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner ... and Hank Paulson ... had allowed A.I.G. to go belly up. Rather than hauling those three musketeers into ... court..., Greenberg should be taking them out to dinner."

Beyond the Beltway

Patrick McGreevey of the Los Angeles Times: "Four months after a disturbed man killed six UC Santa Barbara students and wounded 13 others, Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed legislation allowing the temporary seizure of guns from people determined by the courts to be a threat to themselves or others. The Isla Vista massacre in May occurred even though the family of Elliot Rodger had sought help because of concerns about his strange behavior before the shootings."

American "Justice," New York City Edition, Ctd. The Anonymity of a Snitch. Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "For five years, Kenneth Creighton was held in jail, suspected of involvement in the killing of a bystander outside a bodega in the Bronx. In 2012, the charges were dropped. Mr. Creighton was released from Rikers Island. He has since filed a lawsuit against New York City for false arrest and malicious prosecution, and has sought the name of his accuser.... Criminal defendants, generally, have the right to know and confront their accusers. But when the accuser happens to be a confidential witness, the calculus can be more complicated."

Nathaniel Rich, in the New Republic: "Louisiana is disappearing. Since 1932, the Gulf of Mexico has swallowed 2,300 square miles of the state's wetlands, an area larger than Delaware.... The loss of the marshes has catastrophic implications, because they are the state's first, and strongest, defense against hurricanes. Two culprits are responsible for most of the destruction. The first is the Army Corps of Engineers, which over the past 130 years has built many of the levees that pin the modern Mississippi River in place to prevent flooding.... The other major destructive force in the region is the fossil fuel industry."

Presidential Election 2012 (& 2016??)

Charles Pierce assesses Mitt Romney's character. This is a short read.

News Lede

Jacksonville Times-Union: A Jacksonville jury today found Michael Dunn guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis. "Under Florida law Dunn must be sentenced to prison for life with no possibility of parole for the murder of Davis. He also faces a minimum of 60 years for the attempted murders of Leland Brunson, Tommie Stornes and Tevin Thompson, friends of Davis who were in the Dodge Durango with Davis when he died.... A previous jury deadlocked on his guilt in Davis' death in February while convicting him of the second-degree attempted murders of Brunson, Stornes and Thompson."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 30, 2014

Internal links. graphic, photo removed.

NEW. Michael Shear & Michael Schmitt of the New York Times: "Lawmakers from both parties on Tuesday assailed Julia Pierson, the director of the Secret Service, about security breaches at the White House, including an intruder who earlier this month breached multiple security measures and evaded capture as he ran around the first floor of the mansion." ...

... The Washington Post story, by Brian Murphy, is here.

Secret Service Clusterfuck. Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The man who jumped the White House fence this month and sprinted through the front door made it much farther into the building than previously known, overpowering one Secret Service officer and running through much of the main floor, according to three people familiar with the incident. An alarm box near the front entrance of the White House designed to alert guards to an intruder had been muted at what officers believed was a request of the usher's office [because the alarm was, you know, noisy].... [Omar] Gonzalez was tackled by a counterassault agent at the far southern end of the East Room. The intruder reached the doorway to the Green Room.... Secret Service Director Julia Pierson ... is expected to face tough questions about the Gonzalez incident Tuesday at a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee."

Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "On 60 Minutes, the president faulted his spies for failing to predict the rise of ISIS. There's one problem with that statement: The intelligence analysts did warn about the group." ...

... Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama wasn't passing the buck by saying intelligence officials underestimated the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the White House said Monday. Press secretary Josh Earnest said officials were aware of the threat posed by ISIS, but misjudged the will of the Iraqi military to fight back and how successful the terror group would be at capturing territory. He said 'everybody' -- from the intelligence community to the White House -- made the same mistake, but that Obama was ultimately responsible." ...

... Peter Baker & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A reconstruction of the past year suggests a number of pivotal moments when both the White House and the intelligence community misjudged the Islamic State. Even after the group's fighters stormed across the border into Iraq at the start of the year to capture the city of Falluja and parts of Ramadi, the White House considered it a problem that could be contained." CW: Quite a helpful overview; beats the pointing-fingers approach so popular among pundits & politicians. ...

... CW: BTW, for you fans of alternate history -- Were our old friend (& he was an old friend) Saddam still around, either the ISIS success stories would have been confined to Syria, or there would be no ISIS -- the ISIS fighters would be members of Saddam's Ba'athist army & police force. So, once again -- thanks, George & Dick. But of course it's all Obama's fault.

Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post: "The United States and Afghanistan on Tuesday signed a vital security deal that allows some American troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond this year, ensuring a continuing U.S. presence in the region. The Bilateral Security Agreement allows for 9,800 U.S. soldiers to stay in the country past 2014 to help train, equip and advise Afghan military and police forces. It arrives as the Taliban Islamist movement is increasingly attacking areas around the country in an effort to regain control as most foreign troops are scheduled to leave by the end of the year."

Your Assigned Reading for Today: Prof. Chemerinsky on the history of the Supreme Court.

** Erwin Chemerinsky in Politico: "The Supreme Court has largely failed throughout American history at its most important tasks and at the most important times.... The Supreme Court exists, above all, to enforce the Constitution against the will of the majority. The very existence of the Constitution, a document made intentionally quite difficult to change, reflects the desire to limit what political majorities can do.... The Roberts Court has continually favored the rights of business over the rights of employees and consumers and all of us." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein: "Liberals (if they have any sense) would much rather see a 55 year-old mainstream liberal on the bench than the 81 year-old [Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, no matter how terrific they think she's been.... If [Ginsburg & Justice Stephen Breyer] really cared about advancing their principles, they should have resigned soon after President Barack Obama's re-election, giving the solid Democratic majority in the Senate plenty of time to confirm successors." ...

     ... CW: The only possibly good coming from Ginsburg's (& to a lesser extent, Breyer's) hubris is that they give liberals all the more reason to vote for whomever the hoi polloi nominate for the Democratic party. Hillary Clinton would likely nominate another Breyer-type moderate, but that's better than anybody President Gohmert will nominate. ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "There are lots of open questions about the road the Supreme Court justices will take to a final decision about whether the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. But one thing seems clear: The answer will arrive next June."

Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg News: The trial began Monday in Hank Greenberg's suit against the government for stiffing AIG stockholders. David Boies is representing Greenberg, & among the witnesses he will call are former Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson & Tim Geithner & former Fed chair Ben Bernanke. CW: Could be entertaining. ...

... James Stewart & Peter Eavis of the New York Times: New information has come forward that suggests the Federal Reserve could have rescued Lehman Brothers & saved the economy considerable pain.

Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic publishes seven charts "that show ObamaCare is working." CW: That means that Republicans have succeeded in ensuring that 47 percent of the nation is ignorantly opposed to a law that is working for them and/or their neighbors.

Alex Abdo of the ACLU: "Today [Monday], we're releasing several key documents about Executive Order 12333 that we obtained from the government in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that the ACLU filed ... just before the first revelations of Edward Snowden. The documents are from the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and others agencies. They confirm that the order, although not the focus of the public debate, actually governs most of the NSA's spying.... The order, issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, imposes the sole constraints on U.S. surveillance on foreign soil that targets foreigners. There's been some speculation, too, that the government relies directly on the order -- as opposed to its statutory authority -- to conduct surveillance inside the United States."

Marie's Sports Report

The NFL God Is a Christian God. Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "When Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah intercepted a Tom Brady pass and returned it for a touchdown Monday night, he did what so many other NFL players do to celebrate a big play: He paused to make a religious gesture of thanks. But Abdullah, a devout Muslim, found that his religious display was met with less latitude than, say, Tim Tebow when he brought Tebowing into the NFL. Abdullah was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct because he slid to the ground, then knelt in in the end zone."

Beyond the Beltway

Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "With just sixteen hours before polling stations were to open in Ohio, the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon blocked voters from beginning tomorrow to cast their ballots in this year's general election. By a vote of five to four, the Justices put on hold a federal judge's order providing new opportunities for voting before election day, beyond what state leaders wanted.... Early voting during 'Golden Week,' on Sundays, and in evening hours are the opportunities that civil rights groups have said are most important to black and low-income voters and the homeless.... [Surprise, surprise!] Monday's order had the support of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito,, Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, although their votes were not noted in the order. Read the whole post. ...

... Rick Hasen: "Although the order is 'temporary' in the sense that it will be in place pending a ruling on a cert. petition ultimately to be filed by Ohio in the Supreme Court, that won't happen before this election, and so for this election the new shorter voting period is in effect.... I am worried this case will make bad law, and have bad effects in cases such as challenges to Wisconsin's voter id law, Texas's voter id law, and North Carolina's omnibus bill making it harder to vote."

Michael Winerip & Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "In the past in Rikers brutality cases, correction officers have frequently managed to escape serious punishment. But in a highly unusual legal decision, published on Monday, Tynia Richard, an administrative law judge, wrote that the six officers had lied about what happened, that [inmate Robert] Hinton had been handcuffed the whole time, and that because such 'brazen misconduct' must be put to an end, she was recommending the most severe sanction available, termination for all six. The judge's decision is a fresh indication that pressure by federal prosecutors, as well as scrutiny by the media, may be starting to have an impact on the way such brutality cases ... are handled."

Soak the Press. Jack Gillum of the AP: "Officials in Ferguson, Missouri, are charging nearly 10 times the cost of some of their own employees' salaries before they will agree to turn over files under public records laws about the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Missouri's attorney general on Monday, after the AP first disclosed the practice, contacted Ferguson's city attorney to ask for more information regarding fees related to document requests, the attorney general's spokeswoman said."

Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "Two high schools in Jefferson County, Colorado canceled classes Monday after dozens of teachers called in sick in protest of a conservative school board's proposal to change the history curriculum. This is the second such teacher sick-out in two weeks and comes on the heels of student walk-outs over the issue. At the two high schools where sick-outs were staged, Golden and Jefferson high school, 73% and 81% of teachers called out, respectively. Unrest is also tied to new teacher evaluations. Negotiations for a new contract between the district and the union broke down last spring."

Senate Races

Dylan Scott of TPM: "The registered Democratic voter who sued to force his party to pick a new Senate nominee in Kansas did not appear at a Monday hearing for the case, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported, and the judges hearing it are now considering whether the lawsuit can continue without him.... David Orel, a registered Democrat in Kansas City, Kan., whose son is a campaign staffer for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, filed the lawsuit shortly after the Kansas Supreme Court overturned Secretary of State's Kris Kobach's decision and took Democratic nominee Chad Taylor off the ballot." ...

... Molly Ball of the Atlantic profiles Greg Orman, the independent candidate who is challenging Pat Roberts. Orman says he will caucus with the majority or be the tiebreaker. If he winds up in the tiebreaker position, we are going to see a real-life "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" story. There might not be a happy ending.

Charles Pierce: The media, the Democratic party & its nominee Bruce Braley have failed to mention that GOP Iowa Senate nominee Joni Ernst is "a complete fking loon," & now that complete fking loon is likely to become Senator Loon. CW: And let me just remind you that Sen. Loon will be owning the seat now occupied by a true progressive populist, Tom Harkin. Thanks to James S. for the link.

Gubernatorial Races

James Hohmann of Politico: "As many as a dozen incumbent governors are fighting for their political lives five weeks out from Election Day -- a list that includes the chief executives of states as red as Kansas and as blue as Connecticut as well as several top presidential battlegrounds. The unsettled gubernatorial landscape has drawn a fraction of the attention of the seesawing battle for the Senate. Yet the state of play is dramatic in its own right: The fate of big-name Republicans such as Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Florida's Rick Scott and Michigan's Rick Snyder are all on the line, and Democrats such as Colorado's John Hickenlooper and Illinois' Pat Quinn are locked in tough reelection races that could go either way."

Right Wing World

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: "National Review writer Kevin D Williamson made the real 'pro-life' agenda very, very clear, expressing his opinion that women who have abortions should be put to death -- by hanging. And not just the women; he says the doctor who performs the abortion, the nurses who assist, and the hospital staff who enable it should also be executed. This was not satire, or a 'joke.' He really believes this." Thanks, I guess, to Akhilleus for the link. ...

     ... CW: I took at peek at National Review to see if maybe they had totally disowned Williamson, apoligized with his Twitter binge & pulled all his previous stories. Nope. I guess they love this sicko. ...

... Nathalie Baptiste of the American Prospect: According to Values Voters, Williamson's plan could work. At their "summit," they tell politicians that the sure way to win elections is to alienate young people, especially women & show their support for aggrieved men. "Not only is the War on Women apparently fabricated by the godless lefties, [a panel discussion leader] even found a way to paint men as the true sufferers in the abortion debate found a way to paint men as the true sufferers in the abortion debate."

News Ledes

Guardian: "Medical officials in the United States announced on Tuesday the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed outside Africa during the latest outbreak, which has killed more than 3,000 people this year. The patient, who has not yet been identified, is being treated in Dallas, Texas. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said the patient left Liberia in west Africa on 19 September, but did not develop symptoms until a few days after arriving in the US. He was admitted to the Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas on Sunday."

Los Angeles Times: "The Securities and Exchange Commission accused two men of insider trading for acting on advance word that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman planned to bet against nutritional products company Herbalife Ltd. It's the latest dramatic turn for the Los Angeles company, which is under federation investigation and has been fighting allegations for nearly two years that it operates an illegal pyramid scheme."

Los Angeles Times: "Bell Gardens[, California,] Mayor Daniel Crespo died Tuesday after he was shot by his wife, Levette, during a domestic situation, Sheriff's Department officials told The Times."

New York Times: "An Oklahoma man was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the beheading of a co-worker, but federal officials said they had found no links that tie the man to terrorist organizations, including Islamic extremist groups that have beheaded several Western hostages in the Middle East and North Africa in recent weeks. Alton Nolen, 30, who worked on the production line of a food processing plant in Moore, Okla., remains in the hospital after being shot by the company's chief operating officer, who is also a reserve deputy sheriff, the authorities said."

New York Times: "Hong Kong's Beijing-appointed leader on Tuesday called for the pro-democracy demonstrators who have blocked major roads in the city to return home 'immediately,' and he gave no sign that he was prepared to compromise on their demands for more open elections to choose his successor." ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging the protests.