The Commentariat -- Sept. 9, 2013

NEW. Steven Myers, et al., of the New York Times: "A seemingly offhand suggestion by Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria could avert an American attack by relinquishing all of its chemical weapons received a widespread, almost immediate welcome from Syria, Russia, the United Nations, a key American ally and even some Republicans on Monday as a possible way to avoid a major international military showdown in the Syria crisis." ...

     ... Will Englund, et al., of the Washington Post: "The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday said it welcomed a Russian proposal to avert U.S. military strikes by having Damascus turn over control of its chemical weapons to international monitors." ...

     ... CW: since we made a similar proposal here more than a week ago, I'm surprised it has taken so long for the parties to accidentally come up with this idea. Don't these people read Reality Chex? ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "President Obama's approach to Syria is likely to create an important precedent in the murky legal question of when presidents or nations may lawfully use military force." ...

... Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "Asked if there were steps the Syrian president could take to avert an American-led attack, [Secretary of State John] Kerry said: 'Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week -- turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.' Mr. Kerry's remarks, which were made at a joint news conference with William Hague, the British foreign secretary, were the latest in a war of words between the Syrian leader and the Obama administration.... 'But he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done,' Mr. Kerry said." ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state and potential 2016 presidential candidate, is planning to make remarks about the intensifying situation in Syria during a visit to the White House on Monday." ...

... Nick Cumming-Bruce of the New York Times: "The appalling suffering in Syria 'cries out for international action,' Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Monday in a speech in Geneva.... [But ] Ms. Pillay warned that 'a military response or the continued supply of arms risk igniting a regional conflagration, possibly resulting in many more deaths and even more widespread misery.'" ...

... Stephen Yellow-Cake Hadley, Dubya's National Security Advisor, in a Washington Post op-ed, "urge[s] Congress to grant President Obama authority to use military force against the Assad regime in Syria." Somehow, this will force Iran to end its nuclear weapons program. Not sure how helpful this is to Obama's case, as Hadley is way short on credibility. ...

... Maybe Hadley, not to mention the Obama administration, should listen to Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president, before they make this dubious claim. Jay Newton-Small of Time reports on Rouhani's moderate tone. ...

... Mark Thomson of Time produces more leaks from the Pentagon, where sources don't like the "squishy" objectives of the Obama plan. Thompson belongs to the school that claims, if Obama is convincing in his speech tomorrow night, "and wins congressional backing, he'll get a chance to launch a military attack, with all the perils that entails. If he fails -- regardless of what he does following such a defeat -- his Administration will be wounded, perhaps mortally, for the rest of his presidency." ...

... Brian Beutler: "Political reporters have a weakness for narratives, and the narrative of a weakened president is irresistible. Moreover, members of Congress will feed that narrative.... If the Syria vote goes down, the gloom and doom tales of Obama's losing gamble will be false. To the extent that Congress has the will to do anything other than vote on an authorization to strike Syria, the outcome of that vote is disconnected from those other issues.... Syria won't derail Obama's second term -- Republicans will. As New York magazine's Dan Amira put it, 'After losing Syria vote, Obama's chances of passing agenda through Congress would go from about 0% to approximately 0%. #hugesetback.'" ...

... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough..., appeared on all five major Sunday morning news shows to make the administration's case that Congress should authorize an airstrike against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Mr. Assad, for his part, said in an interview with Charlie Rose of CBS News that his government was not behind a chemical attack that killed hundreds of civilians and injured many more. In the interview, to be broadcast on Monday, Mr. Assad also said that Syria might retaliate if attacked." ...

... Philip Elliott of the AP: "The White House asserted Sunday that a 'common-sense test' dictates the Syrian government is responsible for a chemical weapons attack that President Barack Obama says demands a U.S. military response. But Obama's top aide [Denis McDonough] says the administration lacks 'irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence' that skeptical Americans, including lawmakers who will start voting on military action this week, are seeking." ...

... Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, a key liberal Democrat, is urging President Barack Obama to withdraw his request for congressional authorization for a military strike on Syria. 'I don't think the support is there,' McGovern said on CNN's 'State of the Union...."

... Here's the Washington Post's update on where members of Congress stand on a vote to authorize the use of force in Syria. ...

... David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "Syria's top leaders amassed one of the world's largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with help from the Soviet Union and Iran, as well as Western European suppliers and even a handful of American companies, according to American diplomatic cables and declassified intelligence records." ...

... Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "Investigators trying to track the flow of weapons to Syria's civil war are focusing on mysterious activity near a Cold War-era military port on the Black Sea.... A new study by independent conflict researchers describes a heavy volume of traffic in the past two years from Ukraine's Oktyabrsk port, just up the Black Sea coast from Odessa, to Syria's main ports on the Mediterranean. The dozens of ships making the journey ranged from smaller Syrian- and Lebanese-flagged vessels to tanker-size behemoths with a long history of hauling weapons cargos."

... Byron Tau of Politico: "White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough says he's outraged by comments from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that members of the U.S. military would be essentially helping Al Qaeda in Syria. 'I am outraged for somebody to suggest that our people would be serving as allies to Al Qaeda,' McDonough said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week.'" ...

... MEANWHILE. One of the problems with all of this focus on Syria is its missing the ball from what we should be focused on, which is the grave threat from radical Islamic terrorism. This is the one-year anniversary of the attack on Benghazi. In Benghazi, four Americans were killed - including the first ambassador since 1979. When it happened, the president promised to hunt the wrongdoers down, and yet a few months later, the issue has disappeared. You don't hear the president mention Benghazi. Now it's a phony scandal. -- Sen. Ted Cruz (RTP-Texas), on "This Week"

No, Ted, it was always a phony scandal. BTW, it is possible for agents to continue the Benghazi investigation while other officials do other stuff. It's a big government, as you like to remind us. Besides, it was not the President who always 'mentioned Benghazi.' It was you & your craven conspiracy theorist friends. -- Constant Weader

Marcel Rosenbach, et al., of Der Spiegel: "The ... NSA has been taking advantage of the smartphone boom. It has developed the ability to hack into iPhones, android devices and even the BlackBerry, previously believed to be particularly secure.... For an agency like the NSA, the data storage units are a goldmine, combining in a single device almost all the information that would interest an intelligence agency: social contacts, details about the user's behavior and location, interests (through search terms, for example), photos and sometimes credit card numbers and passwords." ...

... Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material. In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years -- and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." ...

... Matt Buchanan of the New Yorker: "In response to the latest revelations re: the NSA's "cracking the code," Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey has introduced a bill, the Surveillance State Repeal Act, which would, among other things, bar the N.S.A. from installing such backdoors into encryption software. While a statement from the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper -- published after the reports by the Times and the Guardian -- said that the fact that the N.S.A. works to crack encrypted data was 'not news,' Holt said, correctly, that 'if in the process they degrade the security of the encryption we all use, it's a net national disservice.'" Buchanan cites a number of experts, most of whom claim the NSA is something of a rogue agency.

Kimberly Kindy of the Washington Post: "A meat inspection program that the Agriculture Department plans to roll out in pork plants nationwide has repeatedly failed to stop the production of contaminated meat at American and foreign plants that have already adopted the approach, documents and interviews show. The program allows meat producers to increase the speed of processing lines by as much as 20 percent and cuts the number of USDA safety inspectors at each plant in half, replacing them with private inspectors employed by meat companies. The approach has been used for more than a decade by five American hog plants under a pilot program. But three of these plants were among the 10 worst offenders in the country for health and safety violations, with serious lapses that included failing to remove fecal matter from meat...." CW: So the plan is, "Eat shit, people." I don't think the USDA understands its purpose, which is to protect consumers. But then maybe that's because a good chunk of Congress doesn't understand this, either.

Ben Protess & Susanne Craig of the New York Times dig into why the S.E.C. never brought criminal charges against Lehman Brothers executives, even when the chair of the agency, Mary Schapiro, urged investigators to do so. Why not sue for civil violations? Oh, yeah, Lehman was bankrupt. ...

... Banking Like It's 2008. Robert Reich, in Salon: "... the gambling addiction of Wall Street's biggest banks is more dangerous than ever. Five years ago this September, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and the Street hurtled toward the worst financial crisis in eighty years. Yet the biggest Wall Street banks are far larger now than they were then. And the Dodd-Frank rules designed to stop them from betting with the insured deposits of ordinary savers are still on the drawing boards -- courtesy of the banks' lobbying prowess. The so-called Volcker Rule has yet to see the light of day."

** Paul Krugman: Modern conservativism is a cult of conspiracy theorists & know-nothings. "Unfortunately..., this runaway cult controls the House, which gives it immense destructive power.... And it's disturbing to realize that this power rests in the hands of men who, thanks to the wonk gap, quite literally have no idea what they're doing."

... AND David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times, in a news report, might just as well have typed, "Tea Party Republicans are dangerous ignoramuses." Instead, he writes, "Two months after the military ousted Egypt's first elected president and began a bloody crackdown on his supporters, a delegation of House Republicans visited Cairo over the weekend to tell the new government to keep up the good work.” Read the whole report. Kirkpatrick refutes all of the MOCs' claims & lets an expert on Egypt compare the Bachmann-Gohmert-Steve King expedition to "a 'Saturday Night Live' skit -- unbelievable, ludicrous, almost comic if it wasn't so painful." It really is refreshing to see a Times reporter call out these yahoos.

Sara Sorcher of the National Journal: "The sexual-assault epidemic plaguing the Armed Forces is rooted in a hypermasculine ethos that fosters predation."

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker has a long piece on President Obama & the Keystone XL pipeline.

Local News

Bill DeBlasio & his family answer New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's charge that De Blasio is running a "racist" campaign because DeBlasio's family campaigns with/for him....

...CW: Bloomberg's claim was extraordinarily stupid; if politicians followed Bloomberg's Rule, no family members could campaign for their relatives because everyone, after all, is a member of some "groups." Lady Ann Romney, ferinstance, is a (1) rich, (2) white, (3) Mormon (4) female (5) horsewoman who (6) suffers from MS. Maybe Bloomberg just resents candidates who have, um, spouses. ...

... Chris Smith of New York assesses Michael Bloomberg's mayoralty.

Presidential Race 2016

Dan Friedman of the New York Daily News: " Rep. Peter King won't be the best known Republican presidential candidate in 2016, but he is the first. King, making his second of four scheduled visits to [New Hampshire] in the summer and fall, told a New Hampshire radio station Friday that he's there 'because right now I'm running for President.'" CW: King added that he was having trouble getting bookings on the teevee shows lately, and this seemed like a good way to boost his face time.

News Ledes

Orlando Sentinel: "George Zimmerman's wife called 911 on Monday afternoon to report that her husband was threatening her family with a gun, but she later would not press charges.... In the 911 call, Shellie Zimmerman tells a dispatcher that her husband had 'his hand on his gun and he keeps saying step closer.' 'Step closer and what?' a dispatcher asks. 'And he's going to shoot us,' Shellie Zimmerman replies." ...

     ...AP, via the New York Times: "The sobbing wife of George Zimmerman called 911 Monday to report that her estranged husband was threatening her with a gun and had punched her father in the nose, but hours later decided not to press charges...." CW: Remember, this guy is a hero of the right. Maybe now that George is threatening white people, authorities will take away his guns. ...

     ... Tape of Shellie Zimmerman's 911 call is here. A commenter on Gawker asks, "Where's the neighborhood watchman when you need him?"

The Commentariat -- Sept. 8, 2013

David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: " The Pentagon is preparing for a longer bombardment of Syria than it originally had planned, with a heavy barrage of missile strikes followed soon after by more attacks on targets that the opening salvos missed or failed to destroy, officials said. The planning for intense attacks over a three-day period reflects the growing belief in the White House and the Pentagon that the United States needs more firepower to inflict even minimal damage on Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces, which have been widely dispersed over the last two weeks, the officials said." ...

... Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Obama will sit for interviews Monday with six TV networks as he makes his case to the nation for military intervention in Syria." ...

     ... President Obama won't be convincing Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). ...

... Mike Allen & Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "Retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, former CIA director under President Barack Obama, called strongly Saturday for Congress to back the White House on Syria, declaring that military action against the regime is 'necessary' to deter 'Iran, North Korea and other would-be aggressors.'" ...

... ** Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The European Union called Saturday for a 'clear and strong' international response to what it said was 'strong evidence' that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government was responsible for a massive chemical weapons attack two weeks ago near Damascus. But the E.U. statement stopped far short of endorsing a U.S. military strike -- something that U.S. officials acknowledged many of the organization's 28 members do not support. E.U. foreign ministers, after listening to Secretary of State John F. Kerry explain the U.S. position on punishing Syria with a limited strike, also indicated that no action should take place until U.N. chemical weapons inspectors release their report at least two weeks from now. A similar delay was advocated Friday by French President François Hollande, whose government had said until last week that it was 'ready' to participate in a U.S.-led military strike against Syria." ...

... Nicholas Kristof: "So while neither intervention nor paralysis is appealing, that's pretty much the menu. That's why I favor a limited cruise missile strike against Syrian military targets (as well as the arming of moderate rebels). As I see it, there are several benefits: Such a strike may well deter Syria's army from using chemical weapons again, probably can degrade the ability of the army to use chemical munitions and bomb civilian areas, can reinforce the global norm against chemical weapons, and -- a more remote prospect -- may slightly increase the pressure on the Assad regime to work out a peace deal." ...

... CW: The New York Times posts this "news analysis" by Sam Tanenhaus on its front page. Tanenhaus claims that "the presidency itself has ceded much of its power and authority to Congress." I'm not an historian, but I think that's bull. "Strong" presidents were strong because their own party controlled Congress or because they concentrated on foreign affairs where the Constitution grants the executive more power. FDR, perhaps the country's most effective president, had both. Tanehaus seems to be of the impression that Reagan was a super-president. Well, no. He made deep concessions to the Democratic Congress, & has often been noted, he could not even be nominated by the Republican base today, even if he did pander shamelessly to the racist element (as indeed he did). If you know better, I welcome your comments. ...

     ... Andrew Rudalevige, a political scientist who teachers a "presidency course," writes in the Monkey Cage, "The idea that presidents have 'ceded' power and authority to Congress? Surely most of it was Congress's to begin with. Especially since the examples given in the paper -- Newt Gingrich's House, George W. Bush's failure to win passage of his proposals for immigration or Social Security reform -- are examples of legislators making legislative choices. Congress is, um, the legislative branch. It certainly is under no obligation to enact presidential requests into law. Indeed, it has a variety of powers even in national security areas." And so on.

... AND Maureen Dowd is into her usual pop psychoanalysis of "Barry." Seems he has a split personality & that's what is making him cede the presidency to Congressional teabaggers. ...

... PLUS, Ross Douthat piles on: "It is to President Obama's great discredit that he has staked this credibility on a vote whose outcome he failed to game out in advance."

Joseph Menn of Reuters: "Internet security experts are calling for a campaign to rewrite Web security in the wake of disclosures that the U.S. National Security Agency has developed the capability to break encryption protecting millions of sites.... Leading technologists said they felt betrayed that the NSA, which has contributed to some important security standards, was trying to ensure they stayed weak enough that the agency could break them." ...

... Al Jazeera has a useful timeline of the publications of Ed Snowden's leaks.

New York Times Editors: "The Justice Department filed a brief last month in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington against two towns for failing to provide adequate legal assistance for poor defendants. The department's filing ... did not take a position on the merits of the plaintiffs' claim, but it starkly described what Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has called the 'state of crisis.' in public defender systems nationwide.... Fifty years after the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees every criminal defendant a lawyer, the right to effective counsel remains an empty promise in too many parts of the country. The Justice Department's filing in the Washington lawsuit is an encouraging sign that the federal government is beginning to back up that promise with the weight of its authority."

Dana Milbank, no doubt after extensive research, finds an heroic Republican -- Rep. Adam Kinzinger from Illinois. Kinzinger, among other attributes, is not afraid to call out Ted Cruz for his cheap shots at the President.

Senatorial Race

Contributor P. D. Pepe links to this New Republic essay by Noam Scheiber: "Outside the context of a local politician struggling to fund his agenda, [Newark Mayor & U.S. Senate candidate Cory] Booker's worldview -- the mild suspicion of government initiative, the trivialization of paying taxes as a way to bring about change, the sanctification of corporate do-gooding -- is a few ticks to the right of a Clinton-era New Democrat. Really more like enlightened Paul Ryan-ism. There are definitely worse philosophies. But it's not exactly progressive." CW: contributor Diane's comment on Booker, in yesterday's thread, which inspired Pepe's link, is IMHO, exactly right. And it agrees perfectly with Scheiber's extended observations.

Local News

Chris Smith interviews NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg for New York magazine. The bit other news outlets are picking up: Bloomberg says leading mayoral candidate Bill De Blasio is running a "class-warfare and racist" campaign. ...

... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg set off a firestorm Saturday when he called mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio's campaign 'racist' in a New York Magazine interview. Bloomberg made the case that de Blasio's campaign was 'racist' for using his family to gain support in the black community equating it to him pointing out that he was Jewish to attract the Jewish vote. In previous mayoral campaigns that's exactly what Bloomberg did." Kaczyski lists some examples of Bloomberg's going Hebrew even though he is, according to Kaczynski, "not observant." Via Steve M., who has more.

News Ledes

USA Today: "The man who has become the face of the NAACP ... is resigning effective Dec. 31. In an interview with USA Today, Benjamin Todd Jealous said the constant travel as president and CEO of the nation's largest civil rights organization has kept him away too much from his wife, civil rights lawyer Lia Epperson, and children.... He said he plans to make a formal announcement to his staff Monday morning."

AFP: "Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle on Sunday announced a new technical problem with one of its Boeing 787 'Dreamliners', as the plane was grounded due to a flaw in its electrical system."

Los Angeles Times: "After years of largely bad news, crowds in Tokyo roared in excitement as they watched the announcement, streamed live here, that their city has been selected as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 7, 2013

"In his weekly address, President Obama makes the case for limited and targeted military action to hold the Assad regime accountable for its violation of international norms prohibiting the use of chemical weapons." -- White House

... Secretary of State John Kerry makes the moral case for a limited Syrian strike in a Huffington Post op-ed. ...

... Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "Warning that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has barely put a dent in his chemical weapons stockpile, President Obama's new envoy to the United Nations [Samantha Power] said on Friday that a failure to intervene in Syria would 'give a green light to outrages that will threaten our security and haunt our conscience' for decades to come." ...

... ** Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "With the United States threatening to attack Syria, U.S. and allied intelligence services are still trying to work out who ordered the poison gas attack on rebel-held neighborhoods near Damascus. No direct link to President Bashar al-Assad or his inner circle has been publicly demonstrated, and some U.S. sources say intelligence experts are not sure whether the Syrian leader knew of the attack before it was launched or was only informed about it afterward. While U.S. officials say Assad is responsible for the chemical weapons strike even if he did not directly order it, they have not been able to fully describe a chain of command for the August 21 attack in the Ghouta area east of the Syrian capital." ...

... Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "A senior State Department official said on Friday that the military strike the United States is planning would not fundamentally alter the military balance in Syria and would likely be followed by a prolonged 'war of attrition' among the Syrian combatants." ...

The fact is [Syrian President] Bashar Assad has massacred 100,000 people. The conflict is spreading.... The Russians are all in, the Iranians are all in, and it's an unfair fight. And no one wants American boots on the ground. Nor will there be American boots on the ground because there would be an impeachment of the president if they did that. -- John McCain, at a townhall meeting Thursday ...

... To Strike or Not to Strike...." Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: President Obama "wants an answer to his question: What, after nearly a dozen years of war, is the country willing to bear?" ...

... Chris Cillizza & Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "A majority of House members are now on the record as either against or leaning against authorizing President Obama to use military force against Syria, according to the latest whip count from the Washington Post." ...

... Dan Nowicki of the Arizona Republic: "Sen. John McCain felt the heat of opposition to U.S. military intervention in Syria on Thursday during a town-hall meeting in Phoenix that exposed the emotions and ethic and religious tensions connected to crisis in the Middle East." ...

... Charles Pierce has a good anti-war column masquerading as a grand slam against Michael Gerson, WashPo columnist & former Bush scribe. CW: One would think that Bushies would have the sense to keep their mouths shut about the wisdom of military intervention in the Middle East, what with how things turned out when they tried it. (In fact, Bush & Cheney have not commented on the plans to attack Syria.) But Gerson is of the impression that we should read & heed his words of wisdom & prognostications on the proposed strike against Syria. ...

Philip "Gourevitch and John Cassidy join host Dorothy Wickenden on this week's Political Scene podcast to discuss how we got to the brink of intervention and what other options might still be available to the President":

Mark Hosenball: "U.S. spy agencies said on Friday that the latest media revelations based on leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden will likely damage U.S. and allied intelligence efforts." ...

... Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times' public editor: "The New York Times has come under fire in the past for agreeing to government requests to hold back sensitive stories or information, but it bucked such requests in publishing a front-page article in Friday's paper. The executive editor, Jill Abramson, told me that while she and the managing editor Dean Baquet went to Washington to meet with officials and gave them 'a respectful hearing,' the decision to publish was 'not a particularly anguished one.' ... The encryption article -- an important story, published courageously -- is a very welcome development." ...

... ** Kevin Drum: "Snowden Disclosures Finally Hit 12 on a Scale of 1 to 10.... [the Times decryption story] is truly information that plenty of bad guys probably didn't know, and probably didn't have much of an inkling about.... But now that's all changed. Now every bad guy in the world knows for a fact that commercial crypto won't help them, and the ones with even modest smarts will switch to strong crypto techniques that remain unbreakable. It's still a pain in the ass, but it's not that big a pain in the ass. For what it's worth, this is about the point where I get off the Snowden train.... It's not clear to me how disclosing NSA's decryption breakthroughs benefits the public debate much." ...

... BUT Ryan Cooper of Washington Monthly: "Instead of even a token effort to target their surveillance to suspected bad guys, [NSA personnel] just take as much as they can possibly get and say 'trust us.' As I said previously, most of these efforts involve weakening crypto implementation protocols throughout the entire internet and building backdoors into commercial software. People might believe the NSA won’t abuse that capability, but I think history shows no one is to be trusted with that kind of secret power. Furthermore, there's no reason in principle that the security holes the NSA is blasting everywhere will only be used by them.... So I think the tradeoff here was definitely worth it." ...

... Simon Romero of the New York Times: "President Obama said Friday that he was seeking to ease tensions with the leaders of Latin America's two largest nations, Brazil and Mexico, over reports that the National Security Agency had spied not only on their nations, but on them and their inner circles as well." ...

... Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "Google is racing to encrypt the torrents of information that flow among its data centers around the world in a bid to thwart snooping by the NSA and the intelligence agencies of foreign governments, company officials said Friday. The move by Google is among the most concrete signs yet that recent revelations about the National Security Agency's sweeping surveillance efforts have provoked significant backlash within an American technology industry.... Google's encryption initiative, initially approved last year, was accelerated in June as the tech giant struggled to guard its reputation as a reliable steward of user information amid controversy about the NSA's PRISM program...."

Ylan Mui & Amrita Jayakuma of the Washington Post: "Americans are participating in the workforce at the lowest level in 35 years..., as lackluster job growth fails to offset the droves of people who have given up looking for work. According to the Labor Department, the economy added a disappointing 169,000 jobs in August. In addition, the government lowered its estimate of the number of jobs created in June and July by 74,000 positions.... Government data showed that only 63.2 percent of working-age Americans have a job or are looking for one, the lowest proportion since 1978. Nearly 90 million people are now considered out of the labor force, up 1.7 million from August 2012." ...

... Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: "Ignore the headlines...; in almost all the particulars, you can find signs that this job market is weaker than it appeared just a few months ago, and maybe getting worse." ...

     ... CW: if you didn't read Krugman on this yesterday, read his column now: "... U.S. economic policy since Lehman has been an astonishing, horrifying failure." (BTW, I see a "Stop Summers" subtext here.) ...

... ** Joe Stiglitz, in a New York Times column, does not rely on subtext when he explains why President Obama should nominate Janet Yellin as Fed chair instead of Larry Summers. Read this. Send it to Obama (I think it appears only in the Times online). Obama may not know much about economics (and really, he doesn't), but he can grasp the compelling case Stiglitz makes.

Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "Richard L. Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., has a bold plan to reverse organized labor’s long slide: let millions of nonunion workers -- and perhaps environmental, immigrant and other advocacy groups -- join the labor federation."

New York Times Editors: "The Group of 20 nations on Friday took an important step toward curbing tax avoidance by committing to exchanging information automatically on tax matters by the end of 2015."

The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance. -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (thanks to James S. for the link)

... CW: There is a simple partial solution to this, & I don't know that anyone has ever suggested it: require students to pass the same test non-citizens must pass to become citizens. (ironically, the current test has mistakes in it -- a few "correct" answers are actually incorrect, but you would still pass with flying colors if you got these questions "wrong.") Many states require students to take competency tests in several fields -- math, reading comprehension, writing, etc. -- to graduate from high school. Just add civics. ...

... OR, the kids could watch "Law & Order" ...

The Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable search & seizure. It doesn't say anything about being neat. -- Det. Joe Fontana (a/k/a Dennis Farina, RIP), in an old episode of "Law & Order," to a suspect complaining about the mess detectives were making during their search of his home

Of course Fontana's signature line -- 'We're authorized' -- just might give the kids the wrong impression. -- Constant Weader ...

... Maryclaire Dale of the AP: Justice Ruth Bader "Ginsburg said equality has always been central to the Constitution, even if society has only applied it to minorities -- be they women, blacks or gays -- over time. 'So I see the genius of our Constitution, and of our society, is how much more embracive we have become than we were at the beginning,' Ginsburg said in a far-ranging discussion of her work at the National Constitution Center ..." in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Texas Republican Rep. Bill Flores said at a town hall forum Thursday that if the House of Representatives had an impeachment vote, President Obama would be impeached. Flores said such a vote would be futile because it would fail in the Senate." ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "If this sounds very familiar it's because it is: Texas (of course) Republican (duh) Blake Farenthold said much the same thing only a few weeks ago. Since then we've had Rep. Kerry Bentivolio saying that he's held meetings with lawyers about impeachment and is all set to go, except for the knowing what to impeach him for part, eternal crackpot Sen. Tom Coburn ... has told voters that Obama is 'getting perilously close' to impeachment, and Canadian man with obvious presidential ambitions Sen. Ted Cruz mused that it is 'a good question.' If only there weren't so many pesky Democrats who wouldn't vote for it, and so many damn members of the press asking what exactly was the impeachable part, they would have this in the bag." (Links, expect the first, are original.)

Senatorial Race

Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times: "Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark, the Democratic candidate for United States Senate in New Jersey, is cutting all ties to an Internet start-up that he founded with money from well-connected figures in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, his campaign announced on Friday. Mr. Booker's association with the Internet firm, Waywire, had become an embarrassment for him even as he seems poised to capture the Senate seat in a special election next month."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Voters on Saturday delivered a stinging defeat to the Labor Party, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, bringing an end to six tumultuous years of leadership and ushering into power a strong conservative Liberal-National coalition. The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, who made his name as a relentless critic of the policies of Mr. Rudd and his predecessor, Julia Gillard, is now in line to become Australia's 27th prime minister when he is sworn in next week...."

Washington Post: "Rochus Misch, who spent five years as Adolf Hitler's square-jawed bodyguard, courier, telephone operator and all-around attendant and was widely believed to be the last surviving veteran of the Nazi leader's bunker as the Soviet army closed in on Berlin, died Sept. 5 at 96."

Washington Post: "NASA's newest robotic explorer rocketed into space late Friday in an unprecedented moonshot from Virginia. The LADEE spacecraft soared aboard an unmanned Minotaur rocket a little before midnight." ...

     ... Space.com Update: " After a near-perfect launch late Friday (Sept. 6), NASA's newest moon probe has encountered its first glitch on the road to Earth's nearest neighbor.... Although the launch was nearly flawless, LADEE ran into some trouble right after its separation from the Minotaur V. The probe's onboard computer shut down LADEE's reaction wheels, which are used to stabilize the attitude of the probe in space, after noticing that they were drawing too much current. But there's no reason to panic, NASA officials said."