The Commentariat -- Aug. 9, 2013

Friday Afternoon News Dump. AP: "President Barack Obama says he'll hold a news conference Friday afternoon at the White House."

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "House Democrats hoping to restore the Voting Rights Act (VRA) have an unlikely ally in House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).... Cantor is already talking to prominent Democrats about doing just that. 'We've had a one-on-one; it went very well,' Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) told The Hill last Friday.... Asked if Cantor is eying a legislative fix that would satisfy Democrats, Lewis didn't hesitate. 'Yes, yes, by all means,' he said.... A March trip with Lewis to Selma, Ala. -- site of a watershed civil rights march in 1965 -- left an impression on the Virginia Republican, who described it as "a profound experience" illustrating 'the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all.'" CW: the extension of the Voting Rights Act passed with near-unanimous approval in 2006. If today there are more than a handful of Congressional Republicans who aren't completely cynical about ensuring the right to vote, it will partially restore my faith in human nature.

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Across a dozen years of records collection, critics say, the government has offered few instances in which the massive storehouse of Americans' records contained the first crucial lead that cracked a case -- and even those, they say, could have been obtained through a less intrusive method."

New York Times Editors: "Time and again, the N.S.A. has pushed past the limits that lawmakers thought they had imposed to prevent it from invading basic privacy, as guaranteed by the Constitution.... It [is] more urgent than ever that Congress clamp down on what is unquestionably the bulk collection of American communications and restrict it to clear targets of an investigation. Despite President Obama's claim this week that 'there is no spying on Americans,' the evidence shows that such spying is greater than the public ever knew."

David Nather of Politico: "Al Qaeda’s back, and its timing couldn't be worse for the Republicans who are taking on the national security wing of their party. Edward Snowden reignited a debate over privacy and civil liberties that had fizzled in recent years. Just last week, civil libertarians were even picking up momentum on proposals to restrict the NSA's mass collection of Americans' phone records thanks to renewed attention in the media. But that was before the serious new Al Qaeda threats that have forced the shuttering of 19 American embassies and consulates overseas." CW: so if you're looking for reasons some Republicans got on the teevee & praised Obama's closing the embassies, I think you've found one.

Jonathan Allen of Reuters: "The National Security Agency, hit by disclosures of classified data by former contractor Edward Snowden, said Thursday it intends to eliminate about 90 percent of its system administrators to reduce the number of people with access to secret information. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, the U.S. spy agency charged with monitoring foreign electronic communications, told a cybersecurity conference in New York City that automating much of the work would improve security."

Salman Masood & Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "The United States ordered staff pulled from its consulate in Lahore, [Pakistan,] on Friday, citing terrorist threats that also led the State Department to advise Americans against traveling to Pakistan as violence continued to rattle the country for another day."

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The email service reportedly used by surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden abruptly shut down on Thursday after its owner cryptically announced his refusal to become "complicit in crimes against the American people." Lavabit, an email service that boasted of its security features and claimed 350,000 customers, is no more, apparently after rejecting a court order for cooperation with the US government to participate in surveillance on its customers. It is the first such company known to have shuttered rather than comply with government surveillance.... Silent Circle, another provider of secure online services, announced on Thursday night that it would scrap its own encrypted email offering, Silent Mail. In a blogpost the company said that although it had not received any government orders to hand over information, 'the writing is on the wall'." ...

... Wherein Glenn Greenwald describes the U.S. as a "rogue and lawless nation" -- as compared to Russia, Bolivia, Equador, Venezuela, Cuba, etc., & the U.S. media as U.S. government lapdogs. ...

... CW: Yesterday, I ran a link to a Guardian interview of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), which suggested that he likened Ed Snowden to Gandhi & other civil rights heroes. On his blog, Lewis responded to the published piece:

News reports about my interview with The Guardian are misleading, and they do not reflect my complete opinion. Let me be clear. I do not agree with what Mr. Snowden did. He has damaged American international relations and compromised our national security. He leaked classified information and may have jeopardized human lives. That must be condemned. I never praised Mr. Snowden or said his actions rise to those of Mohandas Gandhi or other civil rights leaders. In fact, The Guardian itself agreed to retract the word 'praise' from its headline." ...

... Via Driftglass, who has something to say about all that.

Deb Reichmann of the AP: "The scuttled summit means that talks scheduled Friday at the State Department between Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will be awkward at best. U.S.-Russia discord had been simmering since Putin regained the Russian presidency more than a year ago."

Paul Krugman on why the "captains of industry" lobby against federal deficit spending to create jobs -- basically, because they think it undermines their influence. But they can't admit that, so they have to make up other excuses -- such as government spending "undermines confidence" -- to pretend to justify their opposition to job creation via federal stimulus. ...

... THEN there are the politicians whose careers depend upon fearmongering the federal deficit. A few days ago it was Eric Cantor; now it's Rand Son-of-Ron Paul, who is genetically engineered to abhor paper money. To defend his radical, government-slashing budget proposal, Paul sez:

You know, the thing is, people want to say it's extreme. But what I would say is extreme is a trillion-dollar deficit every year. I mean, that's an extremely bad situation. ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Some good news for Senator Paul -- we're not running a trillion-dollar deficit anymore. The deficit this year is forecast at $642 billion, per the Congressional Budget Office, which also forecasts the deficit to fall to $560 billion next year and $378 billion the following year." CW: actually, a falling deficit is bad news for Li'l Randy's career plans, such bad news he has to pretend it isn't happening.

Catching the London Whale. Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "Federal regulators are seeking to level civil charges against JPMorgan Chase and extract a rare admission of wrongdoing from the nation's biggest bank as an investigation into a multibillion-dollar trading loss enters its final stage. If JPMorgan concedes to some wrongdoing in a settlement, such an admission would set an important precedent for the Securities and Exchange Commission, coming after decades of allowing defendants to 'neither admit nor deny wrongdoing.'"

New York Times Editors: "Last month the Justice Department won an antitrust suit against Apple, convincing Judge Denise Cote of United States District Court that the company had colluded with five major publishers to fix e-book prices. At a hearing on Friday, the department will argue that its plan to remedy Apple's misconduct will 'restore lost competition.' ... But the problem with this case all along was that the department ignored the potentially bigger anticompetitive force in the e-book market -- Amazon -- while focusing on Apple." CW: I guess we won't see an editorial like this in the Washington Post.

Right Wing World

Between you an me, I'm sorta holdin' my nose for two years. What we're doing here is going to be a big benefit to Rand [Paul] in '16. -- Mitch McConnell's campaign manager Jesse Benton, talking to conservative activist Dennis Fusaro about working for McConnell ...

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "The backstory here is that Benton, who in addition to being Rand Paul's political guru is also Ron Paul's grandson-in-law and managed Paul's 2012 presidential campaign, now faces questions about whether he played a role in a payola scheme to boost support for Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign. On the call, he denied knowledge of the scheme.... When Benton signed up to manage McConnell's reelection campaign, it was widely seen as an effort to insulate McConnell from a tea party challenge as well as a move by Rand Paul to suck up to the GOP establishment ahead of his 2016 presidential campaign." ...

... Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: Dennis Fusaro, "the former Ron Paul aide who secretly recorded a conversation with Mitch McConnell campaign manager and former colleague Jesse Benton, told BuzzFeed on Thursday that he recorded the phone call to protect himself and that he released it because Benton didn't meet a six-month deadline to take care of an alleged bribery incident. The McConnell campaign released a statement attributed to Benton which disparages the "truly sick" person who released the recording & says it's a great honor to work for McConnell. ...

... Alec MacGillis of the New Republic: McConnell can't fire Benton because Benton -- with his ties to the Pauls & Tea Partiers -- is McConnell's get-out-of-a-primary-challenge card. ...

... Finally, a Bachmann Conspiracy Theory Proves True. As for that bribe that Benton denies knowing about, "TheIowaRepublican.com has obtained [from Dennis Fusaro] a recording of a phone conversation between State Senator Kent Sorenson and Dennis Fusaro. The call was recorded just days after Sorenson abruptly abandoned Michele Bachmann's campaign and publicly endorsed Ron Paul. Along with confirming the payment a representative of the Paul campaign [Dimitri Kesari] made to Sorenson, the recorded conversation also appears to indicate that Sorenson was considering withdrawing from the Paul campaign almost immediately after announcing his support for Paul.... Sorenson also confirms that Paul's National Campaign Chairman, Jesse Benton, was aware of Kesari's actions." After Bachmann accused the Paul campaign of paying Sorenson to switch to Paul, Sorenson publcly denied the allegation. ...

... Matea Gold of the Washington Post: Fusaro also gave e-mails to the Iowa Republican which further incriminate Sorenson in the bribe scheme & suggest Benton was involved. ...

... CW: the FBI is investigation Michelle Bachmann's campaign, specifically in regard to irregular payments to Sorenson, who -- as an Iowa state legislator -- is barred by law from working for campaigns. Here's hoping in the course of the investigation, they asked Sorenson about that bribe thingee. And here's betting that if they did, he lied about it, just as he has done on the teevee. Sure would hate to see him go to jail for lying to federal officials.

Local News

Rosalind McDonald of the Washington Post, who is Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's worst nightmare: "A Virginia Beach radiologist lent $50,000 to a real estate corporation owned by Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his sister in 2010 — the same year the doctor was offered an appointment to a state medical board.... The loan offers a new example of how McDonnell's personal finances became entangled with his public role as the governor struggled to keep up with payments on property investments he and his family made during the height of the real estate boom."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Firefighters gained ground against a wind-whipped California wildfire that has destroyed 15 buildings, injured at least five people and forced the evacuation of 500 homes in several small communities east of Los Angeles. The fire erupted on Wednesday near a back-country road south of the town of Banning, and by nightfall on Thursday had blackened an estimated 14,000 acres, the Riverside County Fire Department said...."

New York Times: "A prosecution witness in the sentencing phase of the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning told a military judge on Thursday that Al Qaeda could have used WikiLeaks disclosures, including classified United States government materials provided by Private Manning, to encourage attacks in the West, in testimony meant to show the harm done by his actions."

New York Times: "The judge overseeing the military trial of the Army psychiatrist charged in a deadly shooting rampage at the Fort Hood base denied on Thursday his former lawyers' request to limit their role in the case. The ruling came a day after the lawyers said they could no longer assist him because he was seeking the same goal as prosecutors -- to be sentenced to death." ...

... The AP recounts some of yesterday's testimony & proceedings.

Los Angeles Times: "Gunmen early Friday waylaid a minibus carrying a Turkish Airlines crew on a road leading from Lebanon's major international airport, kidnapping the pilot and co-pilot and taking them to an unknown destination, authorities said. The brazen abduction was widely viewed here as the latest fallout from the war in neighboring Syria."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 8, 2013

David Henry of Reuters: "JPMorgan Chase & Co, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, said on Wednesday that it faces a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice over sales of mortgage-backed securities and that civil investigators have already concluded it violated securities laws. In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, JPMorgan said it is responding to 'parallel investigations' being conducted by the civil and criminal divisions of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California over mortgage-backed securities."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official. While it has long been known that the agency conducts extensive computer searches of data it vacuums up overseas, that it is systematically searching -- without warrants -- through the contents of Americans' communications that cross the border reveals more about the scale of its secret operations." ...

... ** Linda Greenhouse strongly suggests the Chief Justice (any chief justice) has too much power. "While Republicans in Congress accuse President Obama of trying to 'pack' the federal appeals court in Washington simply by filling its vacant seats, they have expressed no such concern over the fact that the chief justice has over-weighted the [FISA] surveillance court with Republican judges to a considerably greater degree than either of the two other Republican-appointed chief justices who have served since the court's creation in 1978." ...

... Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "John Lewis, one of America's most revered civil rights leaders, says the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was continuing the tradition of civil disobedience by revealing details of classified US surveillance programs. Lewis, a 73-year-old congressman and one of the last surviving lieutenants of Martin Luther King, said Snowden could claim he was appealing to 'a higher law' when he disclosed top secret documents showing the extent of NSA surveillance of both Americans and foreigners.... Lewis was among the majority of Democratic congressmen who voted for an amendment in the House of Representatives last month that sought to effectively end the NSA's bulk collection of millions of phone records." ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden extended his 15 minutes of fame Wednesday, as headlines tied his saga to President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel a planned summit meeting in Moscow next month with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But analysts said the talk of Snowden's role in the cancellation obscured a more basic reality: The U.S.-Russia relationship is now so frosty that it didn't appear the two presidents would actually accomplish enough to merit such a high-profile meeting."

Kevin Liptak of CNN: "During his address at Camp Pendleton between Los Angeles and San Diego, [President] Obama said [extremist] threats shouldn't cause Americans to 'retreat from the world.' It was the second time Obama spoke publicly about the recent threats, which prompted the United States to issue a worldwide travel alert and close embassies and diplomatic posts across the Middle East and North Africa":

Did Somebody Punk the Beast? J. K. Trotter of Gawker: "Within hours of publication [of the Daily Beast's story on the Al Qaeda conference call -- linked in yesterday's News Ledes]..., a bevy of national security journalists began casting doubts on the leaked information contained within the Beast's report. Two theories were quickly born. Adam Goldman of the Associated Press wondered if the leak was manufactured to protect human intelligence (that is, a leaker within al Qaeda), while Ken Delanian of the Los Angeles Times suggested that it was intended to glorify the NSA's signals intelligence capabilities at a politically vulnerable moment. Barton Gellman of the Washington Post, meanwhile, failed to see how the entire story -- the leak, the method of intercept, and the contents of the call -- added up." ...

... Hannah Allam of McClatchy News: "... how, then, does it make sense for the State Department to close embassies as far afield as Mauritius or Madagascar, where there's been no visible jihadist activity? And why is it that countries that weathered numerous terrorist attacks -- Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, for example -- were excluded or allowed to reopen quickly? ... Analysts who've devoted their careers to studying al Qaida and U.S. counterterrorism strategy can't really make sense of it, either. There's general agreement that the diffuse list of potential targets has to do with either specific connections authorities are tracking, or places that might lack the defenses to ward off an attack." ...

... Democracy in America: "It is also not yet apparent why the White House opted to make such a dramatic public statement of its concerns rather than use the information to disrupt the plot. Not only is there a significant economic cost from the consequent delays to travel, but according to intelligence sources there are potentially major security drawbacks as well."

New York Times Editors: "The fast-food workers who have been walking off their jobs illustrate a central fact of contemporary work life in America: As lower-wage occupations have proliferated in the past several years, Americans are increasingly unable to make a living at their jobs. They work harder and are paid less than workers in other advanced countries. And their wages have stagnated even as executive pay has soared.... If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation or average wages over the past nearly 50 years, it would be about $10 an hour; if it had kept pace with the growth in average labor productivity, it would be about $17 an hour." (CW: these strikes represent the kind of "suffering" I meant in my remark in today's Comments.)

Lydia DePillis of the Washington Post outlines President Obama's plans to reform the housing & mortgage markets. As she points out, you can get more detail at this White House page. ...

... On Wednesday, President Obama answered housing questions from citizens during an interview with Zillow CEO Spencer Raskoff:

... Hadas Gold of Politico: Zillow esimates the valuation of the White House at $319.6 million. ...

... Earlier That Same Tour of Post-Racial America. Laurie Merrill, et al., of the Arizona Republic: "Hundreds of protesters wielded signs, chanted slogans and argued with each other Tuesday outside Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, while President Barack Obama spoke about housing and the economy inside.... Obama foes at one point sang, 'Bye Bye Black Sheep,' a derogatory reference to the president's skin color, while protesters like Deanne Bartram raised a sign saying, 'Impeach the Half-White Muslim!' ... Bartram, a 17-year-old University of Arizona student from Black Canyon City, lashed out at people who call her racist.... She believes Obama supporters use the 'race card' against her because they disagree with her political message. 'He's 47 percent Negro,' shouted Ron Enderle, a 77-year-old Chandler resident...." CW: I can't think of any other reason people might call Bartram a racist. ...

... Think it's just stupid, crazy "average Americans" who act this way? Exotic is the New Black. Jason Noble of the Des Moines Register: according to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), "During [a] July 15 meeting -- which concerned filibuster rules and included no press and no staff -- one senator suggested his constituents still couldn't identify with Obama. 'I'm not naming any names, but one senator got up from a southern state and said, "Well, you've got to understand that to my people down here, Obama seems like" -- he thought for a second and he said -- "like he's exotic."'"

Ken Vogel & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Rep. Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez secretly spoke to wealthy donors at the Koch brothers' recently concluded summer gathering on the outskirts of Albuquerque. The 2012 vice presidential candidate and No. 2 House Republican are return participants to the twice-annual seminar, which also drew wealthy donors and conservative nonprofit leaders...."

Ben Goad of the Hill: "The National Rifle Association is asking the Supreme Court to strike down decades-old regulations prohibiting the sales of handguns to those under the age of 21. The powerful gun lobby is challenging a lower federal court's October ruling that upheld the ban. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the current regulations are consistent with a long-held view that young adults between the ages of 18 and 20 'tend to be relatively immature and that denying them easy access to handguns would deter violent crime.'"

** Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Airline seating may be the best concrete expression of what's happened to the economy in recent decades. Airlines are sparing no expense these days to enlarge, upgrade and increase the price of their first-class and business-class seating. As the space and dollars devoted to the front of the planes increase, something else has to be diminished, and, as multitudes of travelers can attest, it's the experience of flying coach. The joys of air travel -- once common to all who flew -- have been redistributed upward and are now reserved for the well-heeled few."

Senatorial Race

CW: For those of you who think Tea Party populism can't be all bad -- Betsy Woodruff of the National Review: "Louie Gohmert for Senate? That's what a number of Texas tea-party activists are hoping for. They're not happy with Senator John Cornyn.... Gohmert told the Washington Examiner that he won't be running for Senate." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein: "Cornyn is a mainstream extremely conservative Republican, while Gohmert appears to be a raving lunatic. Given the choice, it's not immediately clear which way most Texas Republican primary voters would go." ...

... AND, in more Louie News:

The Louie Gohmert Weekly Reader

Doktor Zoom of Wonkette: "Congresstool Louie Gohmert (R-Arkham) told Sean Hannity on Tuesday that when he was a judge, he figured that a mouthy defendant had to be dealt with, so he 'duct taped his head' in keeping with Article Umpty-Leven of the Constitution."

Presidential Race 2016

Gail Collins: Note to Chris Christie: women won't vote for a guy who yells. Here's the related video (hard to find because there are so many youtube videos titled "Chris Christie blows up at heckler," each reporting a different incident):

Local News

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: " Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, newly empowered by the United States Supreme Court's ruling in June that struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, has ordered state officials to resume a fiercely contested effort to remove noncitizens from voting rolls." In the 2012 effort, the state targeted 182,000 Floridians. "Of those, fewer than 40 had voted illegally." CW: So, thanks, Rick Scott, for wasting my taxpayer dollars harassing Hispanics.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Karen Black, an actress whose roles in several signature films of the late 1960s and '70s included a prostitute who shared an LSD trip with the bikers played by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 'Easy Rider' and a waitress unhappily devoted to the alienated musician played by Jack Nicholson in 'Five Easy Pieces,' died on Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 74."

Boston Globe: "Two former UMass-Dartmouth students with ties to Boston Marathon terror bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were indicted today on obstruction of justice charges for allegedly trying to impede the Boston Marathon terror bombing investigation. Kazakhstan nationals Dias Kadyrbayev, 19, and Azamat Tazhayakov, 19, are accused of helping to get rid of incriminating evidence that Tsarnaev left behind in his college dorm room on April 18, three days after the terror bombing killed three and wounded 260 in Boston."

AP: "A wildfire that broke out in the inland mountains of Southern California has expanded exponentially, burning homes, forcing the evacuation of several small mountain communities and leaving three people injured.About 1,500 people had evacuated as the wildfire of more than 9 square miles raged out of control Thursday in the San Jacinto Mountains near Banning...."

Los Angeles Times: "At least one child has been killed and major roads in parts of Missouri have been closed by floods caused by days of fierce rains, officials said on Wednesday."

Dallas Morning News: Former First Lady "Laura Bush said [her husband George W. Bush] was 'doing great' after having a stent implanted in his heart Tuesday to clear blockage in an artery. He returned home early Wednesday from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas...."

Al Jazeera: "President Barack Obama has phoned Uhuru Kenyatta, his Kenyan counterpart, to offer Washington's support following a devastating fire at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), east Africa's largest. The US embassy in Kenya said Obama made the call on Thurdsday a day after his country marked the 15th anniversary of the twin bombing of US embassies in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 7, 2013

Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Barack Obama will refuse to hold talks with Vladimir Putin when he visits Russia for the G20 summit next month as a row over granting asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden plunged their relationship into one of its chilliest phases since the end of the cold war. The White House confirmed on Tuesday that it had decided to snub the Russian leader by pulling out of the planned bilateral summit in Moscow, but is expected to take part as normal in the broader G20 meeting of international leaders in St Petersburg."

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "In an appearance in Phoenix, Mr. Obama endorsed bipartisan efforts in the Senate to wind down [Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac] and end their longtime implicit guarantee of a federal government bailout. That dread prospect, once thought improbable, was realized in the fall 2008 financial crisis; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then bankrupt, were rescued by the government at great cost to taxpayers, who only now are being repaid. The president made clear that he will only sign into law a measure that puts private investors primarily at risk for the two companies, which buy and guarantee many mortgages from banks to provide a continuing stream of money for lenders to provide to additional home buyers":

President Obama appeared on Jay Leno's show last night. Mediaite has the full interview (in three parts) here.

Dr. Frankenstein's Anti-ObamaCare Monster. Steve Benen: "... as far as some Tea Partiers are concerned..., conservative Republicans who see the shutdown strategy as folly are suddenly the enemy. It appears that Republican officials have created a monster, and like Frankenstein, they aren't altogether pleased with the results." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... 'stories' which shriek about premium increases are not improving public understanding of Obamacare." ...

... Erika Eichelberger of Mother Jones has an amusing piece on "The Seven Craziest Obamacare Conspiracy Theories.... Obamacare is going to implant you with a microchip. Obamacare is going to tax your golf club. Obamacare is going to create a massive unprecedented federal database to hold all of your 'intimate ... secrets.'" CW: These would be more amusing if great swaths of your garden-variety FoxBots didn't believe them. ...

... Oh Yeah? Sharon Begley of Reuters: "The federal government is months behind in testing data security for the main pillar of Obamacare: allowing Americans to buy health insurance on state exchanges due to open by October 1." CW: unrefuted evidence that President Obama doesn't care if your neighbors find out you have an STD.

** Katie McDonough of Salon: "Since Nebraska first jump-started the trend back in 2010, close to a dozen state legislatures across the country have passed laws banning abortion at 20 weeks. Most ... are given grave-sounding titles like the 'Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,' or some near-identical riff on the words 'fetal,' 'pain' and 'protection.' All of them ... rest on the stated premise that a fetus can experience pain at 20 weeks.... But ... the limited research used to support such claims has been refuted as pseudoscience by both the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (Not to mention smaller studies....) The neural structures necessary to feel pain have not yet developed, any observable responses to stimuli at this gestational stage -- like the fetal 'flinching' during an amniocentesis -- are reflexive, not experiential." Thanks of Barbarossa for the link. CW: read the whole piece.

Oren Kerr, in the New Yorker: "In a major decision last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the location of your cell phone when you place a call is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, which guards against 'unreasonable searches and seizures.' ... The decision is a win for the government and police powers, with the caveat that other cases are pending and may reach a different outcome. And if they disagree, it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide." Kerr explains the logic behind the Fifth Circuit's opinion, & it is rather neat. So if you want to know why James Clapper's ability to hoover your phone records is consistent with the Fourth Amendment, here it is. Cue Glenn Greenwald.

James Traub of Foreign Policy, in a New York Times op-ed: "Tea Partyers often style themselves as disciples of Thomas Jefferson, the high apostle of limited government. But by taking the ramparts against immigration, the movement is following a trajectory that looks less like the glorious arc of Jefferson's Republican Party than the suicidal path of Jefferson's great rivals, the long-forgotten Federalists, who also refused to accept the inexorable changes of American demography."

PolitiFact Blows It Again. Steve Benen: Eric Cantor said this weekend on Fox "News" that the deficit is growing, but it is unquestionably shrinking. PolitiFact called Cantor's claim "half-true." "... even by [PolitiFact's] standards, this is a doozy. Cantor said the deficit is growing; PolitiFact knows that the deficit is shrinking; but it nevertheless tells the public that the claim is 'half true' because in future years, if certain budget conditions happen a certain way, Cantor's claim might someday become true. I suppose my follow-up question for PolitiFact is this: what incentive do political leaders have to tell the truth when you tell the public their patently false claims are 'half true'?" ...

... Paul Krugman: "It is, of course, the same old problem: news organizations in general, and PolitiFact in particular, are set up to deal with a world in which both parties generally respect reality, and in which dishonesty and delusion are roughly equally distributed between the parties. Faced with the highly asymmetric reality, they choke -- treating mild Democratic exaggerations as if they were equivalent to outright falsehoods on the other side, treating wild misrepresentations on the GOP side as if they were slight misstatements. This should be simple: PolitiFact should just rule on the facts; it should seek to be party-blind, which isn't the same as being 'nonpartisan', with its connotation of 'balance'. But apparently it can't do it." ...

... CW: Actually, PolitiFact's problem is that its reporters read the New York Times. Here's Jonathan Weisman reporting in the Times on July 8: "The federal budget deficit will fall to $759 billion for the fiscal year that ends this September.... The White House projected the deficit to bottom out at $496 billion in 2018, then start ticking back up to $593 billion in 2022." This week, in a Times opinion post titled "Someone Tell Cantor: the Deficit Is Shrinking," Juliet Lapidos emphasized the White House's/Weisman's/PolitiFact's qualification. She wrote: "Granted, this trend won't last: 'The White House projected the deficit to bottom out at $496 billion in 2018, then start ticking back up to $593 billion in 2022.'" PolitiFact was following Lapidos' lead. ...

... Update: PolitiFact responds to Benen & Krugman. Worth noting here: on July 24, PolitiFact rated as "true" President Obama's remark that the deficit was falling at the fastest rate in 50 years. ...

     ... This is worth noting, because, as Jonathan Bernstein writes, "Here's the thing: it just can't be true that the deficit is falling at a record pace, and also half-true that the deficit is 'growing.' ... The real story here, and the real reason I've stopped paying attention to PolitiFact, is that they handle criticism extremely badly. They got this wrong; that's okay. In my view, they probably shouldn't have looked at it in the first place.... Or, having done it, they could realize that their two ratings really didn't reconcile, and they could have admitted error and dealt with it. But if they treat legitimate criticism [the way they did in their response to Benen & Krugman]..., then how can you take them seriously?"

Evan Perez of CNN: "Federal authorities have filed the first criminal charges in the investigation of the deadly terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, people briefed on the matter said. Several suspects charged in the armed assault last September 11 include prominent Libyan militia figure Ahmed Abu Khattala, the sources said. Other identities were not disclosed. The counts initially sought months ago in New York are still under seal, according to the sources." CW: let's see how Republicans spin this.

Interesting. Alan Zarembo of the Los Angeles Times: "A tour of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq -- even one involving combat -- does not increase a service member's risk of suicide, according to a study that tracked more than 150,000 troops for up to eight years. The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., challenges the common assumption that the stresses of being in a war zone and exposure to the horrors of battle are behind a sharp increase in the military's suicide rate over the last decade."

Local News

** Kyung Lah of CNN: Air Force veteran Eldonna "Fernandez, along with Army veteran Gerri Tindley, joins 11 other women who have publicly accused [San Diego Mayor Bob] Filner, 70, of making unwanted advances, from groping to verbal passes. They are also among at least eight female veterans and members of the National Women's Veterans Association of America (NWVAA) in San Diego who have made accusations against the mayor. Almost all of the women were victims of sexual assault while they were in the military. The women, like Fernandez, say the former chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee used his significant power and credentials to access military sexual assault survivors, who they say are less likely to complain." ...

     ... CW: I know sexual harassment isn't a crime, but I do hope prosecutors from the feds on down are looking for criminal laws to to charge Filner with breaking.

CNN: "Former President Bill Clinton said he and his wife, Hillary Clinton, have many 'personal friends' in the New York City mayoral race and added that he shouldn't talk about the contest. His comments came in an interview with CNN in Kigali, Rwanda, where Clinton is on a six-stop trip in the continent with his daughter for their work with The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. 'We are a hundred miles from that race and everyone understands that we are not going to be involved, as long as our personal friends and people who we feel obligations are involved,' he told CNN's Nima Elbagir.... 'Neither Hillary or I was ever involved in the political campaign, and they understood that from the beginning,' he said. 'There are too many people running for mayor who have been my supporters, who supported her for senator, her for president'":

... Michael Musto interviews Weiner's "friend" Sydney Leathers for Gawker. CW: I read a little of it; definitely not a must-read.

Senatorial Races

Betting on Booker. David Halbfinger, et al., of the New York Times: "... how a few tech moguls and entrepreneurs, many of them also campaign donors, not only made a financial bet on [Newark Mayor Cory Booker's] political future but also provided the brainpower and financing to help create a company that could make him very rich." The tech company with which they gifted Booker also has provided jobs for Booker's friends & supporters. CW: nobody would claim Cory doesn't know how to network.

Kyle Roerink of the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune: "Senate candidate Liz Cheney improperly received a state resident fishing license based on an application with incorrect information, according to Wyoming Game and Fish Department records. Cheney ... received her resident license just 72 days after closing on her Wilson house in May 2012. State law requires residents live in the state 365 consecutive days before they can receive a resident hunting or fishing license, which are cheaper than out-of-state licenses. Cheney's application also lists her as a 10-year resident of Wyoming.... 'The clerk must have made a mistake,' she said. 'I never claimed to be a 10-year resident.' ... The fine for a false statement on the application is $220 and is a misdemeanor.... If Game and Fish imposes the fine and Cheney chooses to contest the fine in court, a judge could ratchet up the fine to $1,000." An official of the state's Game & Fish says the agency will "follow up on this like any other residency issues... It's at the initial stages of verification.'" Via Charles Pierce, who is unimpressed with Cheney's carpetbagging skills. CW: since Cheney & her husband are multi-millionaires, the few bucks they saved on an in-state license is the height of stupid. Of course, um, maybe the clerk made a mistake.

Presidential Race 2016

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Republicans have begun trying to damage former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's political image ahead of her expected 2016 White House bid." CW: no doubt this will come as a shock to Clinton, as Republicans have never done anything like this before.

Alex Massie of the Spectator has a good piece on the appeal or lack thereof of presumptive presidential candidates: "Being likeable is one thing but it's more important for a candidate to be respected. That means they need to project some brand of presidentialism which is not quite the same thing as being able to talk Average Joe even if that quality may also be extremely useful. We don't know if [Chris] Christie can do that yet." Massie argues that Li'l Randy won't make the cut. Via Jonathan Bernstein. CW: But what about Dubya? Massie never mentions him. How is it possible that anyone thought Dubya seemed presidential? -- especially compared to Kerry, who seems like Abe Lincoln in slo-mo.

News Ledes

Houston Chronicle: "One of the biggest capital murder trials in U.S. military history came to an abrupt halt on its second day as Maj. Nidal Hasan's standby counsel team asked that its role in the proceeding be modified. Lawyers on the team said Hasan is intentionally seeking the death penalty in his court-martial. The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, cleared the court Wednesday morning so she could conduct a closed hearing on the matter. The trial in the 2009 shooting that left 13 people dead and 31 wounded is scheduled to resume Thursday morning."

Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Ariel Castro's home is no more. The modest house at 2207 Seymour Ave., where Castro kept Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight locked up for more than a decade, is nothing more than a pile of rubble after crews used an excavator to tear down the property.... A crush of media and onlookers gathered before daybreak as crews from the Cuyahoga Land Bank, in charge of the demolition, and Independence Excavating prepared to tear down the home." ...

     ... Guardian: "The house is being torn down as part of a deal that spared Ariel Castro a possible death sentence."

Daily Beast: "The crucial intercept that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a conference call between al Qaeda's senior leaders and representatives of several of the group's affiliates throughout the region."

New York Times: "A day after the United States and Britain moved to withdraw personnel from Yemen, a move that had followed embassy closures, Yemeni security officials said Wednesday that the authorities here had foiled an audacious plot by Al Qaeda to seize an important port and kidnap or kill foreigners working there." ...

     ... Update: here's the White House statement.

... Washington Post: "The Obama administration authorized a series of drone strikes in Yemen over the past 10 days as part of an effort to disrupt an al-Qaeda terrorism plot that has forced the closure of American embassies around the world, U.S. officials said. The officials said the revived drone campaign -- with four strikes in rapid succession -- is directly related to the emergence of intelligence indicating that al-Qaeda's leader has urged the group's Yemen affiliate to attack Western targets."