The Commentariat -- May 22, 2013

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "...lost in the contentious debate over the legality, morality and effectiveness of [drones] is the fact that the number of strikes has actually been in decline. Strikes in Pakistan peaked in 2010 and have fallen sharply since then; their pace in Yemen has slowed to half of last year’s rate; and no strike has been reported in Somalia for more than a year."

Most homebuilders would be against [requiring safe structures in new homes] because we think the market ought to drive what people are putting in the houses, not the government. -- Mike Gilles, a former president of the Oklahoma State Home Builders Association (Gilles puts storm shelters in the luxury homes he builds)

Might as well just sit back. If it gets you, it gets you. If not, another day. -- Leon Harjo, a Moore, Oklahoma, resident ...

... ** John Schwartz of the New York Times: "... no local ordinance or building code requires [storms cellars or safe rooms], either in houses, schools or businesses, and only about 10 percent of homes in Moore have them. Nor does the rest of Oklahoma, one of the states in the storm belt called Tornado Alley, require them -- despite the annual onslaught of deadly and destructive twisters like the one on Monday.... Schwartz attributes the lacks of such codes to "cost & Plains culture." The cost for homes, BTW, is in the neighborhood of $4,000.

I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee. -- Lois Lerner, to the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee

Lauren French & Kelsey Snell of Politico: "Lois Lerner, the director of the scandal-plagued IRS division that oversees nonprofit groups, struck a defiant tone in her first public appearance since the agency acknowledged that it wrongly targeted conservative groups applying for a tax exemption.... For now, Lerner is refusing to answer additional questions from the committee by invoking her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.... Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin told the panel that although he was aware the IRS was being investigated, he knew nothing about the results of that review and didn't interfere with the probe in any way." ...

     ... The Washington Post is liveblogging the hearing. ...

... CW: I often disagree with Dan Balz of the Washington Post because he tends to take the "fastidious whiner" approach to controversies. But I think he's right today: "... the White House has added to the confusion by changing its story of who knew what and when. By happenstance or design, officials are employing an approach that former White House press secretary Mike McCurry once classically described as 'telling the truth slowly.' ... If White House officials hoped the IRS controversy would quickly go away, they have acted in a way designed to produce just the opposite." ...

... BUT Jeff Toobin, in the New Yorker: "It was immediately clear that neither President Obama nor anyone in the White House ordered the alleged I.R.S. misconduct. So the question became what the White House 'knew' about the wrongdoing.... Shouldn't [White House counsel Kathryn] Ruemmler et al. have told the President about the audit? Actually, that would have been just about the worst thing they could have done.... By not telling the President, Ruemmler made sure that Obama could not be accused of influencing the audit." ...

... CW: nevertheless, Ruemmler told the President's chief of staff Denis McDonough & other White House officials about the investigation, & isn't it reasonable to suspect that any one of them might have clued in Obama? Not that it matters, because it doesn't unless it turns out the President sent the Cincinnati office a big gift basket with a "keep up the good work" card. ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: Lois Lerner, "the Internal Revenue Service official who tried to temper efforts to target conservative groups and then made the issue public, will plead her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and decline to testify at a House hearing on Wednesday." ...

... Bernie Becker of the Hill: "Former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman told Congress Tuesday that he only learned the full extent of the agency's targeting of conservative groups after he left his post and did not know why employees initially implemented the policy. Shulman said IRS staffers should have more quickly alerted their superiors about the higher scrutiny given to Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status -- a feeling shared by the acting commissioner, Steven Miller. The two officials faced tough questions about the IRS scandal before the Senate Finance Committee...." ...

... Old News. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "An Internal Revenue Service review of the agency's approach of scrutinizing conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status questioned the now-controversial policy a year ago, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee spokesman Ali Ahmad." ...

... Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times, via the Chicago Tribune: "Crossroads GPS, the behemoth conservative advocacy group behind some of the most robust attacks against President Obama's administration, said Monday that it believes it is among the organizations subjected to special scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. The statement by the group comes as campaign finance reform advocates and congressional Democrats have claimed that the IRS failed to examine the activities of Crossroads and other major political players...." CW: Good. And I hope there's a provision in the IRS practices & procedures manual for applying thumbscrews to Karl Rove. If there isn't, there should be. ...

... David Grant of the Christian Science Monitor: gee, maybe this whole IRS brouhaha is Congress's fault for writing such an ambiguous law, then letting the IRS interpret it -- for 50 years. ...

... The Starr Chamber II. As contributor MAG noted, Bill Keller is advancing the bright idea of a Ken Starr investigation of the IRS. I was hoping Keller had suggested Starr investigate Benghazi, which would put him back in the familiar Clinton territory he so enjoyed. Maybe he could have finally nailed Hillary on Whitewater. Unless it turns out Lois Lerner was auditing Steven Miller's privates, IRS-gate would be no fun for Ken.

We have got to get past [unfounded accusations about Benghazi] and figure out what are we going to do going forward. Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn't believe some of this stuff. It's just -- I mean, you've got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff. -- Unnamed Senior House GOP Aide ...

... CW: it isn't just staffers whose eyes are beginning to glaze over. As Ben Ambruster of Think Progress points out, Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) & Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) & Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) have all backed away from endorsing the Big All-Benghazi-All-the-Time Show. ...

... It Was All Petraeus's Fault, II. Scott Wilson & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "at [an] informal session with [Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.),] House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the ranking Democrat asked David H. Petraeus, who was CIA director at the time, to ensure that committee members did not inadvertently disclose classified information when talking to the news media about the attack.... What Petraeus decided to do with that request is the pivotal moment in the controversy over the administration's Benghazi talking points. It was from his initial input that all else flowed, resulting in 48 hours of intensive editing that congressional Republicans cite as evidence of a White House coverup.... Petraeus's early role and ambitions in going well beyond the committee's request, apparently to produce a set of talking points favorable to his image and his agency. The information Petraeus ordered up when he returned to his Langley office that morning included far more than the minimalist version that Ruppersberger had requested."

New York Times Editors: "With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter [Jay Rosen] a possible 'co-conspirator' in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening the fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news."

McCain & Collins Are Sick of Tailgunner Ted & Li'l Randy. Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "Long-simmering divisions among Republicans burst into public view Tuesday evening, when GOP moderates challenged tea-party conservatives on the Senate floor over their refusal to proceed to formal negotiations with Democrats over the federal budget." ...

... Dave Weigel of Slate: "What Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Mike Lee want -- and have wanted -- is a guarantee that a debt limit increase cannot be included in the budget agreement that comes out of the House and Senate conference. It only takes 51 votes to pass a budget. Cruz, on the floor, has asked the Senate to preserve the 'traditional 60-vote threshold' for raising the debt limit. This is a strange definition of 'tradition.'" ...

...  Steve Benen has more: "Between 1939 and 2010, the debt ceiling was raised 89 times. How many of those increases were subjected to the '60-vote threshold'? Zero. Even earlier this year, a debt-ceiling increase was approved with 52 votes, not 60. It's possible Cruz doesn't understand what 'traditional' means.... What Cruz wants isn't traditional; it's unprecedented.... And as of yesterday, even some Senate Republicans are getting tired of this nonsense."

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: " Senate committee approved a sweeping immigration reform bill Tuesday that would provide a path to citizenship for up to 11 million illegal immigrants, setting the stage for the full Senate to consider the landmark legislation next month. After five days of debate over dozens of amendments, the Judiciary Committee voted 13 to 5 in support of the bill, with three Republicans joining the committee's 10 Democrats. The legislation emerged with its core provisions largely intact, including new visa programs for high-tech and low-skilled workers and new investments in strengthening border control." ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Tuesday said he would not try to block immigration reform from reaching the floor despite the opposition of some conservative leaders. The green light from McConnell is a promising development...." ...

... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Most U.S. high-tech companies would not be required to offer jobs to Americans before they are able to hire foreign workers under a compromise worked out Tuesday by Senate negotiators on an immigration reform bill. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the deal, which came as an amendment to the immigration legislation, to satisfy concerns from Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), whose support is seen as crucial to building strong bipartisan momentum for the overall proposal." ...

... Jennifer Martinez of the Hill: "Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) withdrew a controversial amendment to the immigration bill on Tuesday that would allow American citizens in same-sex marriages to sponsor green cards for their foreign partners. Leahy said he chose to withdraw the amendment 'with a heavy heart' because Republicans have said they would oppose the sweeping immigration bill if it was included." CW: "controversial" only to lunkheads.

Tabassum Zakaria & Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "President Barack Obama's administration has decided to give the Pentagon control of some drone operations against terrorism suspects overseas that are currently run by the CIA, several U.S. government sources said on Monday. Obama has pledged more transparency on controversial counterterrorism programs, and giving the Pentagon the responsibility for part of the drone program could open it to greater congressional oversight."

David Jackson of USA Today: "President Obama has formally appointed the 10 members of a special commission designed to look for improvements in U.S. election systems. The assignment of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration is to 'identify non-partisan ways to shorten lines at polling places, promote the efficient conduct of elections, and provide better access to the polls for all voters,' said a White House statement. The bipartisan co-chairs are Robert Bauer and Benjamin Ginsberg, attorneys who worked for the Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns during last year's presidential election." CW: Hmmm. Ben Ginsberg strikes me as a guy who does not play well with others. I'm not sure this commission will be as effective as the Catfood Commission, which couldn't even agree to produce a report.

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "Facing down blistering criticism on Capitol Hill that Apple sidestepped billions of dollars in taxes, the company's chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, carefully defended Apple's record Tuesday, rejecting any suggestion of misconduct but avoiding clashes with skeptical legislators." ...

... Contributor P. D. Pepe has what is probably a more true-to-life account of the hearing in today's Comments. ...

... When "Overseas" Means "A New York Bank." David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "Multinationals based in the United States now hold more than $1.6 trillion in cash classified as 'permanently invested overseas.' These funds will face the 35 percent federal corporate tax only if it is returned to the country. In the convoluted world of corporate tax accounting however, simple concepts like 'overseas' and 'returned to the country' are not as simple as they appear. Apple's $102 billion in offshore profits is actually managed by one of its wholly owned subsidiaries in Reno, Nev., according to the Senate report on the company's tax avoidance. The money is tracked by Apple company bookkeepers in Austin, Tex. What's more, the funds are held in bank accounts in New York."

... Tax Avoidance Copycats? Floyd Norris of the New York Times: "Tuesday’s hearing could have the exact opposite effect from the one that Senator [Carl] Levin [D-Mich.] intended. It is not hard to imagine other chief executives reading news reports and asking their chief financial officers why they never thought of that. That could lead to even more companies finding ways to avoid American income taxes." ...

... ** John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Partly as a result of their evasive tactics, big businesses now shoulder a lot less of the tax burden than they used to do. In the years after the Second World War, the corporate income tax accounted for about a third of over-all tax revenues. Today, its share is less than nine per cent.... Sixty years ago, individual and payroll taxes accounted for about half of over-all tax revenues; today, they account for more than eighty per cent."

Oh, Great. Gitmo is getting a $200 million renovation. And I doubt there will be an HGTV special about it, even if it becomes the plush resort Orrin Hatch claims it is.

Shahank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times: "The Army suspended the commander of its main basic training camp Tuesday for alleged adultery, the latest in a string of military officers accused of sexual misconduct. Brig. Gen. Bryan T. Roberts, a 29-year Army veteran, was suspended from his post at Ft. Jackson, S.C., while the military investigates allegations of 'adultery and a physical altercation,' officials said.... Adultery is a crime under military law and, if proven, could end his Army career." ...

... CW: The story doesn't detail the allegations about the "physical altercation," so maybe it was -- if true -- suspension-worthy, but adultery should never be a criminal offense. (And, no, I don't favor adultery.)

Local News

Seema Mehta & Laura J. Nelson of the Los Angeles Times: "Wendy Greuel called Eric Garcetti early Wednesday morning to concede the mayoral election, a Greuel campaign source told the Times, ending a two-year campaign to determine Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's successor and the new political leader of Los Angeles. Garcetti will be the first elected Jewish mayor of the city. At 42, he will also be the youngest in more than a century. He is scheduled to take office July 1."

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "After a rocky re-emergence into public life over the past few weeks, marked by circuslike scenes of tabloid photographers chasing him onto the subway, [former Congressman Anthony] Weiner opted to declare his candidacy [for mayor of New York City] from the safe remove of a video":

Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "A federal appellate panel struck down Arizona's abortion law on Tuesday, saying it was unconstitutional 'under a long line of invariant Supreme Court precedents' that guarantee a woman's right to end a pregnancy any time before a fetus is deemed viable outside her womb -- generally at 24 weeks."

News Lede

Boston Globe: "A Chechen man with ties to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot and killed by an FBI agent in Orlando early today when the man attacked the agent, the FBI said in a statement. The FBI identified the person shot and killed as Ibragim Todashev, 26. According to the FBI and local news accounts, the shooting took place in an apartment building on Peregrine Avenue while Todashev was being questioned about the bombings and Tamerlan Tsarnaev." ...

     ... Update: the Orlando Sentinel's report is here.

The Commentariat -- May 21, 2013

Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post: "... it appeared increasingly likely that residents who lost homes and businesses [in the Oklahoma tornado] would turn to the federal government for emergency disaster aid. That could put the state's two Republican senators in an awkward position. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, both Republicans, are fiscal hawks who have repeatedly voted against funding disaster aid for other parts of the country. They also have opposed increased funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers federal disaster relief.... Oklahoma currently ranks third in the nation ... in terms of total federal disaster and fire declarations, which kickstart the federal emergency relief funding process.... And despite their voting record on disaster aid for other states, both Coburn and Inhofe appear to sing a different tune when it comes to such funding for Oklahoma." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... Emily Pierce in Roll Call: "The tornado damage near Oklahoma City is still being assessed and the death toll is expected to rise, but already Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says he will insist that any federal disaster aid be paid for with cuts elsewhere." ...

... Steve Benen: "I've seen many note overnight that Coburn is at least consistent -- there are plenty of politicians who've balked at disaster-relief funds when there's a devastating storm, only to change their minds when their constituents are among the casualties.... But while consistently is welcome, it doesn't change the questions about unnecessary callousness." ...

... ** David Sirota in Salon: "... there's an increasing chance that we will not be [prepared for weather events] thanks to the manufactured crisis known as sequestration. As the Federal Times recently reported, sequestration includes an 8.2 percent cut to the National Weather Service. According to the organization representing weather service employees, that means there is 'no way for the agency to maintain around-the-clock operations at its 122 forecasting offices' and also means 'people are going to be overworked, they're going to be tired, they're going to miss warnings.' Though the last few years saw a record number of billion-dollar weather cataclysms, the weather service remains a perennial target for budget cuts.... The good news is that the National Weather Service station in Norman, Oklahoma had a warning in effect for 16 minutes before the most recent Oklahoma City tornado hit."

Drip, Drip, Drip. Juliet Eilperin & Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Senior White House officials, including Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, learned last month about a review by the Treasury Department's inspector general into whether the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, but they did not inform President Obama, the White House said Monday. The acknowledgement is the White House's latest disclosure in a piecemeal, sometimes confusing release of details concerning the extent to which White House officials knew of the IG's findings...." ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The details provided by the White House on Monday went beyond its previous account, and may provide additional fodder for critics pressing to understand what and when the president and his team knew about the I.R.S. misconduct. During a series of television interviews on Sunday, Dan Pfeiffer, the president's senior adviser, made no mention that Mr. McDonough or others had been notified and said that the White House had 'no idea what the facts were' when [Kathryn] Ruemmler, [the White House counsel,] was informed. Mr. Carney on Monday acknowledged that she was in fact told that certain key words like 'Tea Party' and 'patriot' were used to target conservative organizations." ...

... AS of 8 pm ET Monday, video of Carney's briefing is strangely unavailable on the White House site. C-SPAN has it here. Update: the White House site has the presser up now....

... Gee, maybe this is why the White House is changing its story: posted shortly before Carney's presser -- which he delayed by an hour -- came this from Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is the chairman of the committee, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican, forwarded a six-page letter to Steven Miller, the acting I.R.S. commissioner, who announced his resignation last week. It contained 41 pointed questions about the I.R.S.'s efforts to single out for special scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Those questions, which are to be answered by May 31, go well beyond the agency's actions and address the questions Republicans have been asking for a week: Who in the Obama administration knew what? And when did they know it?" ...

... Former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich in the Hill: "In those rare cases when information about the audit or investigation goes beyond the agency in the executive branch, it would be unprecedented in my experience for anyone outside the agency to become involved in the customary back and forth between the IG and the agency, much less to intervene with the IG before his work is complete. Intervention of this kind would be foolish, inappropriate and dangerous to those who attempted it. Such actions could be viewed as obstruction of the IG's work." CW: read the whole post. Bromwich explains quite clearly why heads didn't roll before the IG published his report. ...

... It's Tax-Cheatin' Time! Peter Kasperowicz of the Hill: "House Republicans last week proposed legislation that would suspend the ability of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to conduct audits until the IRS itself is audited by Congress. The bill, from Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), is the latest in a string of measures that have been offered in the wake of the IRS's admission it applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups over the last few years."

William Barr, Jamie Gorelick & Kenneth Wainstein in a New York Times op-ed: "As former Justice Department officials who served in the three administrations preceding President Obama's, we are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of A.P. journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message to the government officials who are responsible for our national security. While neither we nor the critics know the circumstances behind the prosecutors' decision to issue this subpoena, we do know from the government's public disclosures that the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak vigorously. The leak -- which resulted in a May 2012 article by The A.P. about the disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner -- significantly damaged our national security."

Impeachment! This is an administration embroiled in a scandal that they created. It's a cover-up. I'm not saying impeachment is the end game, but it's a possibility, especially if they keep doing little to help us learn more. -- Rep. Jason Chaffetz (RTP-Utah) ...

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "In other words, if Obama doesn't do more to help House Republicans figure out why they should impeach him, then House Republicans might not have any other option than to impeach him." ...

... Robert Costa of the National Review: Rep. "Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, says President Barack Obama may face impeachment over his administration's response to the Benghazi attack. 'They purposefully and willfully misled the American people, and that's unacceptable,' Chaffetz tells me. 'It's part of a pattern of deception.'" Also, the State Department muzzled people whom Chaffetz wanted to interview, & the White House has been "evasive." Via Greg Sargent. ...

... Kevin Drum: "According to Chaffetz, impeachment isn't a sure thing, it's only a possibility. That's totally non-crazy. All that's left now is to find some actual presidential wrongdoing. But I'm sure that's just a technicality." ...

Josh Rogin in the Daily Beast: "Following the attack in Benghazi, senior State Department officials close to Hillary Clinton ordered the removal of [Raymond Maxwell,] a mid-level official who had no role in security decisions and has never been told the charges against him. He is now accusing Clinton's team of scapegoating him for the failures that led to the death of four Americans last year.... One person who reviewed the classified portion of the ARB report told The Daily Beast that it called out Maxwell for the specific infraction of not reading his daily classified briefings, something that person said Maxwell admitted to the ARB panel during his interview." ...

... Joan Walsh of Salon: "What's most disturbing ... is that the paranoia and anger of the Tea Party base, as echoed by an intimidated, primary-averse GOP leadership, are taken seriously by Beltway journalists, who then lose their own ability to distinguish fact from right-wing fantasy." ...

... It's the Economy, Stupid. Nate Silver: "There are a lot of theories as to why Mr. Obama's approval ratings have been unchanged in the wake of these controversies, which some news accounts and many of Mr. Obama's opponents are describing as scandals. But these analyses may proceed from the wrong premise if they assume that the stories have had no impact. It could be that the controversies are, in fact, putting some downward pressure on Mr. Obama's approval ratings -- but that the losses are offset by improved voter attitudes about the economy."

Nelson Schwartz & Charles Duhigg of the New York Times: "Even as Apple became the nation’s most profitable technology company, it avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen, Congressional investigators disclosed on Monday. The investigation is expected to set up a potentially explosive confrontation between a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, at a public hearing on Tuesday." ...

... There is a technical term economists like to use for behavior like this. Unbelievable chutzpah. -- Prof. Edward Kleinbard ...

... Tony Romm of Politico: "A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook's inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 -- a characterization Apple flatly rejects."

Edward Wyatt of the New York Times: "The Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to defend its net neutrality rules against a court challenge got major support on Monday from the Supreme Court, which ruled in a separate case that regulatory agencies should usually be granted deference in interpreting their own jurisdictions. In a 6-to-3 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that in cases where Congress has left ambiguous the outlines of a regulatory agency's jurisdiction, 'the court must defer to the administering agency's construction of the statute so long as it is permissible.'" ...

... AP: "Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy, dissented."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide [a] case concerning prayers at the start of town meetings...." CW: I expect the Court to endorse Jesus. ...

... RE: the Washington Post's story on the Fox "News" leak investigation linked yesterday, Josh Gerstein of Politico writes, "In September 2010, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ... ruled ... that the Justice Department was not required by law to notify Fox reporter James Rosen that prosecutors had obtained his emails in connection with an investigation into a leak about North Korean plans to test a nuclear weapon." CW: The New Republic on Lamberth, a Reagan appointee.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is really pissed off at President & Mrs. Obama. CW: I think he's wrong -- till the next-to-last paragraph -- but his complaints are worth considering.

Brookings Institution fellows Elizabeth Kneebone & Alan Berube in a New York Times op-ed: "...in the 1990s, poverty in suburbia began to accelerate at a faster rate than poverty in the cities. Sometime after the 2001 recession, more poor people lived in suburbs than in cities for the first time (even though the poverty rate remains higher in cities). The Great Recession, set off by a subprime mortgage crisis that began in suburbs and exurbs, accelerated the trend.... Policies to help poor places -- as opposed to poor people -- haven't evolved much beyond the War on Poverty's neighborhood-based solutions."

Philip Bump of the Atlantic on the Robert Gibbs-Maureen Dowd feud: "Does Gibbs have a point? Has Dowd's writing been the same for eight years? When it comes to covering Gibbs' favorite topic, the president, the answer is basically yes. Since before the 2008 campaign, Dowd has repeatedly argued that Obama can be weak and distant." Bump republishes pertinent excerpts from some of Dowd's old columns. (See also yesterday's Commentariat, which now includes Dowd's response to Gibbs.)

Stephen Colbert takes care of Jonathan Karl (this part of the segment begins at about 3:55 min. in:

Yes, Karl never saw the e-mail, so when he quoted from it, those "quotes" were in "quotes." I mean that's what you call "journalism."

Right Wing World

It's Easy Bein' Black. Kate McDonough of Salon: "Rush Limbaugh announced on Monday that President Obama won't be impeached over recent controversies and that 'Benghazi is not going to touch' him ... because Obama is black, and 'the American people are not going to tolerate the first black president being removed from office.' ..." With audio. ...

Brian Beutler of TPM: "The Secret Service is following up on recent comments by right wing radio host Pete Santilli, who claimed to want to shoot former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the vagina and see President Obama tried and shot for treason. 'We are aware of Mr. Santilli's comments and will take the appropriate follow up action...,' a Secret Service spokesperson, told TPM on Monday. 'He certainly has a right to free speech, but the Secret Service has a right and an obligation to determine what a person's intent is when making comments like this.'" Beutler publishes some of Santilli's remarks & links to an audio of his comments.

The Louie Gohmert News

Thank goodness that the IRS was not around to help the founders when they founded the country, or otherwise they'd [have] probably shot the Boston Tea Party participants. They would have killed off over half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.... And this country would have never had gotten started if this Department of Homeland Security had been around to be helpful -- so called -- to our founders. -- Louie Gohmert, on the House floor

Following "Gohmert logic," I have to wonder why the IRS didn't shoot all those Tea Party C-4 applicants. -- Constant Weader

News Ledes

New York Times: "Jamie Dimon, the nation's most powerful banker, can hold onto his title of chairman after JPMorgan Chase's shareholders decisively defeated a proposal to split the two top jobs. The vote to split the roles of chairman and chief executive -- both of which have been held by Mr. Dimon since 2006 -- received only 32.2 percent of shares voted. That is down from a vote of roughly 40 percent in support of a similar proposal last year. All 11 directors of the bank's board were also re-elected."

New York Times: "Emergency crews and volunteers continued to work through the early morning hours Tuesday in a frantic search for survivors of a huge tornado that ripped through parts of Oklahoma City and its suburbs, killing at least 91 people, 20 of them children, and flattening whatever was in its path, including at least two schools." The Oklahoman currently has links on its front page to many tornado-related stories. ...

     ... The Lede has updates here.

The Commentariat -- May 20, 2013

** E. J. Dionne: Democracy is in trouble here & abroad. "... politicians might contemplate their obligations to stewardship of the democratic ideal. They could begin by pondering what an unemployed 28-year-old makes of a ruling elite that expends so much energy feuding over how bureaucrats rewrote a set of talking points."

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Obama on Sunday summoned the graduates of historically black Morehouse College to 'transform the way we think about manhood,' urging the young men to avoid the temptation to make excuses and to take responsibility for their families and their communities. Delivering a commencement address at the all-male private liberal arts college in Atlanta, Obama spoke in deeply personal terms about the 'special obligation' he feels as a black man to help those left behind":

... AND for another inspirational (pre)commencement address, Stephen Colbert speaks at the University of Virginia's "valedictory exercises":

     ... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post reports on Colbert's address.

CNN: "President Barack Obama comes out of what was arguably the worst week of his presidency with his approval rating holding steady, according to a new national poll.... According to the survey, which was conducted Friday and Saturday, 53% of Americans say they approve of the job the president is doing, with 45% saying they disapprove. The president's approval rating was at 51% in CNN's last poll, which was conducted in early April."

Meghashyam Mali of the Hill: "White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer on Sunday defended the White House handling of the Internal Revenue Service scandal, saying the legality of the political targeting was 'irrelevant' and vowing the administration would ensure it 'never happens again.' Pfeiffer, who made the full round of Sunday talk shows, as the administration seeks to calm anger over the IRS, the Justice Department's seizure of reporters phone records and lingering GOP questions about the Benghazi attacks, vowed that the administration would act quickly to address the tax scandal." ...

... AP: Pfeiffer "insisted Sunday that President Barack Obama learned the Internal Revenue Service had targeted tea party groups only 'when it came out in the news' while Republicans continued to press the administration for more answers." ...

... Peter Nicholas of the Wall Street Journal: "The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday. That disclosure has prompted a debate over whether the president should have been notified at that time." ...

... An Inconvenient Fact for Conspiracy Theorists. Steve Benen: "Last July, in the middle of the presidential election, the administration told House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) about an investigation into the IRS's potential mishandling of applications for tax-exempt status. And what did Issa do when he learned about this? Not a thing -- he decided to wait for the IG's report itself." ...

I know approximately what's in [the IG report]. I knew what was approximately in it when we made the allegations about a year ago. This is one of those things where it's been, in a sense, an open secret, but you don't accuse the IRS until you've had a nonpartisan, deep look. That's what the IG has done. That's why the IGs in fact exist within government, is to find this kind of waste and fraud and abuse of power. -- Darrell Issa, speaking to Bloomberg News a week ago, before publication of the IG report ...

Taegan Golldard: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told CNN there was a 'written policy' floating around the agency that said IRS officials were 'targeting people who were opposed to the president.' ... When pressed for details about the memo he was referring to, Paul said he hasn't seen such a policy statement but has heard about it." Via Greg Sargent. ...

     ... CW: "Leaders" like Rand Paul are a real threat to democracy. Since most of us know that members of Congress are privy to information not circulated to the public, it's not unreasonable to believe a Senator or Congressperson when s/he asserts, "there's a document that says blah-blah." In fact, that's how Jonathan Karl got in trouble, isn't it? So when these people lie or mislead the public, voters will form their opinions on disinformation. Oftentimes the truth comes out -- eventually -- but usually the "never mind" gets less publicity than the original inflammatory charge. I doubt (but I don't know) that Fox "News" was all over the debunking of Karl's claims, for instance.

... Glenn Kessler: Lois G. Lerner, the IRS’s director of the exempt organizations division, is a big fat liar.

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "On Sunday, during an appearance on Meet The Press, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) -- the GOP leader in the senate -- distanced himself from Republican efforts to portray the Obama administration's response to the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic issue in Benghazi, Libya as a Watergate-level scandal that should result in impeachment." ...

... MEANWHILE ... Zack Colman of the Hill: on "Face the Nation," "Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the Obama administration owes its recent troubles and controversies to a 'culture of cover ups and intimidation' within the White House." CW: both McConnell & Cornyn are up for re-election in 2014 & both face the prospect of winger primary challenges.

CNN: "Jonathan Karl, chief White House correspondent for ABC News, addressed criticism of his reporting on the Benghazi talking points controversy, saying in a statement to CNN that he regrets the inaccuracy of his report. 'Clearly, I regret the email was quoted incorrectly and I regret that it's become a distraction from the story, which still entirely stands. I should have been clearer about the attribution. We updated our story immediately,' he said in the statement to Howard Kurtz, host of CNN's 'Reliable Sources.'" CW: yeah, the story still stands; it's just substantially different from what you wrote. Jerk. ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "I guess when it is someone as ethically challenged as Howard Kurtz holding your feet to the fire, you probably just think you can tell people to piss off and be done with the whole matter.... Karl lied to us because he trusted his source. His source, however, burned him, and Karl's lie was exposed.... If the editors at ABC News had any damned integrity, Karl would be forced to expose his source, apologize, and then take a couple weeks off. Maybe some summer school ethics course." ...

... Just Who Is ABC News's Chief White House Correspondent? Peter Hart of FAIR says he's "a right-wing mole at ABC News": "Karl came to mainstream journalism via the Collegiate Network, an organization primarily devoted to promoting and supporting right-leaning newspapers on college campuses ... such as the Rutgers paper launched by the infamous James O'Keefe .... The network, founded in 1979, is one of several projects of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which seeks to strengthen conservative ideology on college campuses. William F. Buckley was the ISI's first president, and the current board chair is American Spectator publisher Alfred Regnery.... He was a board member at the right-leaning youth-oriented Third Millennium group and at the Madison Center for Educational Affairs -- which ... seeks to strengthen young conservative journalism. After moving to ABC in 2003, Karl contributed several pieces to the neo-con Weekly Standard." Read on.

Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "The case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, the government adviser, and James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, bears striking similarities to a sweeping leaks investigation disclosed last week in which federal investigators obtained records over two months of more than 20 telephone lines assigned to the Associated Press.... Court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist -- and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010. The case also raises new concerns among critics of government secrecy about the possible stifling effect of these investigations on a critical element of press freedom: the exchange of information between reporters and their sources." ...

... Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker: the Keystone XL pipeline -- "another step on the march to disaster."

CW: a couple of weeks ago I wrote that doctoral committees of most major universities would not approve a doctoral dissertation built on discredited assumptions that intelligence is race-based. Well, a thousand-plus Harvard students are wondering why their particular university isn't up to snuff. Jeff Spross of Think Progress: "Over 1,000 Harvard students delivered a petition to Harvard University's JFK School on Saturday, demanding an investigation into how and why the school approved a 2009 doctoral thesis arguing that Hispanics have lower IQs. The thesis was written by Jason Richwine, a co-author of a paper by the conservative Heritage Foundation that argued immigration reform would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion. The discovery of Richwine's paper by the Washington Post sparked a firestorm around the Heritage study, and several days later Richwine resigned from the think tank."

Erica Werner of the AP: "The Senate Judiciary Committee is aiming this week to pass a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions, setting up a high-stakes debate on the Senate floor." ...

... Kevin Robillard of Politico: Two unions representing a total of 20,000 customs & immigration agents oppose the bill the Gang of Eight is crafting. They say provisions of the bill worsens the problems agent face. They claim the U.S. immigration service has turned into an "'approval machine' ...discouraging the denial of any applications." The complain the bill's authors did not consult them, instead relying on the input of "special interests."

Danielle Douglas of the Washington Post: "Banks have paid less than half the $5.7 billion in cash owed to troubled homeowners under nearly 30 settlements brokered by the government since 2008, delaying help to the millions of victims of discrimination and shoddy lending that epitomized the housing crisis, according to a Washington Post analysis...."

New York Times Editors: "New rules to regulate derivatives, adopted last week by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are a victory for Wall Street and a setback for financial reform. They may also signal worse things to come." CW: Read the whole editorial. I think the fix is in -- and it's another swell career move for Barack & Michelle Obama.

Paul Krugman: "In elite mythology, the origins of the [economic] crisis of the 70s, like the supposed origins of our current crisis, lay in excess: too much debt, too much coddling of those slovenly proles via a strong welfare state. The suffering of 1979-82 was necessary payback. None of that is remotely true.... It would be bad enough if we were basing policy today on lessons from the 70s. It's even worse that we're basing policy today on a mythical 70s that never was." ...

... ** Tim Noah, in a New York Times op-ed, on the skills gap nobody wants to talk about.

When the "P" in PBS is David Koch. Jayne Mayer of the New Yorker: how public television tried -- and failed -- to placate board member & big contributor David Koch. As Michael Moore said, "The words 'chilling effect' came immediately to mind." ...

     ... You can watch full video of the documentary "Park Avenue" at this PBS page.

Tough Critique. Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog has a good critique of MoDo's latest advice for Obama. Dowd has "written thirty columns so far this year, but hasn't once published the same kind of 'smackdown' of the Republicans that she's recommending to the president." ...

... Tougher Critique. I don't normally read Maureen.... I don't largely because it's sort of largely the same column for the last, like, eight years. -- Robert Gibbs, former Obama press secretary

I don't normally listen to Robert. I don't largely because it's sort of largely the same tired defense of President Obama for the last, like, six years. -- Maureen Dowd, in response to Gibbs' remark

Local News

Nicole Flatow of Think Progress: "The Virginia Republican Party this weekend nominated for lieutenant governor [E. W. Jackson,] a minister who has a history of virulent anti-gay statements, accuses the Democratic Party of enslaving African Americans, and criticized President Obama for having 'Muslim sensibilities.' The former Senate candidate, who in 2012 garnered less than 5 percent of the vote in the Republican primary, bested six other candidates during the Virginia GOP convention, and will join conservative Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on the Republican ticket. He is the first black candidate the state party has endorsed since 1988."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Homes were flattened, cars were flung through the air and at least two schools packed with children were destroyed as a huge tornado, perhaps a mile wide, tore through towns near Oklahoma City on Monday, killing at least 37 people and sending rescuers and residents dashing to dig out survivors buried in rubble." The Lede has updates here; it includes live video. A map shows the path of the tornado.

AP: "Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ... warned that Monday's commute is expected to be 'extremely challenging' following the collision and derailment of two trains outside Bridgeport last week that injured 72 people."

New York Times: "Three months after hackers working for a cyberunit of China's People's Liberation Army went silent amid evidence that they had stolen data from scores of American companies and government agencies, they appear to have resumed their attacks using different techniques, according to computer industry security experts and American officials."

New York Times: "Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the [High Plains] Aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers' peak needs during Kansas' scorching summers. And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains."

Reuters: "At least 43 people were killed in car bomb explosions targeting Shi'ite Muslims in the Iraqi capital and the southern oil hub of Basra on Monday, police and medics said. About 150 people have been killed in sectarian violence over the past week and tensions between Shi'ites, who now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims have reached their highest level since U.S. troops pulled out in December 2011."

Reuters: "North Korea fired two short-range missiles on Monday, making six launches in three days, and it condemned South Korea for criticizing what it said were its legitimate military drills."