The Commentariat -- June 21

Bob Reich explains in less than 2 minutes, 15 seconds, what's wrong with the American economy:

I've posted a Nocera & Brooks comments page on Off Times Square. Joe Nocera writes about why the banks should lose their argument against raising capital requirements, and David Brooks thinks all that money we're pouring into Afghanistan is like a little Marshall Plan that isn't working out all that well. The connecting theme seems to be -- YOU LOSE. Write on either or something else. I've posted my comments.

Here's the post by economist Simon Johnson on the capital requirements clause the banks are fighting. In his column, Nocera mentions the Johnson post.

** Law Prof. Bruce Ackerman in a New York Times op-ed compares Obama's decision to pretend he does not have to comply with the War Powers Act vis-a-vis Libya with Dubya's stunts redefining "torture": "... from a legal viewpoint, Mr. Obama is setting an even worse precedent. Although Mr. Yoo’s memos made a mockery of the applicable law, they at least had the approval of the Office of Legal Counsel. In contrast, Mr. Obama’s decision to disregard that office’s opinion and embrace the White House counsel’s view is undermining a key legal check on arbitrary presidential power. This is a Beltway detail of major significance. Unlike the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the White House counsel is not confirmed by the Senate." ...

Gene Robinson piles on: "... Obama, with uncommon disregard for both language and logic, takes the position that what we are doing in Libya does not reach the 'hostilities' threshold for triggering the War Powers Act, under which presidents must seek congressional approval for any military campaign lasting more than 90 days. House Speaker John Boehner said Obama’s claim doesn’t meet the 'straight-face test,' and he’s right.... The law remains in force and, while presidents of both parties routinely find ways around it, they usually find a more credible dodge than asking, 'War? What war?'” ...

... Russell Berman of The Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is under siege from factions on the left and the right as the House considers whether to strike funding for the U.S. military mission in Libya."

Michael Powell of the New York Times: in New Jersey (and New York) the governor(s) make sure that the wealthy do not have to pay their "share" in the oft-repeated, if inaptly-named, "shared sacrifice" meme. The governors eschew tax hikes for the wealthy even as they demand cuts in pension funds for state workers. CW: this is a news story, not an opinion piece. It's what is.

New York Times Editors on the Supremes' decision for Wal-Mart: "Without a class action, it will be very difficult for most of the women potentially affected to pursue individual claims. The average wages lost per year for a member of the rejected Wal-Mart class are around $1,100 — too little to give lawyers an incentive to represent such an individual. For the plaintiffs, for groups seeking back pay in class actions, and for class actions in general, it was a bad day in court." ...

... Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times elaborates. ...

... Dahlia Lithwick on why the Supremes' Wal-Mart decision is absurd: the men on the Court (Breyer excepted) decided the women represented in the suit "didn't have enough in common," or as Lithwick notes, "Wal-Mart ... seems to have figured out that the key to low-cost discrimination lies in discriminating on a massive scale."

... Left to their own devices most managers in any corporation—and surely most managers in a corporation that forbids sex discrimination—would select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria for hiring and promotion. -- Antonin Scalia, majority opinion in Wal-Mart v. Dukes

... The court's devotees of strict construction and plain meaning are so enamored of the printed word that they often seem inclined to accept no other type of evidence of pay discrimination. Just as [Lily] Ledbetter never received an embossed letter from Goodyear indicating that she was being systematically underpaid, so, too, the hundreds of women with claims about sex discrimination at the hands of Wal-Mart must be wrong: After all, the company's announced policy forbids it.... The whole purpose of this type of class action civil rights suit is to smoke out unwritten policies and unspoken bias. -- Dahlia Lithwick

Law & Lit Prof. Stanley Fish has a good post today on the Supreme Court's interpretations of the free speech guarantee of the First Amendment. Not every act that may imply a certain political or other intent should fall under the speech protection of the First Amendment.

Alex Pareene of Salon: when the New York state legislature gets around to passing gay marriage legislation [could happen any time -- appears they're short only one vote], it will give President Obama a convenient opportunity to complete his "evolution" on gay marriage. CW: though Pareene does note that on this particular issue, Obama's hesitation is political, the following paragraph is a good lesson to us libruls on the overall policy leanings of the President:

Liberals have a tendency (much more pronounced in 2007 and 2008 but still evident) to imagine that Barack Obama is just as liberal as them. Because he's obviously smart, because he dabbled with genuine leftism in his youth, and because he opposed Iraq, liberals think he's actually Paul Krugman, forced by electoral circumstance (or cowardice) to talk and govern like George H.W. Bush. Coincidentally, this is also Newt Gingrich and Stanley Kurtz's thesis. It's silly when they say he's hiding his socialism behind a veneer of centrism and it's silly when liberals say he's doing the same.

Wow! Labor Department Sides with Labor. Melanie Trottman of the Wall Street Journal: "The Obama administration Monday said employers should disclose more information about the consultants they hire to respond to union bargaining or organizing campaigns, a move long sought by organized labor and opposed by employers.... The Labor Department proposal effectively sides with unions, who have argued for a decade that the advice exception needs to be narrowed.... But business groups criticized the proposal, saying many administration actions are showing favor to unions."

Stewart on Stewart -- and Wallace -- and Fox "News":

Dana Milbank: governors of both parties claim their policies create jobs. But the numbers for their states are all anemic. ...

... Rachel Maddow has more on Republican governors:

What a Shock -- Congressional Republicans Transfer More Costs to States. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "When congressional Republicans cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget 16 percent as part of a deal with President Obama in April to keep the government running, they hailed it as a blow to a federal bureaucracy.... But now that the agency has detailed how it is making the $1.6 billion cut for fiscal 2011, the reality is somewhat different. Because the EPA passes the vast majority of its money through to the states, it has meant that these governments — not Washington — are taking the biggest hits. Already constrained financially at home, state officials have millions of dollars less to enforce the nation’s air- and water-quality laws, fund critical capital improvements and help communities comply with new, more stringent pollution controls imposed by the federal government." CW: the good news -- a rich guy in New Jersey will pay less in federal taxes. The bad news -- a poor guy in Mississippi will pay more in state taxes.

David Leonhardt of the New York Times seems to have just discovered why so many Americans have such unhealthy diets: "unhealthy food is often a lot cheaper than healthy food." Leonhardt notes some of the calories/dollar differences, plus, "you would have to spend about $5 to buy 2,000 calories at McDonald’s ... and $60 to buy 2,000 calories worth of lettuce." CW: now, extrapolte this: this is yet another way the rise in income disparity makes Americans less healthy; they make their purchases calorie-wise and pound-foolish.

Massimo Calabresi of Time on Texas Gov. Rick Perry's difficult two-step: "Conjuring up the ghost of the popular George W. Bush while letting his despised doppelganger rest, forgotten, will be a challenge for candidate Perry if he joins the race."

NEW. Kate Pickert of Time: under pressure from the Congress, the White House & the press, McKinsey comes clean-ish on its "independent analysis" of the "likely" outcome of the Affordable Care Act. ...

... NEWER. Paul Krugman: "McKinsey has now released some (not all) of the details from its mystery study. True to form, the company now claims that a study touted as evidence that companies 'will' drop coverage was 'not predictive.' Uh-huh.... It was basically a poll — which is a really bad way to assess how firms will make decisions about whether or not to maintain health coverage."

Right Wing World *

Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: Fox "News" cuts Jon Stewart's 5-second criticism of Fox "News" veep Bill Sammon. "Fox News Sunday's avoidance of Sammon fits a pattern of the network publicly avoiding uncomfortable questions about the controversial Sammon while it touts the credentials of the news bureau he manages."

Jacques Billeaud & Bob Christie of the AP: "... Sen. John McCain has ignited a barrage of criticism by saying that there is 'substantial evidence' that illegal immigrants are partly responsible for wildfires in the state. McCain is standing by the statement he made over the weekend..., but immigrant rights advocates say the state's senior senator is using illegal immigrants as scapegoats. Authorities have said humans started the three major blazes in Arizona, but investigators don't know any more details."

Senator Snakeoil. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: Sen. Orrin Hatch "was the chief author of a federal law enacted 17 years ago that allows companies to make general health claims about their ["health supplement"] products, but exempts them from federal reviews of their safety or effectiveness before they go to market. During the Obama administration, Mr. Hatch has repeatedly intervened with his colleagues in Congress and federal regulators in Washington to fight proposed rules that industry officials consider objectionable.... Mr. Hatch has been rewarded with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, political loyalty and corporate sponsorship of his favorite causes back home. His family and friends have benefited, too, from links to the supplement industry."

* Where facts never intrude, but money does.

News Ledes

Malia, Sasha & Michelle Obama meet with former South African President Nelson Mandela at his home. AP photo.Independent Online News: "US First Lady Michelle Obama had an unscheduled meeting with Nelson Mandela at his Houghton, Joburg, home on Tuesday, the second day of her visit to South Africa. After being shown Mandela prison memorabilia at the Nelson Mandela Foundation just around the corner, Obama was suddenly whisked off to meet the former president."

Guardian: "Barack Obama is set to reject the advice of the Pentagon by announcing on Wednesday night the withdrawal of up to 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by November next year, in time for the US presidential election. The move comes despite warnings from his military commanders that recent security gains are fragile. They have been urging him to keep troop numbers high until 2013."

New York Times: "Leon E. Panetta was confirmed unanimously by the Senate on Tuesday as the new secretary of defense, placing him in charge of the final stage of the withdrawal in Iraq and the Obama administration’s military policy in Afghanistan. The 100-to-0 vote in favor of Mr. Panetta, a former House member and White House official who most recently served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, showed strong Congressional confidence in his ability to hold what lawmakers described as one of the most demanding jobs in the capital."

New York Times: "Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece won a crucial vote of confidence late Tuesday, with all 155 lawmakers of the Socialist Party expressing their support for his beleaguered government, above the absolute majority of 151 votes required by Greece’s 300-seat Parliament."

New York Times: "In an effort aimed at countering a House Republican plan to defund American military operations in Libya, Senators John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a Democrat, and John McCain, a Republican, announced the introduction of a joint resolution on Tuesday authorizing the limited use of United States Armed Forces in Libya. Under the resolution, which could be voted on as early as this week, the president is 'authorized to continue the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in Libya, in support of United States national security policy interests' for one year after passage of the resolution."

New York Times: "Legislative leaders said on Tuesday that they had reached a tentative deal with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on renewing New York’s rent laws, capping property taxes for homeowners, and raising tuition at state universities, among other outstanding issues. But the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, said his caucus had not yet decided whether to bring to a vote the most contentious issue facing the Legislature: A bill introduced by Mr. Cuomo and approved by the Democratic-controlled Assembly to legalize same-sex marriage in New York. Thirty-one state senators have endorsed the marriage measure, one vote short of the number needed to pass in the 62-member senate."

President Obama and I have a difference of opinion on how to help a country we both love. But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who’s the better American. -- Jon Huntsman, in announcing his run for president ...

... New York Times: "Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, officially announced he was running for president on Tuesday, telling an audience of supporters and reporters gathered at a park facing the Statue of Liberty that he would be a better leader than President Obama, for whom he served as the  ambassador to China until recently."

AP: "President Barack Obama will move the United States a step closer to ending the war in Afghanistan when he announces plans Wednesday to bring thousands of American troops home, beginning next month." Los Angeles Times story here.

National Journal: "The FEC this week sent a letter demanding Crossroads GPS, the Karl Rove-backed nonprofit that pumped millions of dollars in anonymous donations into last year's Congressional campaigns, disclose its contributors. The request appears unlikely to be honored but it could signal an effort to tighten regulations on controversial third-party groups."

New York Times: "Federal health officials on Tuesday released their final selection of nine graphic warning labels to cover the top half of cigarette packages beginning next year, in the first major change to those warnings in more than a quarter-century, over the opposition of tobacco manufacturers." Article includes the pictures.

AP: "Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows. The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation."

New York Times: "A spokesman for Pakistan’s military confirmed on Tuesday that a senior officer has been detained and is under investigation for suspected ties to militants. The BBC’s Urdu-language news service first reported that Brig. Gen. Ali Khan, who was serving in the general headquarters of Pakistan’s military in Rawalpindi, was taken into custody last month.

The Commentariat -- June 20

Finally got an Open Thread up on Off Times Square.

Michael Scherer of Time writes a calm, incisive & devastating analysis of President Obama's hypocritical Libyan War Powers stance, which flies in the face of Pre-President Obama's stated positions and beliefs. Scherer ends with this joke from Seth Myers, delivered -- in the President's presence, of course -- at the White House Correspondents' dinner:

Who knows if they can beat you in 2012. But I tell you who could definitely beat you, Mr. President: 2008 Barack Obama. You would have loved him. So charismatic; so charming. Was he a little too idealistic? Maybe. But you would have loved him.

** E. J. Dionne: "An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot.... Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up. In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs.... Whether or not these laws can be rolled back, their existence should unleash a great civic campaign akin to the voter-registration drives of the civil rights years. The poor, the young and people of color should get their IDs, flock to the polls and insist on their right to vote in 2012."

Chistina Bellantoni of Roll Call: "Despite their grousing about the administration during the Netroots Nation conference, liberal activists and bloggers are relatively happy with President Barack Obama's performance. A straw poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research showed that 80 percent either approve or strongly approve of the president more than a year before voters head to the polls to decide whether he deserves a second term. The results broke down to 27 percent strongly approving of Obama and 53 percent approving 'somewhat.' Thirteen percent said they 'somewhat disapprove,' and 7 percent strongly disapprove of the president."

"Legal Precedent." Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: if Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas had to resign for taking big gifts from buddies with business before the court -- And Fortas did -- so should Clarence Thomas. (See also yesterday's Commentariat.) ...

Whoop-dee damn-doo -- Clarence Thomas, responding to the news the Senate had confirmed his nomination to the Supreme Court. He was in the bathtub at the time

Mere confirmation, even to the Supreme Court, seemed pitifully small compensation for what had been done to me. -- Clarence Thomas

... The Long Dong Silver Connection. Attaturk in Firedoglake: "But, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Clarence Thomas it is that he is in no way affected with a sense of personal shame ... just grievances. The person who was until just recently leading the call to investigate Thomas’ ethical shortcomings? Anthony Weiner." ...

... Digby: "Bush vs Gore was a watershed -- the idea that the Court was above crass political considerations (even if it often wasn't) was fully abandoned and there's no going back. (Recall that Chief Justice Roberts worked on the Bush recount.)  I see no chance that Clarence Thomas will resign over this. (If they find out that he's been tweeting pictures of his John Thomas, however, then all bets are off.)

Ezra Klein on a really bad business tax cut that could pass: "a holiday for the profit that corporations are storing overseas.... Corporations get addicted to these holidays. They got one in 2004 (the American Jobs Creation Act -- which didn't create a single job), and now they’re pumping billions into getting another in 2012. Corporations are holding more money overseas than they otherwise would because they don’t want to bring that cash home in 2011 and pay taxes on it only to see a holiday pass in 2012. And if we pass two of these holidays in under a decade, corporations will never bring money home unless they’re given another holiday to do so...." ...

... David Koecieniewski of the New York Times writes an extended article on the effects of the farcically-dubbed 2004 American Jobs Creation Act, a new version of which businesses are hyping today.

For every dollar that was brought back, there were zero cents used for additional capital expenditures, research and development, or hiring and employees wages. -- Prof. Kristin J. Forbes, a member of Bush’s council of economic advisers who headed a study of the effects of the 2004 law ...

... CW News Flash: cutting business taxes increases the deficit, CEO compensation & occasionally shareholder dividends. It creates no jobs or other business improvements. Why? Because the Congress writes these laws so businesses can do what they want to with their tax break bonanzas. This particular bonanza reduces the corporate rate on profits from 35 percent to a little more than 5 percent. I think I'll ask Congress to cut my taxes by 85 percent, too, since -- like those generous corporations -- I too am willing to spend my own windfall tax break however I want.

Where Insider Trading Is Legal -- and Incredibly Profitable. Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "For Reid Hoffman, the chairman of LinkedIn, it took less than 30 minutes to earn himself an extra $200 million.... The blockbuster debut of LinkedIn ... provides a window into how a small group — bankers and lawyers, employees who get in on the ground floor, early investors — is taking a hefty cut at each twist in the road from Silicon Valley start-up to Wall Street success story.... The sharp run-up after the initial public offering set off a fierce debate among observers about whether the bankers had mispriced it and left billions on the table for their clients to pocket. But the pent-up demand for what was perceived as a hot technology stock set the stage for easy money to be made almost regardless of the offering price. Naturally, Wall Street is enjoying a windfall."

Why would a nonpartisan research company -- like McKinsey -- release questionable survey results undermining the Affordable Care Act? Rick Unger of Forbes has the answer: it's the money, stupid. The controversial survey -- which, especially because its results ran contrary to other survey findings & fit into the conservative ACA-bashing meme -- was really nothing more than a pitch to remind companies to use McKinsey services to help them evaluate their health benefits plans as the ACA kicks in. 

Right Wing World *

Jon Stewart tells Chris Wallace Fox "News" viewers "are the most consistently misinformed media viewers":

... Here's the full interview:

... Worse than Brainless. Steve Benen: "The quantifiable evidence is overwhelming.... The problem is actually getting worse.... In some cases, regular Fox News viewers would have done better, statistically speaking, if they had received no news at all and simply guessed whether the claims about current events were accurate." ...

... BUT BooMan says it's so wrong to blame Fox "News." Fox viewers were stupid, he asserts, before they tuned in Fox. ...

... Greg Sargent on the Wallace/Stewart exchange: "... there’s plenty of evidence that Fox News does deliberately slant its news coverage." Sargent lays out some of the evidence.

Bachmann Exposes Obama's Diabolical Capitalistic Medicare Plot." Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post: "The latest is Bachmann’s allegation that President Obama secretly wants Medicare to go broke so that — I’m not making this up — he can force senior citizens onto 'Obamacare.' ... In Bachmann’s mind, Obama might have a secret desire to move seniors onto a premium-support program. But in reality, her GOP colleagues have an overt one [the Ryan/Republican budget bill]. Bachmann’s speculation isn’t just hypocritical. It’s also illogical if you believe Obama is, as she has claimed, taking the country on 'the final leap to socialism.' ... Bachmann is accusing the president of wanting to take seniors off socialized medicine and push them into the private market he has set up for everyone else."

* Where Michele Bachmann is the fact-checker.

Local News

Idaho State Sen. John McGee, in uniform. Photo by Ada County Sheriff's Department.Idaho Statesman: "State Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, was arrested overnight by Ada County Sheriff's deputies for misdemeanor drunken driving and felony grand theft.... McGee began drinking at a golf course at about 10 p.m. Saturday night. At some point, McGee left the clubhouse on foot and walked for a distance, eventually coming upon a parked Ford Excursion with a 20-foot travel trailer near the Muir Woods Subdivision in Southeast Boise. The keys were in the vehicle and McGee drove away...." CW: legislator driving drunk? Not exactly unique. Grand theft auto? That's a new one on me.

News Ledes

Michelle Obama speaks in Soweto, South Africa:

     ... Here is the transcript of her remarks.

New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of women who work there. The court ruled unanimously that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cannot proceed as a class action, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages. Now, the handful of women who brought the lawsuit may pursue their claims on their own, with much less money at stake and less pressure on Wal-Mart to settle. The justices divided 5-4 on another aspect of the ruling...." ...

... ALSO, New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously rejected a lawsuit that had sought to force major electric utilities to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions without waiting for federal regulators to act." ...

... AND, AP (via NYT): "A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday refused to require states to provide lawyers for poor people in civil cases involving incarceration but did order state officials to ensure that those hearings are "fundamentally fair" to the person facing possible detention. The justices voted 5-4 along ideological lines to uphold the appeal of Michael Turner, a South Carolina man sent to jail for up to 12 months after he insisted he could not afford his child support payments. Turner had no lawyer, and claimed all people facing jail time have a constitutional right to an attorney. Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the opinion for the court's four liberal-leaning justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy, would not go that far, saying 'the Due Process Clause does not always require the provision of counsel in civil proceedings where incarceration is threatened.'"

Washington Post: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday blamed the mass protests rocking his country on 'saboteurs' and 'vandalism,' declaring in a televised speech that 'there can be no development without stability.''”

New York Times: "Europe’s finance ministers unexpectedly put off approval early Monday of the next installment of aid to debt-laden Greece, delaying the decision until July and demanding that the Greek Parliament first approve spending cuts and financial reforms that include a large-scale privatization program."

When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost — in terms of life and treasure — hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people, my people, in turn, are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here. -- U.S. Amb. Karl Eikenberry to university students in Kabul

New York Times: "The departing American ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, lashed out at President Hamid Karzai on Sunday in a carefully calculated and candid rebuke of the Afghan leader’s increasingly inflammatory criticism of the coalition forces."

The Commentariat -- June 19

I've posted a page titled Bush Lite on Off Times Square, in which I ask readers to suggest what progressives -- or any concerned citizens -- should do about the Obama Administration's mimicry of the worst aspects of Bush/Cheney. We can't just sit here, can we?

** New York Times Editors: "The Obama administration has long been bumbling along in the footsteps of its predecessor when it comes to sacrificing Americans’ basic rights and liberties under the false flag of fighting terrorism. Now the Obama team seems ready to lurch even farther down that dismal road than George W. Bush did." Besides giving "agents significant new powers to search law enforcement and private databases, go through household trash or deploy surveillance teams..., the White House cares so little about providing meaningful oversight that Mr. Obama has yet to nominate a successor for Glenn Fine, the diligent Justice Department inspector general who left in January." CW: read the whole editorial. Charlie Savage's story, to which the editors referred, is here. ...

... Jack Balkin on "George W. Obama" -- how Obama is manipulating the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. ...

... Balkin gets Digby's seal of approval.

Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post: "Inequality in the U.S. has has grown steadily since the 1970s, following a flat period after World War II. In 2008, the wealthiest 10 percent earned almost the same amount of income as the rest of the country combined.... A mounting body of economic research indicates that the rise in pay for company executives is a critical feature in the widening income gap.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times on Barack Obama's "evolving" position, or whatever it is, on gay marriage. CW: Maybe you'll want to attend his $1,250-a-plate creepily-named "Gala with the Gay Community" to find out what he says he thinks about gay marriage this week, "thinking" which is, as Stolberg makes clear, a function of election metrics. ...

... Speaking of purposely garbled messages/trial balloons/politics-as-usual, Karen Garcia has an excellent post about the AARP's "position," whatever it is, on raising the Social Security age. Here's the Betty White AARP ad Garcia mentions:

Maureen Dowd does a nice job of laying out the hypocrisy of New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan and others in the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Does hate mail sound tonier when read in a British accent?

Mike McIntire of the New York Times on the "unusual and ethically-sensitive friendship" between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas & real estate magnate Harlan Crow. "Mr. Crow’s financing of the museum, [a multimillion-dollar project in Thomas' hometown which Thomas appears to have initiated,] his largest such act of generosity, previously unreported, raises the sharpest questions yet — both about Justice Thomas’s extrajudicial activities and about the extent to which the justices should remain exempt from the code of conduct for federal judges.

Wary of "Wars of Choice." Thom Shanker & Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, as he prepared to depart the government for the second time, said in an interview on Friday that the human costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had made him far more wary about unleashing the might of the American armed forces."

Here's Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) speaking at the Netroots Nation conference yesteday:

      ... More Networks Nation news & links to videos at their site. ...

... Bill Moyers on the Constitution:

     ... More video on the Networks Nation conference, including former Sen. Russ Feingold's remarks, & related gatherings here at The Uptake.

News Ledes

AP: "In another blow to Washington's relationship with Pakistan, U.S. officials say Pakistan failed another test to prove it could be trusted to go after American enemies on its soil by intentionally or inadvertently tipping off militants at two more bomb-building factories in its tribal areas, giving the suspected terrorists time to flee." ...

... The Hill: "House appropriators have proposed slapping new restrictions on the aid that Washington will send to Pakistan next year amid a chill in relations following the killing of Osama bin Laden."

New York Times: "Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, whose jovial onstage manner, soul-rooted style and brotherly relationship with Mr. Springsteen made him one of rock’s most beloved sidemen, died on Saturday at a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 69." Here's a Rolling Stone obituary.