The Commentariat -- June 16

This Is Not a Movie. But this speech is as dramatic, moving & cynamatic as ever came from any actor in any film. This is Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.) speaking at one of Peter King's anti-Islam committee hearings. The subject here: prisoner "radicalization"; i.e., becoming Muslim. Here's the story by Benjy Sarlin of TPM:

Nicholas Kristof sees "our lefty military" as a good model for society: after all, it has low income disparity, great educational, healthcare and daycare benefits, high racial integration and a true sense of camaraderie. ...

... I've opened a comments page for Kristof's column on Off Times Square.

** Prof. Juan Cole responds to James Risen's New York Times report that the Bush Administration asked the CIA to obtain damaging information about him (Cole): Retired CIA official Glenn"Carle’s revelations come as a visceral shock.... Carle is taking a substantial risk in making all this public. I hope that the Senate and House Intelligence Committees will immediately launch an investigation of this clear violation of the law by the Bush White House and by the CIA officials concerned. Like Mr. Carle, I am dismayed at how easy it seems to have been for corrupt WH officials to suborn CIA personnel into activities that had nothing to do with national security abroad and everything to do with silencing domestic critics." Risen's story, also linked in today's Ledes, is here. ...

     ... CW: I'm sorry the Weiner resignation is going to push the Cole story to the sidelines, because I think the Bush Administration's attempt to dig up dirt on a university professor to discredit his criticism of their policies is a lot more important than Weinerpix. ...

... Greg Sargent: "Twitter claims its first major political casualty." ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM is disgusted with the Democratic leadership's calls for Weiner's resignation & efforts to strip him of his committee seats. ...

... BUT Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "Weiner’s colleagues turned on him almost certainly because he lied, and because of how he lied — because of the very specific lie that he told.... Claiming to have been hacked when it wasn’t true was too specific a lie. It meant that colleagues who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt repeated that lie.... And while they might have been willing to forgive Weiner for misbehavior, it’s a lot harder to forgive him for tricking them into telling lies to their own constituents." ...

... CW: SO I tend to agree with attorney Jonathan Turley's take on the Weiner affair, who makes several points I've made myself & some legal ones that I haven't. ...

... What Matters to the Media. Brian Beutler of TPM has a terrific video (below) & print report on Nancy Pelosi's regular Thursday presser. All the networks were breathless on the run-up to the press conference & all cut to it as soon as she stepped up to the podium. But the minute she said she would not make any remarks about Weiner but would speak about "jobs..., Medicare and the middle class," the networks cut away. The evidence:

     ... In case you thought you were watching news of importance to the nation when you tuned in to your favorite news channel, this should disabuse you of that idea.

Louise Story of the New York Times: "Regulators overseeing financial reform are delaying many of the planned changes in the $600 trillion market for complex securities known as derivatives< because they are running drastically behind schedule in writing their new rules. The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that market participants would not have to comply with many aspects of derivatives reform scheduled to take effect in mid-July. It declined to specify how long the delay would be in the equity derivatives it oversees. The announcement follows a similar statement on Tuesday from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, although that agency imposed a year-end deadline for many of the changes in the derivatives it oversees."

Glenn Greenwald on the illegality of U.S. participation in the Libyan war: "The growing bipartisan pressure on the White House today forced the President to once again offer a painfully ludicrous justification for why he is permitted to wage this war in Libya: namely, that the U.S. role is so limited that it does not require Congressional approval.... It is also worth noting that the War Powers Resolution, on its face, is not triggered by a 'war,' but rather 'any case in which U.S. Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities.'" ...

... We’re not engaged in hostilities, we’re just launching courtesy bombs! -- Translation of the Administration's Libya justification by John Cole of Balloon Juice

Fred Schulte, et al., of the Center for Public Integrity: "More than two years after President Obama took office vowing to banish 'special interests' from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events...." ...

... Jay Carney's truly lame responses:

Dana Milbank: "In formal settings — news conferences, or Monday night’s debate — [Mitt] Romney is confident and competent. But in casual moments, such as Tuesday morning’s retail politics in New Hampshire, his weirdness comes through — equal parts 'Leave It to Beaver' corniness and social awkwardness." Read Milbank's column for the details. Romney sounds like the kind of guy whose comments would cause you to get up & move to another table.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The House approved large cuts in food aid for the poor and various agriculture programs on Thursday after a steely weeklong debate that pitted Democrats against Republicans, and farm-state members against those within their own party who vehemently oppose certain types of farm aid. At the same time, the Senate voted 73 to 27 to end tax credits and trade protection that benefit the corn-based ethanol industry, with broad bipartisan backing. As a practical matter, the measure ending federal ethanol benefits will probably not become law because it is part of a larger measure that is likely to fail." The House vote probably won't go anywhere, either.

Los Angeles Times: California "Gov. Jerry Brown issued a historic veto of the budget approved by Democratic lawmakers hours after they passed it, opening wide a rift within his own party and throwing the state's financial future into limbo. The Democrats had pushed through the spending plan Wednesday, relying heavily on crafty accounting to patch over the state's deficit, after the governor's talks with Republicans on a tax package faltered. On Thursday morning, Brown called the budget 'unbalanced.'"

The New York Times has obtained from court papers some fairly mundane statements Dominique Strauss-Kahn made following his detention.

... Contains audible crude remarks from at least one member of the crowd.

** Politico: "Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) will resign from his seat in Congress, heeding calls from President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and dozens of other congressional Democrats, sources confirm to POLITICO." New York Times story here. ...

     ... Updated Times lede: "Representative Anthony D. Weiner, an influential Democrat who had been considered a leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York City, said Thursday that he was resigning from Congress following revelations of lewd online exchanges with several women."

** New York Times: "A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him. Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.... Mr. Carle, who retired in 2007, has not previously disclosed his allegations. He did so only after he was approached by The New York Times, which learned of the episode elsewhere."

New York Times: "Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s No. 2, is assuming the leadership of the organization, less than two months after Osama bin Laden was killed by American special forces, the group said in a statement posted online Thursday. Mr. Zawahri, 59, an Egyptian who long served as second in command to Bin Laden, had been expected to inherit leadership of the terrorist organization after Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2. 

Dennis Kucinich: "Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Walter Jones (R-NC) today [Wednesday] led a bipartisan group of 10 Members of Congress to file a suit in federal court against President Barack Obama to challenge the commitment of the United States to war in Libya absent the required constitutional legal authority."

Time: "Notorious hacker group LulzSec isn't pulling punches — it now claims to have taken down the CIA's website just today, Wednesday afternoon."

The Commentariat -- June 15

"The President's Speech" -- the Movie. So nearly three million people watched this video before I got around to it. Fortunately, a reader's octogenarian cousin is hipper than I am, & the reader clued me in. Thanks to both of them:

I've got another Open Thread on Off Times Square today, the last few have been so terrific. If you've been away, read Monday & Tuesdays' comments to catch up. The exchange has been a pleasure and has lots of followers.

** Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: French cognitive social scientists have developed an "argumentative theory of evolution" which concludes that the purpose of reasoning is not to help "us to get better beliefs and make better decisions." Instead, “It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us,” says Hugo Mercier, one of the French scholars. "Truth and accuracy were beside the point." CW: this really helps explain how Republicans, especially, but politicians in general, persuade with lies. The article is fascinating, and helps explain why we can't "win" our discussions with our conservative friends.

Tom Friedman highlights the teaching of Michael Sandel, a political philosopher who uses the Socratic method to teach his course & lead other discussions. Friedman says he & Sandel are close friends, which of course is a strike against Sandel, but I'm keeping an open mind. PBS has videos of Sandel's course online, & I'll give them a whirl when I get a chance -- like late next week.

"So No One's Responsible?" New York Times Editors: "With Justice Clarence Thomas writing for a 5-to-4 majority, the Supreme Court has made it much harder for private lawsuits to succeed against mutual fund malefactors, even when they have admitted to lying and cheating."

"Down the Memory Hole." Jared Bernstein: "Listening to the Republican debate..., I was once again struck by the extent to which these folks are stuck in a tattered old box when it comes to economic policy. Deregulation, supply-side tax cuts, turn the entitlements over to the market, etc.... the very agenda that got us into this mess."

Mark Bittman has more on farmworker slavery in Southwest Florida. This is not just a local story, as Bittman reveals, because major grocery chains all around the U.S. are refusing to give farmworkers a penny a pound more for their back-breaking labor, even tho Wal-Mart & some of the fast-food chains have acquiesced. Bittman doesn't tell the whole story, of course. Here's one tidbit he didn't include: even after McDonald's & Burger King, et al., agreed to the penny a pound, they refused to pay the workers till enough other corporations agreed to the deal. Instead, they put their penny a pound in escrow. How to you think a farmworker spends a penny that's in escrow? Then the corporate creeps, who were still not releasing the money to farmworkers, put up signs in their "restaurants" saying they had to raise their prices because they had to pay so much more for tomatoes as a result of farmworker pressure!

Karen Garcia: Save the Desert Tortoise! ... Website! ... from Joe Biden!

Right Wing World *

Oh, if you live in the Tampa-St. Pete area, you could send the kids to Tea Party summer camp. Warning: they promise they are not "politically correct."

Tea Leaves. David Drucker of Roll Call: Republicans in Congress ponder the effects -- on themselves, of course -- of the sudden rise of Michele Bachmann's star after her good showing in Monday's Republican debate. They can't decide whether to cheer because she's not around to cause problems or worry because her popularity will shine a light on the Tea Party's failure to bring down the government.

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post does a pretty good job of debunking a Republican argument you're going to hear throughout campaign season, and which both Romney & to a worser (a good enough word, as applied here) extent, Bachmann used in Monday's debate. Romney: "Obamacare takes $500 billion out of Medicare and funds Obamacare." Kessler's answer is complicated, but here's a two-part shorthand answer you can use to counter Republican parrots: (1) The savings come from cutting payments to healthcare providers, not from cutting Medicare benefits -- that is, they don't cut Medicare benefits; they just make Medicare cheaper. (2) All but four Republican House members & most Republican Senators voted FOR the $500 billion Medicare savings because it's part of the Ryan/Republican Tea Party budget. If the way Obamacare cuts down on Medicare costs is so bad, why did all the Republicans vote for it?

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "The Obama administration argued Wednesday that its nearly three-month-old military involvement in Libya does not require congressional approval because of the supporting role most U.S. forces are playing there, a position that puts it at odds with some Republican leaders and the antiwar wing of its own party. The White House reasoning, included in a 32-page report to Congress, is the administration’s first detailed response to complaints from lawmakers of both parties, who say President Obama has exceeded his authority as commander in chief by waging war in Libya without congressional authorization." You can read the White House rationale here.

Politico: "More than a quarter of the Senate is calling on President Barack Obama to accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan beginning with the planned initial troop reduction next month as part of a 'sizeable and sustained' effort to end the Afghan war. In a letter sent Wednesday, 26 Democrats, one independent, and two Republicans – Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky – ask the president to approve the withdrawal of a significant number of troops in July. Lee and Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tom Udall of New Mexico were the lead authors of the letter." The Washington Post has a draft copy of the letter with a partial list of the signers.

New York Times: "In the latest sign that the economic recovery may have lost whatever modest oomph it had, more small businesses say that they are planning to shrink their payrolls than say they want to expand them. That is according to a new report released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group that regularly surveys its membership of small businesses across America."

Reuters: "Worried that Congress will not act in time to raise the country's borrowing cap, the Obama administration is enlisting the business community to persuade lawmakers that a default will have dire consequences. Outgoing White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee is set to talk to a slew of business representatives this week...." Also, see Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's remarks below. ...

... Politico: "Robust, strongly felt exchanges marked White House budget talks Tuesday as the focus turned back onto discretionary spending and the huge divide still between House Republicans and the Obama administration’s domestic agenda. 'We’re down to the real tough stuff right now, everybody is in the room… everybody’s still in the game,' Vice President Joe Biden told reporters as he left the Capitol after the more than two hour meeting."

ABC News: "The White House responded Tuesday to House Speaker John Boehner's warning that President Obama will soon be in violation of the War Powers Resolution – three months after the president informed Congress of the start of the mission in Libya – because the White House has failed to answer ;fundamental questions regarding the Libya mission.'" In a statement, Tommy Vietor, NSC spokesman said the White House was "preparing extensive information for the House and Senate that will address a whole host of issues about our ongoing efforts in Libya...."

San Francisco Chronicle: "The Senate refused Tuesday to end $6 billion in ethanol subsidies, defeating an amendment by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that crystallized a larger ideological split within the GOP over whether removing tax subsidies is a tax increase or is a legitimate way to trim the $1.5 trillion federal deficit.... The 40-59 vote split the GOP." CW: but stay tuned. Majority Leader Harry Reid promises another vote soon. It appears many of the Democratic nay votes were motivated by procedural nonsense.

Reuters: "Hundreds of Florida homeowners suffering with tainted Chinese drywall will share $55 million in a deal that also accuses a global drywall maker of lying about the product's safety, according to court documents."

Ben Bernanke, speaking on Tuesday about the necessity to raise the debt ceiling:

The Commentariat -- June 14

I've posted an Open Thread on today's Off Times Square. Do read yesterday's reader comments, most of which are very good and/or challenging. ...

     ... Update: the comments on yesterday's thread go on to page 2; I just posted another response to Dr. Zee which I think is pretty good, but then I would think so, wouldn't I? You should be able to get to it directly by clicking on this link.

So long as we expect our presidential candidates to come up with the better part of a billion dollars to finance their campaigns, then like Willie Sutton, they’re going to have to go where the money is. And in our country, right now, the money is on Wall Street. If we don’t want them kowtowing before bankers and hedge-fund managers, well, we have to change the laws governing our elections.... -- Ezra Klein ...

... Glenn Greenwald elaborates. He's hoping Romney wins the Republican nomination: "Thus, what we would very possibly have in 2012 are two presidential candidates who endlessly tout their populist credentials while doing everything in reality to compete with one another over who can best serve the nation's oligarchs."

We’ll get rid of you. -- Tom Donohue, President of the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce to members of Congress who vote against raising the debt ceiling

The New York Times Editors on Republican obstruction of qualified nominees to head financial regulation agencies. On the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, "Why go with a compromise candidate when Republicans have vowed to block any nominee? Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats should back Ms. Warren and expose to American voters just exactly whose interests the Republicans put first."

Aaron Wiener of TPM presents his "Chart of the Day," which speaks for itself, though Wiener elaborates here:

... So while we're charting stuff, let's see how things look for the financial industry:

... Now, isn't that special. Felix Salmon of Reuters, who provides us with the financial industry chart, & does some more numbers crunching, concludes, "Banks are still extracting enormous rents from the economy, and profits which should be flowing to productive industries are instead being captured by financial intermediaries. We’re back near boom-era levels of profitability now, and no one seems to worry that the flipside of higher returns is higher risk.... And the big rebound in corporate profits since the crisis turns out to be largely a function of the one sector which we didn’t want to recover to its former size." ...

... Jonathan Cohn: "Waiting for the national political conversation to 'pivot' away from deficits and towards jobs? It looks like President Obama wants to help." Please read Cohn's whole post. It might be the only encouraging note of the day, even if the evidence for his optimism remains somewhat slim. ...

... Meanwhile, the Congressional Progressive Caucus keeps on hammering its message that real people want to work:

Guess What Else Dubya Can't Find? Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times: "despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash.... For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be 'the largest theft of funds in national history.'"

Nelson Schwartz & Eric Dash of the New York Times: "Using the Citigroup customer Web site as a gateway to bypass traditional safeguards and impersonate actual credit card holders, a team of sophisticated thieves cracked into the bank’s vast reservoir of personal financial data, until they were detected in a routine check in early May. That allowed them to capture the names, account numbers, e-mail addresses and transaction histories of more than 200,000 Citi customers, security experts said, revealing for the first time details of one of the most brazen bank hacking attacks in recent years."

Pundits Pontificate on the GOP Show-and-Tell

Dana Milbank: "Eleven minutes into the debate, Michele Bachmann stole the show, and she didn’t return it in the subsequent hour and 49 minutes.... Bachmann was the one who emerged as the anti-Romney from the otherwise drab field." ...

... Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Mitt Romney easily survived his first test of the 2012 campaign here Monday night, cruising through a debate with six Republican rivals who were more interested in attacking President Obama than in turning their fire on the former Massachusetts governor.... Through two hours of questioning, [Romney] delivered a steady performance, made no obvious errors and stuck to his campaign game plan of focusing his message on the president and the economy." ...

... Dan Amira of New York Magazine has a snarky rundown of the highlights you (and I) missed by not watching the debate. Here's a good one: "Time Rick Santorum Spent Looking Like He Was One Second Away From Snapping, Taking Out His Rage by Destroying the Podium With His Fists: The whole debate." ...

... Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post also has a humorous take on elements of the proceedings. ...

... Wave Buh-Bye, Sarah Palin. Nate Silver weighs in on several fronts. Here he is on Bachmann v. Palin: "If there is a constituency of voters trying to decide between the two, Ms. Bachmann has a lot to offer. She’s considerably sharper on her feet than Ms. Palin, and has more discipline. She does not have the baggage of 'blood libel,' a reality show, or having prematurely quit her term as governor. Her family story — a mother to 23 foster children, as she frequently reminded us — is every bit as compelling. She has considerably better favorability ratings — Americans who are familiar with her split about evenly on whether they like her or not, which is not true for Ms. Palin. She has a geographic advantage in Iowa, has devoted more time to her presidential campaign and has a reputation as a strong fundraiser." ...

... Lies, Lies and Damned Statistics. Glenn Kessler fact-checks a few of the candidates' well-worn lines which have already been discredited, a circumstance that does not dissuade them from repeating the lies in a nationally-televised forum. ...

... Ron Brownstein of the National Journal says the attractive gentleman on the right (way on the right) is the big winner of the debate: "... there may be only modest differences between the proposals of the major candidates; all of them are operating in a policy framework shaped by the tea party push to retrench government, as interpreted above all by the House GOP budget resolution authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis." ...

... Finally, James Barnes reports on the National Journal's poll of the pundits. Big winner -- Romney; big loser -- Pawlenty. So who cares what anybody else thinks. ...

... Why, Our Mister Brooks considers himself a "pundit under protest," held hostage by uinspiring candidates on both sides.

Dahlia Lithwick: "Today (Monday), a court in San Francisco heard arguments about one of the most contemptible legal claims advanced in decades: that Vaughn Walker, the federal judge who voted last spring to strike down California's ban on gay marriage, was too gay to decide the case fairly." CW: Lithwick makes the same argument I did some time back: that no judge is qualified to rule in this case because every judge has a sexual orientation & could potential "benefit" from her or his decision.

This is actually a pretty good discussion on "Morning Joe" about Anthony Weiner. Scarborough, a Republican, says Reince Priebus, the RNC chair, should "shut up," especially since Democratic party leaders have dealt much more quickly with Weiner than Republican leaders dealt with their own scandals (CW: as in -- in a number of cases -- not at all). One aspect that struck me about this was having Steve Rattner sitting their discussing Weiner's indiscretions. Rattner, formerly Obama's "car czar," has settled "pay-to-play" charges by the SEC by paying $6.2 million in disgorgement and penalties & $10 million in restitution in a deal with New York AG Andrew Cuomo. Rattner has vehemently maintained he is innocence.

... Peter Beinart in the Daily Beast: "We need a new rulebook. Credible allegations of nonconsensual sex—the kind of thing Dominique Strauss-Kahn is alleged to have done — are absolutely fair game. But when it comes to adultery and virtual adultery between consenting adults, it's way past time that prominent figures in the media loudly declare that it is none of their business, and they won't join the scrum." ...

... Josh Marshall agrees. ...

... CW: Neither of them seriously addresses the part that got my goat: Weiner lied to ME. Until I found out he lied to the public, I agreed with Marshall -- this was a non-story that the press was all over because it sold papers. But I trusted Weiner to tell the public the truth, and I defended him based on his false assertions. It's none of my business if a politician humiliates his spouse as long as the humiliating behavior is legal. It is my business when he humiliates me. Anthony Weiner humiliated me.

Right Wing World *

Ha Ha Ha. The Seven Dwarfs debate aside, my favorite candidate story has to be this one by Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones: Fred Karger, a "lesser-known" (CW: I'll say!) candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, AND the only openly-gay GOP presidential candidate (no kidding!), AND a long-time Mitt Romney tormenter, AND a veteran of oppo research -- has been sleuthing Mitt's voting history. Karger has now filed a complaint with the Massachusetts board of elections alleging Mitt violated state law (the crime can garner a $10,000 fine & up to five years in jail) by voting in Massachusetts local elections when he was not a resident. Karger is not buying Mitt's claim that multimillionaire Mitt & family lived in their son's Massachusetts basement, & Karger's investigation finds plenty of evidence that Mitt & family were not Massachusetts moles; rather, they were living it up in a La Jolla, California sea-front mansion so Mitt "could hear the waves." Read the whole story. 

The Recession is God's Plan. Marie Diamond of Think Progress: Texas Gov. Rick "Perry twists a famous Biblical story into a bizarre anti-government tirade, comparing the U.S. government to slave masters in ancient Egypt. Skewing religion to reinforce his personal political ideology, Perry chastises people not to rely on government for help in hard times, and suggests those who are suffering have no one but themselves to blame for not making adequate preparations." Perry is flirting with a presidential run. With video. CW: so why are Republicans criticizing President Obama for the bad economy if the recession is "God's plan"? Under the Perry School of Theology, Obama is akin to the Prophet Moses. Republicans should be bowing down to him and asking him if he's got any commandments for them.

* Where facts seldom intrude, but if they do, they could leave would-be President Romney in jail.

News Ledes

President Obama arrives in Puerto Rico:

New York Times: "Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials. Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan."

ABC News: "The Senate Democratic leadership came out today and reaffirmed that Medicare cuts should not be on the table during the debt ceiling discussions."

New York Times: "David C. Baldus, whose pioneering research on race and the death penalty came within a vote of persuading the Supreme Court to make fundamental changes in the capital justice system, died on Monday at his home in Iowa City. He was 75." Read the story. It's more than an obituary.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Acting with unusual speed, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Gov. Scott Walker's plan to all but end collective bargaining for tens of thousands of public workers. The court found a committee of lawmakers was not subject to the state's open meetings law, and so did not violate that law when they hastily approved the measure and made it possible for the Senate to take it up. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled a Dane County judge who had struck down the legislation, ending one challenge to the law even as new challenges are likely to emerge." CW: not surprisingly, one of those in the 4-3 majority was David Prosser, who won a close election in April. Elections matter.

Los Angeles Times: "A federal judge on Tuesday refused to invalidate last year's ruling against Proposition 8, deciding the gay jurist who overturned the same-sex marriage ban had no obligation to step aside because of a possible conflict of interest. The decision by Chief Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco left the ruling by retired Judge Vaughn R. Walker in place. Walker’s decision remains on hold pending a separate appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals." Includes link to Judge Ware's ruling. ...

... New York Times: "A bankruptcy court in California has declared that the 1996 law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage [DOMA] is unconstitutional, increasing pressure against the law.

News You Can Use. New York Times: "After 33 years of consideration, the Food and Drug Administration took steps on Tuesday to sort out the confusing world of sunscreens, with new rules that specify which lotions provide the best protection against the sun and ending claims that they are truly waterproof."

Los Angeles Times: "Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faced fresh political uncertainty Tuesday after suffering a crushing loss at the polls that will make it more difficult for the longtime leader to keep his fragile government intact."

Here's the New York Times report on last night's Republican debate in New Hampshire.