The Commentariat -- Aug. 4, 2013
Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Fox News’s Chris Wallace challenged House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and the GOP-controlled House for failing to pass key appropriations before the government runs out of money in September, demanding to know why the party is wasting time holding its 40 Obamacare repeal vote and pursuing other highly partisan partisan measures." ...
... Igor Volsky: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) reiterated on Sunday that the House would not bring the Senate's immigration reform bill, which includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, to the floor for debate and a vote."
Dion Nissenbaum of the Wall Street Journal: "A federal grand jury is investigating whether the company that conducted the last security background check on National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden improperly rushed cases without proper review.... At the heart of the criminal probe, which is being conducted by federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are allegations that the company improperly cut corners to boost its processing of background checks, a practice known inside USIS as 'flushing.' ... Such activity could violate the False Claims Act, which outlaws actions that defraud the U.S. government."
Socialized Medicine, Oh My!
Physicians for a National Health Program: "Upgrading the nation's Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses. That's the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said." Via Susie Madrak.
Dan Boyce of NPR: "A year ago, Montana opened the nation's first clinic for free primary healthcare services to its state government employees.... Bottom line: a patient's visit to the employee health clinic costs the state about half what it would cost if that patient went to a private doctor. And because it's free to patients, hundreds of people have come in who had not seen a doctor for at least two years." There is anecdotal evidence the clinic is improving health, too, as physicians are finding early signs of illnesses that patients otherwise would not have detected." Thanks to contributor Barbarossa for the lead.<>br_/
Alex Pareene of Salon: "Ted Cruz is the right man for the decadent decline stage of the conservative movement, which has always encouraged the advancement of fact-challenged populist extremists, but always with the understanding that they'd take a back seat to the sensible business interests when it came time to exercise power. The result has been a huge number of Republican activists who couldn't figure out why the True Conservatives they kept voting for kept failing to achieve the creation of the perfect conservative state once in office. That led to an ongoing backlash against everyone in the party suspected of anything less than perfect ideological purity. Meanwhile all the crazies got rich simply for being crazy. There's no longer any compelling reason, in other words, not to act like Ted Cruz, and the result is Ted Cruz."
Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: Ted Cruz says he doesn't trust Republicans, & he isn't alone. "The Republican Party has not embarked on a grand civil war, with battle lines drawn and generals appointed. It's more like one of those fights in a cartoon, with characters jumping into a swirl of limbs and dust and cowboy hats. It is a rolling ball of cheerful hate, careening downhill, uprooting trees and legislative priorities, heedless of where it, or the country, is going."
CW: In case you care about the National Popular Vote interstate compact, Rick Hertzberg has the latest: Rhode Island has signed on. I happen to think this is a loony idea that -- should it ever be invoked, which is not unlikely -- would had the Electoral College over to the Supreme Court again. For Hertzberg, it's a pet project.
Sarah Jones of Wall of Separation: "The Kentucky chapter of the American Family Association (AFA) just released a petition that declares, in no uncertain terms, that prayer in schools will take us back to Jesus and best of all, boost student test scores, lower the crime rate and even decrease the rate of HIV infection. 'After prayer was removed from our schools, teen pregnancy went up 500%, STD's went up 226%, violent crime went up 500% and SAT scores went down for 18 years in a row, opening the door for the AIDS epidemic and the drug culture,' asserts the petition. Take that, science!" Via Steve Benen.
Senatorial Campaign
Aw, Everybody's Picking on Mitch. of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell found himself under withering attack on Saturday from both his right and left as he tried to make his case for reelection before a boisterous crowd at St. Jerome Catholic Church's annual picnic and political event in far western Kentucky."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The State Department said Sunday that it was extending the closing of 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and North Africa through at least next Saturday because of continued fears of an attack by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates." ...
... ABC News: "On the day that almost two dozen U.S. embassies and consulates across North Africa and the Middle East are closed following the identification of a significant threat from an al-Qaeda affiliate, a senior U.S. official is providing new details about the communications intercepted from the terrorists, telling ABC News that al-Qaeda operatives could be heard talking about an upcoming attack. The official described the terrorists as saying the planned attack is 'going to be big' and 'strategically significant.'"
New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry has recommended that Robert S. Ford serve as the next American ambassador to Egypt, American officials said Sunday. A longtime Middle East hand, Mr. Ford is well known for his role as ambassador to Syria, where he challenged President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown before American diplomats there were pulled out for their own safety. Most recently, Mr. Ford has served as the top American envoy to the Syrian opposition."
AP: "A man condemned to death for fatally stabbing a neighbor during a Cleveland burglary was found hanged in his cell Sunday just days before his Wednesday execution. Billy Slagle, 44, was found at about 5 a.m. at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution south of Columbus and was declared dead within the hour, prison spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said."
USA Today: "John Palmer, a veteran reporter for NBC News who covered wars and Washington over a career that spanned 40 years, died Saturday at a Washington hospital."
Guardian: "The United States and Britain have expressed their concerns after Robert Mugabe was declared the winner of Zimbabwe's presidential election on Saturday with 2,110,434 votes, giving him 61% of the total and Morgan Tsvangirai 34%. The margin was enough to avoid a repeat of the runoff of 2008.... John Kerry, the US secretary of state, commended Zimbabweans for rejecting violence but added: 'Make no mistake: in light of substantial electoral irregularities reported by domestic and regional observers, the United States does not believe that the results announced today represent a credible expression of the will of the Zimbabwean people.' William Hague, the British foreign secretary, also expressed 'grave concerns' about the conduct of the vote."
Reuters: The Obama administration has overturned a U.S. trade panel's ban on the sale of some older iPhones and iPads, reversing a ruling that had favored Samsung Electronics Co Ltd over Apple Inc in their long-running patent battles. The U.S. International Trade Commission in June banned the import or sale of the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G distributed by AT&T Inc, saying the devices infringed a patent owned by the South Korean electronics giant. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman on Saturday vetoed the ban, saying his decision was in part based on its "effect on competitive conditions in the U.S. economy and the effect on U.S. consumers." He said Samsung could continue to pursue its case through the courts."