;)
Thursday
Jul252013
The Commentariat -- July 26, 2013
** Charlie Savage of the New York Times: Chief Justice John Roberts has been reshaping the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. "In making assignments to the court, Chief Justice Roberts, more than his predecessors, has chosen judges with conservative and executive branch backgrounds that critics say make the court more likely to defer to government arguments that domestic spying programs are necessary. Ten of the court's 11 judges -- all assigned by Chief Justice Roberts -- were appointed to the bench by Republican presidents; six once worked for the federal government. Since the chief justice began making assignments in 2005, 86 percent of his choices have been Republican appointees, and 50 percent have been former executive branch officials. Though the two previous chief justices, Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, were conservatives like Chief Justice Roberts, their assignments to the surveillance court were more ideologically diverse, according to an analysis by The New York Times.... The court's complexion has changed at a time when its role has been expanding beyond what Congress envisioned when it established the court.... The idea then was that judges would review applications for wiretaps to make sure there was sufficient evidence that the F.B.I.'s target was a foreign terrorist or a spy. But, increasingly in recent years, the court has produced lengthy rulings interpreting the meaning of surveillance laws and constitutional rights based on procedures devised not for complex legal analysis but for up-or-down approvals of secret wiretap applications." CW: Charlie Savage is one reason the New York Times remains indispensable. ...
... Scott Shane of the New York Times: "American intelligence agencies, which experienced a boom in financing and public support in the decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, have entered a period of broad public scrutiny and skepticism with few precedents since the exposure of spying secrets and abuses led to the historic investigation by the Senate's Church Committee nearly four decades ago."
... CW: worth noting: we would not be reading either of the above reports if not for publication of the first of Ed Snowden's leaks. ...
... President Christie Will Be Tough on Terrorists. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Thursday offered a clear broadside against Republicans drifting toward a more libertarian view of foreign policy, lumping Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in with them and suggesting they explain their position to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.... He dismissed some of the current privacy/national security debates as 'esoteric.'" ...
... Update. President Paul Will Protect Your Constitutional Rights. If Governor Christie believes the constitutional rights and the privacy of all Americans is 'esoteric,' he either needs a new dictionary, or he needs to talk to more Americans, because a great number of them are concerned about the dramatic overreach of our government in recent years. Defending America and fighting terrorism is the concern of all Americans, especially Senator Paul. But it can and must be done in keeping with our Constitution and while protecting the freedoms that make America exceptional. In the words of the governor's favorite lyricist [Bruce Springsteen], 'You know that flag flying over the courthouse, Means certain things are set in stone. Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't.' -- Doug Stafford, aide to Sen. Rand Paul (RTP-Ky.)
Charlie Savage & Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced on Thursday that the Justice Department would ask a court to require Texas to get permission from the federal government before making voting changes in that state. The move opens a new chapter in the political struggle over election rules after the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act last month.... His statements come as states across the South, from Texas to North Carolina, have been rushing to enforce or enact new restrictions on voting eligibility after the Supreme Court's ruling in Shelby County v. Holder.... The move relies on a part of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court left untouched in the Shelby County case":
... Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog explains how the DOJ could invoke the preclearance requirement in spite of the Supreme Court's Shelby County decision. ...
... Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns & Money: "I'm not terribly optimistic about the federal courts as currently staffed will effectively enforce the Voting Rights Act, but it's worth trying to do everything possible. And, as Holder says, there's 'no substitute for legislation that will fill the void left by the Supreme Court's decision.' If only he were right that the issue 'transcends partisanship.'" ...
... Toljaso. Mark Sherman of the AP: Justice Ruth Bader "Ginsburg said in an interview with The Associated Press that Texas' decision to implement its voter ID law hours after the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last month was powerful evidence of an ongoing need to keep states with a history of voting discrimination from making changes in the way they hold elections without getting advance approval from Washington.... [Ginsberg] dissented from the 5-4 decision on the voting law. Ginsburg said in her dissent that discarding the law was 'like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.' Just a month removed from the decision, she said, 'I didn't want to be right, but sadly I am.'"
President Obama spoke about infrastructure & the economy yesterday at the Port of Jacksonville, Florida:
President Obama's economic speech, short version. Pretty good:
... Michael Lind of Salon favorably reviews Obama's economic agenda (with the exception of his Wall Street-friendly retirement plans), & sees his speech Wednesday as a marker for "the day the right lost the economic argument.... When even USA Today goes all Keynesian instead of going Galt, the Right is clearly losing the argument about the economy. Conservative Republicans have enough power in Congress to block most of the progressive agenda. But they do not have a plausible alternative to the progressive vision of the past, present and future of the U.S. economy that President Obama has set forth." ...
... Erik Wasson of the Hill: "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday estimated that keeping the spending cuts from sequestration in place through fiscal 2014 would cost up to 1.6 million jobs. Canceling the cuts, on the other hand, would yield between 300,000 to 1.6 million new jobs, with the most likely outcome being the addition of 900,000, the CBO said." ...
... Zachary Goldfarb & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Senior White House officials are discussing a budget strategy that could lead to a government shutdown if Republicans continue to demand deeper spending cuts, lawmakers and Democrats familiar with the administration's thinking said Thursday. The posture represents a more confrontational approach than that of this spring, when President Obama decided not to escalate a fight over across-the-board reductions known as sequestration in an earlier budget battle with Republicans....White House officials also are discussing a potential strategy to try to stop the sequestration cuts from continuing, the lawmakers and Democrats said. Under this scenario, the president might refuse to sign a new funding measure that did not roll back the sequester. No decision has been made." ...
That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. As long as Barack Obama is president, the Affordable Care Act is going to be the law.... I was around in 1995. Some of these guys need to understand that if you shut down the federal government, you'd better have a specific reason to do it that's achievable. Defunding the Affordable Care Act is not achievable through shutting down the federal government. -- Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), on the threat of 12 of his fellow Republican senators to shut down the U.S. government if ObamaCare is not defunded ...
The only two things that really risk the Republican majority in 2014 would be if we shut down the government or if we defaulted on the debt. -- Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.)
... Paul Krugman: "... the good news about Obamacare is, I’d argue, what's driving the Republican Party's intensified extremism. Successful health reform wouldn't just be a victory for a president conservatives loathe, it would be an object demonstration of the falseness of right-wing ideology. So Republicans are being driven into a last, desperate effort to head this thing off at the pass."
Rep. Steve King (R-Disgusting) thinks it's okay for him to falsely accuse hundreds of thousands of kids he doesn't know of being drug mules, but it's an abridgement of his First Amendment rights to speak & assemble when the House leadership criticizes his racist remarks. Note to Merriam-Webster: just put a picture of King next to your definition of "sociopath." ...
... Matt Fuller of Roll Call has more on the King-Boehner standoff. Plus, a video of King's full House floor speech, including a "fascinating" history lesson. CW: I guess it's a chicken-&-egg question, but a fractured view of history sure goes hand-in-hand with wacky political views. ...
... Alex Altman of Time: "King is not exactly a mainstream Republican. Among his crusades, he has opposed anti-dogfighting laws, likened House janitors swapping out incandescent light bulbs to Stasi troops, and suggested Barack Obama's birth announcement in Hawaiian newspapers could have been placed by telegram from Kenya. But if the measure is votes and not words, King is more representative of the House Republican immigration position than the party would like to admit. Just last month, 97% of Republicans backed a King amendment that prohibits funding from an Obama administration directive to stop deporting so-called DREAMers." ...
... Brett Logiurato of Business Insider: "And when these leaders outcast King as a 'fringe' member of the House Republican caucus, Democrats can gleefully point out that he has largely guided the party's legislative actions on immigration in 2013." ...
.. Ha Ha. Amy Davidson of the New Yorker on Steve King's fetish for young Mexican bodies.
Charles Pierce with a reality check: "Even if the formal [Republican] party structure collapsed tomorrow, the gains it already has made, combined with the vast corporate money available to conservative politicians, the network of extra-party organizations and institutions, and the myriad grassroots operations centered around various separate issues, would keep the forward momentum going for years. (And that's not even to mention the virtual lock that like-minded individuals have on the federal judiciary.) The important thing is the goal, not how you get there. At that, the Republicans are doing just fine." ...
... Gene Robinson: "Here's the basic problem: The Democratic Party seems likely to grow ever stronger nationally while the GOP remains firmly entrenched locally. This means the stubborn, maddening, unproductive standoff between a Democratic president and a Republican majority in the House may be the new normal."
Binyamin Appelbaum & Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "President Obama's choice of a replacement for the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, is coming down to a battle between the California girls and the Rubin boys. Janet L. Yellen, the Fed's vice chairwoman, is one of three female friends, all former or current professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who have broken into the male-dominated business of advising presidents on economic policy. Her career has been intertwined with those of Christina D. Romer, who led Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers at the beginning of his first term, and Laura D’Andrea Tyson, who held the same job under President Clinton and later served as the director of the White House economic policy committee. But no woman has climbed to the very top of the hierarchy to serve as Fed chairwoman or Treasury secretary. Ms. Yellen's chief rival for Mr. Bernanke's job, Lawrence H. Summers, is a member of a close-knit group of men, protégés of the former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, who have dominated economic policy-making in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations. Those men, including the former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Gene B. Sperling, the president's chief economic policy adviser, are said to be quietly pressing Mr. Obama to nominate Mr. Summers." ...
... CW: the reporters don't say so, but it's worth remembering that Larry Summers doesn't think women are genetically as capable as men to figure out all that sciency-y, math-y stuff. ...
... ** Mike Lux in the Huffington Post: "Larry Summers, the guy who helped push the bank deregulation bill that created these monstrous Too Big To Fail banks.... It is hard to imagine a worse pick politically for Obama than Larry Summers.... Progressives and women's groups will fight this tooth and nail, and any chance of the president looking like he is a fighter for the middle class on the economy will go up in smoke." Read the whole post.
Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: "Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty to the destruction of critical evidence after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday. Halliburton, an oil services company, will pay the maximum allowable fine and be subject to three years of probation, the Justice Department said. It will also continue its cooperation in the government's ongoing criminal investigation. Separately, Halliburton made a voluntary contribution of $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation."
Nathaniel Popper of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Thursday brought what they called the largest hacking and data breach case in the country, charging five people with running an organization that hacked the computer networks of more than a dozen corporations, stealing and selling at least 160 million credit and debit card numbers. The scheme was run by four Russian nationals and a Ukrainian, said the prosecutors, who announced the indictments in Newark. Paul Fishman, the United States attorney for the District of New Jersey, said losses ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars."
Ben Protess & Peter Lattmann of the New York Times: "Federal authorities announced a raft of criminal charges on Thursday against SAC Capital, the hedge fund run by the billionaire Steven A. Cohen, an unusually aggressive move that could cripple one of Wall Street's most successful stock trading firms. In the 41-page indictment that includes four counts of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud, prosecutors charged SAC and its units with permitting a 'systematic' insider trading scheme to unfold between 1999 and 2010, activity that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for the firm. The case seeks to attribute criminal acts of several employees to the company itself, claiming that the fund 'enabled and promoted' the illicit behavior."
Alyssa Newcomb of ABC News: "The only minority on the all-female jury that voted to acquit George Zimmerman said today that Zimmerman 'got away with murder' for killing Trayvon Martin and feels she owes an apology Martin's parents.... She said the jury was following Florida law and the evidence, she said, did not prove murder." ...
... Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "... conspiracy theorists are convinced Trayvon Martin's killer staged a car crash to boost his beleaguered image." CW: I'm sticking with the police scanner theory. If Zimmerman wanted to clear this up, BTW, he could tell his attorney how he "happened" on the scene, fire extinguisher in hand.
Local News
Javier Hernandez & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Anthony D. Weiner's mayoral campaign entered a dark and chaotic phase on Thursday as he admitted to having explicit online relationships with at least three women since he left Congress, and the woman at the center of the latest scandal appeared on television, remembering him as a 'perpetually horny middle-aged man.' ... Mr. Weiner's once-resurgent political standing in New York City seemed to erode by the moment, as more graphic pictures of his penis appeared online and his conduct and lack of candor were denounced from the campaign trail to the halls of Congress." ...
... Ah, It Was All the Wife's Fault. Carl Campanile of the New York Post: "Anthony Weiner came up with an extraordinary excuse yesterday to explain why he went back to sexting after supposedly kicking the habit -- he was suffering from marital woes. In a startling e-mail letter sent to rally campaign supporters, Weiner said he sought hot-blooded female consolation on the Internet when he and his wife, Huma Abedin, hit a rocky patch in their relationship last summer. At the time, Weiner had been out of Congress for a year, having resigned in disgrace, and was giving interviews with his wife at his side claiming he was cured." ...
... CW: As I recall, a number of contributors gave me a hard time a few weeks back when I said that because of his exploitation of young women (or at least people he thought were young women -- they could have been teenagers or 55-year-old men or whoever), Anthony Weiner was not qualified for high public office. I hope these latest revelations cause at least some of you to see it my way. ...
... Rachel Weiner (no relation, I guess) of the Washington Post: "a Marist/NBC/WSJ poll finds Weiner tied for second place among both registered and likely Democratic voters. City Council President Christine Quinn is once again in the lead. 'Weiner has lost his lead and his negatives are at an all-time high,' pollster Lee Miringoff said."
Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times: "Seven women have now accused [San Diego] Mayor Bob Filner of sexual misconduct, including four in a group interview Thursday night on public television. Meanwhile, Filner appeared at two public events Thursday, dodging reporters' questions about the allegations of sexual harassment contained in a lawsuit filed Monday by a former top aide."
Deirdre Walsh & Ashley Killough of CNN: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tore into Anthony Weiner and San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, saying Thursday the two former House Democrats should 'get a clue' as they face backlash for their questionable behavior with women. 'Let me be very clear, the conduct of some of these people that we're talking about here is reprehensible,' Pelosi said at her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill. Her comments came after Rep. Jerry Nadler, a fellow Democrat who represents part of Manhattan, made biting comments about Weiner, saying Wednesday night that the New York City mayoral hopeful 'needs serious psychiatric help.'" Nadler called on Weiner to drop out of the mayoral race.
Craig Jarvis of the Raleigh News & Observer: " Waiting until the last full day of the session, the [North Carolina] state Senate on Thursday approved the abortion bill that it had been holding for nearly two weeks. The Senate voted 32-13 to approve a House-written version of the sweeping bill. It would impose stricter regulations on abortion clinics, require more contact between abortion clinic doctors and patients, and limit insurance coverage for the procedure. Senate Bill 353 was a House rewrite that took into account concerns raised by the state Department of Health and Human Services. The bill now goes to Gov. Pat McCrory, who has said he would sign the House version but not the Senate's, over concerns that the Senate's bill imposed undue obstacles to abortions rather than acceptable health safeguards."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The Obama administration announced Friday that it was reviving the repatriation of low-level detainees from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which had dried up after Congress imposed strict limits on transfers.... The White House said it had informed Congress that it intended to return two detainees to Algeria under the terms of a statute that requires Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to certify that various security conditions have been met."
New York Times: "As vast dueling demonstrations took place across Egypt on Friday, the state news media reported that former President Mohamed Morsi -- who has been detained incommunicado for three weeks -- was being investigated on accusations of conspiring with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in a prison break in 2011." ...
... Al Jazeera: "Egyptian police fired tear gas at anti-military protesters after the government vowed to clear them from the streets of Cairo 'in a legal manner'. Dozens of people were shown on television on Saturday injured in a field hospital, shortly after the police action near the October 6 bridge in Nasr City according to Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal. State television said that 35 people were injured."
Guardian: "The US government has completed its case against Bradley Manning, the source of the massive WikiLeaks trove of state secrets, accusing the 25-year-old soldier of being a traitor who used his training and skills to deliberately and systematically harm the US and provide assistance to al-Qaida. Major Ashden Fein, the lead prosecutor, unleashed a wave of rhetoric against the army private at the conclusion of his closing arguments in Fort Meade, Maryland, where the trial is in its eighth week. At the culmination of almost four hours in front of the judge, Fein sought to press home the most serious and contentious charge against Manning -- that he knowingly 'aided the enemy' by transmitting state secrets to WikiLeaks." ...
... Update: "The lawyer representing ... Bradley Manning has asked the judge presiding over the soldier's court martial to decide between two stark portrayals of the accused -- the prosecution's depiction of him as a traitor and seeker of notoriety, and the defence's account that he was motivated by a desire to make a difference in the world and save lives."
Cleveland Plain Dealer: "A hearing in the Ariel Castro kidnapping case has been set for Friday morning at 10 a.m. before County Common Pleas Judge Michael Russo, presumably to discuss a possible plea deal."
AP: "Spanish police on Friday detained the driver of a train that crashed in northwestern Spain, lowered the death toll from 80 to 78 and took possession of the 'black box' of the train expected to shed light on why it was going faster than the speed limit on the curve where it derailed. And in an interview with The Associated Press, an American passenger injured on the train said he saw on a TV monitor screen inside his car that the train was traveling 194 kph (121 mph) seconds before the crash -- far above the 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit on the curve where it derailed."
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Reader Comments (10)
In the main I would agree with much that CW has written about Snowden. We wouldn't be reading about this and he isn't the patriot that some make him out to be.
I don't know that the brain of someone like Snowden is fully assembled, think 'teenager brain' yet the consequences of their actions can last a lifetime. Also, revolutions are not started by people with mortgages and children in college.
The utter corruption of power of the Roberts court shows that in the long run society may benefit when the few go "off reservation" to shake the tree of the whole system. It just takes a lot of spine to spend your time engaging with the horses' asses in charge of the political swamplands.
@citizen624: thanks for your comment. It's worth remembering that we're having this conversation because of the first two sets of documents Snowden gave to the Guardian & the WashPo. He also released documents to the Guardian that revealed British cooperation with the NSA. I don't see how any of his other leaks was useful. In fact, he released more to both the Guardian & the WashPo than the papers were willing to publish. Both cited security concerns in withholding many of the docs Snowden gave them. That is, reporters, editors, whoever, at these two news outlets have or have seen documents that the editors deemed too sensitive to publish. Obviously, news outlets don't withhold information for the fun of it. Add to that Glenn Greenwald's claim that Snowden is holding onto more explosive documents, and you have to conclude that Snowden stole (& has distributed some) documents that would be harmful to national security.
Here's what I wonder, though. Wouldn't a $200K/year hacker-spy know how to cover his tracks? No doubt hundreds, if not thousands, of NSA employees & contractors can access the same data Snowden did. Had he devoted a little of that skill set he supposedly has to diversionary tactics, he would still be collecting his fat paycheck, still be lounging around in Hawaii with his pole-dancing girlfriend & generally be living the fantasy of other high-school dropouts. Yeah, he might have become a suspect after the papers published the leaks, but he would have been one among many & thus had an excellent change of avoiding detection. Instead, he is sitting in the Moscow airport with, to put it mildly, an uncertain future. Either Snowden isn't very smart or he wanted to be a star. I suspect the latter.
Marie
Marie, I believe you underestimate the detection capacity of the NSA. I suspect Snowden had a much greater understanding of this detection capacity and as such realized it would be just a matter of time before he was discovered and checkmated. For whatever reason, he embarked on a path with no good return. History, depending on who writes it, will judge him hero or villain. However, his life, for all practical purposes, is over.
The majority of our signers of the Declaration of Independence did not do the smart thing and suffered great personal losses as a result.
History is replete with stories of persons who have taken upon themselves a responsibility to right a wrong they perceived. Their great personal losses ,sometimes in vein, sometimes changed the course of history.
Speaking of Snowden covering his tracks, it might be worth wondering how safe those documents are, considering that as good as he might have been--and considered himself--as a hacker, there are always bigger, badder, more skilled ones out there and hacks that can be applied without raising any flags.
Apparently the pilfered documents are on his laptops. Even if he has those documents encrypted, there are ways to break any code if one has enough time. The only way he can be sure those documents have not been downloaded and cracked by hackers in the countries he's visited (and may yet visit) is for him to keep his laptops powered off. As long as they're powered up and connected to the web, somebody can get in, snoop around, and offload his stuff, very likely without him even knowing about it. He might be good but he's only been doing this a few years. There are people out there who have dedicated decades to this stuff.
All those scary docs Greenwald has been warning about may already be in possession of either the Chinese or the Russians.
Interesting piece about Florida: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/26/5_reasons_why_florida_is_the_weirdest_state_ever_partner/
All I know is that many Floridians are moving here in the North Georgia mountains. When you ask them why they left: "Too flat" Too hot" "Too many hurricanes".
Though I have already posted my admittedly inadequate guesses about Snowden's psychology, I still consider what went and goes on in the block boxes of his head and heart relatively minor matters. Politically speaking--and we are speaking politically, aren't we?--what is important are the questions his revelations raised and the actions that might follow them. Whether Snowden is mentally balanced or not, I'm overall pleased he chose to do what he did, though, had he had a different makeup, he might have accomplished the same ends using other methods that posed less risk to himself and the nation.
That said, Snowden's behavior reminds me of much that I do admire. I cannot count, for instance, the number of valuable works of art produced by people whose personality quirks made them very bad company. It's the nature of outliers to think and act outside the mainstream and if they did not live and act in that often uncomfortable space, they would have the perspective or the impulse to do what they do. I call to mind Van Gogh's ear, Frost's store of unbridled anger, Dickens' love life and the vats of alcohol that fueled so many brilliant writings we would be much the poorer without.
I do not say this because I confuse Snowden with Charles Dickens. I'm just thinking that folks who are happy with the way things are don't usually contribute very much that is new, interesting and potentially valuable to our civilization. And since sanity is in large measure socially determined, if we were all similarly sane, criticism itself would disappear and originality would have no meaning.
Sometimes I wish I were a bit more unbalanced myself.
Ken,
Reading about your decision to relegate Snowden's mental state to also-ran status calls to mind an article by the great pianist Alfred Brendel in last week's NYRB. Brendel agrees that any investigation into the psychology of an artist as a treasure room laden with hidden meanings and the rationale underlying a particular work is a distraction from the impact of the piece itself.
This isn't, as you say, to compare Snowden with Beethoven or his release of stolen documents with the Emperor Concerto, but his magnum opus currently being composed in various hotel rooms and way stations half a world away has and will continue to have relevance far beyond whatever personal psychology or recondite motivations contributed to the genesis of his pièce de résistance.
Critics on both sides have weighed in already but it's too early to tell how this piece will end. It might yet have a Schubert Quintet style surprise ending or it might be a sad trumpet (wah-wah).
Who knows?
Alfred Brendel's Pianist's A to V
Akhillues: Thanks for deciphering and for causing me to reread what I thought I wrote, this time noticing the missing "not" between "would" and "have." Jeepers!
I heard Filner's "apology" this afternoon on the radio. He's going into treatment but has no intention of resigning. Why is that? If this were one of his employees, that employee would have been fired on the spot. How is this creep allowed to say whether he keeps his job?
Here is an advertisement that gives me hope for the future:
http://www.nationalmemo.com/heres-a-campaign-ad-that-might-actually-make-you-cry/