;)
The Commentariat -- June 13, 2015
Internal links removed.
Richard Serrano of the Los Angeles Times: "A second major intrusion into U.S. government employee records, this one designed to root out names of those who might be willing to spy for a foreign government, was uncovered during the investigation into the first such breach announced this month, two officials said Friday. The newly discovered breach compromised financial histories and information on family members and foreign trips for up to 4.1 million federal employees, according to a senior administration official and an FBI official."
Greg Miller & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Key lawmakers have moved to slash funding of a secret CIA operation to train and arm rebels in Syria, a move that U.S. officials said reflects rising skepticism of the effectiveness of the agency program and the Obama administration's strategy in the Middle East. The House Intelligence Committee recently voted unanimously to cut as much as 20 percent of the classified funds flowing into a CIA program that U.S. officials said has become one the agency's largest covert operations, with a budget approaching $1 billion a year."
Reuters: "The Obama administration is expected to announce an agreement with Cuba in early July to reopen embassies and restore diplomatic relations severed more than five decades ago, US sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. The two sides hope to conclude the deal by the first week of next month, clearing the way for secretary of state John Kerry to visit Havana soon afterwards for a flag-raising ceremony to upgrade the US interests section to a full-scale embassy...."
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "House Democrats rebuffed a dramatic personal appeal from President Obama on Friday, torpedoing his ambitious push to expand his trade negotiating power -- and, quite likely, his chance to secure a legacy-defining trade accord spanning the Pacific Ocean. In a remarkable rejection of a president they have resolutely backed, House Democrats voted to kill assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades. By doing so, they brought down legislation granting the president trade promotion authority -- the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress -- before it could even come to a final vote." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... David Nakamura & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "The House voted 302 to 126 to sink a measure to grant financial aid to displaced workers, fracturing hopes at the White House that Congress would grant Obama fast-track trade authority to complete an accord with 11 other Pacific Rim nations. 'I will be voting to slow down fast-track,' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the floor moments before the vote, after keeping her intentions private for months. 'Today we have an opportunity to slow down. Whatever the deal is with other countries, we want a better deal for American workers.'... Fast-track authority ... was later approved with overwhelming Republican support in what amounted to a symbolic vote because it could not move forward into law without the related worker assistance package." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... See also the President's weekly address. He isn't giving up:
... David Dayen in Salon: "What [President] Obama was proposing was a trick, one used repeatedly to advance distasteful policies, by getting each side to vote only on the parts they like. And House progressives responded by saying they wouldn't play that game anymore.... While this is definitely not over, if Democrats do hang tough and kill the President's trade agenda by not playing along on TAA, it will be a victory for good government. This insanity of getting to pass the parts of a bill you like and having them smushed together Frankenstein-monster style makes it impossible to hold anyone responsible for the ultimate outcome. Democrats should be proud of opting out of that charade."
Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg: Republican "falsehoods nurtured blind fury against Obamacare. Fury required new falsehoods to keep it ratcheted. After five years of this, there's simply no way to reconcile the law's continued existence with Republicans' flamboyantly apocalyptic rhetoric.... In recent weeks, we've seen Republican presidential candidates stumble on a topic that their party spent more than a decade doctoring for public consumption.... A Supreme Court decision in King's favor would eclipse even Bush v. Gore as a monument to naked partisanship." ...
... Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "In an interview with the Trussville Tribune earlier this week, freshman Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) declared that, on net, no additional people have gained insurance since the passage of Obamacare.... Discussing climate change during the interview, the Alabama GOPer also erroneously declared that temperatures hadn't increased in the last two decades and may even be decreasing." ...
... CW: Obviously, Palmer is an undeclared candidate for president of Right Wing World, where everything is upside-down, lying -- especially for political convenience -- is a virtue, & beliefs always trump facts, & stupid is a presidential qualifier. So if I could get the franchise in Right Wing World (I'm a girl, so no chance), Gary there would be my main man. This week anyway.
Matt Zapotowsky & Matea Gold of the Washington Post: Tyler Harber, "a former Republican political operative convicted in a first-ever federal criminal case of illegal coordination between a campaign and a purportedly independent ally, was sentenced Friday to two years in prison -- a lighter punishment than prosecutors sought but one that still served as a sharp warning."
American "Justice," Ctd. Alan Yuhas of the Guardian: "The last imprisoned member of the so-called Angola Three will remain in prison at least until Louisiana can argue that he should face a third trial, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. The judges of the fifth circuit court of appeals extended the stay that blocks the release of Albert Woodfox, 68, who has spent most of 43 years in solitary confinement despite having convictions for murder twice thrown out of court." ...
... Cristian Farias of New York: "... everything [Kalief] Browder endured -- from the moment he was wrongly accused for stealing a backpack to his slow death at Rikers Island -- was sanctioned by laws, customs, and policies duly enacted or tolerated by New York, its policymakers, and the citizens who pay for it all."
Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "As of Friday morning, the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules became the law of the land when a federal court rebuffed a plea by Internet providers to block the regulation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Gail Collins: "We've moved from the right to bear arms to the right to flaunt arms."
NAACP Statement on Rachel Dolezal: "One's racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership. The NAACP Alaska-Oregon-Washington State Conference stands behind Ms. Dolezal's advocacy record." ...
... Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, who is black, is very put off by Rachel Dolezal, the president of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the NAACP and a professor of African American studies at Eastern Washington University, who was outed as not actually being African American." Capehart equated Dolezal's adoption of black identity with blackface. ...
... CW: No doubt because I'm white, I think Capehart's objections are over-the-top, and I don't find Dolezal's ruse too troubling. The U.S. Census Bureau, for instance, allows everyone to self-identify her race. It appears Dolezal identified as black early in life (she has four black siblings) & treated her self-identification, among other things, as a career enhancer. Many black people publicly identify as white for similar reasons, & I find no fault whatsoever with that. That said, I wouldn't do it myself, & I did find it fairly sleazy when a whitey-white cousin of mine identified herself as Hispanic for the purpose of furthering her own career. ...
... Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon, who is white-like-me, disagrees with me: "... this isn't about being an ally, or making the family of your choosing, or even how one feels on the inside. It's about, apparently, flat out deception. It's about how one person chose to obtain a college education and jobs and credibility in her community. It about allegedly pretending to speak from a racial experience you simply don't have." ...
... Dolezal does invent a lot of stuff related to race. ...
... Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times addresses the controversy over Dolezal's race.
Presidential Race
NEW. Joe Nocera of the New York Times: "Anticipating a Republican presidential bid by Scott Walker, the two-term governor of Wisconsin, both The New York Times Magazine and The Washington Monthly recently published lengthy articles about him.... Both articles focus on Walker's successful battles with labor. As they should: If he runs for president, his record of union-busting will be at the very center of his campaign."
Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "When [Jeb] Bush's brother George first ran for president, he erroneously referred to Greeks as 'Grecians,' flubbed the name of India's president and confused Slovenia with Slovakia, offering the world an unabashed portrait of provinciality. But across Europe this week, Jeb Bush revealed himself to be a very different kind of Bush: well traveled, almost encyclopedically knowledgeable about foreign countries, and possessing the genuine inquisitiveness that his brother had so notably lacked."
Dana Milbank: Sen Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has introduced "legislation banning all abortions after five months.... The procedures Graham seeks to ban account for less than 1.5 percent of all abortions in the United States, and those are often the most difficult cases.... Opposing late-term abortions does next to nothing to reduce abortions, but it works well with Republican presidential primary voters.... Broadening the use of contraceptives would seriously reduce abortions, but it would be poisonous to the GOP primary electorate. The paradox -- antiabortion advocates' antipathy to the policy that would do the most to achieve their goal -- was highlighted in an Associated Press survey this week of state-by-state changes in abortions since 2010."
San Stein of Huffington Post (June 11): "Sen. Mark Kirk said in an interview that he regrets referring to Sen. Lindsey Graham as a 'bro with no ho' but declined to clarify or further explain his controversial remark. One of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans in 2016, Kirk (R-Ill.) made the remark about Graham during a Senate Appropriations Committee markup session on Thursday. The Huffington Post, which first reported on the comment, posted audio of the hot mic incident.... 'I've been joking with Lindsey,' Kirk can be heard saying. 'Did you see that? He's going to have a rotating first lady. He's a bro with no ho.'" ...
... Daniella Diaz of CNN: "While [Kirk's] remarks were perhaps less than diplomatic, however, they were no big deal to one of Graham's presidential primary opponents. Speaking on CNN's 'Out Front' Thursday night, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum dismissed it as a 'locker-room conversation' that people today aren't afforded the 'privilege' of having because of ubiquitous recording devices. 'You can't say anything off-mic, off-camera -- and you know, guys'll be guys when they're sitting there up on a platform,' he said. Santorum ... [called] the comments a 'sort of funny remark.'" CW: Yes, Rick, it's always "sort of funny" when a white guy demeans both women & African Americans in one short phrase. Even more rib-tickling when a U.S. senator does so during a public Senate hearing.
Beyond the Beltway
"How Kansas Keeps Making Life Harder for the Poor." Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post: "... a bill the state House passed Friday ... would raise the sales tax rate from 6.15 percent to 6.5 percent. Since the poor spend more of their money on basic goods and services, they are likely to be affected disproportionately by the sales tax increase.... Earlier this year, the Republican majority codified controversial restrictions on how welfare recipients can spend their money.... Those changes followed a decision several years ago to overhaul taxes in a way that, over several years, boosted the incomes of the middle class and wealthy but reduced the incomes of poor families, by raising sales taxes and by limiting a provision that exempted food purchases from sales taxes.... Kansas has one of the most regressive tax codes, according to data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy." CW: Yeah but, intelligent poor people don't vote Republican. So who cares?
Real America. Michael Miller of the Washington Post: Country singer Randy Howard "died Tuesday evening in a scene worthy of a country music song, complete with an outstanding warrant, a standoff with a seasoned bounty hunter, and a shootout in a log cabin on a quiet country lane. According to authorities, Howard was fatally shot after opening fire on a bail bondsman who showed up to his Lynchburg, Tenn., cabin to arrest the country singer. The bondsman was also struck by a bullet but expected to live. The gunfight was a fitting end to a life full of raunchy lyrics and reckless living.... The shooting has raised questions about the rights of bail bondsmen, who are not licensed in Tennessee. Shell ... had a warrant to arrest Howard. But under Tennessee law, the country singer also had a right to defend himself if threatened in his home."
News Ledes
Dallas Morning News: "Police were continuing to negotiate with a man in an armored vehicle after he opened fire on Dallas police headquarters and led dozens of squad cars on a chase that ended in Hutchins. No injuries had been confirmed, though the gunman told police negotiators that he had been wounded. The man has identified himself as James Boulware, 50, who has a history of family violence and blames authorities for his losing custody of his son, Dallas police Chief David Brown said." ...
... Update: "The suspect in an attack on Dallas police headquarters is believed to be dead after a police sniper shot at him early Saturday. So far, though, authorities had not been able to approach the vehicle safely to confirm that he had been killed. They were working to make their way into the vehicle with the assistance of a robot, and they alerted the public that some planned detonations might be heard as they tried to gain entry." ...
... New Lede: "Police confirmed the suspect in an attack on Dallas police headquarters is dead after a police sniper shot at him early Saturday, but they are unable to confirm his identification pending a medical examination."
... The Guardian is liveblogging the standoff.
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Reader Comments (7)
The secret contents of the Pacific trade agreement remind me of a Damon Runyon character, perhaps Harry the Horse. He was big and tough and made his cohorts shoot craps with him. They rolled the dice in his hat and he peeked in and let the shooter know whether he passed, won or crapped out.There is a good chance that "fast track" will like NAFTA, show that working Americans have crapped out again.
The TPP is a dangerous and antidemocratic treaty. Even Paul Krugman, who seems to love Obama, has finally admitted the secrecy around what is actually IN the treaty is a major issue.
I don't think the multinationals and their army of lobbyists and lawyers will be overly discouraged by today's vote. They will fall back and regroup . . . perhaps at a later date . . . perhaps under a different president. They will wait for the fervor and public interest to die down. What they don't want is for Congress and the American people to demand to see the treaty in its entirety. Which is why we must demand this once and for all.
The fact that the Republicans want it so badly should make every Democrat sit back and wonder why.
Valerie Long Tweedie
I sometimes mwonder if the President knows what's in the TPP.
Funny thing about race and skin color. Male birds are the ones with the color in order to entice the females who can't be bothered by all that flourish; what they want (besides a little hanky panky with wayward males) is a mate that will help build a nest and feed her babies. Not so in our human situation. Skin color is destiny.
Years ago I used to read Anatole Broyard's pieces in the NYT–-thought him an exceptional writer. Six years after his death of cancer in 1996 Henry Louis Gates published "White Like Me" in the New Yorker. It revealed that Broyard had passed as white and very few knew, including his own children. Gates said:
"When those of mixed ancestry—and the majority of blacks are of mixed ancestry— disappear into the white majority, they are traditionally accused of running from their "blackness." Yet why isn't the alternative a matter of running to their "whiteness."
That this culture forced people to hide their true racial identity is a pitiful thing, a sad commentary on our human dignity. The case cited above of Rachel Dolezel is a reverse in the usual pretense and I found it somewhat amusing, almost refreshing in a strange way. I've always found it odd that many whites work hard to get tan (darker skin color) but look down on blacks and browns while in the black culture there is a higher acceptance of lighter skin which would indicate white intervention along the way.
The birds have it easy~~~~~~~~
"It’s not my fault. So you can’t blame me. I didn’t do it and have no idea how it happened. It didn’t take more than an hour after they pulled her out from between my legs to realize something was wrong. Really wrong. She was so black she scared me. Midnight black…. Some of you probably think it’s a bad thing to group ourselves according to skin color—the lighter, the better—in social clubs, neighborhoods, churches, sororities, even colored schools. But how else can we hold on to a little dignity?… I hate to say it, but from the very beginning in the maternity ward the baby, Lula Ann, embarrassed me."
–––from "God Bless the Child" by Toni Morrison
"The fact that the Republicans want it so badly should make every Democrat sit back and wonder why."
My thoughts exactly.
Why is it in the South home of white supremacy that young women especially, appear to desire being as brown as possible? It seems that every small town has multiple tanning salons.