The Commentariat -- June 26

Faint Praise. Maureen Dowd says of Barack Obama's slow "evolution" on gay marriage, "He’s not as bad as New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who gave another grumpy interview on Thursday ... asserting: 'You think it’s going to stop with this? You think now bigamists are going to want their rights to marry? You think somebody that wants to marry his sister is going to now say, "I have a right"? I mean, it’s the same principle, isn’t it?'” Yup, gay marriage is just like incest & bigamy. Oh, why not do the full Santorum & add bestiality? ...

... I've added a Dowd page to today's Off Times Square, but write on any topic. Karen Garcia & I have commented on Dowd. The Times has squelched my comment, but you can recommend Garcia's, which is Comment #1.

Frank Bruni, in his first Washington Post op-ed column, writes a fine one about gay rights & gay marriage.

This bears repeating. New York Times Editors: "Multinational companies say they could repatriate hundreds of billions in foreign profits and pump them into domestic investment and hiring, but only if Congress and the White House agree to cut the tax rate on those profits to 5.25 percent from 35 percent.... According to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the proposed cut would cost $79 billion over 10 years.... They call their plan 'the next stimulus.' Sounds more like extortion. In the last five years American businesses have kept abroad more than $1 trillion worth of foreign earnings.... The Obama administration should not give in to such corporate coercion.... The last time big businesses got such a 'tax holiday,' in 2005, companies spent most of the money rewarding their shareholders with stock buybacks and dividends, not in hiring."

There should start to be some real investigations as to whether Clarence Thomas can continue to serve as a justice on the Supreme Court. -- Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

Darlene Superville of the AP: "On her second overseas business trip without the president, and to the black motherland, [Michelle Obama,] America's first black first lady, was warmly received everywhere she went, often with song and to the point of almost being moved to tears. She spoke passionately about her causes, tickled and danced with some of the youngest Africans, and sat with presidents and first ladies, including Nelson Mandela, South Africa's former president and a hero of the anti-apartheid movement."

The Washington Post's top story today, by Carol Leonnig, et al., asks if President Obama is too cozy with clean-energy manufacturers -- some of whom contributed heavily to his 2008 campaign -- at the expense of, you know, dirty energy producers. CW: I think the Republican party wrote this one for the Post.

Crime Blotter

Douglas Martin of the New York Times: "Randall Dale Adams, who spent 12 years in prison before his conviction in the murder of a Dallas police officer was thrown out largely on the basis of evidence uncovered by a filmmaker, died in obscurity in October in Washington Court House, Ohio. He was 61.... The film that proved so crucial to Mr. Adams was 'The Thin Blue Line,' directed by Errol Morris and released in 1988." CW: Now that we know so much about wrongful convictions, I don't know if we would be so shocked by "The Thin Blue Line" as viewers were in 1988, but if you haven't seen it, do so. Most documentaries aren't riveting; this one is. Martin's article, which outlines Adams' story is pretty riveting, too.

Life on the Lam with Whitey. Katharine Seelye of the New York Times profiles Catherine Elizabeth Greig, reputed Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulgar's companion. The FBI has arrested both, and they are back in Boston where they both face trials for multiple felonies.

The trailer for the documentary film "Incendiary," on the execution of Texan Cameron Todd Willingham for a crime of arson and murder he most likely did not commit:

Right Wing World *

Melanie Mason & Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times: "Rep. Michele Bachmann has been propelled into the 2012 presidential contest in part by her insistent calls to reduce federal spending.... But the Minnesota Republican and her family have benefited personally from government aid, an examination of her record and finances shows. A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies."

* Where taxpayers should subsidize me but not you.

Local News

Crocker Stephenson, et al., of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "An argument between state Supreme Court Justices David Prosser and Ann Walsh Bradley became physical earlier this month, according to sources who told the Journal Sentinel two very different stories Saturday.... According to some sources, Prosser wrapped his hands around Bradley's neck. According to others, Bradley charged Prosser, who raised his hands to defend himself and made contact with her neck. A joint investigation by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism first reported Saturday on the incident, stating that Prosser 'grabbed' Bradley around the neck.... The confrontation occurred after 5:30 p.m. June 13, the day before high court's release of a decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees." ...

     ** ... Update: "Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley late Saturday accused fellow Justice David Prosser of putting her in a chokehold during a dispute in her office earlier this month. 'The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold,' Bradley told the Journal Sentinel."

... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Under Wisconsin law, '[w]hoever intentionally causes bodily harm or threatens to cause bodily harm to the person or family member of any judge ... is guilty of a Class H felony.' ... Should the allegations prove true, however, there are at least four paths to remove Justice Prosser from office.” ...

... Steve Benen: "Given Prosser’s track record and apparent hostility towards women, it’s awfully difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt. And if true, putting one’s hands around a colleague’s neck, in anger, seems like a no-brainer when it comes to removing a judge from the bench. Indeed, it sounds an awful lot like assault and battery."

Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel: "After dropping nearly $9 million from his own pocket to win a seat in the U.S. Senate, Ron Johnson didn't have to feel the pain for very long. Johnson's plastics company paid him $10 million in deferred compensation shortly before he was sworn in as Wisconsin's junior senator, according to his latest financial disclosure report.... 'It looks like a scheme to get around a century-old law' barring corporate donations to candidates, said Mike McCabe, head of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Hu Jia, a prominent Chinese dissident whose activism on behalf of the environment and AIDS suffers [sic.] landed him in prison for the last three and a half years, was released in the pre-dawn hours Sunday and returned to his home in Beijing, his wife said in a Twitter posting."

AP: Lulz Security, "a publicity-seeking hacker group that has blazed a path of mayhem on the Internet over the last two months, including attacks on law enforcement sites, said unexpectedly on Saturday it is dissolving itself. Lulz Security made its announcement through its Twitter account. It gave no reason for the disbandment, but it could be a sign of nerves in the face of law enforcement investigations. Rival hackers have also joined in the hunt, releasing information they say could point to the identities of the six-member group."