The Commentariat -- July 1, 2015

Internal links & defunct videos removed.

Afternoon Update:

Amanda Becker & Emily Stephenson of Reuters: "Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has raised about $45 million since she entered the 2016 race in April, her campaign said on Wednesday. More than 90 percent of Clinton's donations were in amounts of $100 or less, a campaign aide said, emphasizing the Democratic front-runner's broad-based grassroots support. The campaign did not release the total number of donors so far."

Robin Givhan of the Washington Post: "More than 728,000 people signed a Moveon.org petition calling on Macy's to ditch the Donald -- to sever its ties with Donald Trump, the real estate mogul-turned-celebrity designer-turned-Republican presidential candidate. And Wednesday morning, national department store chain announced that it was doing just that.... Trump responded with his own statement, suggesting that he was breaking up with them first anyway.... Once the Trump-branded merchandise is gone from the stores, that's it. Collectors can still purchase his menswear -- on sale! -- via the Macy's website. The decision does not effect the Ivanka Trump collection, which Macy's also sells."

Gretel Kauffman of the Christian Science Monitor: "An escaped murderer that was captured 22 days after breaking out of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., is claiming that he and his partner in crime used only hacksaw blades to cut through steel cell block walls."

Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post: "The White House said Wednesday it is lifting its longstanding ban on cameras and taking photos on its public tours."

*****

Sarah Wheaton of Politico: "Obamacare is the law of the land, President Barack Obama says, and it's time for Republicans who oppose it to move on. That's the message Obama intends to send during a visit to Tennessee on Wednesday, as he takes a victory lap just six days after the Supreme Court upheld the legislation that created Obamacare...."

Gregory Korte of USA Today: "The United States and Cuba will announce an agreement Wednesday to open embassies in each other's capitals, formally re-establish diplomatic relations for the first time since 1961, senior administration officials said Tuesday. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry will make the announcement Wednesday morning, said the three officials...."

Jared Bernstein, in a Washington Post op-ed: "By significantly increasing the salary threshold below which salaried workers get overtime pay, President Obama just took a big step toward updating a critical labor standard with the potential to boost the paychecks of millions of middle-wage workers, many of whom should be getting overtime but are not.... You'd be very hard pressed to come up with a rule change or executive order -- i.e., non-legislation -- to lift the pay of this many middle-wage workers. That's important, because we live in a time when the bargaining power of many who depend on their paychecks is much diminished relative to the clout and power of those whose income derives from their wealth portfolios."

Mint Press photo.Wesley Lowery, et al., of the Washington Post: "Nationwide, police have shot and killed 124 people this year who ... were in the throes of mental or emotional crisis, according to a Washington Post analysis. The dead account for a quarter of the 462 people shot to death by police in the first six months of 2015. The vast majority were armed, but in most cases, the police officers who shot them were not responding to reports of a crime. More often, the police officers were called by relatives, neighbors or other bystanders.... More than 50 people were explicitly suicidal. More than half the killings involved police agencies that have not provided their officers with state-of-the-art training to deal with the mentally ill. And in many cases, officers responded with tactics that quickly made a volatile situation even more dangerous." CW: Also, too, remember that cops are selected for stupid.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The stunning series of liberal decisions* delivered by the Supreme Court this term was the product of discipline on the left side of the court and disarray on the right. In case after case, including blockbusters on same-sex marriage and President Obama's health care law, the court's four-member liberal wing, all appointed by Democratic presidents, managed to pick off one or more votes from the court's five conservative justices, all appointed by Republicans.... The court's conservatives ... were often splintered, issuing separate opinions even when they agreed on the outcome." ...

... * See previous commentary & links on just how "liberal" these decisions were. ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Reports of the Supreme Court’s leftward turn have been greatly exaggerated. Liberals still giddy over a series of major victories at the Supreme Court last week got a bracing reality check Monday, as conservatives carried the day on key cases involving the death penalty and President Barack Obama's environmental agenda. Progressives got another signal that any momentum they were experiencing at the high court could be short-lived: the justices announced they will address the thorny issue of affirmative action next term, taking up for the second time a case challenging the University of Texas's use of race in its admissions process." ...

... ** Remember the Supremes! (TM: Kate Madison) Michael Tomasky of Daily Beast: "As we saw yesterday with the court's death-penalty and EPA rulings, it's still a long way from being a liberal court.... People should remember that if a Republican is elected president next year and has the chance to replace Kennedy and/or Ruth Bader Ginsburg with another Samuel Alito, the Obamacare and same-sex marriage standings could easily be reversed." ...

... Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "If you look at the totality of [Chief Justice John] Roberts's career, and his decade as a Supreme Court justice, two trends emerge: Roberts is exceedingly business friendly (he described the issue at stake in King as 'a question of deep economic and political significance'); and is deeply animated by a set of issues -- limiting affirmative action, voting rights, campaign finance regulations, abortion -- that by pure luck seems not to include universal health insurance. The Roberts Court has already done lasting damage on several of these fronts.... This judicial threat to liberalism won't subside, either, until a future Democratic president replaces one of the Court's existing conservatives with a liberal. The Roberts Court would give way to the Kagan Court, and the right would devote fewer resources to pursuing their agenda through the judicial system." ...

... Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear another redistricting case out of Arizona, a day after the justices ruled that it is constitutional for states to use independent commissions to draw congressional districts. The new case, Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, now looks at the constitutionality of legislative districts that were drawn up by the state's independent commission. The case was brought by a group of Republican Arizona voters who charged that the redistricting commission packed white GOP voters into over-populated districts to give minorities an advantage in Democratic districts. They claim the redistricting violated the Fourteenth Amendment's one-person, one-vote principle." ...

... Jennifer Agiesta of CNN: "Most Americans say they support each of the two major Supreme Court rulings issued late last week, and nearly four in 10 now say they view the Court as too liberal. According to a new CNN/ORC poll, 63% support the Court's ruling upholding government assistance for lower-income Americans buying health insurance through both state-operated and federally-run health insurance exchanges. Slightly fewer, 59%, say they back the ruling which made same-sex marriages legal in all 50 states. Support for each ruling is sharply divided by party, with most Democrats and independents behind both, and most Republicans opposed to both." CW: Good news for Democratic candidates. ...

... Good Catch. Ed Kilgore points out that the question the poll asked asked does not identify the decision as supporting "ObamaCare." "So the numbers CNN/ORC is showing represent another confirmation that the ideas incorporated in Obamacare are a lot more popular than the name, especially among those who are not necessarily responding to partisan cues." ...

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Republicans appear to be closing the door on gutting the filibuster, brushing aside calls from GOP presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush and Scott Walker to consider lowering the 60-vote threshold for repealing ObamaCare. Sources close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) say there's virtually no chance he will go along with abolishing the filibuster...."

Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "Barack Obama pledged on Tuesday to 'squeeze every last ounce of progress' out of his remaining time in the White House, as his poll ratings reached a two-year high following what political commentators said was the best week of his presidency." Video of the press conference, a joint one with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, is here.

Michael Grunwald of Politico: "Politico has obtained a draft copy of TPP's intellectual property chapter as it stood on May 11, at the start of the latest negotiating round in Guam.... The draft chapter will provide ammunition for critics who have warned that TPP's protections for pharmaceutical companies could dump trillions of dollars of additional health care costs on patients, businesses and governments around the Pacific Rim. The ... document, cluttered with objections from other TPP nations, shows that U.S. negotiators have fought aggressively and, at least until Guam, successfully on behalf of Big Pharma."

Josh Gerstein: "The State Department on Monday turned over to the House Benghazi Committee another 3,600 pages of Libya-related documents involving three top officials under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to a spokesman for the panel's Democrats. Included in the newly-provided records are emails to or from former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, former Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan and Clinton's former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, the spokesman said." ...

... Josh Gerstein: "In her early months in office, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in contact with unofficial adviser Sidney Blumenthal more often and on a wider range of topics than was previously known, a set of about 3,000 Clinton emails released Tuesday night by the State Department revealed. While Blumenthal's role as a provider of off-the-books intelligence reports on Libya has stirred controversy, the newly disclosed emails show he also acted as an intermediary with officials involved in the Northern Ireland peace process and shared advice with Clinton on issues from Iran to British politics to how to blame China for the breakdown of global climate talks." ...

... Margaret Hartmann picks out "the juiciest revelations" from the State Department's release of a batch of Hillary Clinton's e-mails. Sample: couldn't figure out how to use eFax. What an idiot! I still have trouble with call-waiting -- hey, it's only been around for about three decades.

Do-Nothing Congress Dooms Puerto Rico. Danny Vinik of Politico: "With Puerto Rico spiraling toward financial disaster, [White House] spokesman Josh Earnest ... yesterday ... reiterated the White House's support for an idea to help the troubled island: Let its public corporations to go through a structured bankruptcy, the same way they can in the 50 states. In an April campaign stop, Jeb Bush said much the same thing: 'Puerto Rico should be given the same rights as the states.' With both [President] Obama and [Gov.] Bush behind the same plan, you might expect it to have decent odds on Capitol Hill. You'd be wrong. Puerto Rico's non-voting delegate, Pedro Pierluisi, introduced such a bill in the last Congress, but it never even received a vote in committee."

Suzanne Daley & Niki Kitsantonis of the New York Times: "The Greek government has signaled to its creditors that it is willing to accept many of the terms of a bailout package that it had earlier rejected, if they are part of a broader deal to address the country's funding needs for the next two years, officials said on Wednesday. The development raised the prospect of progress in resolving a financial crisis that has sent shudders through global markets and deeply strained European unity." ...

... Finally Feeling His Inner Krugman. Julie Davis & Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "President Obama said Tuesday that he was trying to prod European leaders to salvage a deal to keep Greece in the eurozone, even as his government was bracing for the possible consequences of a once unimaginable divorce. 'It is an issue of substantial concern,' Mr. Obama said just hours before Greece missed a debt payment to the International Monetary Fund of 1.5 billion euros, or about $1.72 billion. 'I've spoken to my European counterparts, encouraging them to find a path towards a resolution.'... Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew spoke by telephone Tuesday with the finance ministers of three important eurozone countries -- the Netherlands, Italy and France -- as part of the administration's push to soften Europe's stance." ...

... Here's the Guardian's liveblog of developments.

Presidential Race

Silver-Tongued Serpent. Tom Moran, editorial-page editor of the Star-Ledger, who has covered Chris Christie for 14 years: "Don't believe a word the man says.... My personal favorite:... [In] the 2009 campaign..., the public workers unions asked him if he intended to cut their benefits. He told them their pensions were 'sacred' to him. 'The notion that I would eliminate, change, or alter your pension is not only a lie, but cannot be further from the truth,' he wrote them. 'Your pension and benefits will be protected when I am elected governor.' He then proceeded to make cutting those benefits the centerpiece of his first year in office.... In February, Christie claimed that he was a personal friend of the King of Jordan, which would allow him to accept gifts without limit.... Christie and his clan ran up a hotel bill [in Jordan] of $30,000. He had met the king once, at a political dinner.... He is a remarkable talent with a silver tongue. But if you look closely, you can see that it is forked like a serpent's." ...

... New York Times Editors: "On his new website, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey portrays himself as a guy who gets attacked for 'telling it like it is,' but that's what his mom told him to do from her deathbed.... There are lines between brash and belligerent, between open and obnoxious, and, most important, between 'telling it like it is' and not telling the truth. Mr. Christie crosses those lines all the time.... Just three weeks ago, Mr. Christie bragged that his pension reforms had won a major court victory, when in fact the court ruled them unconstitutional.... Mr. Christie said in announcing his candidacy on Tuesday that he would provide 'growth and opportunity for every American.' But as governor he has increased the tax burden on the working poor while vetoing a bill to raise the minimum wage to a paltry $8.50.... [His] own constituents say by an overwhelming majority that he has done a bad job, should not run for the White House and would make a bad president." ...

... Elspeth Reeve of the New Republic: "... how can the New Jersey governor run on this real-talk-from-a-loud-jerk platform when Donald Trump has already been performing a wonderful sendup of it for weeks? The parody is supposed to follow the real thing, not preempt it.... This is the problem when style is your substance. An actual television star can swoop in and do your bit better than you can." ...

... Shane Goldmacher of the National Journal: "As Chris Christie announces his bid for the White House, he's expected to lean heavily on the support and network of Ken Langone, a billionaire Republican donor and one of Christie's most visible and vocal backers. But in an interview with National Journal on the eve of Christie's launch, Langone, a cofounder of Home Depot with a Forbes-estimated net worth of $2.7 billion, said he would not be dipping into his personal fortune to write the kind of massive, eight-figure check to Christie's super PAC that would instantly change the complexion of the 2016 race."

Gerry Mullany of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush ... and his wife, Columba, reported adjusted gross income of $7.3 million on his 2013 tax return, the last of 33 years of returns he released on Tuesday. The return showed that he paid $2.9 million in federal taxes on that income.... The effective tax rate of 40 percent that Mr. Bush paid compares with the 13.9 percent rate that Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, reported paying in 2010, a figure that drew widespread criticism." ...

... Ed O'Keefe & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Jeb Bush has made more than $29 million since he left the Florida governor's office in 2007 -- vastly increasing his personal wealth through a combination of speaking fees, lucrative seats on corporate boards, investments and a consulting contract with a global bank that paid $2 million per year.... Bush did not release his tax returns from 2014, or the personal financial disclosure required of presidential candidates, that would show his current assets.... On Tuesday, Bush wrote an online message that sought to cast his income as evidence of his deep experience in business -- and to cast his tax payments as evidence of problems in the U.S. tax code.... [Whine Alert!] 'I think I speak for everyone, no matter your tax rate: We need to get more money back in your pocket and less in the federal kitty,' he wrote in a message explaining the release of his tax returns.... [Also, IRS forms are too hard to complete.] On average, Bush gave 1.47 percent of his gross adjusted income each since leaving office to charity." ...

... "Jeb's Wealth to Riches Story." Eli Stokols of Politico: "While acknowledging his 'good fortune,' Bush focused his written explanation of his tax returns on what he sees as a broken system in which he had to fork over much of his income over several decades to Uncle Sam.... The tax rant and voluminous disclosure gives Bush a chance to talk about his wealth ... on his own terms, while delivering a dig at [Hillary] Clinton, who is still under fire for her exclusive use of a personal email account while serving as secretary of state.... The staging and packaging of this document dump was a sleight of hand aiming to distract from the disclosures themselves -- the fact that Bush is very much a one-percenter who has aggressively monetized his family connections to amass significant wealth amid a recession -- and from several bad business dealings with questionable associates that have already been well-chronicled." ...

     ... CW: Stokols' account is remarkably anti-Bush, especially for Politico, the GOP's BFF.

Paul Waldman: "In a field that has grown to 16 Republican presidential candidates (once Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich make their candidacies official), [Donald] Trump is now in second place pretty much wherever you look.... There's a genuine danger for the GOP in his presence that goes beyond the simple fact that he makes the party look silly (which he certainly does). More than any other candidate, Trump is telling Latinos that the Republican Party doesn't like them.... ([He] will almost certainly be included in the upcoming debates, by the way).... Trump may be a comical buffoon who stands almost no chance of getting the nomination, but by the time he's done, the bile he spews could get his fellow Republicans dirty as well. ...

... Hadas Gold of Politico: "Donald Trump filed a $500 million lawsuit against Univision on Tuesday for breach of contract and defamation, making good on last week's promise to punish the network for reneging on what he described as an 'iron-clad' $13.5-million contract for broadcast rights to Trump's Miss Universe Organization pageants." CW: Most likely that "ironclad" contract contains a morals clause, & it will be easy to argue that Trump violated it by besmirching the network's viewers & some participants in the pageant itself. Morals clauses typically include language forbidding either party "to shock, insult or offend the community."

Today's Clown Prince. Riley Snyder of the AP: "Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul met with southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy on Monday during a question-and-answer session in the town of Mesquite with about 50 supporters and activists interested in land rights.... 'I think almost all land use issues and animal issues, endangered species issues, ought to be handled at the state level,' he said in an interview with The Associated Press.... Bundy told the AP: 'In general, I think [Paul & I are] in tune with each other.' He added: 'I don't think we need to ask Washington, D.C. for this land. It's our land.'" CW: Li'l Randy is more unhinged than I thought. ...

... Adam Lerner of Politico: "Rand Paul met privately with Cliven Bundy on Monday, the Nevada rancher and anti-government activist told Politico. The encounter came after Bundy attended an event for the Kentucky senator's presidential campaign at the Eureka Casino in Mesquite, Nevada. When the larger group dispersed, Bundy said, he was escorted by Paul's aides to a back room where he and the Republican 2016 contender spoke for approximately 45 minutes." ...

... CW: So Paul -- who is running for president of the United States, thought it would be a good idea to initiate a meeting -- and presumably curry favor -- with Bundy, a local leader of the "state sovereignty" movement, a deadbeat rancher who refuses to pay the federal government more than $1MM in grazing fees, & who has said, "I don't recognize the United States government as even existing." It's just mindboggling how far these wingers will go. Unfortunately, Li'l Randy & Big Ron have a history of advocating for these anti-American wackadoodle causes. ...

... Karoli of Crooks & Liars has more on the connections between Bundy -- and of course, now, Rand Paul -- & terrorism. "Rand Paul, sit down. You now are disqualified not only for the office of President, but also Senator. Go join your daddy at the lunatics' table."

... Bethania Markus of the Raw Story: Paul "had thrown his support behind the rancher in 2013, calling the federal government's actions 'overreach.' But he withdrew it after the New York Times reported Bundy made racist remarks about blacks.... But Paul seemed ready to court him again on Monday." ...

... Charles Pierce: "We're all supposed to be hiding under our beds this week because of 'increased chatter' about ISIL that is 'more intense than any time since 9/11,' but Rand Paul gets to meet with a guy who summoned armed resistance to legitimate authority because he wants to freeload on government land.... I know the folks I'm most worried about."

McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed interviews Ted Cruz. Cruz may not be doing all that well in GOP presidential polls, but he's a social media phenom. And he'll tell you so. ...

... Also, he's a quick study. Ben Smith of BuzzFeed, in an e-mail to TPM: "He came by for this long interview with McKay and then [producer Emily Anderson] kidnapped him for 10 minutes and somehow persuaded him to do this [Simpsons video, below].... He did these impressions like it was his job... He very briefly prepped with his staff and then just killed it." ...

... Forget the Green Eggs; Ted's All Ham. Sam Weiner, et al., of BuzzFeed: "With voice actor Harry Shearer leaving the show, we got Sen. [Ted] Cruz to audition for popular characters like Ned Flanders and Mr. Burns." CW: Fucking hilarious:

Beyond the Beltway

Jeffrey Collins of the AP: "An African-American church in South Carolina that was burned down by the Ku Klux Klan in 1995 caught fire again Tuesday night, though authorities said it was too soon to say what caused the latest blaze, which broke out on a night of frequent storms. No one was believed to be inside at the time. The fire at the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal church in Greeleyville broke out at a time when federal authorities are investigating conflagrations at several other predominantly black churches -- including one Friday at a church near Aiken, South Carolina -- but so far the fires don't appear to be related." ...

... ** Sarah Kaplan & Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: "The reason black churches remain a target: Because black churches have always remained a symbol of hope in the darkness." A brief history of white supremacist animosity toward black churches.

CBS-Atlanta/AP: "One man has been arrested after a fight over the Confederate flag in front of the South Carolina Statehouse. The brawl started about 7:15 p.m. Monday when about a dozen vehicles with Confederate flag supporters pulled up in front of the Statehouse and stopped in the middle of the street... About 10 of the flag supporters clashed with about 30 people who were on the Statehouse grounds protesting the flag...."

Tracy Seipel & Jessica Calefati of the Contra Costa Times: "In a historic decision that could reverberate nationwide, [California] Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill mandating that almost all California schoolchildren be fully vaccinated, regardless of their parents' personal or religious beliefs. By signing Senate Bill 277 into law, Brown pushed the Golden State -- long a bastion of liberal vaccine exemptions -- into an odd political alliance with two conservative states, Mississippi and West Virginia."

NEW. MacKenzie Elmer of the Des Moines Register: "For the price of a $5 raffle ticket, Van Meter[, a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa,] is offering its residents a chance to use a police Taser on a city official. City Hall is selling the tickets as part of a public safety fundraiser. The raffle winner will get the chance to use a Taser on City Administrator Jake Anderson or Councilman Bob Lacy at the Van Meter Fire Association Street Dance on July 18." ...

     ... Via Charles Pierce: "In their infinite wisdom, or out of their indomitable lassitude, the American people have given the state of Iowa the right of prima nocte in the selection of our presidents.... Holy hell!"

Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post: The Girl Scouts of Western Washington (state) received a $100,000 donation -- which would cover about a third of their operating budget -- but it came with the stipulation that the donation not support transgender girls. So the Scouts sent the money back. This week, they get up an Indiegogo page, & they've already recouped the $100K. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch: "The head of Alabama's court system, an employee of notoriously anti-gay Chief Justice Roy Moore, has sent a letter to Gov. Robert Bentley and other state elected officials urging them to defy the Supreme Court's marriage equality ruling or else 'become complicit in the takeover by the wicked,' reports AL.com."

Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) over a religious freedom executive order that he says protects opponents of same-sex marriage from government pressure."

How to Set up a False Equivalency -- and a Whiney, Fake "Grievance." Susanna Kim of ABC News: "A man in Louisiana is asking for an explanation from Walmart after his request for a Confederate flag cake at one of its bakeries was rejected, but a design with the ISIS flag was accepted.... Chuck Netzhammer said he ordered the image of the Confederate flag on a cake with the words, 'Heritage Not Hate,' on Thursday at a Walmart in Slidell, Louisiana. But the bakery denied his request, he said. At some point later, he ordered the image of the ISIS flag that represents the terrorist group.... A spokesman for Walmart told ABC News, 'An associate in a local store did not know what the design meant and made a mistake. The cake should not have been made and we apologize.'" ...

... CW: I follow the news, & I had no idea what the ISIS flag looked like, other than not-a-dildo. I certainly wouldn't expect a WalMart baker to recognize it or be able to read Arabic. Netzhammer set up the Baker; he should be ashamed of himself for tricking a hapless, underpaid WalMart employee, not "asking for an explanation." Asshole. ...

... Seems WalMart agrees. In their statement, they said, ""It's unfortunate that one customer sought to take advantage of an associate who did not know the flag or its meaning." CW P.S. I see in the photo accompanying the linked Al Jazeera story that Netzhammer has hand-painted on his Kawasaki bike, "Team Redneck."

News Ledes

U.K. Telegraph: "Sir Nicholas Winton, who organised the rescue of Jewish children from the Holocaust in 1939, has died aged 106, his family said. Winton earned himself the label 'Britain's Schindler' for saving the lives of 669 children by sending them from Prague to London by train." ...

     ... UPDATE: Winton's New York Times obituary is here.

Al Jazeera: "At least 130 bodies have been found after an Indonesian air force C-130 crashed in a residential neighbourhood in the city of Medan on the northern island of Sumatra, according to military officials. The plane came down on Tuesday hitting empty residential buildings after bursting into flames shortly after takeoff."

New York Times: "Record numbers of people crossed the Mediterranean Sea in a bid to reach the shores of Europe in the first six months of this year, and most of them were entitled to be resettled as refugees under international law, the United Nations said Wednesday."

AP: "Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday that Julie Hamp, its first female managing officer, had resigned following her arrest last month on suspicion of illegally importing the painkiller oxycodone into Japan. Hamp, a U.S. citizen, leaves Toyota about a month after she relocated to Tokyo to become the Japanese automaker's chief communications officer. Her appointment was part of a drive by the company to diversify a male-dominated, mostly Japanese executive line-up."

The Commentariat -- June 30, 2015

Internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post: The Girl Scouts of Western Washington (state) received a $100,000 donation -- which would cover about a third of their operating budget -- but it came with the stipulation that the donation not support transgender girls. So the Scouts sent the money back. This week, they get up an Indiegogo page, & they've already recouped the $100K. ...

Illustration by DonkeyHotey.

This Can't Be Good. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court said Tuesday that it will consider next term whether the rights of government workers are violated when they are compelled to pay fees to unions they do not want to join."

Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court barred Texas on Monday from implementing a law that would have forced more than half the state's 19 abortion clinics to close their doors later this week. The law, which was to take effect Wednesday, would require clinics to adhere to strict new physical standards and the doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The court granted the reprieve after abortion rights groups requested an emergency stay, having unsuccessfully sought to have the law overturned."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take a second look at the use of race in admissions decisions by the University of Texas at Austin, reviving a potent challenge to affirmative action in higher education. The move, which supporters of race-conscious admissions programs called baffling and ominous, signaled that the court may limit or even end such affirmative action." CW: Yeah, the boys in black are liberal, all right.

Pick Your Poison. Forget the Eighth Amendment. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Justice Samuel Alito's "Glossip v. Gross is a crushing blow to opponents of the death penalty.... It effectively enlists death row inmates' attorneys to become agents of their clients' demise. And it elevates the death penalty to a kind of super-legal status that renders it impervious to many constitutional challenges.... [The] key paragraph in Alito's opinion is a declaration that, no matter what happens, there must always be a way to execute inmates." ...

... "So Sick." digby: "I'm going to guess that the only hope for this lies in some application of 'religious liberty' in the future in which anyone who isn't a total cretin, from the corporate reps to the lawyers to the public officials, will claim that it violates their religious beliefs to participate in the premeditated killing of a human being who is in custody and presents no threat to them." ...

... CW: It's pretty remarkable that the four other confederate justices, including the Chief, signed onto this sick opinion. ...

... Arit John of Bloomberg: "While Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote the dissent to Samuel Alito's majority opinion [in the case re: Oklahoma's use of midazolan in executions], [Stephen] Breyer used his dissent to consider a different question...: 'whether the death penalty violates the Constitution.'... He argued that it's 'highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment.'" ...

... Adam Lerner of Politico: "... Breyer, in his dissent in Glossip v. Gross, recognized that while the issue of the death penalty, in and of itself, perhaps could be viewed as a legislative matter, 'the matters I have discussed, such as lack of reliability, the arbitrary application of a serious and irreversible punishment, individual suffering caused by long delays, and lack of penological purpose are quintessentially judicial matters.' He concluded, 'At the very least, the Court should call for full briefing on the basic question' of the death penalty." You can read Alito's opinion, Scalia's & Thomas's concurrences, Breyer's (Ginsburg joining) & Sotomayor's (Breyer, Ginsburg, & Kagan joining) dissents here. Breyer's dissent begins on page 51 of the pdf, Sotomayor's on page 97.

Erik Eckholm & Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "The country's last major pockets of resistance to same-sex marriage were rapidly shrinking on Monday as officials in states across the South, citing the rule of law, softened their defiance and began offering marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.... Louisiana was the last holdout.... By the end of the day, a majority of the state's parishes ... had ... begun issuing licenses to same-sex couples, according to Forum for Equality.... Marriages in Mississippi, which had been temporarily halted on Friday by an order from Attorney General Jim Hood, resumed in some cities on Monday after Mr. Hood clarified his statement and gave county clerks the right to make their own decisions.... In Alabama ... marriage licenses were being issued in most of the major population centers, although a few county probate judges stopped issuing any kind of marriage licenses, saying they did not want to violate their religious beliefs.... Still..., Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama court, said ... county officials should not be required to issue same-sex marriage licenses for 25 days." Then there's Texas. ...

... Juan Cole schools wingers on the Biblical prescriptions for marriage. It's rather difficult to understand how Preacher Huckabee & Altar Boy Santorum missed all the passages Cole cites.

CW: The other day, I suggested that maybe Chief Justice Roberts was just getting sick of frivolous lawsuits & that's why he agreed to take the King case, then wrote the opinion against it. Ian Millhiser, who doesn't mention this possibility, does however demonstrate (he gets into the weeds) how both Roberts' majority opinion on King and his dissent in Obergefell convey his disgust with the growing ultra-conservative trend to make stuff up that they have decided is implied by the Constitution. This doesn't make Roberts a liberal; it just means that he's not a rabid flamethrower. Unlike me, Millhiser knows what's he's writing about, so despite his deep dive into the details, his post is worth a read. ...

... Shorter Millhiser: Charles Pierce pegs Roberts. CW: Other than his failure to wish Sadistic Sam a happy, carefree summer vacation on the Jersey Shore, I can't find any fault with Pierce's post. ...

... Lincoln Caplan of the New Yorker makes the case that CJ Roberts is working on the "rebuilding of the Supreme Court's reputation." CW: Frankly, Roberts can't do that as long as Scalia, Thomas & Alito are on the Court, & in the case of Alito, that is likely to be a long time. Besides their abhorrent philosophies, one cannot ignore Scalia's offensive mockery, which he inserts in every dissent. On Breyer's dissent, which Caplan cites, Scalia writes, "A vocal minority of the Court, waving over their heads a ream of the most recent abolitionist studies (a superabundant genre) as though they have discovered the lost folios of Shakespeare, insist that now, at long last, the death penalty must be abolished for good." If Roberts has tried to restrain Scalia, it hasn't worked. And it won't: Scalia loves the public attention. He loves to belittle his colleagues. He's a bully. When he can't win -- and even when he does -- he exits right, scorning.

Mark Dorning of Bloomberg: "The Obama administration plans to raise the wages of millions of Americans who work more than 40 hours a week by requiring their employers to pay them overtime. Workers who earn as much as $970 a week would have to be paid overtime even if they're classified as a manager or professional, based on draft rules to be announced as soon as Tuesday, said an administration official." ...

... Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "The administration has the power to issue the regulation, which would restore the overtime salary threshold to roughly where it stood in 1975 in terms of purchasing power, without congressional approval.... 'The president said he wanted to go big here and he did,' said Jared Bernstein, a former White House economist who co-wrote an influential report on the benefits of expanding overtime pay after leaving the administration in 2011. 'I can't think of any other rule change or executive order that would lift more middle-class workers.'" CW: If I were Obama, I would have followed Bernstein's advice the Friday before the 2012 election. He's a better person than I. ...

... President Obama, in a Huffington Post opinion essay: "Right now, too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve. That's partly because we've failed to update overtime regulations for years -- and an exemption meant for highly paid, white collar employees now leaves out workers making as little as $23,660 a year -- no matter how many hours they work.... In this country, a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay. That's at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America."

Elections Matter. Jonathan Chait: If Republicans win control of the House, Senate & presidency in 2016, Senate Republicans plan to eliminate the filibuster in order to end the ACA, among other GOP priorities, like deregulating the financial industry.

The Blue Nation Review publishes activist Bree Newsome's statement about her reasons for taking down the confederate flag flying on the South Carolina state capitol grounds: "I removed the flag not only in defiance of those who enslaved my ancestors in the southern United States, but also in defiance of the oppression that continues against black people globally in 2015...." CW: So, Newsome is part of the international anti-white supremacy movement. The kind of "lone wolf" & civil disobedience the world needs. Read her essay. ...

... Caroline Bankoff of New York has more on Newsome. ...

... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post profiles South Carolina state Sen. Paul Thurmond, son of rabid segregationist U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. ...

... NEW. Adam Lerner: "The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan's Pelham, North Carolina, chapter have reserved the Statehouse Grounds in South Carolina for a rally next month. James Spears, the Great Titan of the chapter, said the group would be rallying to protest 'the Confederate flag being took down for all the wrong reasons. It's part of white people's culture,'..."

Paul Krugman: "... yes, Greece was overspending [in the 2000s], but not by all that much. It was over indebted, but again not by all that much. How did this turn into a catastrophe that among other things saw debt soar to 170 percent of GDP despite savage austerity? The euro straitjacket, plus inadequately expansionary monetary policy within the eurozone, are the obvious culprits.... If Europe as currently organized can turn medium-sized fiscal failings into this kind of nightmare, the system is fundamentally unworkable."

Presidential Race

The Platitudes Race. Jeffrey Frank of the New Yorker: "... seventeen months before the general election, and despite the welcome offstage diversions of those Supreme Court decisions..., the language of the 2016 race has been unnervingly free of thought.... What is so dispiriting this year is listening to candidates ... who sound less like people eager to understand the world and lead a diverse nation and more like human-resource counselors, offering sympathy and help they can't deliver to a fretful, underpaid workforce."

** Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: "Over the last two weeks, Republican presidential candidates have repeatedly missed opportunities to demonstrate that they care about communities outside of their traditional base."

Robert Costa & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Chris Christie ... told supporters Tuesday that he is running for president. Christie -- who broke the news in a morning conference call -- enters a crowded field as an underdog, wagering his retail political skills and brash style will propel him into serious competition for his party's nod." ...

... You can watch live on the WashPo front page (at 11:20 am ET). ...

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, whose meteoric rise as a national Republican in his first term was matched only by his spectacular loss of stature at home in his second, is set to enter the 2016 presidential race on Tuesday morning bearing little resemblance to the candidate he once expected to be.... With two pillars of his presidential run -- his record and his judgment -- looking wobblier than ever, Mr. Christie must build a campaign around his most raw and prodigious asset: his personality."

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Nearly two weeks after canceling a campaign event scheduled the morning after the deadly attack on a South Carolina church, Jeb Bush on Monday called the Confederate battle flag a 'racist' symbol, reflecting the new Republican normal in a Southern primary state vastly altered by the racially motivated killings. The flag was one of 'the symbols that have divided the South in many ways, the symbols that were used in most recent modern history, perhaps not at the beginning of the time, but the symbols were racist,' Mr. Bush told an interracial crowd" in South Carolina. ...

... CW: Actually racist since the beginning of its time, Jeb!

Stardust. Tom Hamburger & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "How Marco Rubio turned political star power into a soaring personal income.... During nine years in Tallahassee, as Rubio rose in prominence and ascended to the state House speakership, he became increasingly well compensated as he walked a narrow line between his work as a lawmaker and an employee of outside firms with interests before the state government.... Rubio's annual income grew from about $72,000 when he was elected to the state House in 2000 to $414,000 in 2008, when his two-year speakership ended."

NEW. The Distinguished Gentleman from Texas. Manu Raju of Politico: "Ted Cruz's campaign against his Republican colleagues -- especially Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- is getting increasingly personal.... [In a new book,] Cruz accuses McConnell and GOP leadership of maneuvering to dry up his fundraising and plant hit pieces in the press aimed at hurting him politically. He says GOP leaders cowered from joining him in big fights over the debt ceiling, Obamacare and gun control, accusing his colleagues of 'mendacity' and capitulating to Democrats to avoid bad headlines.... And he accuses a GOP rival, Rand Paul of Kentucky, of parroting McConnell's talking points by seeking to 'undermine' his efforts to defund Obamacare during the 2013 fight that led to the government shutdown." ...

... CrazyCruz Urges States to Ignore Marriage Equality Ruling. Adam Lerner of Politico: "'Those who are not parties to the suit are not bound by it,' [Sen. Ted Cruz] told NPR News' Steve Inskeep in an interview published on Monday. Since only suits against the states of Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky were specifically considered in the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which was handed down last Friday, Cruz ... believes that other states with gay marriage bans need not comply, absent a judicial order." ...

... CW: By Cruz's logic, school boards can provide "separate but equal" education every place but Topeka, Kansas. In fact, what Cruz is suggesting is among the many tactics Southern officials used to avoid racially integrating public schools. Remember that Ted is a former law clerk to the U.S. Chief Justice, a deputy U.S. attorney general, Texas solicitor general, a "constitutional scholar" & of course a U.S. senator; that is, one of the country's most prominent Constitutional experts. This "suggestion" of Cruz's puts him right up there with George Wallace & Orval Faubus -- oh, & with William Renquist, the CJ for whom Cruz clerked & who once wrote that the Supremes should have upheld the "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. ...

... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday bashed 'elites' on the Supreme Court for imposing their will on America's heartland in its decision to legalize same-sex marriage. 'You've got nine lawyers, they are all from Harvard or Yale -- there are no Protestants on the court, there are no evangelicals on the court,' the 2016 GOP presidential candidate said on NBC's 'Today,' echoing criticism from Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion. 'The elites on the court look at much of this country as flyover country; they think that our views are simply parochial and don’t deserve to be respected.'" CW: Maybe we should mention here that Cruz was graduated from Princeton & Harvard Law School.

NBC to Trump: "You're Fired." Maria Puente of USA Today: "NBC dumped [Donald Trump's] beauty pageants and reiterated he will not be in The Apprentice anymore. The network, which has been under pressure to fire Trump since last week when Univision announced it would not air Trump's Miss USA pageant in Spanish, said in a statement..., 'Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump.'... 'To that end, the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants, which are part of a joint venture between NBC and Trump, will no longer air on NBC. In addition, as Mr. Trump has already indicated, he will not be participating in The Apprentice on NBC,' because he is an announced Republican candidate for president." ...

... Charles Arbogast of Entertainment Weekly: "Donald Trump slammed his longtime partner NBC on Monday after the broadcaster announced it was cutting ties with him. 'Mr. Trump stands by his statements on illegal immigration, which are accurate,' read a statement from his office.... 'NBC is weak, and like everybody else is trying to be politically correct -- that is why our country is in serious trouble....' Moreover, Trump is threatening to sue NBC for announcing they would no longer air his beauty pageants.... 'Furthermore, they will stand behind lying Brian Williams, but won't stand behind people that tell it like it is, as unpleasant as that may be.'" Trump said.

Beyond the Beltway

Justin Carissimo of the (U.K.) Independent: "The Missouri franchise owner of Dixie Outfitters, a store specialising in 'Southern Heritage' clothing, was revealed to have family ties to the Ku Klux Klan. 'It has nothing to do with slavery, which the media always want to bring in,' Anna Robb said, defending the sales of Confederate flags during an interview with the Springfield Missouri News-Leader. Just days following the News-Leader's initial interview with Ms Robb, readers alerted the news outlet and it was discovered that her husband Nathan, co-owner of Dixie Outfitters, was the 'den-commander' of the KKK's Arkansas chapter."

The Emigrants. Andy Newman of the New York Times: "The escaped killers David Sweat and Richard W. Matt had intended to go to Mexico before their plan unraveled when a prison worker accused of helping them did not show up with her car, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Monday. Mr. Cuomo said that Mr. Sweat, who is hospitalized for gunshot wounds sustained during his capture on Sunday, had 'relayed some information' to investigators."

When the U.S. sends its people to Mexico, they're not sending the best. They're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're bringing murderers who dismember their victims. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people. -- Constant Weader, with a hat-tip to the Donald

... Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times: "... on Monday, a day after Mr. Sweat was shot and taken into custody by a state trooper in a freshly cut hayfield and three days after Mr. Matt was killed by a federal agent, new details surfaced about the three-week manhunt.... It was a history of hesitation and interagency conflict, and also of lucky breaks for law enforcement officers...." CW: Remember, people, cops are selected for dumb. ...

... William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Albany has opened a corruption inquiry focusing on employees and inmates at the maximum-security prison in northern New York State where two convicted killers escaped this month, one official with knowledge of the matter said on Monday.... News of the federal inquiry also came one day after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, reiterated that the state's inspector general, Catherine Leahy Scott, was conducting a full investigation into the policies and procedures at the prison and the circumstances that led to the escape."

News Ledes

New York Times: "With just hours to go before Greece hits a deadline for a debt payment it cannot afford, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Tuesday asked the other nations that use the euro to extend another bailout and buy Athens time to renegotiate its crippling debt load." ...

     ... New Lede: "The International Monetary Fund said shortly after midnight Wednesday that Greece had missed a crucial debt payment to the fund."

New York Times: "The Iranian foreign minister rejoined the nuclear talks [in Vienna, Austria,] Tuesday morning as the United States looked for signs that he had arrived with more flexible negotiating instructions."

The Commentariat -- June 29, 2015

Internal links removed.

ScotusBlog is liveblogging today's Supreme Court opinions. Amy Howe: "We expect decisions in Glossip v. Gross (the challenge to Oklahoma's lethal injection procedure and in particular its use of midazolam, a sedative); Utility Air Group v. EPA (Clean Air Act and when EPA must consider costs); and Arizona Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (whether Arizona voters can transfer power over federal congressional districting to an independent commission)." ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court ruled on Monday against three death row inmates who had sought to bar the use of an execution drug they said risked causing excruciating pain. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision. He was joined by the court's four more conservative justices." CW: Nonetheless, my friends, Alito abhors infliction of excruciating pain on puppies.

5-4 decision in Arizona elections case; Kennedy joins "liberals" in majority opinion. Amy Howe: "The Court has several times refused to address the question whether partisan gerrymandering violates the Constitution. This decision gives the states an opportunity to deal with partisan gerrymandering by giving an independent commission power to draw federal congressional districts." ...

... Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Arizona's voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing congressional district lines less partisan. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision. She was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan."

... Amy Howe: Utility Air case, 5-4 in favor of plaintiff, opinion by Scalia. Amy Howe: "The EPA must consider costs before deciding whether regulation is appropriate and necessary; it will up to the agency to decide, within limits of reasonable interpretation, how to account for costs.... Kagan dissents, joined by RBG, Breyer, and Sotomayor." ...

... Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court on Monday blocked one of the Obama administration's most ambitious environmental initiatives, one meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants. Industry groups and some 20 states challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to regulate the emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into account the punishing costs its regulations would impose."

The Guardian.

The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? -- Bree Newsome, as she descended the flagpole in front of the South Carolina statehouse, confederate flag in hand

... Karen Attiah of the Washington Post: "By her words, [Bree Newsome] is refusing to fear the hatred behind the symbol, the longstanding system in America of the forced labor of blacks under the threat of the most unspeakable forms of torture, terror, violence and death.... Her words stand as powerful example of defiance in the faces of agents of the state in America, who historically have taken black lives with impunity for generations.... For all of us, Bree Newsome moves beyond the trope of the knee-jerk, saintly forgiveness expected of black Americans subjected to violence. Importantly, she stands for us all as an example of the Bible as blueprint for nonviolent resistance in the face of blatant social injustice around the world."

Supreme Court plaintiff Jim Obergefell rides in San Francisco's gay pride parade.Matt Flegenheimer & Vivian Yee of the New York Times: "Two days after the United States Supreme Court affirmed same-sex marriage as a right, well-timed pride parades on Sunday in the country's twin hubs of gay activism, New York City and San Francisco, promised a sort of social catharsis -- a bicoastal toast to the nation's rapid shift on gay rights and an extended curtain call for the movement that coaxed it." ...

E. J. Dionne: "... the core liberal conviction about jurisprudence, developed during and after the New Deal years, still rings true: that the Supreme Court plays its most constructive role in our national life when it uses its power to vindicate the rights of beleaguered and disadvantaged minorities."

... the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are? -- Chief Justice John Roberts, dissent in Obergefell

It's not quite clear to WorldViews why Roberts decided to implicate these four particular cultures in his opposition to the legalizing of gay marriage. But we can suggest reasons why they are hardly exemplars of 'traditional' unions between men and women. -- Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post, who goes on to decimate Roberts' supposed "traditional marriage" enthusiasts." An excellent read.

Andrew Koppelman of the New Republic: "John Roberts's claims of judicial restraint should be taken with a grain of salt.... Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan writes that what may look like a leftward tendency on the Supreme Court is actually the consequence of conservatives' willingness to try out increasingly extreme legal theories in the Court.... Claims that would have been summarily rejected a few years ago are now taken seriously by constitutional lawyers.... The essence of Roberts's restraint is this: He is less of a zealot than his colleagues on his right. That isn't saying much."

Esther Breger of the New Republic: "... Kennedy's florid language, some of which might be more at home at a vow-renewal ceremony, presented a vision of marriage's role in society that's archaic and all too common.... It was hard to shake the suspicion that parts of Justice Kennedy's opinions, like the part where he suggests unmarried people are 'condemned to live in loneliness,' were written with the consultation of my Jewish mother."

     ... Via Driftglass.

... Nick Gass of Politico: "Louisiana will comply with the Supreme Court's order legalizing same-sex marriage, Gov. Bobby Jindal said Sunday. 'We don't have a choice. Our agencies will comply with the court order,' the Republican presidential contender said on NBC's 'Meet the Press' after being asked why his state is the only one that has not yet issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Appearing from the state capital, Baton Rouge, the governor explained his state is waiting on a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to reverse a previous ruling upholding traditional marriage and implement the high court's ruling. On Friday, the state's attorney general's office issued a statement saying it found nothing in the Supreme Court's decision that made it a legal requirement for officials to comply immediately." CW: Following his interview of Jindal, "MTP" host Chuck Todd introduced a video celebrating June weddings. All of the featured couples were opposite-sex. Todd said the video had been prepared prior to Friday's Supreme Court decision & added that he hoped viewers would see the video as "gender-neutral." ...

... Nullification, Texas-Style. Austin American-Statesman: "County clerks can refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on religious objections to gay marriage, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Sunday. Paxton noted that clerks who refuse to issue licenses can expect to be sued, but added that 'numerous lawyers stand ready to assist clerks defending their religious beliefs,' in many cases without charge.... Paxton's opinion also noted that judges and justices of the peace can refuse to perform same-sex marriages.... Paxton said Friday's 'flawed' opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned bans against same-sex marriage in Texas and other states, placed religious people in conflict between following their faith and the U.S. Constitution." ...

... Mark Oppenheimer in a Time opinion essay: "Rather than try to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality, we need to take a more radical step. It's time to abolish, or greatly diminish, their tax-exempt statuses." CW: Too bad that's not going to happen.

Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "On Sunday afternoon, hours after the weekly worship service, the pews of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church filled again, and [Charleston, S.C.,] turned anew to the rite, now sadly familiar, of mourning another victim of a massacre. This time ... the congregation memorialized the Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, a mother of four who was an admissions coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University, one of her alma maters. Earlier on Sunday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. visited the church and, less than a month after the death of one of his sons, invoked his own battles with grief during a stirring and brief speech to the congregation." ...

... Dan Morse of the Washington Post: "Vice President Biden paid a surprise visit to Sunday morning services at Emanuel AME Church [in Charleston], telling congregants that he came to support them and to help get through his own mourning. 'My family and I wanted to show our solidarity,' Biden said during five minutes of remarks.... The vice president arrived with his son Hunter and his daughter-in-law Kathleen. He spoke about his anguish since the death of his son Beau from brain cancer last month." ...

... Bryce Covert of Think Progress: "According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, at least six predominantly black churches in four Southern states have been damaged or destroyed by fire in the past week. While some may have been accidental, at least three have been determined to be the result of arson." ...

... Timothy Cama of the Hill: "Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said he totally 'disregarded' a New York Times report, based on findings from the New America Foundation, that white supremacists, anti-government extremists and others have killed nearly twice as many people as radical Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.... 'Everything should be investigated, everything should be stopped,' King said. 'But to compare these deranged white supremacists with an organized international terrorist movement, that's The New York Times at its worst.'" ...

... CW: If Peter King were not such an ideological ignoramus, he would know that Charleston assassin Dylann Roof, among many other American white supremacists, have been heavily influenced by the international white supremacy movement which encourages such so-called "lone wolf" attacks. BTW, Petey, wouldn't the Irish Republican Army -- whose violent actions you reportedly aided & abetted -- be a white international terrorist organization? Look in the mirror, you jerk. You used to be a card-carrying white member of the international terrorist movement. And shame on George Stephanopoulos for not calling you out on your hypocrisy. ...

... Jim Fallows analyzes President Obama's eulogy to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

Robert Reich: "Almost lost by the wave of responses to the Supreme Court's decisions last week upholding the Affordable Care Act and allowing gays and lesbians to marry was the significance of the Court's third decision -- on housing discrimination. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court found that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 requires plaintiffs to show only that the effect of a policy is discriminatory, not that defendants intended to discriminate. The decision is important in the fight against economic apartheid in America -- racial segregation on a much larger geographic scale than ever before."

Paul Krugman: "... next week [the Greek government] will hold a referendum on whether to accept the demands of the 'troika' -- the institutions representing creditor interests -- for yet more austerity. Greece should vote 'no,' and the Greek government should be ready, if necessary, to leave the euro.... These supposed technocrats [of the troika] are in fact fantasists who have disregarded everything we know about macroeconomics, and have been wrong every step of the way. This isn't about analysis, it's about power -- the power of the creditors to pull the plug on the Greek economy...." ...

... The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the Greek crisis.

Michael Corkery & Mary Walsh of the New York Times: "Puerto Rico's governor, saying he needs to pull the island out of a 'death spiral,' has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts, an admission that will probably have wide-reaching financial repercussions."

Presidential Race

John Wagner & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: Sen. Bernie "Sanders -- a self-described democratic socialist -- has seen his crowds swell and is gaining ground in the polls on the formidable Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In New Hampshire, where Sanders was on yet another weekend swing, one survey last week showed him within 8 percentage points of Clinton. Sanders's emerging strength has exposed continued misgivings among the party's progressive base about Clinton, whose team is treading carefully in its public statements. Supporters have acknowledged privately the potential for Sanders to damage her -- perhaps winning an early state or two -- even if he can't win the nomination." ...

... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Saturday he has been waiting for the nation to catch up to his support for same-sex marriage.... He argued he was well ahead of the historic decision, unlike Hillary Clinton.... 'Back in 1996, that was a tough vote, Sanders said of his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)....Sanders at the time served in the House of Representatives, which voted 342-67 in favor of DOMA. The Senate voted 85-14 in favor, before former President Bill Clinton signed it into law. 'That was an anti-gay marriage piece of legislation,' he added of the law that defined marriage at the federal level as the coupling of one man and one woman."

I believe marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman.... The fundamental bedrock principle that [marriage] exists between a man and a woman, going back into the midst of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principal role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults. -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, in a 2004 Senate speech ...

... Sam Biddle of Gawker: "A decade prior, she stood by her husband as he signed the Defense of Marriage Act, a piece of legislation that codified gay America's second-class status.... Only in 2013, as a presumptive 2016 presidential contender, did Clinton reverse her stance."

Tales of a Sleazy Scion. Robert O'Harrow & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post on Jeb Bush: "... records, lawsuits, interviews and newspaper accounts stretching back more than three decades present a picture of a man who, before he was elected Florida governor in 1998, often benefited from his family connections and repeatedly put himself in situations that raised questions about his judgment and exposed him to reputational risk."

Class president and an athlete who did not hang out with nerds.James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "Chris Christie will use his Tuesday announcement, at the high school where he graduated, to present himself as the candidate in the 2016 field with the biggest and boldest ideas. The New Jersey governor plans to continue unveiling a steady stream of provocative policy plans in the coming months aimed at generating free media coverage and forcing Republican rivals to say whether or note they agree." As the Wall Street Journal also noted, Christie's venue of choice is "risky," since it will bring to mind Christie's old schoolmate David Wildstein, who pled guilty to charges related to the closing of the George Washington Bridge. Christie attempted to distance himself from Wildstein by boasting, "We were not even acquaintances in high school ... We didn't travel in the same circles in high school. I was class president and an athlete, I don't know what David was doing."

Relying in part on Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent in Obergefell, Rand Paul, in a Time opinion piece, makes the libertarian argument for governments' getting out of the marriage business. CW: Perhaps the right conclusion; definitely for many of the wrong reasons. ...

... Elizabeth Bruenig of the New Republic: "Senator Rand Paul ... remained conspicuously silent until yesterday, when he published a rambling op-ed in Time that's insightful in only one unintended way: It demonstrates how he plans to capitalize on conservatives' concerns about the future of marriage by pushing calamitous economic projects."

Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Republican presidential hopeful Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) warned in an interview broadcast Sunday that if his party embraces the idea of pursuing a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, it will damage the Republican Party's chances of winning the 2016 election. 'I don't believe there is any chance for a constitutional amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman to get a two-thirds vote in the House or the Senate and be ratified by three-fourths of the states,' he said on NBC's 'Meet The Press.'"

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Although [Donald Trump] has said his views are 'evolving,' his campaign position is that only 'traditional marriage' between 'a man and a woman' should be legal.... After the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized same-sex marriage on Friday, Trump accused Chief Justice John Roberts of letting the country down.... [Um, Donald, Roberts dissented in the Obergefell case.] CNN host Jake Tapper [asked] ... Trump about how his three marriages were morally justified if he only believed in so-called 'traditional marriage' values.... 'Well, they have a very good point,' Trump admitted."

Mark Hensch: "Ben Carson won the 2015 Western Conservative Summit straw poll, organizers announced on Sunday. Colorado Christian University's Centennial Institute said in a statement that Carson took 224 of the 871 votes cast during the weekend event. The Centennial Institute said that Carson is its first back-to-back winner since the straw poll started in 2011. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won in 2013, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) took the top spot in 2012 and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain was the winner in 2011.Former Hewlett Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina captured 201 votes for second place in the latest straw poll." CW: Apparently the poll is an excellent predictor of who will win the nomination.

Mike Allen of Politico: "Ohio Gov. John Kasich will jump into the crowded Republican presidential field on July 21 at the student union at his alma mater, The Ohio State University, in Columbus...." Apparently God sent the signal.

American "Justice," Ctd. Rachel Aviv of the New Yorker: "Caddo Parish[, Louisiana] issues more death sentences per capita than anywhere else in the nation, and three-quarters of the people on death row are black." The story of one young black man's death-sentence conviction for a "crime" he most likely did not commit.

Beyond the Beltway

"Party of One." Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "In the last few weeks, [Maine Gov. Paul] LePage's pugnaciousness has surprised even his critics, and prompted some to raise the specter of impeachment. In a standoff that began with differences over tax policy, Mr. LePage has alienated just about the entire Legislature, including his fellow Republicans and erstwhile allies. He has called them names and gone on a veto spree, canceling a record number of bills...; in turn, the Legislature has responded with an override spree, reviving many bills unanimously. On Monday, Mr. LePage is expected to veto the $6.7 billion, two-year state budget; the Legislature will return Tuesday, when it is expected to override the veto."

Michael Miller of the Washington Post: Dr. James Bradstreet, a prominent anti-vaccine doctor who claimed vaccinations caused autism, was found dead in a river in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, a bullet wound in his chest. Authorities have ruled his death a suicide, buth is family & supporters see a conspiracy to murder him."