The Commentariat -- June 22, 2015

Internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Depression-era government program that allows the government to take raisins from growers to boost market prices is an unconstitutional taking of private property. The court ruled 8 to 1 that the government could not take the raisins without adequate compensation.... Justices will issue more opinions on Thursday and Friday, and end their work for the term next week."

Wonders Never Cease. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican presidential candidate from South Carolina, will call on Monday for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from the state's Capitol.... Mr. Graham is expected to make the announcement during a 4 p.m. news conference with Gov. Nikki Haley, who is also expected to call for the flag's removal, The Post and Courier of Charleston reported on Monday. The paper also said South Carolina's other senator, Tim Scott, a Republican, would call for the flag to come down.... Mr. Graham initially said that he would be fine with it being taken down but acknowledged that the flag was 'part of who we are.'"

The Supremes will be issuing some orders & at least one opinion this morning. ScotusBlog is liveblogging the proceedings, beginning at 9 am ET. ...

... UPDATE: No huge opinions today. One important Fourth Amendment case -- Patel. Still waiting to find out when the Court will meet next.

NEW: Michael Shear & Christine Hauser of the New York Times: "... President Obama said the legacy of slavery still 'casts a long shadow' on American life, and he said that choosing not to say the word 'nigger' in public does not eliminate racism from society. In a wide-ranging conversation about race, including his own upbringing as a man born to a black father and a white woman, Mr. Obama insisted that there was no question that race relations have improved in his lifetime. But he also said that racism was still deeply embedded in the United States. 'The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that's still part of our DNA that's passed on,' the president said during an interview for Marc Maron's 'WTF' podcast that was released on Monday." Maron's interview is here. His pages are very slow-loaders today, so I didn't have time to wait for the page to come up. The Website's front page is here. ...

... DeNeen Brown & Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "Emanuel AME Church swung open its doors for services Sunday, four days after a 21-year-old white man who told police he wanted 'to start a race war' allegedly killed the pastor and eight congregants attending a Bible study in the church basement. Hundreds lined up in the hot Charleston sun to climb the stairs to the sanctuary of 'Mother Emanuel,' one of the country's oldest African American churches and one with a rich history of resilience." ...

... "The Home of Racism." Paul Lewis & Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "The prisoner in cell 1140B at Charleston County detention center is Michael Slager, 33, the North Charleston police officer who was charged with murder 10 weeks ago, after video footage surfaced showing him shooting a black man, Walter Scott, in the back as he fled, unarmed. On Thursday, Slager was joined in the Administrative Segregation Unit by Dylann Roof, less than 48 hours after the 21-year-old allegedly walked into a historically black church in the city, prayed with worshipers and then opened fire." ...

... ** Yoni Appelbaum of the Atlantic: "It was in Charleston, South Carolina that the fiery secessionist Edmund Ruffin fired the first shot of the war. And on June 17, 1865 -- exactly 150 years before the Charleston attacks -- Ruffin learned of the South's surrender, reportedly wrapped himself in a Confederate flag, and then took his own life rather than accept defeat. Those, like Roof, who now want a secessionist banner of their own can order one from the Ruffin Flag Company.... [The history of the confederate flag] is not seriously contested.... The flag was created by an army raised to kill in defense of slavery, revived by a movement that killed in defense of segregation, and now flaunted by a man who killed nine innocents in defense of white supremacy." CW: See also Presidential Race below. ...

... E. J. Dionne: "If this history is all about yesteryear, why does South Carolina continue to fly the Confederate battle flag on the grounds of its state Capitol?... And remember: The flag was put up in 1962 as the civil rights movement gained strength. White supremacy is central to the flag's heritage." ...

** ..."Original Sin." Paul Krugman: "... the racial divide is still a defining feature of our political economy, the reason America is unique among advanced nations in its harsh treatment of the less fortunate and its willingness to tolerate unnecessary suffering among its citizens.... Political scientist Larry Bartels ... showed that the working-class turn against Democrats wasn't a national phenomenon -- it was entirely restricted to the South.... Race made Reaganism possible.... [A second study, by conservative writers,] concluded that race is central, because in America programs that help the needy are all too often seen as programs that help Those People.... More than 80 percent of the population in [ACA] Medicaid-refusing America lives in states that practiced slavery before the Civil War." ...

... Dylann Roof, Global Terrorist. Morris Dees & Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in a New York Times op-ed: "When, according to survivors, Mr. Roof told the victims at the prayer meeting that black people were 'taking over the country,' he was expressing sentiments that unite white nationalists from the United States and Canada to Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Unlike those of the civil rights era, whose main goal was to maintain Jim Crow in the American South, today's white supremacists don't see borders; they see a white tribe under attack by people of color across the globe." ...

     ... See also yesterday's Commentariat, re: FBI Director James Comey's remarkable cluelessness. ...

... Over on Breitbart, someone called AWR Hawkins helpfully explains that the reason mass murderers target churches & schools instead of NRA meetings is that people in churches & schools aren't likely to be armed. So forget all the other links above. Hawkins has the key. Wonder if s/he has any idea that the NRA does in fact commonly restrict or ban guns at their meetings. ...

... What if you're a black person & the volunteer fireman charged with rescuing you from a burning building thinks murdering black people is a "good deed"?

Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "Their industry already upended with the passage of the federal health care law, insurance companies are facing another upheaval if the Supreme Court rules that millions of Americans are not eligible for subsidies to help defray the cost of their coverage."

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama, whose cool, no-drama style has for years set him apart from the extroverted politicians so common in Washington, has been getting emotional lately. It has happened at the White House and on Capitol Hill as he makes the case for parts of his legacy that are at risk, like his health care law and trade agenda, or when he speaks about slain hostages, civilians killed by drones and racially motivated shootings."

The Enforcers. Matt Fuller of Roll Call: "After three conservative House Republicans were kicked off the whip team as a result of voting against a rule for trade legislation on June 11, a new round of punishment is being meted out: Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz has taken away the gavel of Subcommittee Chairman Mark Meadows."

Reuters: "People who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian, Pope Francis said on Sunday."

Ian Traynor & John Hooper of the Guardian: "Greece's international creditors are aiming to strike a deal to stop Athens defaulting on its debt and possibly tumbling out of the euro by extending its bailout by six months and supplying up to €18bn (£12.9bn) in rescue funds. The negotiators representing Greece's lenders are also proposing to pledge debt relief for the austerity-battered country -- but officials stressed that a breakthrough hinged on a positive response from the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras."

Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday rebuffed the French idea of restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with international support and the backing of a United Nations Security Council resolution."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd., NBC Racist Edition. Samantha Page of Think Progress: "While the country -- and South Carolina, in particular -- is once again debating racism in America, NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday offered a video of men in prison expressing regret for their own gun violence. All of the men in the video are black. The segment was part of Sunday's show, which focused on the recent killing of nine black people at a bible study group in Charleston, South Carolina.... '... we simply ask you to look at this as a colorblind issue,'" host Chuck Todd said. Emphasis added. Includes video. ...

... Chuck Todd's Idea of a Mea Culpa: Um, we put this together before a white guy shot & killed nine people in church. We discussed not airing it in light of the massacre, but decided what the hell. No use wasting great footage. "I hope folks view the gun video as a part of the conversation we should all be having and not the totality of it." ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "Are there no black people working in positions of authority at NBC? I mean, seriously. Just one black friend is all he needed to tell him how fucking tone deaf and stupid it would be to show this THIS weekend."

... digby: "I honestly don't know what to say.... What in the world was he thinking talking about it in the context of black murderers when we haven't even buried the 9 people who were gunned down by a white supremacist? Good lord."

Presidential Race

Party of the Confederacy. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Even after online pictures of the suspect in the massacre, Dylann Roof, holding the Confederate flag and a gun surfaced on Saturday, none of the [Republican presidential] candidates who appeared on Sunday's political television programs were willing to say flatly whether it should continue to fly at the South Carolina Capitol. The most prominent Democratic contender, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said in 2007 that the flag should be removed." ...

... Party of Avowed Racists. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "The leader of a rightwing group that Dylann Roof allegedly credits with helping to radicalise him against black people before Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum. Earl Holt has given $65,000 to Republican campaign funds in recent years while inflammatory remarks -- including that black people were 'the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world' -- were posted online in his name." ...

... Here's a New York Times update by Eric Lichtblau: Cruz said he would return Holt's campaign donations. ...

... Steve M. has more on Earl Holt, his disgusting views, & the many GOP candidates he's backed with bucks.

News Ledes

New York Times: "DNA matching that of two escaped killers was found in a cabin in the remote resort of Mountain View, N.Y., 15 heavily wooded miles west of the state prison in Dannemora, an official briefed on the investigation said on Monday morning.... The forensic evidence indicated that the men had been there within the last 48 hours.... A pair of prison-issued underwear was also found in the cabin...."

The New York Times has a "breaking news" banner that the U.N. has found that both Israel & Palestine may be guilty of war crimes. No story as of 7:35 am ET. ...

     ... Update: "A United Nations investigation found 'serious violations of international humanitarian law' that 'may amount to war crimes' by both Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip during their bloody battle last summer, according to a report released on Monday in Geneva."

Washington Post: "A key Army commander in the U.S. war against the Islamic State has been reprimanded by the Pentagon for steering a defense contract to a firm run by two of his former classmates at West Point, becoming the latest high-ranking officer to land in trouble for personal misconduct. Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, who as the Army's deputy commander for operations in the Middle East oversaw the training of Iraqi forces, was formally reprimanded in February after a three-year investigation by the Army's inspector general."

Washington Post: "Walter Scheib, the 61-year-old former White House executive chef who had been missing in New Mexico's rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains for more than a week, was discovered dead late Sunday night by a search and rescue crew."

Ceasefire

CW: Kate Madison wrote this comment today. I'm repurposing it as a post for reasons that will be obvious when you read it.

By Kate Madison

Picking up on the gun control comment section of yesterday: I am a member of Central Coast Oregon Ceasefire--a local group of gun control activists (mostly women, ahem!), which is affiliated with the Oregon chapter, and more loosely with the national chapter. We are said to be the most active and involved local chapter in the nation, and I believe it.

First of all, Central Coast Oregon is "purple," thanks to the old hippies who live in Newport--but we are in the middle of Bright Red 2nd Amendment crazies. We sponsored a gun "buy-back" in Newport in April, but changed the title to gun "turn-in" when the local police got nervous. We held our "turn-in" at the Newport Police Station, under the direction of the Police Chief. CCCO members were not allowed to touch the guns being turned in (for vouchers at local businesses), which would be melted down to sell. So we kept track of the number of guns--an amazing 345, in a small city of 12,000--and issued the vouchers. I was one of the volunteers and I learned a lot about tragedy and crazy.

First of all, when I arrived at the Police Station on a chilly, rainy Saturday AM, there were already over 100 people waiting on the steps for the Police Dept. to open. These were the "protesters," who had come from not just Oregon--but Nevada, Idaho, Montana and even Wyoming--to meet people who had come to turn in their guns-- before they got in the doors--and to offer them a higher price. They carried posters which touted the 2nd amendment, and portrayed us as "Pussies on Crime, etc." (As I walked in, they chanted, whistled and gave obscene gestures.) I felt like an employee at an abortion clinic in Kansas.

That we actually got 345 guns is nothing short of amazing, because these protesters were quite verbal and pushy with people trying to get in the doors. I talked with all of them, and every person turning in a gun referred to personal experience with gun violence. One person had accidentally shot and killed a friend while cleaning his gun. All had become believers in the necessity of strict gun control and felt hopeless about our government ever doing the right thing.

I tell you this, because I am a believer, obviously, in the necessity of gun control and will continue my work against most odds--except in Oregon. We are lucky right now to have a Democratic governor and a totally Democratic legislature--albeit with a lot of Blue Dogs. Two weeks ago they passed a Universal Background Checks bill and this week a Domestic Violence bill (which includes banning gun possession by abusers). Our Democratic representative joined our Ceasefire celebration last Sunday and regaled us with stories about the hate mail he has received--from all over the U.S.

However.....this is a start. I am not hopeful that this legislation will be the answer to gun violence in Oregon, but it is a beginning. The sad part to me is that it has taken a completely Democratic controlled state to get ANYTHING passed.

America is to me the land of deliberately missing the point. Sad.

The Commentariat -- June 21, 2015

Frances Robles of the New York Times: "A website discovered Saturday appears to offer the first serious look at [mass murderer Dylann] Roof's thinking, including how the case of Trayvon Martin ... triggered his racist rage. The site shows a stash of 60 photographs, many of them of Mr. Roof at Confederate heritage sites or slavery museums, and includes a nearly 2,500-word manifesto in which the author criticized blacks as being inferior while lamenting the cowardice of white flight.... It is not clear whether the manifesto was written by Mr. Roof or if he had control of it."

Terrorism is act of violence done or threatens to in order to try to influence a public body or citizenry so it's more of a political act and again based on what I know so more I don't see it as a political act. -- James Comey, FBI Director, Saturday

I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go. -- Dylann Roof, allegedly, before murdering nine people of color, one a prominent politician & civil rights leader, at the AME church

I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me. -- Dylann Roof, on a Website believed to be his

Sounds like terrorism to me. -- Constant Weader

... It would be a good idea if Comey read this piece by historian Heather Richardson on how perfectly Roof's act of terror follows a pattern of Southern white male terrorism that goes back to the early years of the nation. ...

... Timothy Phelps of the Los Angeles Times: "During the attack at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday night, suspected gunman Dylann Roof tried to kill himself, according to the son of one of the victims. 'He pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger, but it went 'click,'" because the chamber was empty, said Kevin Singleton, the son of 59-year-old Myra Thompson." ...

... Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "The continued presence of a Confederate flag on the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol has become a galvanizing cause after nine people were killed inside a black church on Wednesday." Read down to the politicians' comments. ...

... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "South Carolina state Rep. Norman 'Doug' Brannon (R) said Friday night he plans on introducing a bill to remove the Confederate flag near his state's capitol building." ...

... If you missed it, read Ta-Nehisi Coates (linked last week) on the flag's purpose as a symbol of white supremacy.

Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "One year after outrage about long waiting lists for health care shook the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency is facing a new crisis: The number of veterans on waiting lists of one month or more is now 50 percent higher than it was during the height of last year's problems, department officials say. The department is also facing a nearly $3 billion budget shortfall, which could affect care for many veterans.... The crisis may come to a head when [VA Deputy Secretary Sloan] Gibson testifies on Thursday on Capitol Hill...." CW: While several factors are at play, including increased requests for visits, you will not be surprised to learn that part of the problem stems from Republicans' insistence on implementation of a program to shift some veterans to private care.

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "Undetected for nearly a year..., Chinese intruders executed a sophisticated [hack] attack that gave them 'administrator privileges' into the computer networks at the Office of Personnel Management, mimicking the credentials of people who run the agency's systems, two senior administration officials said. The hackers began siphoning out a rush of data after constructing what amounted to an electronic pipeline that led back to China, investigators told Congress last week in classified briefings."

Dana Milbank: "... new polling shows a significant increase in the number of Americans who describe themselves as liberal and the number of Americans taking liberal positions on issues."

Larry Summers in the Washington Post: "... financial historians may look back at the next week and wonder how Europe's financial unraveling was permitted." CW: For Summers, pretty readable.

God News

"Spiritual Warfare." CW: The president of the Southern Baptist Convention threatens the members of the Supreme Court with assassination if they rule in favor of same-sex marriage. I don't see any other way to read his language. If you want to know how hate crimes & mass murder/terrorism can possibly happen in this exceptional nation of ours, there you go. Violence R Us. Steve Benen reports.

What with it's being Sunday, I was wondering what the Vatican's emissary to the New York Times thought about the papal encyclical. Well, I'm afraid Douthat has quit his job & is now accusing Pope Francis not of being a leftie but of being an apocalyptic "catastrophist." Douthat seems to think Francis should be more cheerful.

Presidential Race

Erin Dooley of ABC News: "In the wake of the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton [Saturday] vowed to keep fighting for common sense gun control and delivered a blistering indictment of racism in America." ...

... Maureen Dowd: "CNN reported that Hillary had enthusiastically promoted the trade pact 45 times as secretary of state. Aside from the fact that Hillary should be able to take a deep breath and stick with something she's already argued for, it plays into voters' doubts about her trustworthiness." ...

... CW: Nobody knows what Hillary's genuine deep-down, secret views on the TPP are, but Dowd might at least play a teensy bit fair & point out that part of the job of secretary of state is to promote the boss's agenda. The task of promoting the TPP would fall to a number of departments, including state. Either Dowd doesn't understand this, or she's doing a David Brooks imitation.

Paul Krugman has more on Jeb!'s briliant management of the Florida economy in a blogpost published last week.

Marco, Worse than Jeb! Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "As a state lawmaker in Florida in 2001, Marco Rubio ... co-sponsored a bill that would have protected the Confederate battle flag's place in public spaces. The bill was described as a racially charged response to a decision from then-Gov. Jeb Bush ... to remove the Confederate flag discreetly from the capitol building in Tallahassee." The legislation failed. ...

... Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times has more on GOP presidential hopefuls' stances on the symbol of white supremacy. Unintentionally humorous coda: "Before Saturday, most Republican candidates had avoided a discussion about the racial motives behind the attack and instead focused on the violence against churchgoers."

News Ledes, June 20 & 21

New York Times: "James Salter, whose intimately detailed novels and short stories kept a small but devoted audience in his thrall for more than half a century, died on Friday in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He was 90."

New York Times: "New York State Police troopers converged on Saturday on a spot near Friendship, N.Y., in the southwestern part of the state, where they believed a resident caught sight of the two convicted murderers who staged an elaborate escape from the state’s largest prison." ...