The Commentariat -- June 6, 2015

Internal links removed.

Nicole Perlroth, et al., of the New York Times: "The same Chinese hackers who breached the records of at least four million government workers through the Office of Personnel Management appear to have been responsible for similar thefts of personal data at two major health care firms, Anthem and Premera, according to cybersecurity experts. The multiple attacks, which began last year and were all discovered this spring, appear to mark a new era in cyberespionage with the theft of huge quantities of data and no clear motive for the hackers.... the attackers seem to be amassing huge databases of personal information about Americans. Some have high-level security clearances, which the Office of Personnel Management handles, but millions of others do not, and the reasons for their records being taken have puzzled investigators." ...

... Brian Bennett & Richard Serrano of the Los Angeles Times: "The investigation into the cyberattack on computers at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is proceeding on the theory that the hack was directed by the Chinese government and aimed at uncovering sensitive, personal information that could have been used to blackmail or bribe government employees to obtain secrets, officials said Friday. Social Security numbers, email addresses, job performance reviews and other personal information of about four million government workers were siphoned out of the computer servers, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity...."

Jacob Weisberg of Slate: "Rather than leaving [Edward] Snowden's status as a problem for his successor, [President] Obama should make resolving his case part of his presidential legacy as well. His Justice Department could offer Snowden a plea bargain, under which he would not serve prison time in exchange for his cooperation. Or the government could charge Snowden under the standard laws covering disclosures of classified information by government officials.... Snowden clearly broke the law in revealing government secrets. But he did so for valid reasons and with an outcome that now has the endorsement of both the legislative and executive branches. That is reason enough for Obama to show him mercy."

Ashley Halsey of the Washington Post: "In a scathing self-examination, federal regulators acknowledged Friday that for years they failed to adequately address a 57-cent defect in an ignition switch that killed 109 people and injured more than 200 others. The ignition-switch problem, which could prevent air bags from deploying, endured for a dozen years before General Motors recalled 2.6 million cars last year."

Your Tax Dollars at Work. Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "A senior National Weather Service official helped write the job description and set the salary for his own post-retirement consulting post -- then came back to the office doing the same job with a $43,200 raise, the agency's watchdog found. The deputy chief financial officer also demanded that he be paid a $50,000 housing allowance ... in violation of government rules for contractors, one of numerous improprieties in a revolving-door deal sealed with full knowledge of senior agency leaders, according to an investigation by the Commerce Department Inspector General's office.... His procurement of his own post-retirement job appears to be commonplace throughout the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the Weather Service's parent agency."

White House: "In this week's address, the President recognized Immigrant Heritage Month, an occasion that allows us to celebrate our origins as a nation of immigrants":

Gilad Edelman of the New Yorker: "... a legal system formally blind to race is just as often blind to racism." Or How to Get an All-White Jury while Pretending Not to be Racist. Turns out that is pretty easy.

Mark Stern of Slate on how a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit came to strike down some of the worst provisions of Idaho's anti-abortion laws. And, yes, there's an heroic woman at the center of the story: Jennie Linn McCormick, a poor, single mother who terminated her own pregnancy because there were no abortion clinics in her vicinity. And then kept fighting for the rights of other women.

Joel Gehrke of the winger National Review is worried about all the ways a win for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell could backfire on Republicans & make them "complicit" in extending ObamaCare. Via Paul Waldman. ...

... Paige Cunningham of the wingnut Washington Examiner: "Millions of Americans could lose Obamacare subsidies under a Supreme Court ruling this month, but many in the GOP don't need their votes anyway. That's a major political calculus for Tea Party Republicans, who are likely to resist any efforts to extend the subsidies, even temporarily. They're much more worried about angering their base by appearing to concede to Obamacare than whether a handful of constituents lose their subsidies." CW: Yeah, so who cares?

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A Democratic legal fight against restrictive voting laws enacted in recent years by Republican-controlled state governments is being largely paid for by a single liberal benefactor: the billionaire philanthropist George Soros." CW: This is an excellent example of how not to write a declarative sentence.

Presidential Election

... Clinton begins speaking about 18 min. in. ...

New York Times Editors give Hillary Clinton two thumbs up for her push for expanding voting rights: "it is very encouraging to see Mrs. Clinton championing this central democratic principle so early in the campaign. President Obama said very little on voting rights until deep into his second term.... Making voting easier for all eligible voters should be the epitome of a nonpartisan issue. Unfortunately, stopping people from voting has become a key part of the modern Republican playbook." ...

... Charles Pierce: "The speech that Hillary Rodham Clinton gave at Texas Southern University on Thursday regarding the right to vote even was better than I expected it to be.

And in Florida, when Jeb Bush was governor, state officials conducted a deeply flawed purge of voters before the presidential election of 2000."

     Yeah, she went there. That purge -- which is estimated to have eliminated over 12,000 eligible voters from the rolls in a primary that Bush's dim brother won by a margin of 537 -- was central to the Republican effort to keep the election in Florida within the margin of shenanigans, thereby enabling the Supreme Court to hand the White House to C-Plus Augustus and thereby inaugurate eight full years of utter calamity. That HRC tracks the campaign of voter-suppression back to that ur-event is not merely faithful to history, but also a remarkably shrewd maneuver." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Clinton's embrace of voting rights ... serves to demonstrate to the party's core constituents something elemental, and true: At the current moment, there is only one party that respects their rights as citizens." Chait runs through the GOP's objections to expanding voting opportunities, & they are transparently bogus. ...

... Brian Beutler of the New Republic: Clinton's "strategy involves staking out a variety of progressive issue positions that enjoy broad support, but it's not as straightforward as simply identifying the public sentiment and riding it to victory. The key is to embrace these objectives in ways that makes standard Republican counterspin completely unresponsive, and thus airs out the substantive core of their ideas: Rather than vie for conservative support by inching rightward, Clinton is instead reorienting liberal ideas in ways that make the Republican policy agenda come into greater focus." ...

... Chris Christie bites, making a case that only Fox "News" viewers would buy. Salvadore Rizzo of the Bergen Record: New Jersey "Governor Christie lashed out at Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail Friday, saying her new push to expand voter rolls across the country was a ploy designed 'to commit greater acts of voter fraud.'" ...

... Paul Waldman: "Looks like it's time for some traffic problems at the polling place." ...

... AND Rick Perry Is Still Stupid. Caitlin MacNeil of TPM: "On 'Fox and Friends' Friday morning, Perry ... brought up the requirement to present a photo ID in order to fly on commercial airplanes numerous times while defending his voter ID law. 'When I got on the airline to come up here yesterday, I had to show my photo I.D. Now, Hillary Clinton may not to have had to show an ID to get on a airplane in a long time...' he said. 'She's on a private jet,' Brian Kilmeade, one of the 'Fox and Friends' co-hosts, jumped in to say." CW: It seems Perry is arguing that the reason Clinton doesn't see the need for photo IDs is that she doesn't have to show her ID when she flies on noncommercial planes. Congratulations, Rick. This is even dumber than the fake voter-fraud "rationale." ...

... Steve M.: "... Perry apparently thinks only people who do fly, or can afford to fly, should be able to vote. In 2003, a Department of Transportation survey noted that 'About one out of five adult US residents (18 percent) reported that they had never flown on a commercial airline. Compared to flyers, non-flyers were much more likely to.'"

Robert Costa & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The presidential candidacy of Ben Carson, a tea party star who has catapulted into the top tier of Republican contenders, has been rocked by turmoil with the departures of four senior campaign officials and widespread disarray among his allied super PACs.... Carson's associates ... [said] the retired neurosurgeon's campaign chairman, national finance chairman, deputy campaign manager and general counsel have resigned since Carson formally launched his bid last month in Detroit. They have not been replaced, campaign aides said.... [Carson's] his campaign has been marked by signs of dysfunction and amateurism.... Two independent super PACs designed to help Carson are instead competing directly with Carson's campaign for donations and volunteers, while campaign chairman Terry Giles resigned last month with the intention of forming a third super PAC." ...

... Neil Irwin of the New York Times explains how a successful campaign is organized. However, when you're a know-it-all like Ben Carson, running under God's direction, you really don't have to bother with all that. It looks as if God is pushing for a return Fox "News" gig for Dr. Ben. Or God is a bad CEO.

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: Former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on the GOP presidential candidates: "says that Rand Paul scares him to death, Ted Cruz and Scott Walker are not ready for primetime, Rick Perry is not capable enough, and America will not elect another Bush to be president. Of all the candidates, he said Marco Rubio is his favorite." Quite an entertaining read. ...

      ... CW: Coburn really doesn't like Ben Carson. He said in the Sirius XM radio interview which Kaczunski cited that he had 'a personal bone to pick with him on integrity that I witnessed.' The former senator said Carson was asked not to attack President Obama in his National Prayer Breakfast speech but said 'his speech was nothing but an attack on the president.'" In December 2014, Coburn said, "I wouldn't vote for Ben Carson."

To put herself to sleep, Gail Collins repeats factoids about the 2016 presidential candidates.

Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post: "John Edwards will never be president, but everyone running for the job today is cribbing from his campaign." CW: Tankesley covered Edwards in the 2008 campaign, & it sounds as if he still has a man-crush on Edwards. Edwards' campaign policy package was just a repackaging of standard Democratic ideals designed to appeal to a wide populace, so it's hardly a surprise that today's Democratic candidates are repackaging these ideals once again.

Beyond the Beltway

Jean Hopfensperger of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "The Ramsey County Attorney's office filed criminal charges Friday against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for 'failing to protect children' from an abusive priest. The charges stem from the archdiocese's oversight of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is now serving a prison term for abusing two boys while he was pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in St. Paul." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

On D-Day, our crew took off at 2 a.m. in a formation of 36 B-24s. The pilot was a man named Beckham. We thought we were following the lead element. But when the sun came up, we didn't see anybody; we couldn't find our group. We had been following a light, but the light was some other group. It's a wonder a whole mess of people didn't run into each other that night. We unloaded our bombs after daylight close behind the lines. -- Co-pilot Frank Waterhouse, who was 19 years old on D-Day, from an oral history

News Ledes

New York Times: "Two convicted murderers serving life sentences in adjoining cells staged an elaborate escape from New York's largest state-run prison overnight, fooling guards with makeshift dummies made out of sweatshirts and using power tools to drill a tunnel through the prison's 30-foot-tall walls, officials said. The men remained on the loose late Saturday as a broad swath of law enforcement authorities conducted an extensive manhunt...."

Washington Post: "More than 400 people came midday Saturday to the National World War II Memorial [in Washington, D.C.] for the 71st anniversary of D-Day, the massive landing and battle on the coast of France."

AP: "Jurors on Friday convicted a female Los Angeles police officer of felony assault for repeatedly kicking a handcuffed woman who later died. The jury of 11 women and one man reached its verdict after about two days of deliberations in the trial of Officer Mary O'Callaghan, 50. She pleaded not guilty to assaulting a civilian in the 2012 arrest of Alesia Thomas, 35.

The Commentariat -- June 5, 2015

All internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

Jean Hopfensperger of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "The Ramsey County Attorney's office filed criminal charges Friday against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for 'failing to protect children' from an abusive priest. The charges stem from the archdiocese's oversight of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is now serving a prison term for abusing two boys while he was pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in St. Paul."

*****

David Sanger & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The Obama administration on Thursday announced what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of federal employees' data, involving at least four million current and former government workers in an intrusion that officials said apparently originated in China.... The target appeared to be Social Security numbers and other 'personal identifying information,' but it was unclear whether the attack was related to commercial gain or espionage." CW: The announcement was almost certainly the administration's "response" to the NSA hacking piece the Times published online yesterday, linked below. ...

... The Washington Post story, by Ellen Nakashima, is here. ...

... They're Just Gonna Do It Anyway. Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of Americans' international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents. In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad -- including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show. The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and 'cybersignatures' -- patterns associated with computer intrusions -- that it could tie to foreign governments." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Eric Tucker of the AP: "The growing use of encrypted communications and private messaging by supporters of the Islamic State group is complicating efforts to monitor terror suspects and extremists, U.S. law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, the officials said that even as thousands of Islamic State group followers around the world share public communications on Twitter, some are exploiting social media platforms that allow them to shield their messages from law enforcement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Ed Snowden in a New York Times op-ed: "Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy -- the foundation of the freedoms enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights -- remains under threat.... As you read this online, the United States government makes a note.... As a society, we rediscover that the value of a right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects."

Tim Devaney of the Hill: "Legislation to fund the Justice Department is chock full of GOP-backed language designed to keep the Obama administration from moving ahead with gun control regulations. The Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which cruised through the House this week, contains several provisions directed squarely at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) rule-making authority. Under the measure, the ATF would be prohibited from banning certain forms of armor-piercing ammunition or blocking the importation of military-style shotguns. Another provision would block federal agents from creating what critics say is a gun registry." ...

... CW: Here they use the same trick to prevent the President's immigration reform orders (now on hold, BTW). Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A little more than a week after denying President Barack Obama's effort to move forward with controversial executive actions on immigration, a federal appeals court has ordered both sides in the case to file new legal briefs.... The House voted Wednesday in support of an amendment that would bar funding for the Justice Department's defense of the pending appeal as well as the underlying lawsuit."

Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he does not expect his chamber will appoint new circuit or Supreme Court justices for President Obama.

Paul Krugman: "... conservatives have long held Texas up as a supposed demonstration that low taxes on the rich and harsh treatment of the poor are the keys to prosperity. So it's interesting to note that Texas is looking a lot less miraculous lately than it used to.... the spectacle of the Texas economy coming back to earth, and Kansas sliding over the edge should at the very least make right-wing bombast ring hollow, in the general election if not in the primary. And someday, maybe, even conservatives will once again become willing to look at the facts." CW: Nah.

How to Become a Very Successful Politician. Noah Bierman & Evan Halper of the Los Angeles Times: House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) "may lack some of the qualities of previous top party leaders in the House - the grand political vision of Newt Gingrich, the deal-making savvy of Tip O'Neill, the strong arm of Tom DeLay. But McCarthy excels at something else that has become key to leadership in Congress: recruiting candidates and raising money for them.... That spending and fundraising have fueled one of the fastest rises to power in congressional history." CW: Yeah, McCarthy's predecessor Eric Cantor was really good at that stuff, too.

Charles Blow: "How you view 'broken windows' policing completely depends on your vantage point, which is heavily influenced by racial realities and socio-economics. For poor black people, it means that they have to be afraid of the cops as well as the criminals."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "A landmark Environmental Protection Agency report on the impact of hydraulic fracturing has found no evidence that the contentious technique of oil and gas extraction has had a widespread effect on the nation's water supply, the agency said Thursday. Nevertheless, the long-awaited draft report found that the techniques used in hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, do have the potential to contaminate drinking water. It notes several specific instances in which the chemicals used in fracking led to contamination of water, including drinking water wells, but it emphasized that the number of cases was small compared with the number of fracked wells." ...

... Natash Geiling of Think Progress: "Industry groups were quick to tout the report as proof of fracking's safety, while environmental groups claimed that the report was hampered by a lack of available information and watered-down by oil and gas interests. The study wasn't a comprehensive survey of all wells, and relied heavily on data already collected by state and federal agencies or willingly submitted by gas and oil companies."

Karl Mathiesen of the Guardian: "Global warming has not undergone a 'pause' or 'hiatus', according to US government research that undermines one of the key arguments used by sceptics to question climate science. The new study reassessed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (Noaa) temperature record to account for changing methods of measuring the global surface temperature over the past century. The adjustments to the data were slight, but removed a flattening of the graph this century that has led climate sceptics to claim the rise in global temperatures had stopped." ...

... CW: Wait, wait! This just prove that Jeb Bush was right: that climate science is "convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you." So, you know, it's silly to trust climate scientists. They're always disagreeing, so fageddaboudit till the science stops advancing & everybody gets on the same page. Bring on the Dark Ages. ...

... Ah, yes, Michael Bastasch, the energy & climate science editor at the right-wing Daily Caller, has NOAA's number: "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have found a solution to the 15-year 'pause' in global warming: They 'adjusted' the hiatus in warming out of the temperature record. New climate data by NOAA scientists doubles the warming trend since the late 1990s by adjusting pre-hiatus temperatures downward and inflating temperatures in more recent years." Bastasch calls this "fiddling" or "tampering" with the data.

Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "In Steve Reinboldt's 1970 high school yearbook, wrestling coach Dennis Hastert wrote that Steve was his 'great, right hand man' as the student equipment manager of the Yorkville, Illinois wrestling team. But Steve was also a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Hastert, Steve's sister [Jolene] said today in an interview with ABC News. It is the first time an alleged Hastert victim has been identified by name since his indictment for lying to the FBI and violating federal banking laws to cover-up past misconduct. Hastert, due in court next week, has not responded to the allegations.... Jolene said that Steve told her the abuse lasted throughout Steve&'s four years of high school.... Her brother also spent time with Hastert as a member of an Explorers troop, which Hastert ran.... Reinboldt died of AIDS in 1995." ...

... CW: So obviously Steve Reinboldt was not "Individual A" in the Hastert indictment. Assuming the allegations have merit, Hastert has been a serial abuser.

Dan Williams of Reuters: "The Israeli military sees potential security benefits in an expected international deal curbing Iran's nuclear program, a senior officer was quoted as saying on Thursday in an unexpected analysis of the issue. Prime Minister Netanyahu has presented the planned deal as a threat to Israel. But in a closed-door briefing to Israeli reporters published in part by local media, the officer said the deal - if agreed by its June 30 deadline - could provide clarity on whether Iran is on course to a bomb." Via Paul Waldman.

Margaret Talbot on Abercrombie's foolish exclusivist policies & how they led not just to the company's defeat in the Supreme Court but also to its slumping sales.

Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "Jack Warner, the former FIFA vice president who was among 14 people indicted by a United States grand jury as part of an inquiry into corruption in world soccer, says he knows why the organization's president, Sepp Blatter, announced plans to step down from soccer's governing body.... Mr. Warner, who said he feared for his own life, also said he had evidence linking FIFA to his country's 2010 election.... Mr. Warner's sons, Daryan and Daryll, are also cooperating with the authorities, having secretly pleaded guilty in 2013 after they tried to deposit more than $600,000 in nearly two dozen United States bank accounts in an attempt to avoid detection. During a rambling and sometimes incoherent seven-minute television address..., [which was] a paid political advertisement, he said he had reams of documents, including copies of checks, linking Mr. Blatter and other senior FIFA officials to an effort to manipulate a 2010 election in Trinidad and Tobago." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... AP: "Military intelligence officers have raided the headquarters of the Venezuelan Football Federation amid the spiraling FIFA scandal. Venezuela's public prosecutor's office said agents raided the Venezuelan organization's offices Wednesday to gather evidence for a criminal investigation. The organization's former head, Rafael Esquivel, was detained in Switzerland last week along with six other FIFA officials accused of taking bribes." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Presidential Race

Peggy Fikac of the Houston Chronicle: "Former Gov. Rick Perry announced for president Thursday with a promise to 'restore hope' to Americans left behind by the economy at home and unsettled by chaos abroad. 'We have the power to make things new again, to project America's strength again, and to get our economy going again,' he said at a small airport hangar in the Dallas area, backed by veterans against a backdrop formed by a C-130 plane of the type he flew while in the Air Force. 'And that is exactly why today I am running for the presidency of the United States of America.'" CW: Bigger news: got through speech without once saying "oops." I still think his chances would be better running for president of the Republic of Texas. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: However, I have to admit Perry is better-prepared this time around. Why, he even has his own rap-country theme song. If you can't quite figure out what a rap-country song is, Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed explains. ...

    ... HOWEVER, as Steve M. documents, it would appear that the country Perry loves ever so much is the one that flies this flag.

... Washington Post Editors: "Voters should evaluate [Rick Perry] on the terms he suggests -- on real measures of his judgment.... Mr. Perry's 'simple formula' [of low taxes & light regulation] ... included fighting several counterproductive ideological wars that have hurt Texans. His battles against Environmental Protection Agency clean-air rules were as extreme as they were unsuccessful. Even though Texas had the nation's highest uninsured rate at the outset of health-care reform, he rejected federal funds to expand its Medicaid program, irrationally leaving a pile of money on the table and low-income residents with few or no real coverage options. Mr. Perry's deployment of the Texas National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border was simple grandstanding on immigration."

Hunter Walker of Business Insider: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) offered a somewhat confusing explanation of his Iraq policy in an appearance on Fox News' 'Outnumbered' on Thursday. Rubio seemed to express support for US troops being present in Iraq, but he maintained this did not represent the controversial 'nation-building' philosophy that led to a protracted American military presence in that country following the US invasion in 2003.... 'It's not nation-building. We are assisting them in building their nation,' Rubio said...." (Emphasis added.) CW: As I have noted in the past Marco is a master at meaningless double-speak. This is a classic example. ...

... NONETHELESS, Brent Budowsky, a Democrat, writes in the Hill: "Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) is the most interesting GOP presidential candidate in the 2016 field, a field that is becoming a party embarrassment.... It includes candidates who are egotistical vanity players, unelectable rightist ideologues, talk show wannabes and book sale promoters, and it features only one woman, whose only qualification is a failed tenure as a CEO and whose only purpose in the campaign would be to act as the female Republican stalking the female Democrat who could be America's first female president."

Catherine Thompson of TPM: "Endorsements from Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, of TLC's '19 Kids and Counting,' have disappeared from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's (R) presidential campaign website. The Duggar endorsements enjoyed top billing on the campaign site's 'I Like Mike' sidebar on May 22, the day Huckabee issued a full-throated defense of the family following the publication of a 2006 police report that showed the Duggar's eldest son, Josh, was investigated for molesting five underage girls when he was a teenager. Parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar said that four of the victims were Josh's sisters, while the fifth was a babysitter, during an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly that aired Wednesday night.... Archived versions of the campaign site show that the endorsements were removed sometime Monday night.... When a reporter on Tuesday asked Huckabee whether the Duggars would be joining him on the campaign trail, the former governor responded "I don't know, it'll be up to them...," according to video captured by BuzzFeed." CW: So Mikey is ambivalent about child molestation & incest. That's an improvement.

Ron Fornier of the National Journal: "... Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and other GOP presidential candidates critical of Obama's formulation [of American exceptionalism] are making a mistake with their retro pitch to a populace that has always looked to the future.... The term 'American exceptionalism,' first used with respect to the United States by Alexis de Tocqueville, refers to the notion that this country differs qualitatively from other developed nations because of its national credo, ethnic diversity, and revolution-sprung history. It is often expressed as superiority.... Obama's concept of American exceptionalism is not, as critics say, something smaller. It's Reagan-plus: a striving city under constant construction." CW: Yes, Ron Fournier. Because a thousand monkeys typing → Shakespeare sonnet.

Paul Waldman on "why many of the GOP presidential candidates are repeating a narrative of victimhood and oppression that has become common on the religious right:... Call it empathizing or pandering, but the candidates know it isn't enough to say 'I agree with you on the issues' -- you have to demonstrate that you feel what they feel and look at the world the same way they do. That's true to a degree of any constituency group, but it may be particularly important with voters who feel as besieged as social conservatives do today." ...

... Robert Costa & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "... among the social conservatives who are a powerful force within the Republican Party..., the widespread acceptance of [Bruce] Jenner's evolution from an Olympic gold medalist whose masculinity was enshrined on a Wheaties box to a shapely woman [Caitlyn] posing suggestively on the cover of Vanity Fair was a reminder that they are losing the culture wars. Across social media, blogs and talk radio this week, conservatives painted an apocalyptic view of America.... The GOP's struggle with the issue was evident by the fact that -- although President Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democrats uniformly praised Jenner's bravery -- no top-tier Republican candidate had anything to say about her this week."

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday accused Republicans including her potential rivals Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Rick Perry of 'deliberately trying to stop' young people and minorities -- both vital Democratic constituencies -- from exercising their right to vote, as she presented an ambitious agenda to make it easier for those groups and other Americans to participate in elections. Speaking at Texas Southern University [in Houston] in front of her largest crowd yet as a candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton accused Republicans generally of enacting state voting laws based on what she called 'a phantom epidemic of election fraud' because they are 'scared of letting citizens have their say.'" ...

     ... CW: Chozick might have taken the trouble to note, somewhere in her report, that Clinton's "allegations" are well-supported by the facts. Instead, she followed the she said/he said playbook, citing an RNC spokesman's rebuttal. ...

     ... Ferinstance. Ari Berman of the Nation: "From 2011 to 2015, 395 new voting restrictions have been introduced in 49 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, and 21 states have adopted new laws making it harder to vote, 14 of which will be in effect for the first presidential cycle in 2016.... [Clinton's] policy proposals would make it easier for millions of Americans to cast a ballot and participate in the political process. Clinton's speech signaled that voting rights will be a major issue in the 2016 [presidential] race." ...

... Adrian Carrasquillo of BuzzFeed: "Hillary Clinton called for universal, automatic voter registration for every citizen when they turn 18, at a speech at Texas Southern University in Houston, one of the largest historically black colleges in the nation." ...

... Dana Milbank: "There doesn't have to be smoke to give the appearance of fire at the Clinton Foundation. The sprawling charity has sucked in so much cash from so many sources that, with some creativity, it can be tied to virtually any skullduggery.... [Hillary] Clinton and her husband have only themselves to blame for making themselves vulnerable to guilt-by-association attacks.... At a time of rising populist backlash against Wall Street, inequality and wealth-purchased privilege, there is no Democrat more closely tied to the rich and the powerful than Clinton. At a time when Democrats need to draw contrasts with Republicans by sticking up for the little guy, Clinton's solicitation of -- and favors for -- the powerful make her an inauthentic messenger." ...

... CW: Just as inauthentic as Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt. Noblesse oblige, vous savez. Maybe voters should choose Ted Cruz instead, because he authentically grew up poor.

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post on why formerly solid Republicans Lincoln Chafee & Jim Webb are now Democrats (Hillary Clinton, too, was once a Republican, though she changed her party affiliation early in life): "Polarization in the House and Senate is now at the highest level since the end of Reconstruction, according to at least one measure. And it's true that both parties have moved outward. But the polarization has been asymmetric, with Republicans having moved much further right than Democrats have moved left.... If there isn't room for Nixon and Reagan in today's shrunken GOP tent, there definitely isn't space for centrists such as Chafee and Webb."

Beyond the Beltway

AP: "Guam has become the first U.S. territory to recognize gay marriage after a federal judge struck down the prohibition."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck and the Police Department's independent watchdog have determined that two officers were justified in fatally shooting Ezell Ford, a mentally ill black man whose killing last year sparked protests and debate over the use of deadly force by police, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation. Department investigators found evidence indicating that Ford had fought for control of one officer's gun, bolstering claims the officers made after the shooting, said two sources...."

Politico: "Vice President Joseph R. Biden greeted thousands of mourners in the sanctuary of St. Anthony of Padua's church on Friday afternoon as they paid their respects at a wake for his beloved eldest son."

Washington Post: "Tariq Aziz, a top minister for Saddam Hussein who served as Iraq's international spokesman for more than 20 years and was perhaps the government's most recognizable figure after the longtime dictator, died June 5 at a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. He was believed to be 79."

Bloomberg News: "Payrolls climbed in May by the most in five months and worker pay accelerated, showing companies were upbeat about the U.S. economy's prospects after an early-year slump. The 280,000 advance in payrolls exceeded the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey and followed a revised 221,000 April increase, figures from the Labor Department showed Friday in Washington."

Guardian: "Twenty million Yemenis, nearly 80% of the population, are in urgent need of food, water and medical aid, in a humanitarian disaster that aid agencies say has been dramatically worsened by a naval blockade imposed by an Arab coalition with US and British backing. Washington and London have quietly tried to persuade the Saudis, who are leading the coalition, to moderate its tactics, and in particular to ease the naval embargo, but to little effect."

The Commentariat -- June 4, 2015

All internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

They're Just Gonna Do It Anyway. Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of Americans' international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents. In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad -- including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show. The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and 'cybersignatures' -- patterns associated with computer intrusions -- that it could tie to foreign governments. But the documents also note that the N.S.A. sought to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers. The disclosures, based on documents provided by Edward J. Snowden ... and shared with The New York Times and ProPublica, come at a time of unprecedented cyberattacks on American financial institutions, businesses and government agencies, but also of greater scrutiny of secret legal justifications for broader government surveillance." ...

... Eric Tucker of the AP: "The growing use of encrypted communications and private messaging by supporters of the Islamic State group is complicating efforts to monitor terror suspects and extremists, U.S. law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, the officials said that even as thousands of Islamic State group followers around the world share public communications on Twitter, some are exploiting social media platforms that allow them to shield their messages from law enforcement."

Peggy Fikac of the Houston Chronicle: "Former Gov. Rick Perry announced for president Thursday with a promise to 'restore hope' to Americans left behind by the economy at home and unsettled by chaos abroad. 'We have the power to make things new again, to project America's strength again, and to get our economy going again,' he said at a small airport hangar in the Dallas area, backed by veterans against a backdrop formed by a C-130 plane of the type he flew while in the Ai Force. 'And that is exactly why today I am running for the presidency of the United States of Americas.'" CW: Bigger news: got through speech without once saying "oops." I still think his chances would be better running for president of the Republic of Texas.

Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "Jack Warner, the former FIFA vice president who was among 14 people indicted by a United States grand jury as part of an inquiry into corruption in world soccer, says he knows why the organization's president, Sepp Blatter, announced plans to step down from soccer's governing body.... Mr. Warner, who said he feared for his own life, also said he had evidence linking FIFA to his country's 2010 election.... Mr. Warner's sons, Daryan and Daryll, are also cooperating with the authorities, having secretly pleaded guilty in 2013 after they tried to deposit more than $600,000 in nearly two dozen United States bank accounts in an attempt to avoid detection. During a rambling and sometimes incoherent seven-minute television address..., [which was] a paid political advertisement, he said he had reams of documents, including copies of checks, linking Mr. Blatter and other senior FIFA officials to an effort to manipulate a 2010 election in Trinidad and Tobago." ...

... AP: "Military intelligence officers have raided the headquarters of the Venezuelan Football Federation amid the spiraling FIFA scandal. Venezuela's public prosecutor's office said agents raided the Venezuelan organization's offices Wednesday to gather evidence for a criminal investigation. The organization's former head, Rafael Esquivel, was detained in Switzerland last week along with six other FIFA officials accused of taking bribes." ...

... The Guardian has a liveblog of developing FIFA stories.

*****

Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reports an excellent story about the writing of President Obama's speech delivered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march, a speech in which the President sought to define his concept of "American exceptionalism." BTW, Republicans presidential candidates are too ignorant & bellicose to understand it. Which matters. Here's the speech:

... If we're lucky, this is what the kids will be studying in tomorrow's history classes.

Patriot Act, Ctd. Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The Obama administration intends to use part of a law banning the bulk collection of US phone records to temporarily restart the bulk collection of US phone records. US officials confirmed to the Guardian that in the coming days they will ask a secret surveillance court to revive the program -- deemed illegal by a federal appeals court -- all in the name of 'transitioning' the domestic surveillance effort to the telephone companies that generate the so-called 'call detail records' the government seeks to access." ...

Michael Shear of the New York Times puts the focus on President Obama: "Now, after successfully badgering Congress into reauthorizing the program, with new safeguards the president says will protect privacy, Mr. Obama has left little question that he owns it.... 'The reforms that have now been enacted are exactly the reforms the president called for over a year and a half ago,' said Lisa Monaco, the president's top counterterrorism adviser. She called the bill the product of a 'robust public debate' and said the White House was 'gratified that the Senate finally passed it.' The president is trying to balance national security and civil liberties to put into practice the kind of equilibrium he has talked about since he was in the Senate, when he expressed support for surveillance programs but also vowed to rein in what he called government overreach."

Dana Milbank: "Here's a case study in rapid radicalization. Just three years ago, the House voted overwhelmingly to extend the charter of the Export-Import Bank and to expand its business of loaning money to boost American exports. Among Republicans, 147 voted yes and 93 voted no. Nothing much has changed since then.... Yet now Republicans say a majority of the caucus wants to abolish the bank, and the Republican Study Committee -- representing 170 House conservatives -- has come out against renewing the charter. Opponents in both the House and Senate have so far succeeded in keeping the renewal from coming up for votes.... There's little chance the rebellion will kill the bank permanently, but there's a real chance the bank will close temporarily."

American "Justice," Ctd. Radley Balko of the Washington Post: "Barring last-minute interference from the U.S. Supreme Court, Lester Bower will soon be dead. And as Jordan Smith at the Intercept reports, [also linked on the Commentariat a few days ago] that would be a travesty of justice. His story is everything that's wrong with the death penalty in America." ...

     ... Update. Meghan Keneally & Ben Candea of ABC News: "Lester Bower Jr. received a lethal dose of pentobarbital for killing four people in an airplane hangar on a ranch about 60 miles from Dalla in 1983. He was executed hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from his lawyers."

Jess Bidgood &Dave Phillips of the New York Times: "Investigators had been watching Usaamah Abdullah Rahim long enough to know about his avid interest in Islamic State militants, but when they overheard him talking on a cellphone about beheading Massachusetts police officers, they moved in, leading to a confrontation Tuesday morning outside a CVS here that left Mr. Rahim dead, and once again raised alarms about the influence of foreign extremists on homegrown radicals." ...

... Charles Pierce: "But the actual story continues to be extremely murky."

Annals of Twitter "Journalism." J. K. Trotter of Gawker: "A Twitter spokesperson just provided [a] statement to Gawker regarding the apparent suspension of Politwoops' access to Twitter's developer API, which enabled the Sunlight Foundation-funded site to track tweets deleted by hundreds of politicians. Summarized: Politwoops is no more." ...

... CW: Twitter is mostly stupid, but this is an exceptionally stupid policy. While it's fine to allow ordinary people to delete their Tweets, the law treats politicians & other public figures differently -- and so should Twitter. The Sunlight Foundation is a boon to our right-to-know. And we have a right to know, for instance, when Scott Brown is tweeting drunk. Which is not illegal. Even in Massachusetts.

Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "Harvard University announced its largest single gift ever Wednesday, a $400 million donation from alumnus and hedge-fund billionaire John A. Paulson to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Not everyone was impressed, some because of Harvard's substantial endowment, others because of the way Paulson became so wealthy, in part, by betting against the overinflated housing market nearly a decade ago. On social media, one commenter turned up his nose at money 'made betting your kids would be homeless.'"

Presidential Race

Brian Naylor of NPR: "Lincoln Chafee has been a Republican U.S. senator and an independent governor and now is taking a shot at the presidency, as a Democrat. Chafee announced his bid in a speech in Arlington, Va., at George Mason University on Wednesday. In his speech, Chafee said, 'I enjoy challenges, and certainly we have many facing America. Today I'm formally entering the race for the Democratic nomination for president.' During his speech, Chafee highlighted his strong opposition to military intervention in the Middle East, saying, 'we have to find a way to wage peace.'" ...

... Gerry Mullany of the New York Times outlines Chafee's major policy positions. ...

... Jaime Fuller of New York: "New presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee [is] still kilometers behind opponents despite vow to fight for the metric system." ...

... Paul Waldman: "That makes three presidential contenders whose more accomplished fathers served in the U.S. Congress."

Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "A once-sleepy Democratic presidential primary contest is fast coming alive as Hillary Rodham Clinton's poll numbers fall and a diverse array of long-shot opponents step forward to challenge her. The recent developments mark a dramatic evolution in the 2016 sweepstakes, which until now has been shaped by the large assortment of hopefuls on the Republican side, where there is no front-runner." CW: Sounds to me like a bit of news-industry wishful thinking, but I'm not that good at predicting the future. ...

... Maggie Haberman & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Democrats allied with Hillary Rodham Clinton are mounting a nationwide legal battle 17 months before the 2016 presidential election, seeking to roll back Republican-enacted restrictions on voter access that Democrats say could, if unchallenged, prove decisive in a close campaign. The court fights began last month with lawsuits filed in Ohio and Wisconsin, presidential battleground states whose governors are likely to run for the Republican nomination themselves. Now, Democrats are attacking a host of measures, including voter identification requirements that they consider onerous, time restrictions imposed on early voting that they say could make it difficult to cast ballots the weekend before Election Day, and rules that could nullify ballots cast in the wrong precinct.... A similar lawsuit was begun last year in North Carolina. Other potential fronts in the pre-emptive legal offensive, Democrats say, could soon be opened in Georgia, Nevada and the increasingly critical presidential proving ground of Virginia. Almost all of those states have growing African-American or Hispanic populations...." ...

... Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "... Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to call for an early voting period of at least 20 days in every state. Clinton will call for that standard in remarks Thursday in Texas about voting rights, her campaign said. She will also criticize what her campaign calls deliberate restrictions on voting in several states, including Texas." ...

... Thanks for the Donation, You Scoundrels. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: A "donation from the Qatari committee serves as the latest example of the willingness of the Clinton Foundation to accept big-dollar contributions from controversial and, sometimes, politically problematic sources. Donors have included foreign governments, Wall Street banks and some of the world's richest business tycoons.... While a number of controversial donations came during the years that Bill Clinton headed the organization alone, the Qatari committee's involvement in CGI came in the months after Hillary Clinton stepped down as secretary of state and joined the foundation's board."

Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "On Thursday, [former Texas Gov. Rick] Perry made his candidacy [for president] official on his official Web site. 'I am running for president because I know our country's best days are ahead of us,' said a message on the site, which included a video that stressed his ability to bridge political divides in Washington. The post came hours before Perry was scheduled to announce his plans for 2016 at an airplane hangar in [Addison, a] northern suburb of Dallas.... He is ... mired in low single digits in early polls, lightly regarded by many of his rivals, ignored or dismissed by many in the media and struggling for the kind of attention that a politician who served 14 years as chief executive of one of the nation&'s most populous states might normally command."

Nick Gass of Politico: "Jeb Bush will officially enter the presidential race on June 15 in Miami, nearly six months after announcing that he was 'actively' exploring running for the Republican nomination. In a tweet sent Thursday morning, Bush teases 'Coming soon,' linking to jebannouncement.com, which features a 06.15.15 date and says it was paid for by 'Jeb 2016, Inc.'" ...

... Lyndsey Layton & Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Starting next school year, any parent in Nevada can pull a child from the state's public schools and take tax dollars with them, giving families the option to use public money to pay for private or parochial school or even for home schooling. The new law, which the state's Republican-controlled legislature passed with help from the education foundation created by former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R), is a breakthrough for conservatives, who call it the ultimate in school choice.... Democrats, teachers unions, public school superintendents and administrators are alarmed, saying that the Nevada law to provide private school vouchers is the first step toward dismantling the nation's public schools." ...

     ... CW: If you can't think of any reason that Jeb Bush wouldn't make a swell president, herein is the one. He's been at this campaign to decimate public schools (with help from ALEC), & making money on it, for a long while.

Manu Raju of Politico: "After Rand Paul said GOP defense hawks had 'created' ISIS, he told Sean Hannity: 'I think I could have stated it better.' When he claimed some of his adversaries were 'secretly' hoping for a terrorist attack so they could blame him for shutting down the PATRIOT Act, the next day he admitted that 'hyperbole' got the better of him 'in the heat of battle.' And when Paul quipped that he was 'glad' his train didn't stop in Baltimore in the wake of riots there, he later offered 'regret' that his comments were 'misinterpreted.' As Paul has sought to stand out from the clustered GOP presidential field, he's finding that his freewheeling, off-the-cuff speaking style can cut both ways."

George Will, the great conservative intellectual whose wife Mari works for the great conservative intellectual Scott Walker, complains that Republicans are socialists like Bernie Sanders, too, ever redistributing wealth from deserving business owners to us "entitled" government moochers." Will might be the only person in the U.S. who is upset that the Hoover Dam & the dam at Muscle Shoals, Alabama (part of the Tennessee Valley Authority), are owned by the federal government. ...

... Dr. Wanker Understands the Concerns of Victims of Rape & Incest. Ahiza Garcia of TPM: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Monday that he'd be willing to sign a 20-week abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest, adding that women were mostly concerned about those issues 'in the initial months' of pregnancy, television station reported. 'I mean, I think for most people who are concerned about that, it's in the initial months where they're most concerned about it,' Walker said of pregnancies caused by rape and incest."

     ... CW: I don't know precisely what the real-life experience of being raped is like, but it seems highly likely that young victims of rape & incest would delay coming forward (a) out of fear, (b) out of shame, & (b) out of ignorance -- they might not know they're pregnant. I'd love to know the basis for Dr. Wanker's diagnosis. Or is it possible he's just a crass, pandering prick? Also, too, I wonder if George Will approves of government's determining women's personal healthcare needs. Evidently the answer is yes. (Because promiscuity & states' rights.)

Politicians Say the Damndest Things. Nick Gass of Politico: "Lindsey Graham says Hillary Clinton is avoiding media questions on the campaign trail" to the extent that "it's easier to talk to the North Korean guy than it is her." CW: According to Politico's headline, "Lindsey Graham compares Hillary Clinton to Kim Jong Un." Nah, he didn't. Besides, it was a joke.

Beyond the Beltway

Brownback the Redistributor. Washington Post Editors: Kansas Gov. "Sam Brownback (R) proposed raising taxes over the weekend.... He didn't roll back his steep cuts to income and business taxes, instead proposing an increase in the sales tax from 6.15 percent to 6.65 percent.... The way Mr. Brownback originally cut business taxes provided 'an incentive to game the tax system without doing anything productive for the economy,' the Tax Foundation's Joseph Henchman found. Raising revenue by reversing this distortionary policy would seem to be the obvious first step toward fixing the budget.... Even if that weren't the case, it is very hard to run a modern government on sales taxes without also imposing a heavy burden on low- and middle-income people."

New York Times: "The sealed papers from the soccer official Chuck Blazer's criminal case were released on Wednesday. Blazer pleaded guilty in 2013 to charges that included racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering and income tax evasion." ...

... Here's the related Times story, by Stephanie Clifford. ...

... Also, Blazer had a $6,000/month Trump Tower apartment for his cats, which he rarely visited. CW: Could explain where the Donald got his orange-tabby comb-over.

CW: Love the headline: "Man raises eyebrows carrying rifle through Atlanta Airport." It is legal to carry a rifle in the Atlanta Airport (because what could possibly go wrong?), but maybe it is illegal to raise your eyebrows while carrying a gun through ATL.

CW: No, I am not covering the Duggars. If you want to know the latest, just go to any site that at least occasionally covers news or gossip.

Way Beyond

Bank Robbers in Fine Suits. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Relative to the modest size of Moldova's economy, the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars from three lenders, now insolvent, could rank among the world's biggest bank thefts." ...

... CW: This is not only as fascinating story, it is both a cautionary tale & a reminder of how our own lending institutions have been run for a long time. Evidently, Moldova is controlled by a few crooked oligarchs who use banking schemes & political bribes to enrich themselves, but our own oligarchs are richer, more numerous & just as crooked. The Modovan banks' sleights of hand may constitute a big bank theft, but banks based in or operating in the U.S. shared a haul that dwarfs the Moldovan take. Our bankers just don't have to resort to burned-out cars. They've had Tim Geithner, Barack Obama & a host of other politicians to protect them & "stand between them & the pitchforks." Imagine where we'd be if McCain had won in 2008 & put some Phil Gramm crony into the top job at the Fed.

News Lede

Washington Post: "A Washington judge on Thursday granted a new trial to the man convicted of killing federal intern Chandra Levy in 2001, after prosecutors dropped their opposition to a defense request to retry the case."