The Commentariat -- June 3, 2014

Internal links removed; obsolete video & related text removed.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama announced more steps on Tuesday to bolster security in central and eastern Europe with additional deployments and training as he arrived in Poland for the start of a four-day European trip aimed at locking arms with allies following Russia's intervention in Ukraine."

Dana Milbank: "Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy sounded like the sort of unflinching liberal that progressives had hoped Barack Obama would be. Not only did McCarthy roll out a broad new rule Monday that would cut carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent at existing power plants over 16 years, but she did so while ridiculing those on the other side." ...

... Clifford Krauss & Diane Cardwell of the New York Times: "Leaders in the fossil fuel industries said they would need time to read the fine print of the long E.P.A. draft, and they noted that there were sure to be years of lawsuits and negotiations over compliance. But many of them said they could live with the new policy." ...

... Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker: "... the new rules aren't really very ambitious. (Many commentators pointed this out even before the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, had signed them.) In many ways, the Administration seems to be benefitting from what might be called, to paraphrase George W. Bush, the sympathy of low expectations." ...

... Not According to Mary Landrieu. Clare Foran of the National Journal: "Mary Landrieu is not a fan of President Obama's global-warming rule -- and she wants Louisiana voters to know it. 'While it is important to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, this should not be achieved by EPA regulations,'." the Democratic senator said in a statement Monday." ...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found that each year this regulation will kill 224,000 jobs and force energy rates to skyrocket, so it's no wonder President Obama is circumventing Congress to implement his latest job-killing regulation. -- RNC Chair Reince Priebus, in a statement similar to ones made by top GOP lawmakers

Adam Weinstein of Gawker provides an excellent, balanced account of the controversies surrounding the retrieval of Taliban hostage prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl. ...

     ... Zeke Miller of Time: "At a press conference in Warsaw on Tuesday, Obama batted away congressional objections that he violated a provision of a 2013 law that required congressional notification before the release of any prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. 'We've consulted with Congress for some time about prisoner exchange,' the president said. 'We don't leave our men or women behind,' he added":

... Ken Gude in Think Progress: "The five detainees that were included in the deal would have to be released soon anyway because the U.S. involvement in the armed conflict against the Taliban is ending. And the Obama administration has been exceptionally good at preventing released Guantanamo detainees from engaging in militant activities against the United States, especially compared to the Bush administration." ...

... Mark Thompson of Time profiles the six U.S. soldiers who died hunting for Bergdahl. ...

... Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Hillary Clinton defended President Obama's move to free a long-held U.S. prisoner of war from Afghanistan in exchange for five men being held at Guantanamo Bay in a speech on the outskirts of Denver on Monday night." ...

... Conspiracy Theory No. 789. What Did Hillary Know & When Did She Know It? Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Republicans are raising questions about whether Hillary Clinton knew about the White House plan to release senior Taliban commanders in exchange for the last U.S. prisoner of war. President Obama met with his former secretary of State for lunch on Thursday, two days before it was announced that Bowe Bergdahl had been released from captivity in exchange for five high-profile Taliban prisoners."

Alexander Bolton: "Tea Party Patriots has filed a complaint against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) with the Senate Ethics Committee to protest his repeated attacks against Charles and David Koch.... The complaint further states that Reid 'has misused Senate staff or resources to engage in partisan campaign activity in violation of federal laws and Senate rules.'" ...

... Tarini Parti of Politico: "Outside groups poured a staggering $2.5 billion into the 2012 election — far more than the $1.6 billion spent by party committees -- as power migrated from party honchos to a handful of billionaires and political consultants, according to a book released Tuesday by Politico Chief Investigative Reporter Kenneth P. Vogel.... Vogel details the explosion of cash in politics and the efforts of conservative and liberal millionaires whose costly forays into politics are not dissimilar from those of rich sports junkies who spend millions to buy a professional team. There's even some overlap between big donors and team owners."

Mark Follman of Mother Jones: The NRA notices it has gone too far. "In an extraordinary move on Friday, the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action -- the organization's powerful lobbying arm in Washington -- issued a lengthy statement seeking to distinguish between 'responsible behavior' and 'legal mandates. It told the Texas gun activists in no uncertain terms to stand down." In response, Open Carry Texas labeled the NRA "gun control extremists." ...

Yup, that's the NRA warning gun owners against 'acting without thinking' because it might lead to the 'lasting consequence' of gun restrictions -- not, you know, people being shot. -- Evan McMurry of Mediaite

Gender Bias Kills. Jason Samenow of the Washington Post: "People don't take hurricanes as seriously if they have a feminine name and the consequences are deadly, finds a new groundbreaking study. Female-named storms have historically killed more because people neither consider them as risky nor take the same precautions, the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes." ...

     ... Caveat. The study's findings may be bogus.

High Hopes. Evan Halper of the Los Angeles Times: "Newly discovered documents from tobacco company archives at UC San Francisco show that major companies in the cigarette industry investigated joining the marijuana business in the late 1960s and early 1970s.... The documents, discovered by public health researchers, were disclosed Tuesday in the Milbank Quarterly, a health policy journal. They not only shed new light on the Nixon era, but appear when some Wall Street analysts and health advocates say tobacco companies may again be considering the expanding market for legalized weed."

Congressional Election

Evan Wyloge of the Arizona Capitol Times: After losing two local elections, GOP candidate Scott Fistler decided to run for Congress in a heavily-Hispanic district. So he changed his name to Cesar Chavez & (belatedly) registered as a Democrat. Fistler/Chavez is not taking media questions just now, but "should he be able to get to them. Questions must be screened, no more than five questions, no question longer than five words and Chavez will not discuss his name change, he explained in the email." On his campaign Website, Fistler/Chavez confuses Hugo Chavez with Cesar Chavez with photos that depict "Chavez" (Hugo & Cesar) supporters. ...

... SFK of Lawyers, Guns & Money calls this "the GOP's 2014 Hispanic outreach plan." ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "I think we've found the Republican path forward once they finally exhaust all remaining electoral options. Just pretend to be someone else."

Beyond the Beltway

Stephanie Clifford & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "A New York City Department of Investigation inquiry has implicated Charles J. Hynes, the former Brooklyn district attorney, in the improper use of money seized from drug dealers and other criminal defendants to pay a political consultant more than $200,000 for his work on Mr. Hynes's unsuccessful re-election campaign last year. The report, which has been referred to the state attorney general and several other agencies, concluded that Mr. Hynes could face larceny charges for the misuse of public funds."

Beyond the Borders

The Elephant Slayer. Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker: How an elephant-hunting jaunt with a paramour, paid for by a Saudi businessman, brought down Juan Carlos of Spain, who yesterday announced he would abdicate.

Marie's Sports Report
... Includes Some News That Actually Matters

Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times: "Dan Marino, the Hall of Fame member and former Miami Dolphins quarterback, last week sued the NFL over concussions, according to federal court records. As the behind-the-scenes effort to gain approval for the proposed $765-million settlement of the concussion litigation continues, Marino and 14 other former players sued in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. At least 41 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, or their estates, are among about 5,000 former players suing." CW: The headline & lede are accurate but misleading. Marino is among 15 litigants in this particular suit, each of whom is equally important.

Debbie Emery of the Hollywood Reporter: In a lawsuit filed Monday, "Maiko Maya King claims to have been in a romantic relationship with ... Clippers owner [Donald Sterling] from 2005 to 2011, and says that she was later subjected to "a steady stream of racially and sexually offensive comments" when she was employed by him, according to the lawsuit. Read the complaint here." ...

     ... Via Margaret Hartmann, who notes, "King is represented by Gloria Allred, whose appearance in this debacle is long overdue."

News Lede

Washington Post: An historian has located the bodies of more than 800 babies in a sewer at a former home for unwed mothers in Western Ireland.

The Commentariat -- June 2, 2014

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Obama administration on Monday will announce one of the strongest actions ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change, a proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut carbon pollution from the nation's power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, according to people briefed on the plan."

     ... From Davenport's report: "Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for trapping heat in the atmosphere and dangerously warming the planet." [Emphasis added.] ...

... D. R. Tucker of the Washington Monthly: "The 'scientists blame' phrase is a disgusting, abhorrent hedge.... Somebody please tell the New York Times that the right-wing folks who hate the paper will continue to hate the paper, no matter how much false objectivity appears in the paper. Stop trying to woo the folks who despise you."

How about this: If global warming happens, the flooding may cause some people to lose their guns. -- Virginia, a commenter trying to think up a way to win over climate deniers (via the Brad Blog)

... "A Youthful Dalliance." Alec MacGillis of the New Republic: Back when Barack Obama was King Coal (or at least Prince Coal).

Paul Krugman: “Chris Giles, the economics editor of The Financial Times..., has not gone well for Mr. Giles. The alleged errors were actually the kinds of data adjustments that are normal in any research that relies on a variety of sources. And the crucial assertion that there is no clear trend toward increased concentration of wealth rested on a known fallacy, an apples-to-oranges comparison that experts have long warned about.... Yet inequality denial persists, for pretty much the same reasons that climate change denial persists: there are powerful groups with a strong interest in rejecting the facts, or at least creating a fog of doubt.”

Tom Hamburger & Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "Joy about the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl yielded Sunday to questions about Obama administration decision-making in the deal for the American prisoner of war, which included the release of five high-ranking Afghan Taliban detainees. Congressional Republicans and others focused on a series of concerns that are likely to reverberate in coming days: whether the deal breached U.S. policy forbidding negotiations with terrorists, whether sufficient safeguards were in place to ensure that the released Taliban prisoners do no further harm to the United States and whether Congress was informed about the prisoner trade, as required by law. Separately, some inside the military raised questions about the cost associated with rescuing Bergdahl, who drifted away from his unit five years ago under curious circumstances." ...

... Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: “National security adviser Susan Rice and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel defended the Obama administration's decision to trade five Taliban-affiliated terrorism suspects for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only known American prisoner of war in Afghanistan, who on Saturday was recovered by U.S. Special Operations forces." ...

... The official White House statement is here. ...

Ambassador Rice basically said to you, 'Yes, U.S. policy has changed. Now we make deals with terrorists,' ... The reason why the U.S. has had the policy for decades of not negotiating with terrorists is because once you start doing it, every other terrorist has an incentive to capture more soldiers. -- Sen. Ted Cruz (RTP-Texas), on This Week

     ... Politifact: "Even though presidents and officials often say 'we do not negotiate with terrorists,' it has not proven to be a hard-and-fast rule. Obama's actions so far do not signal a change in policy, but rather the latest in a long line of exceptions presidents have made throughout recent history. We rate Cruz's statement Mostly False." ...

... Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast: "Now that President Obama has proven Congress can't stop him from releasing terrorists, the administration could be primed to empty out the prison at Guantanamo Bay." ...

... ** Dan Lamothe & Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's recovery after five years in captivity has rekindled anger among some of his military peers over how he came to fall into enemy hands and the price the United States has paid to get him back. Bergdahl, 28, is believed to have slipped away from his platoon's small outpost in Afghanistan's Paktika province on June 30, 2009, after growing disillusioned with the U.S. military's war effort." ...

... Nathan Bethea provides a first-hand account of the search from Bergdahl in the Daily Beast. "For five years, soldiers have been forced to stay silent about the disappearance and search for Bergdahl. Now we can talk about what really happened." ...

... Impeachment! Michael Tomasky thinks Bergdahl is "the new Benghazi."

Manu Raju & Burgess Everett of Politico: "With Eric Shinseki out at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the focus now shifts to Capitol Hill, placing [Bernie Sanders,] Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee chairman, at the center of the growing VA health care controversy. Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, is assembling a legislative package to help address the issue in the hopes that he can consolidate support within the veterans community and assuage concerns of vulnerable Democrats." ...

... Brian Beutler of the New Republic: How the GOP's turning up the volume on the VA scandal will backfire.

Politico's big piece today is "The Obama Paradox" by Carrie Brown & Jennifer Epstein. CW: It's supposed to be a think piece. But it's Politico. Ergo, I wouldn't look for useful analysis, but the story contains some interesting tidbits. ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "That visit to the Gap.... "'What he cherishes and misses [about New York city] is the serendipity -- you don't know who you're going to bump into or what they're going to say,' senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said following the Gap excursion. 'He hungers for that.' Though, after running into Bill Clinton a few times, he'll probably get over it." ...

... CW: What struck me about the Politico article -- assuming a word of it is true -- is how much Obama wants to be like the Clintons. Not only did he fill top administration posts with Clinton acolytes (not to mention a real-live Clinton); not only does he follow Clinton-type policy prescriptions (international trade deals, faggedaboud serious financial reform, etc.); now Obama even longs for a Clintonesque post-presidency. Weird. And dismaying, especially since this is the guy most of us voted for because he wasn't a Clinton.

Kyle Cheney & Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Right now, 36 states rely on HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange, to enroll people in health coverage. At least two more states are opting in next year, with a few others likely to follow. Only two states are trying to get out.... The federal option was supposed to be a limited and temporary fallback. But a shift to a bigger, more permanent Washington-controlled system is instead underway.... It's coming about because intransigent Republicans shunned state exchanges, and ambitious Democrats bungled them." ...

     ... CW: Not stated in the Politico article (of course) is this: Despite the Healthcare.gov start-up debacle, it turns out that the federal government does a lot of stuff better than do state governments. As long as humans are running things, there always will be screw-ups (see Veterans Administration), but federal government screw-ups are usually no worse than private-sector screw-ups (what's the wait-time to see your doctor for a non-emergency?); the fed goofs just get more attention because the not-responsible/irresponsible party & news media cover them. Nobody cares if your insurance agent is an incompetent jerk or if you have to wait 8 weeks to see your doctor.

Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is weighing in on the rampage in Santa Barbara, California, calling both for stricter gun laws and for background checks for people with mental illness. 'The real problem here is we have too many guns in the hands of criminals, people with psychiatric problems -- as this guy obviously did -- and minors,' Bloomberg said on 'Meet The Press' on Sunday. "And we've got to find some ways to stop that." ...

... Adam Nagourney, et al., of the New York Times: Elliot Rodger had always had severe psychological problems.

CW: Missed this. Benjamin Wittes, in a New Republic/Lawfare piece, gives his take Ed Snowden's NBC News interview.

Primary Races 2014

Adam Wollner of the National Journal provides a rundown of tomorrow's primary races.

Presidential Election 2016

Maggie Haberman of Politico: "'Hard Choices,' meet 'Failed Choices.' The Republican opposition research group America Rising will release an e-book on Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State Department, describing her own book about her service as 'spin' aimed at a presidential campaign. The e-book, 'Failed Choices: A Critique of the Clinton State Department,' will be available on Amazon just as Clinton's own 'Hard Choices' hits bookstores on June 10."

News Ledes

AP: "President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday swore in a Palestinian unity government, taking a major step toward ending a crippling territorial and political split among the Palestinians but also setting the stage for new friction with Israel."

Guardian: "After nearly 40 years on the throne, King Juan Carlos of Spain is to abdicate in favour of his son Crown Prince Felipe, the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, announced on Monday." The New York Times story is here.

New York: "One day after video surfaced of V. Stiviano making her own racist remarks in footage filmed for a reality-show pilot, there was another unfortunate development in the Donald Sterling saga. Stiviano's attorney, Mac Nehorary, told Radar Online that she was beaten up by two white men while leaving New York's Gansevoort Hotel on Sunday night."

The Commentariat -- June 1, 2014

Internal links removed.

Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post: "Taliban fighters released the sole remaining American military hostage [Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl] Saturday morning to a team of U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan, who quickly hustled him onto a helicopter.... His release was secured after the Obama administration, working through Qatari government intermediaries, agreed to free five high-profile Afghan inmates held by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." ...

... Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "Although the five men have each been in prison for at least a decade, many believe they still have significant influence within the Taliban because of their contributions during the group's formative years."

... White House: "In the White House Rose Garden, President Obama delivers a statement about the recovery of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl":

... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Amid jubilation Saturday over the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from captivity by the Taliban, senior Republicans on Capitol Hill said they were troubled by the means by which it was accomplished, which was a deal to release five Afghan detainees from the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Top Republicans on the Senate and House armed services committees went so far as to accuse President Obama of having broken the law, which requires the administration to notify Congress before any transfers from Guantanamo are carried out.... A senior administration official ... acknowledged that the law was not followed. When he signed the law last year, Obama issued a signing statement contending that the notification requirement was an unconstitutional infringement on his powers as commander in chief and that he therefore could override it. " ...

... ** Steve M.: "... in all likelihood, if they'd gotten advance notice, the Republicans would have done everything in their power to block the release of Bergdahl -- as, reportedly, they did in 2012." ...

... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel describes the operation to retrieve Bergdahl.

James Risen of the New York Times & Laura Poitras: "The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.... The agency intercepts 'millions of images per day' -- including about 55,000 'facial recognition quality images' -- which translate into 'tremendous untapped potential,' according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden."

Dina Cappiello of the AP: "The new pollution rule the Obama administration announces Monday will be a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's environmental legacy and arguably the most significant U.S. environmental regulation in decades. But it's not one the White House wanted.... Obama was forced to rely on the Clean Air Act after he tried and failed to get Congress to pass a new law during his first term. When the Republicans took over the House, the goal became impossible. The new rule, as the president described it in a news conference in 2010, is another way of 'skinning the cat' on climate change."

Charles Pierce wrote an excellent essay Friday on the VA scandal.

Adam Kirsch of the New Republic: New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan doesn't know what a book review is. "... the whole idea of an ombudsman does not apply to political and intellectual debate, because there is no privileged position, above and outside the fray, from which such judgments can be issued. The idea that a reviewer might be censured for her opinions, by the official spokesman of the very publication that published them, should give every writer -- and reader -- pause." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link.

Julie Pace of the AP: "Once seemingly destined to become secretary of state, Susan Rice now holds a lower-profile job at the White House, juggling global crises for the president and trying to ensure his foreign policy priorities don't fall by the wayside in a storm of overseas problems."

CW: Unsurprisingly, the New York Times' official abstinence columnist Ross Douthat gets stuff wrong in his piece on the "tension between sexual expectations and social reality" -- like his notion that feminists should be doing more to make men feel good about themselves -- but for once you won't necessarily be wasting your time reading the Wisdom of Pope Benedict's Man at the Times.

The American Family Association (Tony Perkins' group) has told its followers -- or whatever they are -- not to open mail that comes with a Harvey Milk "forever" stamp. Steve Benen reports.

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: The Army "last year, quietly issuing [Christian fundamentalist & anti-Islamist retired Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin] a scathing reprimand following a criminal investigation that concluded he had wrongfully released classified information, according to an Army document obtained by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request." Boykin more or less the reprimand, saying that while reprimands should be taken seriously, "at this stage in my life, it really hasn't had any impact on my life like it would have if it had happened when I was on active duty." Via Steve Benen.

The Ark & the Covenant -- Busted. Joe Sonka of LEO: "Dinosaurs on a goddamned boat" may not get any Kentucky tax incentives/breaks, after all. Via Benen.

Beyond the Borders

Maureen Dowd on the Irish troubles.

Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The United Nations is facing a chorus of criticism over the inauguration as president of its general assembly of Uganda's foreign minister [Sam Kutesa], just four months after that country enforced a brutal and widely denounced anti-gay law.... As the appointment nears, questions are being asked about his track record of alleged corruption, as well as his role as cabinet member of a government that has enacted one of the most virulent homophobic laws on the globe."

News Ledes

Philadelphia Inquirer: "Lewis Katz, 72, co-owner of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, died Saturday night in the crash of a private jet at a Massachusetts airfield. All seven people aboard were killed when the Gulfstream IV crashed about 9:40 p.m. as it was departing Hanscom Field in Bedford for Atlantic City International Airport, said a Massachusetts Port Authority spokesman."

New York Times: "Ann B. Davis, the comic actress best known as the wistful, wisecracking live-in maid on the long-running ABC sitcom 'The Brady Bunch,' died on Sunday at a hospital in San Antonio. She was 88."

AP: " A man has been arrested in southeast France in the investigation of a shooting at a Jewish museum in Brussels that left at least three people dead, the Paris prosecutor's office said Sunday."