The Commentariat -- May 11, 2014

Graphic removed.

Ezra Klein on wealth inequality. Thanks to Ken W. for the link:

Jenna Portnoy of the Washington Post: "Just a few miles from his family home, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) felt the wrath of the tea party Saturday, when activists in his congressional district booed and heckled the second-most powerful House Republican. They also elected one of their own to lead Virginia's 7th Congressional District Republican Committee, turning their back on Cantor's choice for a post viewed as crucial by both tea partyand establishment wings in determining control of the fractured state GOP."

Russell Berman of the Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is stacking the House select committee on Benghazi with lawyers as he looks to demonstrate that the panel will be a serious investigation and not a partisan exercise." ...

... CW: Uh-huh. I guess that's why the Orange Man announced the names of the members of the so-called select committee in a Twitter image. What could be more serious than a Twitter image?

Maureen Dowd: "Pope Francis appears guilty of condoning that most base Vatican sport: bullying nuns.... Women, gays and dissident Catholics who had fresh hope are going to have to face the reality that while this pope is a huge improvement on the last, the intolerance is still there."

Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Top Secret Service officials ­ordered members of a special unit responsible for patrolling the White House perimeter to abandon their posts over at least two months in 2011 in order to protect a personal friend of the agency's director [Mark Sullivan], according to three people familiar with the operation." CW: Apparently protecting this particular president & his family is not all that important.

Presidential Race

Peter Hamby of CNN: "Vice President Joe Biden appeared at a closed-door fundraiser in South Carolina Friday and delivered what one attendee called 'an Elizabeth Warren-type speech' about the struggles of America's middle class, remarks that were well-received by a room full of influential primary state Democrats.... Another Democrat in the room said the vice president 'talked about how the system was rigged against the middle class....' Biden did not mention his own White House ambitions. But several Democrats at the event were struck by one remark he made about Bill Clinton's presidency: Three sources there told CNN that Biden said the fraying of middle-class economic security did not begin during President George W. Bush's terms, but earlier, in the 'later years of the Clinton administration.'" ...

... James Hohmann of Politico: "GOP leaders reconsider Rand Paul."

Jonathan Alter on the five Roman Catholic justices who think explicitly Christian prayer in public meetings is constitutional: "With judicial temperaments abstracted to the point of indifference, they seem incapable of imagining themselves even in the shoes of their own grandparents, much less people different from themselves. This is among the worst judicial traits imaginable."

Beyond the Beltway

Christina Huynh of the AP: "Two women were married on a sidewalk outside a county courthouse in Arkansas on Saturday, breaking a barrier that state voters put in place with a constitutional amendment 10 years ago. A day after Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said the ban was 'an unconstitutional attempt to narrow the definition of equality,' Kristin Seaton, 27, and Jennifer Rambo, 26, exchanged vows at an impromptu ceremony, officiated by a woman in a rainbow-colored dress."

Matt Lee-Ashley of Think Progress: "An illegal all-terrain vehicle (ATV) ride planned this weekend through Recapture Canyon in Utah is ... is already drawing criticism from the Navajo Nation, putting American Indian burial sites and cultural resources at risk.... Yet San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman (R-UT) and his supporters appear determined to defy federal law by riding their ATVs through Recapture Canyon, an area of southeast Utah known as a 'mini-Mesa Verde' because it contains one of the highest densities of archaeological sites in the country. Cliven Bundy ... has reportedly urged his supporters -- who include armed militia members -- to join Lyman in Utah this weekend."

News Lede

Washington Post: "Residents of two regions of eastern Ukraine turned out in significant numbers Sunday to vote in support of self-rule in a referendum that threatens to deepen divisions in a country already heading perilously toward civil war."

The Commentariat -- May 10, 2014

Obsolete audio removed.

Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "Putting his personal seal on the annexation of Crimea, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arrived in the naval port of Sevastopol on Friday, where he used the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany to assert that Moscow had the right to take over the Black Sea peninsula." ...

... Shaun Walker, et al., of the Guardian: Meanwhile, "the gravity of the crisis gripping the rest of Ukraine was underscored by more deadly clashes in the southern city of Mariupol."

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday stood between patio lights and women's blouses in a Walmart [in Mountain View, California,] as he unveiled his latest executive actions aimed at increasing energy efficiency. Mr. Obama said that he had ordered $2 billion in upgrades to federal buildings to increase their energy efficiency, adding that the Department of Energy would also be adopting new standards that would be the equivalent of taking 80 million cars off the road":

Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "As Congress left Capitol Hill for a two-week recess on Friday night, it remained unclear whether Democrats will participate in the newly minted House committee to investigate the Obama administration's handling of the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) announced a roster of seven Republicans -- primarily comprised of members loyal to the GOP leadership -- who will serve on the committee, which is charged with determining whether the State Department responded to the attacks properly.... The Republicans named to the committee were Reps. Susan Brooks (Ind.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Mike Pompeo (Kan.), Martha Roby (Ala.), Peter Roskam (Ill.) and Lynn A. Westmoreland (Ga.). The roster notably excludes many of the Republican caucus's most vocal members when it comes to the controversy over the Benghazi attacks. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) will chair the panel." ...

... Paul Waldman watches some YouTube videos & finds out why Boehner pegged Gowdy to prosecute investigate the State Department's handling of Benghaaazi! "To call Gowdy prosecutorial would be an understatement. Uniformly angry and outraged, these videos show Gowdy always seemingly on the verge of shouting, he's so damn mad. Like any good lawyer, he never asks a question to which he doesn't already know the answer. But when a witness gives him an answer other than the one he expects, he repeats his question at a slightly louder volume and angrier pitch, as though the question hadn't actually been answered." ...

     ... CW: Waldman's discovery is more confirmation of the obvious: we're going to see fake outrage over a fake scandal. At this point, the only thing authentic about the Republican party is that some of its members -- including legislators -- are too dumb to know their outrage is fake. Gowdy, however, apparently knows what he's doing.

... The New York Times Editors wrote a scathing rebuke of the whole "Benghazi kangaroo court, also known as the Select House Committee to Inflate a Tragedy Into a Scandal." ...

... OR, as Andy Borowitz puts it, "A new poll indicates ... millions of Americans who need jobs want Congress to get to bottom of this Benghazi thing first."

Robert Costa & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Several leading Republicans have called for raising the federal minimum wage and others are speaking more forcefully about the party's failure to connect with low-income Americans -- stances that are causing a growing rift within the party over how best to address the gulf between the rich and poor.... The latest GOP fissure came Friday and involved the party's 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.... Appearing on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' Romney said he parts company 'with many of the conservatives in my party on the issue of the minimum wage' and thinks 'we ought to raise it.'"

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: In an interview, "Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on Friday broke with fellow Republicans who have pushed for stricter voting laws as a way to crack down on fraud, saying the party was alienating and insulting African-Americans.... In the interview, Mr. Paul stressed his commitment to restoring voting rights for felons, an issue he said black crowds repeatedly brought up whenever he visited them."

If You Don't Agree with Ted Cruz, You're a Criminal. Dana Milbank: "Sen. Ted Cruz, in a speech to fellow conservatives at the Federalist Society this week, provided detailed evidence of what the right calls the 'lawlessness' of the Obama administration. The Texas Republican, in his latest McCarthyesque flourish, said he had a list of '76 instances of lawlessness and other abuses of power.' ... An examination of the accusations reveals less about the lawlessness of the accused than about the recklessness of the accuser.... Cruz disagrees with Obama on just about everything. But this doesn't make Obama a criminal."

Congressional Races

Gail Collins write a hilarious column about the GOP's ridiculous candidates, especially their ridiculous females candidates.

Beyond the Beltway

Andrew DeMillo of the AP: "A judge has struck down Arkansas' ban on same-sex marriage, saying the state has 'no rational reason' for preventing gay couples from marrying. Pulaski county circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled on Friday that the 2004 voter-approved amendment to the state constitution violates the rights of same-sex couples. The ruling came nearly a week after state attorney general Dustin McDaniel announced he personally supports gay marriage rights but that he will continue to defend the constitutional ban in court. McDaniel's office said he would appeal Friday's ruling."

Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R), one of the nation's most enthusiastic voter suppressors, released a report on Thursday outlining the results a two-year investigation into possible voter fraud, conducted by the Iowa Department of Public Safety's Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) at his request. But while Schultz has frequently scared Iowa voters with allegations of thousands of possible non-citizens voting in the state and living people showing up at the polls to cast ballots in the name of dead voters, the investigation revealed found an infinitesimal number of illegal votes cast and zero cases of impersonation at the polls." ...

... Nicole Flatow of Think Progress: "Since Pennsylvania's embattled law requiring photo ID at the polls was passed two years ago, it has not been in effect during an election. Officials blocked the photo ID law from going into effect during the 2012 election, after estimates that some 750,000 did not have the required ID. And in January, a trial court struck down the law, calling the burden imposed by the requirement 'so difficult as to amount to a denial' of the right to vote. On Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) announced he would not appeal the ruling, meaning that trial court's ruling will stand, and the law remains invalidated. Corbett, however, stood behind the idea of a photo ID requirement...."

Something is happening to Tuck Chodd. He's trying to do his job. Here he questions "Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) on Thursday over the state’s recent decision to reduce the amount of time available to voters in the state to cast their votes":

     ... BUT Tuck lets Husted get away with a whopper. Josh Israel: "Husted, who has been one of the nation's strongest advocates of measures to suppress voter participation, attempted to deflect the blame to the state legislature -- even though it acted on his own recommendations." (Emphasis added.) Here's the exchange, much abbreviated:

Tuck: Why did you make the decision to round down, right? You could have rounded up and said, 'I want fair and uniform elections and the standard has been Sundays, we're going to do these two Sundays, expand the hours, and make sure every voting jurisdiction has the same set of hours.'

Husted: ... Actually, the legislature shortened the early voting period... But that's not me, Chuck. That's the legislature. I have clashed with the legislature.

Tuck: Do you think they made a mistake? Do you wish they didn't do that?

Washington Post: "The Pledge of Allegiance does not discriminate against atheists and can be recited at the start of the day in public schools, Massachusetts' highest court ruled Friday. The Supreme Judicial Court said the words 'under God' in the pledge reflect patriotic practice, not a religious one. The court acknowledged that the wording has a 'religious tinge' but said it is fundamentally patriotic and voluntary."

News Ledes

AFP: " Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz on Saturday angrily denied the latest media charge of Israeli spying on its US ally and said that someone was trying to sour bilateral relations. Newsweek magazine on Thursday said that during a 1998 visit to Israel by then US vice president Al Gore a Secret Service agent surprised an intruder emerging from an air duct in Gore's room, before his arrival."

Guardian: "A hastily organised referendum on creating the quasi-independent statelet of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine will go ahead on Sunday, as violence and chaos rage in the region in what increasingly resembles the beginning of a civil war. At least seven people died in the southern port city of Mariupol on Friday when the Ukrainian army entered the city in armoured vehicles, apparently to regain control of the city's police HQ, where separatist fighters were exchanging fire with barricaded police."

New York Times: "A United States Special Operations commando and a Central Intelligence Agency officer in Yemen shot and killed two armed Yemeni civilians who tried to kidnap them while the Americans were in a barbershop in the country's capital two weeks ago, American officials said on Friday. The two Americans, attached to the United States Embassy, were whisked out of the volatile Middle East nation within a few days of the shooting, with the blessing of the Yemeni government, American officials said."

New York Times: "On the granite plaza of the World Trade Center memorial, families of Sept. 11 victims gathered on Saturday morning beneath mist-shrouded skyscrapers to watch as the unidentified remains of people killed there nearly 13 years ago were moved to what may be their final resting place. A slow-moving procession transferred the remains on their short journey across from a city medical examiner's office on 26th Street, near the East River, to a specially built repository at ground zero, between the footprints of the old Twin Towers."

The Commentariat -- May 9, 2014

Internal links removed.

Paul Krugman: "Last year..., 25 hedge fund managers made more than twice as much as all the kindergarten teachers in America combined.... The vast gulf that now exists between the upper-middle-class and the truly rich didn't emerge until the Reagan years.... The evidence suggests that hedge funds are a bad deal for everyone except their managers they don't deliver high enough returns to justify those huge fees, and they're a major source of economic instability.... Next time you hear someone declaiming about how cruel it is to persecute the rich, think about the hedge fund guys, and ask yourself if it would really be a terrible thing if they paid more in taxes." ...

A little twerp -- Andrew Sorkin -- interviews a little twerp -- hedge fund manager private equity executive Tim Geithner. CW: I didn't read it; if anybody finds anything interesting, please share. ...

... Sahil Kapur of TPM read it: "Bill Clinton told former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that nothing would appease the populist 'blood lust' for bankers -- not even slitting the throat of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in a dark alley." CW: According to Sorkin, Geithner's telling this story is evidence he has "personality." As far as I'm concerned, it's (even more) evidence that Clinton & Geithner were always in the tank for rich Wall Streeters. ...

... Hunter Walker of Business Insider also read it: "Geithner also told Sorkin he began asking Obama to let him leave Treasury in 2010. He said he even proposed alternative options [for Treasury secretary,] including Hillary Clinton and Erskine Bowles." CW: Fucking twerp. This is precisely why progressives give up & vote for Nader. (And, no, I'm not recommending that! But President Hillary will be President Mitt, minus the horrifying judicial appointees.) ...

... Do you think Hillary reads Krugman? Ha!

Tim Egan: The Koch brothers "have used a big part of [their] fortune to attack the indisputable science on climate change, to buy junk scholars, to promote harmful legislation at the state level, to go after clean, renewable energy like solar, and to try to kill the greatest expansion of health care in decades.... Yet, while these billionaire industrialists may win in the short term..., in the larger fight against progress and modernity the Kochs have already lost. Clean energy is here to stay, and no sane political party would try to take away the health care of eight million fellow Americans." ...

... Catherine Thompson of TPM: "Charles Krauthammer believes climate change is a mere superstition, just like the 'rain dance of Native Americans.'" The logic here? Sometimes meteorologists inaccurately predict the next day's weather, so they can't possibly know anything about climate trends over multiple years or decades. CW: Inexplicably, Krauthammer forgot to wear his Koch Industries T-shirt while delivering the billionaires' message.

CW: I Believe I'll Have a Subway Sandwich. Alan Pyke of Think Progress: Fred DeLuca, "the founder and CEO of Subway, says a minimum wage increase wouldn’t be such a bad thing for his stores and workers and believes it should be changed so that wages rise automatically with inflation. DeLuca's support is noteworthy in part because of the size of his business. Subway has the most locations of any fast food chain. While a majority of small business owners support a $10.10 wage hike, major corporations of that scale typically oppose raising wages.:

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Education Secretary Arne Duncan issued a strong warning on Thursday to public school districts nationwide not to deny enrollment to immigrant students in the country illegally."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A new pre-publication review policy for the Office of Director of National Intelligence says current and former employees and contractors may not cite news reports based on leaks in their speeches, opinion articles, books, term papers or other unofficial writings.... It says, 'The use of such information in a publication can confirm the validity of an unauthorized disclosure and cause further harm to national security.'"

New GOP Talking Point: Boko Haram abducted 200 Nigerian schoolgirls because Hillary Clinton is soft on terrorism. CW: If only those schoolgirls were white, this scandal could be the new Benghaaazi! ...

... Here's the old Benghazi. Dave Weigel: "Trey Gowdy is precisely the person the White House doesn't want investigating Benghazi.... To conduct hearings that may lead to impeachment, Republicans needed a leader who seemed unimpeachable." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "That congressional Republicans are contemplating [impeachment] so seriously when Barack Obama is already heading towards the exit -- and given the vast evidence a similar move backfired decisively in the 1990s -- shows how much pressure they are under from 'the base,' and how deranged the supposed Great Big Adults of the Republican Establishment have become. Maybe the glittering prospect of impeaching Obama while disqualifying HRC is just so bright that they aren't thinking straight." ...

... Brian Beutler: Nah, Boehner & company are just faking their Benghaaazi! (or #Benghazi) outrage. ...

... BUT Jonathan Bernstein in Bloomberg News: Yeah, Republican legislators really do believe their own hype. "A party incapable of seeing outside of its own propaganda bubble is unlikely to be able to govern competently.... Republicans have [built] an extensive aligned media that has all sorts of incentives to cocoon itself, while also building an extensive ideology of opposition to the 'neutral' media and, at times, to facts."

Annals of American Journalism, Ctd.

Amanda Hess in Slate: "While [Monica] Lewinsky expresses regret for her ill-fated relationship with [President] Clinton -- and many Americans have come to realize that Lewinsky got a raw deal -- [Maureen] Dowd is not yet ready to assume responsibility for her own role." AND the Pulitzer committee gave Dowd the prize for trashing Lewinsky.

And now that Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, has become topic one--again--for the GOP, the sycophants, the lackeys, the lazy, and the ideologues in the fourth estate, it's worth reviewing one of the earlier bungled attempts to remake a bad turn of events into a scandal of historic proportions. Reporter Joe Hagan, in NY Magazine earlier this week published an extensive look at the rise and fall of Lara Logan, disgraced CBS journalist whose highly questionable Benghazi report on 60 Minutes created a furor, a retraction, and a leave of absence. Logan's rise, attributable, says Hagan, to CBS's desire to balance its image on the right as a "liberal" organization, was aided by a need to look tough and amenable to conservative viewpoints. "'She got everything she wanted, always, even when she was wrong, and that's been going on since the beginning,' says a former CBS News producer who worked with her." ...

... Ann Friedman writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, considers the problems news operations get themselves into when they tie their brand too closely to personalities like Logan who have their own brand and their own following.

He meant well...

The re-imagining of George W. Bush continues apace. Matt Bai, writing on Yahoo, wants everyone to quit being mean. In his opinion, The Decider was actually a nice, sincere guy who meant well. All that business of thousands being killed, millions dispossessed and trillions wasted was just unfortunate. Steve M., at No More Mister Nice Blog begs to differ: " If you accept Bai's characterization of Bush -- that he was a decent guy who got in over his head, y'know, the way people do -- the point is that he's like a guy who sets up a storefront medical clinic in an underserved area even though he has no medical training and botches most of his procedures, often killing his patients or doing them some other form of permanent harm. Who the hell cares if someone like that is sincere? He's a menace." In fact, Bush really, really, really cares about all those people he sent to die for a made up war. Well, shit, I feel so much better about that now.

He goes on to review Peggy Noonan's latest delusion that Benghazi was much worse than Iran-Contra. (Her fever dream piece is behind a Wall Street Journal firewall. But...well, you know...) Why? Because Reagan meant well too. Sincerity must be the new route to a re-jiggered legacy. These people really do inhabit a different universe.

Senate Race

Tuck Chodd gives GOP Senate nominee Thom Tillis a hard time:

Beyond the Beltway

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Oklahoma's attorney general has agreed that the state's next execution should be delayed for six months following the botched execution last week."

Right Wing World: Haters Unite

There's no live and let live in Right Wing World. And there certainly is no golden rule. Or anything vaguely resembling comity. It's not enough for wingers to be against something. If you cross whatever Cloud Cuckoo Land line in the sand they draw, they will go after you. Today is the second day of the NFL draft and the wingnuts are ready to pounce. Jack Burkman, head of the Washington, D.C. lobbying firm J.M. Burkman & Assoc. who is seeking to ban gays from the NFL, says he intends to build a national coalition to boycott any football franchise that picks openly gay football player Michael Sam in the NFL Draft. Burkman promises that his attack will be "relentless". According to a call to arms on the Christian Post website, "The NFL, like most of the rest of American business, is about to learn that when you trample the Christian community and Christian values there will be a terrible financial price to pay," said Burkman.

Sam, who came out in February will be the first openly gay player in the NFL if drafted. Luckily, some businesses, Visa, for one, are not too concerned about Burkman's threats.