The Commentariat -- Jan. 18, 2014

White House: "In this week's address, President Obama says 2014 will be a year of action, and called on both parties to help make this a breakthrough year for the United States by bringing back more good jobs and expanding opportunities for the middle class":

The President's Speech Outrages Pundits

Glenn Greenwald: "Obama is draping the banner of change over the NSA status quo. Bulk surveillance that caused such outrage will remain in place.... Obama never hid the real purpose of this process. It is, he and his officials repeatedly acknowledged, 'to restore public confidence' in the NSA. In other words, the goal isn't to truly reform the agency; it is deceive people into believing it has been so that they no longer fear it or are angry about it."

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "Barack Obama's rhetoric in his big surveillance speech on Friday was pleasing to privacy advocates. But the substance of his proposals for the future of mass data collection amount to a gift for the National Security Agency."

Anthony Romero of the ACLU: "... the president's decision not to end bulk collection and retention of all Americans' data remains highly troubling.... The president should end -- not mend -- the government's collection and retention of all law-abiding Americans' data. When the government collects and stores every American's phone call data, it is engaging in a textbook example of an 'unreasonable search' that violates the Constitution. The president's own review panel recommended that bulk data collection be ended, and the president should accept that recommendation in its entirety."

Charles Pierce: "This is not balance. This is the government, in the person of this president, telling you what you have to give up in order to be safe. (As near as I can tell, the NSA is not being asked to stop doing much of anything, and the president's Bush-standard apocalyptics doesn't give me a lot of faith in whatever oversight he says he's put in place.)"

Mike Masnick of TechDirt: "... he is ordering changes that go slightly beyond the expectations his own staffers leaked earlier this week ... but stopping way short of actually fixing the problems. And, even with his changes, he leaves many of the details to Congress and the DOJ to sort out for themselves, which is not particularly encouraging, considering how both have acted for decades when it comes to surveillance."

The New York Times Editors produce a string of criticisms, the least of which is Obama's failure to blow a big kiss to Edward Snowden.

... On the Other Hand ...

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "Obama has sided with his fiercest critics on two of the most important reforms that have been demanded since Snowden's first revelations: the N.S.A. should no longer collect this data and the spy agency should generally be required to have court approval when it wants to search Americans' phone records."

John Cassidy of the New Yorker has a pretty balanced assessment: "Politically, the White House's strategy is not lacking in cunning. As the President knows all too well, many senior Democrats and Republicans on the Hill, including the heads of the intelligence committees, don't think any big changes are necessary. In asking for their coöperation and putting them in the firing line, he is clearly hoping to defuse some of the criticisms that he has faced."

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. -- Authorization for the Use of Military Force

... Gregory Johnson in BuzzFeed: "Written in the frenzied, emotional days after 9/11, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force was intended to give President Bush the ability to retaliate against whoever orchestrated the attacks. But more than 12 years later, this sentence remains the primary legal justification for nearly every covert operation around the world. Here's how it came to be, and what it's since come to mean." CW: Charles Pierce calls Johnson's article required reading. It's long.

Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama signed a $1.1 trillion omnibus bill Friday night at the White House before a small gathering that included his budget team. In a small auditorium across the street from the West Wing, Obama penned his name on the 1,500-page legislation, which piled nearly a foot off the ground."

... Gail Collins comments on the bill.

Jonathan Chait: "... now that Republicans have discovered, nearly four years after the passage of the law, that Obamacare has a provision that they can spin as a 'bailout,' it has whipped the party into a frothy mix of genuine outrage and hand-rubbing opportunism, with repentant immigration reformer Marco Rubio leading the charge with a bill in Congress to repeal the 'Obamacare bailout.' There is no Obamacare bailout.... Of course, the 'Obamacare bailout' bill is ... an election-year message bill designed to let Republicans use the words 'Obamacare' and 'bailout' consecutively, and Republican Party advisers ... see it as their job to provide intellectual cover for useful messaging strategies, however demagogic. This is also another sign of the slow thematic turn of Obamacare opponents from arguing that the law is collapsing to arguing that it is surviving only as a result of devious scheming. 'Obamacare is collapsing' is a battle they will have to surrender eventually. 'Obamacare is a scandal' is a fight they can keep waging in the right-wing jungles for decades to come."

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday declared unconstitutional the state's ultrasound requirement for women seeking abortions, saying it violated the First Amendment by requiring doctors to display a fetal image and describe it even to women who covered their eyes and ears." CW: The judge, Catherine Eagles, is an Obama appointee.

AP: "A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a judge's ruling granting a taxpayer-funded sex change operation for a transgender inmate serving a life sentence for a murder conviction, saying receiving medically necessary treatment is a constitutional right that must be protected 'even if that treatment strikes some as odd or unorthodox.'"

BTW, David Brooks is upset that "suddenly the whole world is talking about income inequality" because "it introduces a class conflict element to this discussion." CW: Brooks' argument mirrors Mitt Romney's 2012 dictum that income inequality should be discussed only in "quiet rooms."

Erica Goode of the New York Times: "... at a time when the drugs once routinely used in executions are in short supply and states are scrambling to find new formulas, the execution [of Dennis McGuire] is stirring intense debate about the obligations of the state toward those it kills.... [McGuire's children] plan to file a federal lawsuit next week alleging that the execution violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment."

Elizabeth Harris, et al., of the New York Times: "Entering through a digital gateway, [Eastern European hackers] discovered that Target's systems were astonishingly open -- lacking the virtual walls and motion detectors found in secure networks like many banks'. Without those safeguards, the thieves moved swiftly into the company's computer servers containing Target's customer data and to the crown jewel: the in-store systems where consumers swipe their credit and debit cards and enter their PINs."

Matt Volz of the AP: "A former Montana judge who was being investigated for forwarding a racist email involving President Barack Obama sent hundreds of other inappropriate messages from his federal email account, according to the findings of a judicial review panel released Friday. Former U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull sent emails to personal and professional contacts that showed disdain for blacks, Indians, Hispanics, women, certain religious faiths and some with inappropriate jokes about sexual orientation, the Judicial Council of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found." CW: Cebull is a Bush II appointee. Read the whole story.

AP: "Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests in just two years, for molesting children.... The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked."

Local News

Certainly a vague concern about voter fraud does not rise to a level that justifies the burdens here. Therefore this court does not find in-person voter fraud a compelling interest the voter ID law was designed to serve. -- Judge Bernard McGinley

** Rick Lyman of the New York Times: "In a strongly worded decision, a Pennsylvania state judge on Friday struck down Pennsylvania's 2012 law requiring voters to produce a state-approved photo ID at the polls, setting up a potential Supreme Court confrontation that could have implications for other such laws across the country. The judge, Bernard L. McGinley of Commonwealth Court, ruled that the law hampered the ability of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians to cast their ballots, falling most heavily on elderly, disabled and low-income residents, and that the state's reasons for the law -- that it was needed to combat voter fraud -- was unsupported by the facts." The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story, by Karen Langley, is here. ...

... Rick Hasan comments on the decision.

Michael Wines of the New York Times: "Freedom Industries, the West Virginia company whose chemical spill last week tainted the drinking water of more than 300,000 residents in and around Charleston, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday." The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette story, by Kate White & David Gutman, is here. ...

... Joshua Holland of Bill Moyers & Co.: "Asked about the spill of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into a West Virginia river ... Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters that he is 'entirely confident that there are ample regulations already on the books to protect the health and safety of the American people.' ... The facility hasn't been inspected since 1991 because, unlike other states, West Virginia requires it only of chemical manufacturers and emitters, not storage facilities.... It's becoming clear that it's also a tale of how shady businesses can prosper in an environment where regulatory capture by an industry is so deeply entrenched. Even the history of Freedom Industries is murky. It was co-founded in 1992 by Carl Kennedy and Gary Southern -- who during a Friday press conference sipped bottled water and told reporters that he'd had a really trying day.... Carl Kennedy's history reads like that of a character in an Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen novel." ...

... CW: Earlier reports that Speaker Boehner received campaign contributions from a Freedom Industries principal now appear to be erroneous.

New Yorker: "John Cassidy and Hendrik Hertzberg join host Dorothy Wickenden on this week's Political Scene podcast to discuss the New Jersey governor's political future":

John Reitmeyer of the Bergen Record: New Jersey "Assembly Democrats confirmed Friday the names of 18 people who have been served with subpoenas, including Port Authority Chairman David Samson and Governor Christie's incoming chief of staff Regina Egea, as the legislative investigation into the September lane closures at the George Washington Bridge continues. The Assembly committee that formed and met on Thursday also subpoenaed the governor's office itself for documents, as well as Christie for Governor, Inc., Christie 2013 campaign organization, according to a spokesman for the Assembly Democrats." ...

... Shawn Boburg of the Record: "The Port Authority is raising concerns that the law firm chosen to represent the Christie administration amid several investigations into the George Washington Bridge scandal has a conflict of interest. The firm is representing the Port Authority in a lawsuit lodged by the motorist group AAA over the agency's controversial toll hikes in 2011. Christie jointly steers the Port Authority.... The interests of the Port Authority and the Christie administration in both the toll hike lawsuit and the George Washington Bridge probes could diverge, presenting potential complications if the same law firm is representing both simultaneously, some within the Port Authority believe."

Presidential Election 2016

McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: "In interviews with more than a dozen party officials, fundraisers, and strategists in New York and Washington over the past 10 days, Republicans described a palpable sense of anxiety gripping the GOP establishment in the wake of Christie's meltdown, and an emerging consensus that the once promising cast of candidates they were counting on to save the GOP from the tea party -- and the nation from Hillary Clinton -- is looking less formidable by the week." ...

... Ken Vogel of Politico: Romney backers are loving Bridgegate. "The sniping is not insignificant. Christie is not well-liked among tea party activists and leaders, where he is seen as a big-government moderate. So, in order to build a coalition that could give him a chance at the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, he'll most likely need strong support from Republican establishment types, like those who formed the core of Romney's formidable operation."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Security firm IntelCrawler said Friday that it has identified a Russian teenager as the author of the malware probably used in the cyberattacks against Target and Neiman Marcus, and that it expects more retailers to acknowledge that their systems were breached. In a report posted online, the Sherman Oaks, Calif., company said the author of the malware used in the attacks has sold more than 60 versions of the software to cybercriminals in Eastern Europe and other countries."

Guardian: "Two Britons and two Americans were among at least 21 people killed when a suicide bomber and gunmen attacked one of Kabul's most popular restaurants. The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and three other staff of the UN were also killed in the attack on Friday evening, along with the Lebanese restaurant owner, several Afghanis, and two Canadians."

The Commentariat -- Jan, 17, 2014

Mark Landler & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama will require intelligence agencies to obtain permission from a secret court before tapping into a vast database of telephone data, but he will leave the data in the hands of the government for now, an administration official said. Mr. Obama, in a much-anticipated speech on Friday morning, plans to pull back the government's wide net of surveillance at home and abroad, staking out a middle ground between the far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and the concerns of the nation's intelligence agencies." ...

     ... New Lede: "President Obama, declaring that advances in technology had made it harder 'to both defend our nation and uphold our civil liberties,' announced carefully calculated changes to surveillance policies on Friday, saying he would restrict the ability of intelligence agencies to gain access to telephone data, and would ultimately move that data out of the hands of the government."

... The Washington Post story, by David Nakamura & Ellen Nakashima, is here. ...

... David Lauter & Ken Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times: "The president's objective today is not to fundamentally change what the NSA does, but rather to make Americans and U.S. allies more comfortable with it." ...

... Here is the full text of the President's speech. ...

... James Ball of the Guardian: "The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to top-secret documents. The untargeted collection and storage of SMS messages -- including their contacts -- is revealed in a joint investigation between the Guardian and the UK's Channel 4 News based on material provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The documents also reveal the UK spy agency GCHQ has made use of the NSA database to search the metadata of 'untargeted and unwarranted' communications belonging to people in the UK." ...

... Shorter Peter Baker (linked in yesterday's Commentariat). Digby: "Basically [President Obama] was shocked and upset that the people didn't trust him to keep the NSA from being out of control --- and then learned that the NSA was out of control." Read Digby's whole post, as she goes on to worry about Keith Alexander's extraordinary (or as James Banford put it, Strangelovian) power. ...

... Charles Pierce: "It is clear now that the all-too-human, but curiously error-prone heroes of our intelligence community believe quite profoundly that there is no piece of information that does not essentially belong to them, anywhere in the world, ever." ...

... Benny Johnson of BuzzFeed: "As the American intelligence community struggles to contain the public damage done by the former National Security Agency contractor's revelations of mass domestic spying, intelligence operators have continued to seethe in very personal terms against [Edward Snowden]...." Some fantasize about killing him.

Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "Democratic and Republican lawmakers are introducing a bill to restore parts of the Voting Rights Act, six months after the supreme court controversially knocked down a pillar of civil rights-era legislation that prevented discrimination at the ballot box." ...

... Ari Berman of the Nation elaborates. ...

< ... Rick Hasan: "I am very pessimistic about the legislation passing out of the House."

Pete Kasperowicz of the Hill: "The Senate approved the $1 trillion omnibus spending bill Thursday, sending it to the White House for President Obama's signature and sparing the government from another government shutdown. Senators voted 72-26 in favor of the bill, and all 'no' votes came from Senate Republicans, including GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip John Cornyn (Texas). That followed a 72-26 vote to end debate, which needed 60 votes."

New York Times Editors: "The latest report on the 2012 debacle in Benghazi, Libya..., reflects a bipartisan consensus about the tragedy that is broadly consistent with the findings of previous inquiries. Even so, it contributes to a better understanding of what happened and why and what must be done to mitigate the chances of its happening again." ...

... Steve M.: Winger upset that left-wing media don't name Obama for causing Benghaaazi! when covering Senate report that doesn't name Obama.

Dylan Byers of Politico: "Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain harshly criticized The New York Times on Thursday over a recent report which concluded that Al Qaeda was not involved in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. In remarks on the Senate floor, Graham said 'journalism has died at this paper,' while McCain called the paper 'an ever-reliable surrogate for the Obama administration.'" ...

... Hadas Gold of Politico: "New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson is hitting back at harshly critical comments made by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on the Senate floor Thursday about a Times's report on the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. In a statement to Politico, Abramson called David Kirkpatrick's reporting on Benghazi 'unassailable.'"

Juliet Eilperin & Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post: "A group of the nation's leading environmental organizations is breaking with the administration over its energy policy, arguing that the White House needs to apply a strict climate test to all of its energy decisions or risk undermining one of the president's top second-term priorities. The rift -- reflected in a letter sent to President Obama by 18 groups including the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and Earthjustice -- signals that the administration is under pressure to confront the fossil fuel industry or risk losing support from a critical part of its political base during an already difficult election year."

Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "Conservatives used to say Obamacare is socialized medicine. Now they say it is a 'government bailout' of insurers. The new claim is just as misleading and cynical as the old one." Cohn explains why.

I'm Rubber, You're Glue...

Tom Kludt of TPM: "In his memoir 'Duty,' [Robert] Gates recalled his disgust after [Harry] Reid said in 2007 that the Iraq war had been 'lost.' 'I was furious and shared privately with some of my staff a quote from Abraham Lincoln I had written down long before. 'Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged,' " Gates wrote. (Lincoln didn't actually say that.)" ...

... AP: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is out to make a buck with a book denigrating other senior officials. Reid was one target of Gates in his book, while President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also came in for criticism." ...

... Philip Ewing of Politico: "Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired back at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday night, quipping that 'it's common practice on the Hill to vote on bills you haven't read, and it's perfectly clear Sen. Reid has not read the book.'"

Paul Krugman: "... Europe's ongoing economic woes can't be attributed solely to the bad ideas of the right. Yes, callous, wrongheaded conservatives have been driving policy, but they have been abetted and enabled by spineless, muddleheaded politicians on the moderate left."

** "I am Cyrus." John Judis of the New Republic has a fascinating look back at President Truman's vascillating policies toward the formation & support of Israel.

Local News

Steve Kastenbaum & Chris Frates of CNN: "Give him a position at the top of the agency; he's a good friend of the governor. That's how David Wildstein was introduced to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2010, according to a former employee with extensive knowledge of the agency's hiring practices. Soon after, Wildstein was named the director of Interstate Capital Projects, a title that previously had not existed at the bi-state agency...." ...

... Kate Zernicke of the New York Times: "As the New Jersey Assembly voted Thursday to authorize what Democrats and Republicans alike called a historic investigation into abuses of power by Gov. Chris Christie's administration, Mr. Christie seemed to be maneuvering against the inquiry, hiring a high-powered defense lawyer and resisting questions about whether he would cooperate with the Legislature's efforts.... Mr. Christie's administration announced that it had hired Randy M. Mastro, a longtime associate of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York City, to conduct an internal review...." ...

... Shawn Boburg of the Bergen Record: "Twenty subpoenas rained down on Governor Christie's office and the Port Authority on Thursday, demanding documents related to the George Washington Bridge controversy be turned over to a legislative panel investigating the origins of a traffic jam apparently manufactured out of spite. Among those who were sent subpoenas, according to a source: Christie's former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly and his former campaign manager Bill Stepien, as well as spokesman Michael Drewniak, Director of Communications Maria Comella, chief counsel Charles McKenna, chief of staff Kevin O'Dowd, and director of the authorities unit Regina Egea." ...

... Christopher Baxter of the Star-Ledger: "A separate state Senate committee formed today to investigate the scandal plans to subpoenas records from David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, agency Commissioner William 'Pat' Schuber, and Regina Egea, Christie's incoming chief of staff, said Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), the panel's chairwoman." ...

... Herb Jackson of the Record: "A Port Authority response to a [U.S.] Senate committee's inquiry about lane closures on the George Washington Bridge contains 'zero evidence' of a legitimate traffic study, the committee's chairman said today. 'The Port Authority's response provides zero evidence that the purpose of these closures was to conduct a legitimate traffic study,' said Sen. John 'Jay' Rockefeller, D-W.Va." ...

... Tim Egan: "There's a reason 'Nixonian' is moving up the Google search-pairing chart with Christie; he's vindictive, and never forgets a slight. His world is divided between enemies and loyalists. And you look at the way he talks to people in public with far less power than he -- teachers, students, lowly constituents at town hall meetings. They're idiots, morons. Ha ha ha. I've got the microphone, fool."

New Senate Race

Dana Ford of CNN: "U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the current congressional session, ending his six-year term two years early. The Oklahoma Republican, 65, has been battling cancer."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Up to 15 people, mostly foreigners, were killed on Friday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a popular Lebanese restaurant in the Afghanistan capital of Kabul, police said. Islamist Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack in the upscale Wazir Akbar Khan district, which hosts many embassies and restaurants catering for expatriates. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said its representative in Afghanistan was one of the dead, and the United Nations said three of its staff were killed as well."

Reuters: "A former detainee at the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has failed to persuade a federal appeals court to let him sue the U.S. government for damages stemming from his treatment during seven years of detention."

Washington Post: "President Vladimir Putin said Friday that gay people have nothing to fear in Russia as long as they leave children alone."

AP: "West Virginia inspectors visited the site of last week's chemical spill in 2010, when a nearby resident complained about a strong odor of licorice, the same smell that led officials to the spill Jan. 9, according to documents released Thursday.... One of the inspectors said in an email that the odor was not strong enough to merit a citation." CW: The official "Can't Smell a Thing" West Virginia inspection protocol.

Guardian: "Syria's foreign minister said on Friday that his country is prepared to implement a ceasefire in the war-torn city of Aleppo and exchange detainees with the country's opposition forces as confidence-building measures before a peace conference next week in Switzerland." ...

... New York Times: "However, residents and rebel officials in some of the communities described in interviews a disturbing pattern in which the government has used the cease-fires as cover for an operation intended to attain a victory it could not achieve any other way."

New York Times: "Hiroo Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army officer who remained at his jungle post on an island in the Philippines for 29 years, refusing to believe that World War II was over, and returned to a hero's welcome in the all but unrecognizable Japan of 1974, died Thursday at a Tokyo hospital, the Japanese government said. He was 91." CW: Big deal. What about all those American Southerners who refuse to believe the Civil War is over many generations later?

The Commentariat -- Jan, 16, 2014

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "A stinging report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Wednesday concluded that the attacks 16 months ago that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, could have been prevented, and blames both American diplomats and the C.I.A. for poor communication and lax security during the weeks leading up to the deadly episode." The report is here. ...

... Adam Goldman & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "The report found no evidence of the kind of political coverup that Republicans have long alleged.... The committee described the attacks as opportunistic and said there was no specific warning that they were about to be carried out." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post assesses how the report could affect Hillary Clinton's image. ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: How Obama Learned to Love the Surveillance State.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday, 359 to 67, to approve a $1.1 trillion spending bill for the current fiscal year, shrugging off the angry threats of Tea Party activists and conservative groups.... The legislation, 1,582 pages in length and unveiled only two nights ago, embodies precisely what many House Republicans have railed against since the Tea Party movement began, a huge bill dropped in the cover of darkness and voted on before lawmakers could possibly have read it." ...

... Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "Congress has moved to block President Obama's plan to shift control of the U.S. drone campaign from the CIA to the Defense Department, inserting a secret provision in the massive government spending bill introduced this week that would preserve the spy agency's role in lethal counterterrorism operations, U.S. officials said. The measure, included in a classified annex to the $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, would restrict the use of any funding to transfer unmanned aircraft or the authority to carry out drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon, officials said." ...

     ... CW: Wait a minute. As Jonathan Weisman wrote (see yesterday's Commentariat), "The legislation, 1,582 pages in length and unveiled only two nights ago, embodies precisely what many House Republicans have railed against since the Tea Party movement began, a huge bill dropped in the cover of darkness and voted on before lawmakers could possibly have read it." If they didn't have time to read the public part, do you think they had time to read the "secret" part? I don't think "Congress has moved to block" moving the drone program to the Pentagon; I think certain elite members of Congress have done so. In short, we have no idea what the sense of the Congress is because, as is common, members had no idea they what they were voting on. ...

... CW: Depending on how the townfolk vote on a proposed ordinance, you may be able to get your drone-hunting license in Deer Trail, Colorado, a "no-drone zone." Deer Trail is not in one of the Colorado counties that voted to secede.

White House: "At North Carolina State University, President Obama announces new steps with the private sector to strengthen the manufacturing sector, boost advanced manufacturing, and attract good jobs with good wages that a growing middle class requires":

... Dana Milbank can't figure out why Obama was in North Carolina talking about "wide bandgap semiconductors, whatever they are.... We've seen this before on health-care reform, gun control and other subjects: Obama will speak about a topic (as he did last week on unemployment benefits) and then move on before the job is done. But unemployment benefits should be a particularly easy sell for Obama, because Republican opposition to helping job-seekers (unless the money is taken from somewhere else) makes them sound heartless."

Matt Miller has an excellent piece in the Washington Post that at least partially explains why -- despite growing inequality -- the unwashed masses aren't marching on Washington bearing pitchforks. We've previously covered his second point -- that Americans have no idea how unequally income & wealth are distributed. But his first point -- that there is "a narrowing difference in the actual consumption experiences of the rich and the rest of us" -- is something I've never really thought thru. It also explains why wingers think it's appropriate to claim the poor are lucky duckies because they own $20 coffeemakers & used refrigerators.

Oliver Knox of Yahoo! News: "It's a coincidence, White House aides say. President Barack Obama did not deliberately schedule his big NSA speech for Friday to mark the anniversary of Dwight Eisenhower's warning that the 'military-industrial complex' posed a potential threat to American democracy." As Knox characterizes it, "In 1961, Eisenhower tried to make Americans more mistrustful of the encroachments of a national-security state. In 2014, Obama is trying to win back their faith...."

Jad Mouawad of the New York Times: "The National Labor Relations Board, in a sweeping complaint filed on Wednesday, said that Walmart illegally disciplined and fired employees after strikes and protests for better pay. The complaint listed violations of federal law in 14 states involving more than 60 workers and 34 stores. It said Walmart fired 19 employees for taking part in strikes and demonstrations against the company. Other employees were given verbal warnings or faced other disciplinary action. In some cases, according to the complaint, the company spied on employees."

David Ingram of Reuters: "A judge on Wednesday upheld subsidies at the heart of President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, rejecting one of the main legal challenges to the policy by conservatives opposed to an expansion of the federal government. A ruling in favor of a lawsuit brought by individuals and businesses in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia would have crippled the implementation of the law by making health insurance unaffordable for many people. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington D.C. wrote that Congress clearly intended to make the subsidies available nationwide under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." CW: One of the nastiest suits ever: the plaintiffs want to deprive residents of states that don't have insurance exchanges of federal tax subsidies.

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The Justice Department will significantly expand its definition of racial profiling to prohibit federal agents from considering religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation in their investigations.... The move addresses a decade of criticism from civil rights groups that say federal authorities have in particular singled out Muslims in counterterrorism investigations and Latinos for immigration investigations."

Thanks to Kate M. for sending the artwork.

... Janet Reitman in Rolling Stone: "While more Americans support upholding 'Roe v. Wade' than ever, the Tea Party and the Christian right have teamed up to pass hundreds of restrictions eviscerating abortion rights in GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country."

** Zack Kopplin in Slate: A Texas-based charter school system called Responsive Education Solutions "has a secular veneer and is funded by public money, but it has been connected from its inception to the creationist movement and to far-right fundamentalists who seek to undermine the separation of church and state.... Operating more than 65 campuses in Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana, Responsive Ed receives more than $82 million in taxpayer money annually, and it is expanding, with 20 more Texas campuses opening in 2014.... When it's not directly quoting the Bible, Responsive Ed's curriculum showcases the current creationist strategy to compromise science education, which the National Center for Science Education terms 'stealth creationism.' ... The movement also undermines the study of history." Like, "anti-Christian bias" was a cause of World War I. And the New Deal didn't help the economy; it "ushered in an era of dependency...."

Nick Cumming-Bruce of the New York Times: "In an unusual appearance before a United Nations committee, Vatican officials faced questions on Thursday about the Holy See's handling of sexual abuse of children by the clergy.... Human rights organizations and groups representing victims of clerical abuse welcomed the hearing as the first occasion the Vatican has had to publicly defend its record."

Congressional Race

Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times: "Rep. Howard 'Buck' McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), a onetime western wear haberdasher who rose to become chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, is announcing Thursday that he will retire after more than two decades in Congress. His departure at the close of the current term will further diminish California's clout on Capitol Hill, at least in the short term, and set the stage for a competitive race to choose his successor."

Local News

Gail Collins: State of the state speeches are boring & forgettable.

"A 'Free' Press isn't That Kind of Free." Rachel Maddow, in the Washington Post: "Be inspired by the beleaguered but unintimidated reporters of Chris Christie's New Jersey: Whatever your partisan affiliation, or lack thereof, subscribe to your local paper today. It's an act of civic virtue." ...

... CW: Maddow mentions some of the dirty tricks Christie's henchmen have played on local reporters. She does not mention the time Christie shut down New Jersey's only public television station, ostensibly because one of NJN's reporters wrote a story about Christie's under-the-table loan to a subordinate at the U.S. attorney's office. (The same subordinate, as it happens, Christie later rewarded with two better jobs. She is currently head of the state's economic development team, now being audited for a questionable Christie-starring, federally-funded "visit New Jersey" ad campaign.)

Right Wing World

"Invincible Ignorance" of the Right, Ctd. Jonathan Chait: "While I'd agree that a completely state-dominated economy would probably have less innovation on the whole, it's pretty obvious that the simplistic libertarian caricature -- government can only stifle innovation -- bears little resemblance to observed reality." Chait gives a bunch of examples. You can probably think of more.

News Ledes

Reuters: "The U.S. government on Thursday provided merchants with information gleaned from its confidential investigation into the massive data breach at Target Corp, in a move aimed at identifying and thwarting similar attacks that may be ongoing."

AP: "An attorney for the family of a killer whose Ohio execution by lethal injection was marked by several minutes of unprecedented gasping and unusual sounds plans to sue the state over what happened. Dayton defense lawyer Jon Paul Rion says Dennis McGuire's family is deeply disturbed by his execution and believes it violated his constitutional rights."