The Commentariat -- Dec. 24, 2013

Michael Shear & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "A record-setting crush of last-minute shoppers descended on HealthCare.gov on Monday, creating long wait times for users and putting new stress on the government's much-maligned health portal as they raced against a midnight deadline to sign up for coverage that will go into effect on Jan. 1.... The high volume of visitors also prompted White House officials to abruptly establish a 24-hour grace period that will effectively extend the deadline, allowing those who sign up on Tuesday to still receive coverage from Jan. 1." ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Obama has enrolled in the federal health-care insurance exchanges, selecting a bronze-tiered insurance plan on the D.C. marketplace.... In advance of Monday's key enrollment deadline, Obama signed up for coverage over the weekend during the start of his holiday vacation here in Hawaii in what a White House official described as a 'symbolic' act to promote the Affordable Care Act.... The president's health care will continue to be provided by the military.... Although Obama was involved in selecting a plan, he didn't sign up himself. The president's staff did that for him, going in person to the D.C. exchange over the weekend...." ...

... OR, as Josh Lederman of the AP put it: "He won't use it, and he didn't actually sign up for it himself, but President Barack Obama has enrolled for health coverage through the new insurance exchanges." ...

... Paul Steinhauser of CNN: "Support for the country's new health care law has dropped to a record low, according to a new national poll. And a CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that most Americans predict that the Affordable Care Act will actually result in higher prices for their own medical care."

For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself. -- Edward Snowden ...

... Bart Gellman of the Washington Post interviews Ed Snowden. ...

... The Snowden ABR Project -- Anywhere But Russia. RT: "Edward Snowden is offering Germany his help with investigating NSA spying activities on its soil, if Berlin grants him political asylum, Stern reports, citing correspondence with the whistleblower. 'I have a great respect for Germany,' Snowden wrote to the German Stern publication." CW: Last week, Brazil; this week, Germany. Guess we'll have to start playing the Whither Ed? game: Where in the world will Ed Snowden seek asylum next week?

Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "Civil rights leaders and members of the Georgia congressional delegation on Monday called on President Obama to withdraw his nominees for federal courts in the state over concerns about their views and lack of diversity.... According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Obama administration reached a deal with Georgia's Republican senators in September to appoint three nominees to the district court whom they had cleared, in exchange for allowing through the nomination of Jill Pryor, whom the senators had been blocking, to the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Julie Carnes, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, is also in line for promotion to the circuit court." CW: Note that, filibuster or not, Southern states can still get the winger judges they want, simply by "blue-slipping" moderate to liberal nominees.

The Shriveling of Bush's Brain. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "At least a dozen 'super PACs' are setting up to back individual Republican candidates for the United States Senate, challenging the strategic and financial dominance that Karl Rove and the group he co-founded, American Crossroads, have enjoyed ever since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 cleared the way for unlimited independent spending." ...

... CW: Right on cue, Molly Ball of the Atlantic, usually a credible analyst, writes a Battle of the Democrats handwringing piece to make sure we all know Both Sides Do It. Also, I wish liberalish pundits like Ball would quit writing this: "... McAuliffe succeeded in painting his opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, as an extreme Tea Party ideologue." McAuliffe didn't "paint" Cuccinelli as an extremist; Kenny is an extremist. Using the verb "paint" implicitly accuses McAuliffe of playing dirty; it suggests he smeared Cooch with untrue or half-true epithets. Better: McAuliffe identified Cuccinelli as an extremist.

CW: I missed this piece by Jonathan Chait, published a few weeks ago, but it has & will have a distressingly long shelf-life: "Conservatives can transport themselves for two hours into the hellish antebellum world of 12 Years a Slave and experience the same horror and grief that liberals feel. What they cannot do, almost uniformly, is walk out of the theater and detect the still-extant residue of that world all around them." Chait perfectly captures what "respectable racism" looks like today. I expect it will be harder to eradicate than the kind that caused the Civil War.

Dean Baker in TruthOut: "In his speech on inequality earlier this month President Obama proclaimed that the government could not be a bystander in the effort to reduce inequality.... The problem is that President Obama wants the public to believe that inequality is something that just happened.... This story is 180 degrees at odds with the reality. Inequality did not just happen, it was deliberately engineered through a whole range of policies intended to redistribute income upward."

Alex Pareene of Salon on the President's favorite horrible columnists. CW: Pareene's assessments of the columnists are spot on, but I'm with Barbarossa -- I wish Pareene had documented his source for his assertion that the President just loves to read Friedman & Brooks. With the possible exceptions of Chait & Klein, I doubt Obama reads these pissants because he actually likes them; rather, I suspect he glances at their stuff to get a feel for what leading opinionators are feeding the public.

Congressional Race

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: The death of Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who represented the Sarasota region for 43 years, "has set off a contest in the first race of the 2014 battle for control of Congress, with both parties hoping for a victory and watching carefully how President Obama's health care law may affect the outcome. Determined to snatch the long-awaited open seat in the March 11 special election, Democrats effectively cleared the field for Alex Sink, a former chief financial officer of Florida, who ran for governor and lost in 2010. Ms. Sink did not even live in the district, Pinellas County, in October; she packed up and moved one county over last month." CW: Sink has already asked me for cash.

Dan Amira of New York: Fox "News" convicts, kills George Zimmerman. Later, they very, very quietly resuscitated & exonerated him. Also, a painting by Zimmerman sold for more than $100K on e-bay.

Weasly Republican Trick. Josh Israel of Think Progress: "In the aftermath of the contested 2000 presidential election, Congress passed the bipartisan Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to provide federal money to make it easier for Americans to exercise their right to vote and for local governments to ensure smooth elections. But according to the office of Iowa State Auditor Mary Mosiman (R), a $140,000 voter fraud investigation launched by Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R) may be improperly using those federal funds on his probe to ferret out largely non-existent voter fraud."

Weasly Trick. Kevin Opsahl of the Logan, Utah, Herald Journal: "Cache County Attorney James Swink announced Monday that the Cache County Clerk's Office will remain closed pending a decision by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on a request for an emergency stay on same-sex marriages by the state." ...

     ... Scott Lemieux in Lawyers, Guns & Money: "Once again, states' 'rights' are being used to trump actual human rights, a development that can fairly be called unsurprising."

... Amanda Myers of the AP: "A federal judge Monday ordered Ohio authorities to recognize gay marriages on death certificates, saying the state's ban on such unions is unconstitutional and that states cannot discriminate against same-sex couples simply because some voters don't like homosexuality. Although Judge Timothy Black's ruling applies only to death certificates, his statements about Ohio's gay-marriage ban are sweeping, unequivocal, and are expected to incite further litigation challenging the law. Ohio's attorney general said the state will appeal."

Fish's Swan Song. Stanley Fish writes his New York Times his last column for the New York Times. CW: Ironically, Fish, who has spent a good deal of his career undermining the value of authorial intent, finally divulges the intent of his past columns.

Heartwarming Story Alert. Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "The Obama administration has set a goal of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015, but one city reached that mark a year early. Phoenix[, Arizona,] announced last week that it has eradicated chronic veteran homelessness -- making it the first city in the country to do so -- after it housed an additional 56 veterans on Wednesday."

UPI: "Three-quarters of U.S. adults say they believe in God, down from 82 percent in 2005, 2007 and 2009, a Harris Poll indicates.... Forty-seven percent say they believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, compared to 42 percent in 2005.... No margin of error was provided." CW: If I had to guess, I'd guess that beliefs haven't changed much but a willingness to express nonbelief has ticked up slightly. That is, some nontheists are coming out of the closet. I'd also guess that the stridency of politically-motivated super-Christians is encouraging nonbelievers to push back against the nonsense.

"Christmas in America." Charles Pierce notes how grateful unemployed Americans will be that in their infinite wisdom, the representatives of the people have decided "that people -- other people, naturally, and their children -- will be strengthened in their moral character by completely avoidable deprivation."

CW: If you don't feel like reading the kiddies "T'was the Night Before Christmas/"A Visit from St. Nicholas," Michelle Obama & muppet Abby fill in for you:

... If you'd rather read it yourself, the poem by Clement Clarke Moore is here. ...

... AND let us not forget what St. Nicholas really looked like (at least by early tradition & forensic reconstruction based on a skull reputed to be his):

Miracle on 34th Street -- Finding Secret Santa. Amy Nelson finds Black Santa at Macy's 34th Street -- after a rigorous search. Nelson blogs here. Via Dan Amira:

... Brian Handwerk for the National Geographic on the origins & evolution of Santa Claus -- still not a universally beloved, fat, jolly white North Pole resident. Thanks to Dave S. for the link to this excellent summary. CW: If you tell the kids the "real" story of Santa Claus, you might want to leave out those bits about prostitution & pickled children.

News Ledes

Politico: "People who can’t finish the online signup for Obamacare health insurance by midnight Tuesday because of problems with HealthCare.gov and a surge of last-minute shoppers can seek extra time to finalize their application and still get covered by Jan. 1, the Obama administration said...."

NBC News: "Same-sex marriages can go on in Utah after a federal appeals court Tuesday denied the state's request to stop them pending an appeal of a judge's ruling legalizing them. In a two-page order (.pdf) entered in 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Judges Robert E. Bacharach and Jerome A. Holmes declined to grant Gov. Gary Herbert's request for an emergency stay."

New York Times: "On Tuesday, Brian Krebs, the security blogger who first broke the news that Target had been breached, said he believed he had identified a Ukranian man who he said was behind one of the primary black market sites now selling Target customers' credit and debit card information for as much as $100 a piece. Mr. Krebs lays out evidence that the man, Andrew Hodirevski, may be in touch with the criminals supplying Target's credit card data."

Bloomberg News: "Robert W. Wilson, a retired New York hedge-fund founder who committed his life to giving the fortune he made from investing to charities, has died. He was 87. He died Dec. 23 after leaping from his 16th-floor residence at the San Remo apartment building on Manhattan's Central Park West...."

Guardian: "Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life after undergoing chemical castration following a conviction for homosexual activity, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his death."

AP: "Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his wife announced late Tuesday that their two-decade-plus marriage is over." ...

... New York Daily News: "The announcement came two days after revelations that Spitzer was in a relationship with former aide Lis Smith, who is the spokeswoman for New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio."

AP: "One of the Greenpeace activists detained in Russia's Arctic has been granted amnesty, the environmental group said Tuesday.... The crew members were originally accused of piracy, a charge that was later changed to hooliganism.... The 26 non-Russian crew members have not been allowed to leave Russia because of the pending case. An amnesty law passed last week is expected to clear them of the charges. Several more of the Greenpeace activists are expected to receive similar amnesty notifications." Greenpeace did not name the released activist.

Reuters: "Russia will host international talks on Friday on the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. The meeting in Moscow will draw together experts from Russia, the United States, Syria, the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)...."

AP: "Two space station astronauts ventured out on a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk Tuesday, hoping to wrap up urgent repairs to a cooling system."

AFP: "Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas urged Christian pilgrims from around the world to visit the Holy Land to mark the visit of Pope Francis, set for 2014, in a Christmas message on Monday.... 'As we begin preparations for the visit of His Holiness Pope Francis next year, we call upon pilgrims from all over the world to come and experience Palestine and our Holy Sites,' Abbas said."

AP: "Israel's state archives has published a 50-year-old letter from the Mossad spy agency claiming it unknowingly offered paramilitary training to a young Nelson Mandela, along with documents illustrating the Jewish state's sympathy for the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1960s. The release of the documents on the archives' website in the wake of Mandela's death appear to be aimed at blunting criticism of the close alliance Israel later developed with South Africa's apartheid rulers.... The [current] South African government is a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause, and the Palestinians frequently compare their campaign for independence to the black struggle that ended apartheid."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 23, 2013

** NEW. Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "At midnight Monday, the official deadline arrives for Americans to sign up through the new federal health insurance exchange for health plans that begin Jan. 1. But, without any public announcement, Obama administration officials have changed the rules so that people will have an extra day to enroll, according to two individuals with knowledge of the switch."

Michael Shear & Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Four years after President Obama vowed to 'dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts,' the spectacular failure of the HealthCare.gov website has renewed calls for changes in how the government hires and manages private technology companies. But despite Mr. Obama's promises in the last two months to 'leap into the 21st century,' there is little evidence that the administration is moving quickly.... Outside experts, members of Congress, technology executives and former government officials say the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act's website is the nearly inevitable result of a procurement process that stifles innovation and wastes taxpayer dollars." ...

... Jerry Markon & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: "Not considered in the 2011 selection process [for a contractor to build Healthcare.gov] was the history of numerous executives at CGI Federal, who had come from another company that had mishandled at least 20 other government information-technology projects more than a decade ago. But federal officials were not required to examine that long-term track record, which included a highly publicized failure to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers.... The company had been included in a pool of pre-screened, approved contractors in 2007, during the George W. Bush administration, and only firms in that pool were later allowed to bid for the Affordable Care Act work. It was at that earlier time that the problems at American Management Systems, the Fairfax County IT contractor acquired by CGI, would have figured into the assessment of CGI Federal, contracting experts say. In hindsight, one former CMS official said, the AMS record 'could well have knocked [CGI Federal] out of the competition, and probably should have.'" ...

... Liz Neporent of ABC News, with the help of the Kaiser Foundation's Karen Pollitz, explains ObamaCare in terms even a child could understand. Actually, quite a useful overview. ...

... Kate Pickert of Time on "why the latest ObamaCare delay is the biggest one yet." Also logically inconsistent, inherently unfair & politically-motivated.

Andy Sullivan of Reuters: " As Washington empties out for the holidays, a final budget fight will play out in the nearly empty Capitol building as congressional staffers parcel out more than $1 trillion to fund everything from cybersecurity to student loans.... This debate will largely take place within what one lobbyist calls a 'cone of silence' with Republicans and Democrats aiming to minimize discord as they race to set spending levels for thousands of individual government programs.... [The process causes] a lobbying blitz as defense contractors, hospitals, day-care providers and thousands of other groups push to maximize funding for the programs that affect them most directly."

Money Pits. Paul Krugman tries to explain the concept of currency to stupid people. (Rand & Ron Paul, take note.) "What's really happening is a determined march to the days when money meant stuff you could jingle in your purse. In tropics and tundra alike, we are for some reason digging our way back to the 17th century."

CW: I know the grey eminence Bill Keller doesn't have to stoop to writing his own headlines, but the title of his column in today's Times --"Inequality for Dummies" -- is a fine expression of his disdain for us dimwitted peons. In the spirit of the season, I'd like to deck that smug bastard.

Michael Katz, in Salon, on "how America abandoned its 'undeserving poor,' an excerpt from his book The Undeserving Poor: America's Enduring Confrontation With Poverty. CW: By my recollections, Katz's history seems accurate, & he doesn't blame everything on Republicans -- also accurate.

President Jimmy Carter & Robert Pastor in a Washington Post op-ed: "It is time to change the agenda, the preconditions and the strategy on Syria -- and end the war."

E. J. Dionne: "... when even the pope wonders aloud as to whether it's appropriate for him to judge, you begin to see the difficulty of deciding what 'true Christians' ought to believe. This raises the question of whether the religiously based principles are merely cultural artifacts that we bend to our own immediate purposes." CW: This is impossible to explain to the zealot, whatever the cant of his zealotry. ...

... Michael Hiltzig of the Los Angeles Times: "I got the gist of the "Duck Dynasty" thing after my first and only viewing: bunch of rural jackasses who somehow struck it rich get brought into our living rooms to be laughed at by the rest of us aristocrats.... A&E knew what it was doing when it put these people on the air, so its show of indignation in 'suspending' one of them ... falls a little flat.... In [Louisiana Gov. Bobby] Jindal's seven-sentence statement [supporting Robertson], not a word of defense for gay people so crudely mocked by Robertson. Not a word to remind us that the life of black sharecroppers in Louisiana's Jim Crow era was not 'godly' or 'happy.' In January of this year, Jindal lectured his fellow Republicans on the need to "stop being the stupid party." ... Now, according to Jindal, Republicans are supposed to embrace offensive and bizarre comments. The party's transformation into a marginal and regional movement thus continues. Jindal has made himself the biggest jackass in the story, and his career as a national political figure the thing to be laughed at." ...

Ironically, if you read the whole interview, not just take one section, he talks very specifically about loving everybody. He talks very specifically about not being judgmental toward anybody, that's God's decision, not his. I mean, it is remarkable. There's sections there where he sounds like Pope Francis. -- Newt Gingrich, on "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson's anti-gay, pro-Jim Crow opinions

Probably not the section where Robertson expresses his preference for vaginas over anuses. Then again, I haven't read everything Francis has said. Maybe the vagina bit was lost in translation. -- Constant Weader

Isaac Chotiner of the New Republic provides an atheist's guide to Christmas. CW: The advice & experience of atheist Deborah Mitchell, whom Chotiner interviews, is very similar to mine. I would add that I appreciate religiously-themed art (Christian & otherwise), & I have plenty of it around the house. This year I bought a charming presepio, which I have prominently displayed.

"The fifth of 7 limited edition, hand-painted, sets of Russian dolls - signed by Sir Elton John, Stephen Fry, and Graham Norton. Featuring artist's renders of five great gay icons: Sir Elton John, Stephen Fry, George Michael, Graham Norton, and Tom Daley. Crafted to raise awareness, and money, for the Russian gay community, all proceeds of the auction will go to the Kaleidoscope Trust."Andri Antoniades of Takepart.com: "For its holiday campaign titled "#ToRussiaWithLove" U.K.-based creative agency Mother London commissioned seven sets of the matryoshka dolls, each painted to look like a gay celebrity, such as Elton John and Stephen Fry. One set of the dolls will be sent to the Kremlin and another to the Russian Embassy in London. The rest are being auctioned off on eBay to raise money for Kaleidoscope Trust, a human rights organization dedicated to promoting LGBT equality worldwide." E-bay-U.K. is auctioning one set here. No indication of what the shipping charges to the U.S. are.

Local News

Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "A federal appeals court denied Utah officials' request Sunday to immediately halt same-sex marriages in the state, which began after U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby[, an Obama appointee] struck down Utah's ban.... Sunday's refusal by the appellate court to suspend Shelby's ruling was not the definitive word on same-sex marriage in Utah, however. In a two-page order, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the emergency request on technical grounds, saying it had not been made properly. The appeals court noted that officials could file for an emergency stay again if they followed correct procedures." ...

...** NEW. Update: Marissa Lang & Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune: "A federal judge in Utah -- who last week issued a controversial ruling allowing same-sex marriages -- on Monday denied the state's request for a stay. State attorneys had argued before U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby that same-sex couples who marry in Utah would be irreparably harmed if the state's continuing efforts to overturn the judge's ruling succeed and those marriages are later invalidated."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "A former executive with Tiffany & Co. has been sentenced to one year in federal prison for stealing jewelry worth $2.1 million from her employer and selling it. Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun, who worked 25 years at Tiffany and became its vice president of product development and design, pleaded guilty in July to interstate transport of stolen property."

New York Times: "With about a week left in the year, the Obama administration is backing away from a Dec. 31 deadline for securing a deal to keep American troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014, though it is standing by its warning that a total military withdrawal is still possible if delays continue, American and Afghan officials said."

New York Times: "Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, the arms designer credited by the Soviet Union with creating the AK-47, the first in a series of rifles and machine guns that would indelibly associate his name with modern war and become the most abundant firearms ever made, died on Monday in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic, where he lived. He was 94."

AP: "After the first full day of winter brought everything from balmy temperatures along the Mid-Atlantic to snow in the Midwest and ice, snow and flooding in the Great Lakes, some people could be left in the dark for Christmas.... By late Sunday, ice and snow had knocked out power to 440,000 homes and businesses in Michigan, upstate New York and northern New England -- about half of whom had their power back by early Monday. The storm also left more than 400,000 customers without electricity in eastern Canada."

New York Times: "Two women from the punk group Pussy Riot serving two-year prison terms for staging a protest performance against President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow's main cathedral were released on Monday under a new amnesty law.... The two women were convicted, along with a third woman, Yekaterina Samutsevich, whose sentence was later overturned on appeal, of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred."

Reuters: "Russia has sent 25 armored trucks and 50 other vehicles to Syria to help transport toxins that are to be destroyed under an international agreement to rid the nation of its chemical arsenal, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday."

New York Times: "Three activists who played central roles in the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak were convicted on Sunday of participating in recent protests and sentenced to three years in prison, raising fears that the new government was seeking revenge against opponents of Egypt's old order."

Washington Post: "... Treasury Department officials last week [identified two men] as major financial backers of al-Qaeda and its regional chapters across the Middle East. Although U.S. officials routinely announce steps to disrupt terrorist financing networks, the individuals named in the latest case are far from ordinary. Both men have served as advisers to government-backed foundations in Qatar and have held high-profile positions with international human rights groups."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 22, 2013

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "For most Americans, Monday is the deadline to sign up for health insurance that takes effect on Jan. 1. It was supposed to be a turning point in the troubled history of the new health care law, the moment when the spotlight would shift from the federal government's online marketplace to the insurance companies providing coverage to hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of people. But as the date approaches, a series of decisions by the Obama administration to delay some of the law's most important provisions and to extend some deadlines has caused uncertainty among insurers and confusion among consumers." ...

... CW: Kathleen Geier of the Washington Monthly explains why I didn't bother to read past the blurb, much less link Friday's New York Times front-page story: "I see the New York Times has published yet another article about very privileged people whining about the ACA. In this case, said article features a couple making $100,000 a year who, under the ACA, will be paying $1,000 a month for health care covering themselves and their two sons." ...

... Atrios: "The NYT's perpetual pity party for its affluent readership is genuinely annoying." ...

... CW: In fairness to the Times whiners, it is tougher for a Manhattan couple earning $100K to drop $1I/month on health insurance than it is for a couple in, say, Fort Myers, Florida, where the cost-of-living is lower. ...

... Science Daily: "Using simulated exchanges modeled on the design of the actual exchanges, alarming new research from Columbia Business School suggests that more than 80% of consumers may be unable to make a clear-eyed estimate of their needs and will unknowingly choose a higher cost plan than needed." Thanks to James S. for the link. ...

... Brent Hunsberger of the Oregonian: "Oregon's troubled health insurance exchange began robocalling applicants Friday, warning them that if they don't receive enrollment confirmation by Monday, they should seek coverage elsewhere for Jan. 1.... It's yet another sign that the health insurance exchange's technological breakdowns will prevent some -- perhaps many -- Oregonians from getting subsidized coverage Jan. 1, despite Gov. John Kitzhaber's previous assurances otherwise."

Mark Mazzetti & Robert Worth of the New York Times: A "Dec. 12 [Pentagon drone] strike [on a convoy of trucks carrying a wedding party in Yemen]..., launched from an American base in Djibouti, killed at least a half-dozen innocent people, according to a number of tribal leaders and witnesses, and provoked a storm of outrage in the country. It also illuminated the reality behind the talk surrounding the Obama administration's new drone policy....The murky details surrounding the strike raise questions about how rigorously American officials are applying the standards for lethal strikes that Mr. Obama laid out in a speech on May 23...."

Dana Priest of the Washington Post: "The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 former and current U.S. and Colombian officials. The secret assistance, which also includes substantial eavesdropping help from the National Security Agency, is funded through a multibillion-dollar black budget. It is not a part of the public $9 billion package of mostly U.S. military aid called Plan Colombia, which began in 2000."

** Marc Fisher & Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "This year, in the months since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret documents detailing U.S. surveillance programs, it has become clear that there are not yet widely accepted norms about who may watch whom and when and where tracking is justified. The Post's poll found that Americans' attitudes about surveillance are anything but consistent, whether the sample is the entire nation or a single, conflicted person." ...

... Charlie Savage & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The Obama administration moved late Friday to prevent a federal judge in California from ruling on the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance programs authorized during the Bush administration, telling a court that recent disclosures about National Security Agency spying were not enough to undermine its claim that litigating the case would jeopardize state secrets." ...

... AP: "The director of national intelligence is declassifying more documents that show how the National Security Agency was first authorised to start collecting bulk phone and internet records in the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists. James Clapper explained in a statement Saturday that President George W Bush first authorised the spying as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, just after 9/11. Bush's presidential authorisation eventually was replaced by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- a law that requires a secret court to OK the spying." The agency's statement is here. ...

... David Cole in the New York Review of Books: "Judge Leon's decision ... shows the inadequacy of the secret, one-sided review that has until now been the NSA program's only oversight. From 2006 to 2013, fifteen different judges on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reviewed the program and every one of them deemed it lawful. But they did so in proceedings closed to the public, and in which they heard from no one representing the hundreds of millions of Americans whose privacy is at stake." ...

... Margaret Atwood is afraid of real spies invading virtual reality. Or so she says. Can you be sure that a fiction writer isn't writing fiction just because she implies she isn't? Verisimilitude is her stock in trade, after all. Thanks to contributor Whyte O. for the link.

Ari Rabinowitch of Reuters: "Israeli officials said on Saturday they were not surprised by allegations the United States and Britain had spied on the country's leaders and played down the importance of any information its allies may have gleaned. Leaked documents from former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden published on Friday showed the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ had in 2009 targeted an email address listed as belonging to the Israeli prime minister and monitored emails of senior defense officials." ...

... Dan Williams of Reuters (analysis): "By ramping up his demands of any final nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears determined to stem the tide of international diplomacy which has turned against him in recent weeks. Netanyahu was stung by an interim agreement last month for Tehran to curb its nuclear program in return for a limited easing of sanctions, calling it a historic mistake. His reaction has been to call for the dismantling of Iran's nuclear projects, as opposed to their containment, and a halt to its development of ballistic missiles, an issue not addressed in the interim accord signed in Geneva on November 24."

Jed Rakoff in the New York Review of Books: "... the Department of Justice has never taken the position that all the top executives involved in the events leading up to the financial crisis were innocent; rather it has offered one or another excuse for not criminally prosecuting them -- excuses that, on inspection, appear unconvincing.... The government was deeply involved, from beginning to end, in helping create the conditions that could lead to such fraud, and that this would give a prudent prosecutor pause in deciding whether to indict a CEO who might, with some justice, claim that he was only doing what he fairly believed the government wanted him to do." CW: a measured, methodical analysis of the failure to prosecute top financial executives for their actions that caused the 2008 financial crisis.

** Michael Luo & Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "A systematic review ... [by the Times] underscores how easy it is for people with serious mental health problems to have guns. Over the past year in Connecticut..., there were more than 180 instances of gun confiscations from people who appeared to pose a risk of 'imminent personal injury to self or others.' Close to 40 percent of these cases involved serious mental illness. Perhaps most striking, in many of the cases examined across the country, the authorities said they had no choice under the law but to return the guns after an initial seizure for safekeeping."

Humor Break. CW: I can't embed the Humor Break which contributor Barbarossa linked yesterday. Mark Fiore, who created the video, blogs here. In the linked post, he elaborates on the elements that went into the video.

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "The Rev. Frank Schaefer, a Methodist minister, was stripped of his clerical credentials on Thursday for violating church law by presiding at his son's same-sex wedding. The punishment, imposed by the United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania, was requested by the church prosecutor to deter other ministers from blessing same-sex marriages. But far from intimidating others, the trial and defrocking of Mr. Schaefer have galvanized a wave of Methodist ministers to step forward to disobey church prohibitions against marrying and ordaining openly gay people." Via Steve Benen.

Local News

Heidi Brandes of Reuters: "Oklahoma has put a halt to new monuments at its Capitol after groups petitioned to have markers for Satan, a monkey god and a spaghetti monster erected near a large stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission voted on Thursday to ban new monuments on statehouse grounds until a court battle is settled with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking the removal of the Ten Commandments...." Also via Benen. ...

... Lisa Garza of Reuters: "A panel of experts has rejected concerns by religious conservatives in Texas that a high school biology textbook contained factual errors about evolution and a state board approved the book on Wednesday for use in public schools." Via Benen.

Matthew Hendley of the Phoenix New Times: "The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors this afternoon voted unanimously to approve a $3.75 million settlement for New Times' co-founders, whose false arrests in 2007 were orchestrated by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were taken from their homes in the middle of the night and jailed on misdemeanor charges alleging that they violated the secrecy of a grand jury -- which turned out never to have been convened."

Mitch Sneed of the Douglas County (Georgia) Sentinel: Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller says his office will no longer provide support for A&E projects in the wake of the cable network's suspension of the "Duck Dynasty" patriarch. "A&E has produced more than a half dozen programs with the assistance of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office."

Tom Precious of the Buffalo (New York) News: "Assemblyman Dennis Gabryszak is being accused of sexually harassing three now-former legislative staffers, according to court papers filed Thursday. Gabryszak, D-Cheektowaga, is the subject of three separate complaints by former aides, all in their 20s, who accuse him of making repeated sexually charged comments and suggestions to female staffers and, in the case of one, bringing her to a massage parlor in her first two weeks on the job." ...

... The complaint is here. Jordan Sargent of Gawker recaps of the worst stuff.

News Ledes

New York Times: "After an attack on three United States aircraft attempting to evacuate American citizens from South Sudan, President Obama sent a letter Sunday to top congressional leaders in which he said he might take 'further action' to support United States citizens and interests in the contested region."

New York Times: " After a decade of incarceration that transformed Russia's wealthiest man into its most famous political prisoner, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky faced journalists in Berlin on Sunday following a head-spinning 36-hour journey to freedom."

AP: "Apple says it has reached a deal to bring the iPhone to China Mobile, the world's biggest phone carrier."

New York Times: " The police in Bangladesh charged the owners of a garment factory and 11 of their employees with culpable homicide in the deaths of 112 workers in a fire last year that came to symbolize the appalling working conditions in the country's dominant textile industry."

AFP: "Swiss banks are scrambling ahead of a December 31 deadline to decide whether to join a US programme aimed at zooming in on lenders that helped Americans dodge taxes. Around 40 of Switzerland's some 300 banks have already said publicly they will take part in a US programme set up to allow Swiss financial institutions to avoid US prosecution in exchange for coming clean and possibly paying steep fines."

AP: "The United Nations Mission in South Sudan says it is relocating all non-critical staff from the capital, Juba, to Uganda amid escalating violence as the country's military battles rebel forces."

AP: " A suburban Denver high school student who was shot in the head by a classmate died Saturday afternoon, hospital officials and her family said. Claire Davis, 17, was in critical condition after being shot at point-blank range at Arapahoe High School on Dec. 13."

AP: "A storm system swept across the central and southern U.S. on Saturday, bringing tornadoes and wind gusts that ripped roofs from barns and hurled trees into power lines, officials said. At least two people were killed."