The Commentariat -- Aug. 25, 2013

John Lewis, speech at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. The text of the speech:

... Danny Glover reads John Lewis's prepared speech for the March on Washington, 1963. The March leaders persuaded him to tone down his rhetoric:

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Saturday:

** Maureen Dowd is in excellent form today: "For some of the rodeo clowns clamoring for impeachment around the country, Barack Obama's real crime is presiding while black." ...

... Gee, maybe MoDo cribbed her column from this report by Jennifer Steinhauer of the Times. In any event, it is nice to see the Times ridiculing these ignorant Tea Party reprobates.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 80, vowed in an interview to stay on the Supreme Court as long as her health and intellect remained strong, saying she was fully engaged in her work as the leader of the liberal opposition on what she called 'one of the most activist courts in history.'"

** Steve Coll of the New Yorker: "In American courthouses this summer, a vitally important ... struggle over the First Amendment's scope is taking place between the Obama Administration and the press. At issue is whether the Administration will fulfill a recent pledge to end its heavy-handed pursuit of professional journalists' sources. The ripest case concerns a Times reporter, James Risen.

CW: I missed Frank Rich again this week, but he's interesting -- on Egypt, the NSA & the Clintons.

Art by Jen Sorensen for Daily Kos. Thanks to Kate M. for the link.... Also read the post Sorensen wrote to accompany her cartoon. It ain't so funny (links that follow are original -- and interesting): "There are so many egregious moments from [Summers'] career that I wanted to include in this cartoon, but couldn't -- the fact that he sided with Ken Lay and Enron during the California energy crisis, even after some economists were raising the possibility of market manipulation; his dismissive attitude toward climate change while Chief Economist of the World Bank, and subsequent opposition to the Kyoto Protocol; his opposition to the Volcker Rule as part of the Dodd-Frank banking reforms; his memo to Obama significantly underestimating the amount of stimulus needed.... Seriously, no woman who has been as wrong about as many things as Larry Summers would ever be considered to lead the Fed."

CW: I missed this, but Matt Yglesias earlier this week addressed an issue we briefly discussed here: "Let's tax churches! All of them, in a non-discriminatory way that doesn't consider faith or creed or level of political engagement." Via Steve Benen. ...

... ** Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post: "Ryan T. Cragun, a sociologist at the University of Tampa, and two of his students ... estimate the total subsidy [to religious institutions] at $71 billion [annually]. That's almost certainly a lowball, as they didn't estimate the cost of a number of subsidies, like local income and property tax exemptions, the sales tax exemption, and -- most importantly -- the charitable deduction for religious given." Via Benen. CW: viewed this way, the separation of church & state is really a farce. We do have an "established" religion: it's all of them.

Amanda Marcotte, in Salon: "To hear activists on the Christian right tell the story, the conservative Christian American -- especially the male conservative Christian American -- is the most oppressed, victimized person in the country, and perhaps in the history of the world. It's all utterly disingenuous, of course: Painting themselves as victims creates a cover to actually victimize other people, usually by imposing their fanatical religious views." Marcotte provides "a rundown of various ways Christian conservatives paint themselves as victims, and who the real victims actually are." Also via Benen.

Right Wing World

Canada, the 51st State. According to Teabagger logic, the reason it's okay that Ted Cruz was born in Canada is that "Canada is not really foreign soil." President Obama's "strong ties" to Kenya, however, are "disturbing." CW Translation: lots of nice white people in Canada; not so many in Kenya.

Steve M. of NMMNB: "Bob Filner has finally resigned as mayor of San Diego -- but they're not happy over at Free Republic, because the president of the city council will become the interim mayor, and he's gay." Steve republishes some of the Free Republic comments. Extremely sickening.

News Ledes

** New York Times: "Moving a step closer to possible American military action in Syria, a senior Obama administration official said Sunday that there was 'very little doubt' that President Bashar al-Assad's military forces had used chemical weapons against civilians last week and that a Syrian promise to allow United Nations inspectors access to the site was 'too late to be credible.'"

New York Times: "Muriel Siebert, who became a legend on Wall Street as the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of the exchange's member firms, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 80."

AFP: "A war of words erupted Sunday over Syria as Washington said it is ready to take action over chemical weapons attacks and Tehran warned US intervention would carry 'harsh consequences'. Pressure mounted on Damascus to allow a UN probe of chemical attacks, with French President Francois Hollande saying evidence indicated the regime in war-ravaged Syria was to blame and Israel demanding action against its neighbour."

AP: "New York's attorney general sued Donald Trump for $40 million Saturday, saying the real estate mogul helped run a phony 'Trump University' that promised to make students rich but instead steered them into expensive and mostly useless seminars, and even failed to deliver promised apprenticeships."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 24, 2013

The President's Weekly Address:

This is probably controversial to say, but, what the heck, I'm in my second term, so I can say it. Law schools would probably be wise to think about being two years instead of three years. -- President Obama, in Binghamton, New York ...

... Ed Kilgore, a lawyer, on why this seems like a good idea to him, too.

Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "Faced with steep cuts to their budgets, federal public defenders around the country have furloughed or laid off hundreds of lawyers and other staff members, spent less on expert witnesses and cut back on case-related travel.... The result, said lawmakers, judges and public defenders, are court delays that might violate defendants' rights to speedy trials and could lead to the dismissal of criminal cases.... The federal public defenders system is buckling under the effects of the $85 billion across-the-board cuts known as the sequester, threatening the integrity of the criminal justice system, which guarantees the right to a court-appointed lawyer for those who cannot afford one." See also a brief discussion of this in yesterday's Commentariat.

Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: "The New York Times ... -- which NSA leaker Edward Snowden deliberately avoided over his fear that it would cooperate with the United States government -- is now working with the Guardian on a series of stories based on documents that detail National Security Agency cooperation with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ. 'In a climate of intense pressure from the UK government, The Guardian decided to bring in a US partner to work on the GCHQ documents provided by Edward Snowden,' Guardian spokeswoman Jennifer Lindenauer said in an email.... The Times's involvement in the story also brings into sharp relief a ... question: Whether carrying classified documents across national borders can be an act of journalism.... it appears likely that someone at one of the two papers physically carried a drive with Snowden's GCHQ leaks from London to New York or Washington -- exactly what [David] Miranda was stopped at Heathrow for doing." ...

... Both Smith & Marcy Wheeler note that the Times assigned Scott Shane to the story, rather than James Risen or Charlie Savage, both of whom have been writing NSA stories. Wheeler notes that "Shane has an increasingly consistent ability to tell grand tales that serve the interests of The Powers that Be. And somehow his stories about extremely sensitive subjects like drones don't get chased for leaks." So she figured out "how to get the government to ease up: involve Scott Shane." ...

Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian: "The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred the costs to meet new certification demands in the wake of the ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court. The October 2011 judgment, which was declassified on Wednesday by the Obama administration, found that the NSA's inability to separate purely domestic communications from foreign traffic violated the fourth amendment.... Material [passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden] provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA." Facebook denies having received any compensation. ...

... Glenn Greenwald thinks U.K. national security personnel have conspired with the British newspaper the Independent to demonstrate that Ed Snowden is harming national security. Specifically, he charges that government officials leaked damaging information to the Independent, then got the Independent to claim Snowden was the source. Snowden denies ever working with the Independent. Greenwald might be right or his beanie might be snapped on too tight(ly)....

... Chris Strohm of Bloomberg News: "The leaders of U.S. congressional intelligence committees said they want to probe the intentional abuses of surveillance authority committed by some National Security Agency analysts in the past decade.... The compilation of willful violations, while limited, contradicts repeated assertions that no deliberate abuses occurred.... President Barack Obama told CNN in an interview broadcast yesterday he is confident no one at the NSA is 'trying to abuse this program or listen in on people's e-mail.' 'There's a pattern of the administration making misleading statements about its surveillance activities,' Jameel Jaffer, a deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a phone interview. 'The government tells us one thing, and another thing is true.'" ...

... Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal: "National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency's enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said. The practice isn't frequent -- one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade -- but it's common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT.... The LOVEINT violations involved overseas communications, officials said, such as spying on a partner or spouse. In each instance, the employee was punished either with an administrative action or termination." ...

... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Asked by CNN interviewer Chris Cuomo on Thursday whether he was 'confident that you know everything that's going on within that agency and that you can say to the American people, "It's all done the right way'?"', Obama insisted he was. 'Because there are no allegations, and I am very confident -- knowing the NSA and how they operate -- that purposefully somebody is out there trying to abuse this program or listen in on people's email,' he said in the interview that aired on Friday." ...

... D. S. Wright of Firedoglake: "So at least ten times, and if the way this story has been going is any indication -- drip, drip, drip -- it is probable there will be even more intentional abuses revealed. But what we know for sure now is that the Obama Administration and members of Congress have been lying to the American people about this program. Full stop."

Gail Collins remembers when she couldn't get a credit card in her own name because she was just a girl. "Monday we will celebrate Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment and women’s right to vote." CW: I remember when my (female) professor told me I shouldn't pursue an advanced degree -- even though I was at the top of my class (you know, ahead of all the boys) -- because I would either have to stay single or follow my husband around to the places he worked. I took her advice. It changed my life. And not for the better. BTW, Collins doesn't say so, but it wasn't Macy's fault she had to give her husband's name. In most states, the law was that a husband was responsible for his wife's debts (but a wife wasn't responsible for her husband's -- or for her own).

"Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts." Erica Goode of the New York Times: "... an anti-government ideology known as the 'sovereign citizen' movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices." Their principal tactic is to file (fradulent) liens against officials who aggravate them. "Cases involving sovereign citizens are surfacing increasingly .. in Minnesota and in other states, posing a challenge to law enforcement officers and court officials, who often become aware of the movement -- a loose network of groups and individuals who do not recognize the authority of federal, state or municipal government -- only when they become targets.... The sovereign citizen movement traces its roots to white extremist groups like the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s, and the militia movement.... The ideology seems to attract con artists, the financially desperate and people who are fed up with bureaucracy...."

Local News

Craig Gustafson of the San Diego Union-Tribune: "Bob Filner announced his resignation Friday as San Diego's 35th mayor following a tumultuous six weeks in which lurid allegations of repeated sexual misconduct against women crippled his ability to lead and turned him into a subject of national ridicule. Filner will to step down on Aug. 30 as part of a deal approved Friday afternoon by the City Council on a 7-0 vote in closed session that limits his legal and financial exposure stemming from a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former aide."

We certainly would not have advised [George Zimmerman] to go to the factory that made the gun that he used to shoot Trayvon Martin through the heart. That was not part of our public relations plan. -- Shawn Vincent, spokesman for attorney Mark O'Mara, who defended George Zimmerman in his murder trial

Alyssa Newcomb of ABC News: "George Zimmerman, who is already packing a pistol, toured a gun maker's factory this week and asked whether he could buy a shotgun. Zimmerman, acquitted a month ago of killing teenager Trayvon Martin with a Kel-Tec 9 mm pistol, toured the Kel-Tec plant on Thursday in Cocoa, Fla. The plant is about an hour's drive from Sanford, the community where Martin was killed. Zimmerman, 29, took a tour of the assembly plant and asked about the legality of buying a shotgun and smiled in a photograph with an employee, according to TMZ, which first reported the visit." ...

... CW: you can blame the right-wing, racist press for Zimmerman's bravado. Instead of condemning him, as any normal person would, they have made him a hero & a victim of racial prejudice. As a result, the bastard thinks he did no wrong. And a special thanks to the NRA & ALEC, who promoted the stand-your-ground law that makes murder legal in Florida. And a hat-tip to the Florida legislators & Gov. Jeb Bush who passed & signed the bill into law. ...

... BTW ... KTVU: "An overwhelming number of Florida legislators have rejected a call for a special session to repeal the state's 'stand your ground law.'" Video. ...

... AND Agence France-Presse: following Zimmerman's acquittal, Florida "Governor Rick Scott, who met Thursday with protesters occupying the state Capitol building, said in a statement that he opposes efforts to repeal Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law and other measures allowing residents to use lethal force to defend themselves." ...

... Brian Beautler of Salon has a good piece on the right's obsession with black-on-white crime, & how the right misstates facts & gins up false equivalences to justify their OUTRAGE that liberals don't go nuts every time a black person victimizes a white person.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Julie Harris, the unprepossessing anti-diva who, in the guises of Joan of Arc, Mary Todd Lincoln, Emily Dickinson and many other characters both fictional and real, became the most decorated performer in the history of Broadway, died on Saturday at her home in Chatham, Mass."

NBC News: "A raging California wildfire has grown to 200 square miles, threatening the San Francisco power grid, spreading into Yosemite National Park, and prompting Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency and secure federal funding to assist in batting back the roaring flames."

Doctors without Borders: "Three hospitals in Syria's Damascus governorate that are supported by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have reported ... that they received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, August 21, 2013. Of those patients, 355 reportedly died."

Washington Post: "Thousands are expected to head to the Mall on Saturday to attend a rally and participate in a march to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The rally will include speeches from Attorney General Eric Holder, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the Rev. Al Sharpton, among others. At 12:30 p.m., a march will leave the Lincoln Memorial, pass the memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and travel to the Washington Monument." The page is a liveblog of events.

AP: "U.S. naval forces are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers military options for responding to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. The president emphasized that a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the international considerations that should precede a military strike."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 23, 2013

** Juan Cole: "Greg Palast at Vice exposes the way Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and others in the Treasury Department conspired with JP Morgan and other pirate investment banks not only to destroy Glass-Steagall in the US but throughout the world, removing the difference between commercial banks. and investment banks. Basically, they used US financial muscle to leverage the world into letting banks play poker with your money and forcing regulators to treat toxic bad loans as 'assets.'" CW: Cole calls Summers "sleazy"; that's the adjective I was looking for. Thanks to contributor Barbarossa for the link. Update: safari simultaneously linked to the both pieces. I'm sorry to say his comment seems to me to be exactly right. ...

... Here's Palast's piece, with "the Memo confirm[ing] every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet." I agree with Barbarossa; it is also worth reading. And, yeah, it will make you sick.

President Obama speaks to Chris Cuomo of CNN:

      ... CNN: "The time is nearing for a potentially definitive U.S. response to alleged Syrian government atrocities and an increasingly violent military crackdown in Egypt, President Barack Obama" told CNN." ...

     ... Here's the full transcript of the interview. ...

... Kicking It Down the Road. Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that he plans to avert a government shutdown at the end of September by passing a 'short-term' budget bill that maintains sharp automatic spending cuts, known as the sequester." ...

... Wingers Are Not Amused. Here's Daniel Horowitz of Red State: "At some point, rank-and-file conservative activists will have to confront an inconvenient reality. The Republicans in Washington are not just dumb or spineless -- they are the problem. They don't share our values and seek to undermine our beliefs. The only way that will change is if we return the favor and thwart their political careers." He goes on, in outrage mode, for some while. Via Greg Sargent. ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Mr. Boehner pressed gingerly for a straight short-term extension of funds to avoid an immediate government shutdown in October, but faced immediate opposition from conservatives demanding that funds be stripped from the health care law. One thought is to use a short-term spending bill to keep the government running into November, when Congress must raise the government's statutory borrowing limit. That way, with both a debt default and government shutdown looming, Republicans could apply maximum pressure on the White House to either agree to scuttle President Obama's health care law or accept significant changes in programs like Medicare and Social Security."

Eric Holder in a Washington Post op-ed: "Despite the promise of the court's ruling in Gideon, however, the U.S. indigent defense systems -- which provide representation to those who cannot afford it -- are in financial crisis, plagued by crushing caseloads and insufficient resources. And this year's forced budget reductions, due largely to sequestration, are further undermining this critical work.... I join with those judges, public defenders, legal scholars and countless other criminal justice professionals who have urged Congress to restore these resources...." ...

... Oh Yeah? Tulsa World: "'Sequestration is a hard way to do things, but it's better than nothing,' [Sen. Tom Coburn, {R-Okla}] said [at a townhall meeting].... A public defender gently challenged Coburn on the issue, saying sequestration was actually costing the federal government because the Justice Department had laid off so many staff attorneys it had to hire private ones at an hourly rate. Coburn disagreed. 'Your agency, Justice, is one of the most wasteful in Washington. It's not my fault if the money is not getting to you,' Coburn said." (See related content below.) ...

... CW: What you're seeing here is a U.S. Senator openly opposed to paying for a government function that is mandated by the Constitution. In a way, this is worse than the nutball push to defund ObamaCare. The ACA is, after all, an act of Congress & Congress has a right to rescind it. It does does not have a right to rescind a Constitutional Amendment, which is what Coburn is, in effect, advocating. Indeed, he told his constituents that he rejects the Constitution itself. (His idea of a national Constitutional convention isn't a bad one per se, but the reasons for his support of such a convention are.)

Foxes to Observe Henhouse. Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "The review of US surveillance programs which Barack Obama promised would be conducted by an 'independent' and 'outside' panel of experts looks set to consist of four Washington insiders with close ties to the security establishment.... A report by ABC News, which has not been denied by the administration, said the panel would consist of Michael Morell, a recent acting head of the CIA, and three former White House advisers.... In addition to Morell, who was deputy director of the CIA until just three months ago, the panel is believed to consist of former White House officials Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire."

Zeke Miller of Time: "President Barack Obama on Thursday visited the site of the historic 1848 women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., leaving behind a copy of the first bill he signed in office, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Obama's visit, ahead of Women's Equality Day next week, came during his bus tour through upstate New York and Pennsylvania promoting his college affordability proposals. Obama also left a copy of his remarks during the 2009 bill signing."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday that it will challenge Texas's Voter ID law, saying it violates the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Constitution's 14th and 15th Amendments. In a separate case, the Justice Department will also join in a challenge to the state's GOP-drawn redistricting plans." ...

... Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog explains. ...

John Murawski & John Frank of the Raleigh News & Observer: "Former Secretary of State Colin Powell shook up North Carolina's annual CEO Forum on Thursday with pointed criticisms of the state's new voting law, which critics say was designed to make it harder for minorities and students to vote.... Saying he was speaking as a Republican, Powell warned that North Carolina's new voting restrictions will hurt the Republican Party, punish minority voters and make it more difficult for North Carolinians to cast a vote." ...

... Tal Kopan of Politico: "Powell also took aim at defenders of the law, including [Republican Gov. Pat] McCrory, who say such restrictions are necessary to stop voter fraud, which is hard to detect. 'You can say what you like, but there is no voter fraud,' Powell said. 'How can it be widespread and undetected?'"

Glenn Blain of the New York Daily News: "President Obama was in full campaign mode Thursday as he barnstormed across upstate New York in an armored bus to promote his plan to combat the soaring costs of higher education. Obama kicked off his bus tour with a speech to a packed auditorium on the SUNY Buffalo campus and then made stops near Rochester and Syracuse, telling the student-heavy crowds that holding down tuition costs and reducing student debt were vital to promoting a vibrant middle class":

David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "After 12 years as FBI director, Robert S. Mueller III says he leaves office worried that America is still vulnerable to 'lone wolf' terrorists acting independently, and to a cyberattack that disables vital computer-run systems. Mueller, who took over the FBI a week before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, told reporters in a farewell interview that he had expected to lead a federal law enforcement agency that investigated bank robberies and other crimes." ...

... Sarah Wheaton & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "James B. Comey will begin shadowing the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, next week as he prepares to take on the job himself."

Reid Wilson of the Washington Post: "Many cash-strapped cities and counties facing the prospect of shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars in new health-care costs under the Affordable Care Act are opting instead to reduce the number of hours their part-time employees work. The decisions to cut employee hours come 16 months before employers -- including state and local governments -- will be required to offer health care coverage to employees who work at least 30 hours a week."

"The Movement to Defund Obamacare, Explained." Molly Ball of the Atlantic interviews Scott Hogenson, the campaign manager of ForAmerica's "Defund Obamacare" campaign. CW: The interview provides a good lesson in how to justify the stupid. ...

... Ferinstance.... Ed Kilgore: "From the day the Affordable Care Act was enacted, every Republican in Congress and most Republicans in state and local governments have done everything imaginable to interfere with its implementation, and have systematically opposed the kind of legislative 'fixes' that are normal for any major new law, while loudly cheering for its failure. Now we are told [by Hogenson] that executive measures to make the law work mean that it's not the law of the land."

... DeMint Advocates Irresponsibility. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Heritage president and former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint continued his campaign to convince Republicans to shut down the government in a ploy to defund the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, telling a town hall in Tampa, Florida that 'This might be that last off-ramp to stop Obamacare before it becomes more enmeshed in our culture.' The law 'is not about getting better health care,' he continued. Uninsured Americans 'will get better health care just going to the emergency room.' CW: BTW, notice the size of the crowd that turned out to see President Obama in Buffalo; Jim DeMint's Defund Obama rally, which has received a great deal of publicity, drew 300 people in Tampa. ...

... Over at the Wall Street Journal, Bush's Brain says nothing about making the emergency room your primary only care doctor (even though Bush himself once promoted the idea), but he argues that "Republicans do have ideas for health care." Firewalled; if the link doesn't work, just cut & paste the preceding sentence in Google search if you really want to know what ideas Republicans have. ...

... Paul Krugman: "Rove's 'solution' would actually have a devastating effect on millions of Americans who currently have decent coverage.... Rove has nothing but the usual catchphrases, and obviously hasn't thought for a moment about the actual issues." ...

... "Words on a Page." Kevin Drum: "Rove's 'plan' would blow a huge hole in the deficit; wouldn't reduce costs; and quite likely would decimate the current employer-based system without covering any of the people with pre-existing conditions who are tossed out on their asses. And the worst part of it is that Rove knows all this perfectly well. He just doesn't care. He needs words on a page, so he's put some words on a page." ...

... ObamaCare by Any Other Name.... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "A variety of Republican governors have sought federal funds under Obamacare, many of them to expand Medicaid eligibility for more residents, a centerpiece of the law that the Supreme Court made optional for states last year. But shhh! Don't call it Obamacare, they say, for they despise that law." ...

... BUT -- Dumber than Rick Perry. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Gov. Bobby Jindal, a fierce Obamacare critic, pursued funds from an under-the-radar program in the health law until this week, when his administration reversed course, citing cumbersome federal rules. Health aides to the Louisiana governor began eyeing the program -- a long-term care reform effort called Community First Choice -- last year and went as far as submitting a formal application to CMS. But officials say they withdrew the application Monday because complicated federal stipulations would have undermined their efforts and likely led to lawsuits."

Coburn Still Crazy. Randy Krehbiel of the Tulsa World: Speaking at a public meeting in Muskogee, Oklahoma, "as he has many times in the past, [Sen. Tom] Coburn [R-Okla.] called [President] Obama 'a personal friend of mine,' but that did not prevent him from calling the president's administration lawless and incompetent and 'getting perilously close' to the Constitutional standard for impeachment." Coburn also called for a national Constitutional convention to rewrite the Constitution "to cut down an oversized federal government and counter what he repeatedly referred to as a 'lawless' Obama administration." ...

... Brianna Edwards of Politico: "Earlier this week Michigan Rep. Kerry Bentivolio told constituents at a townhall that it would be a 'dream come true' if he could write and submit the bill to impeach the president. Last week, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) kicked off the impeachment debate, declaring that the House had enough votes to make the notion a reality." CW: if only they could find some impeachable act to hang on Obama. Details, details.

"Mystery Money." New York Times Editors: "The ease with which big-money donors are able to influence the nation's politics is nowhere better illustrated than by the charade that gives tax exemptions to obviously partisan political groups posing as 'social welfare' organizations. Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, thus merits thanks for his decision to sue the Internal Revenue Service to force it to end its controversial muddying of tax law that has allowed these groups to flourish.... The I.R.S. should be rooting for the lawsuit's success because it would relieve the agency of playing the unfortunate and increasingly incompetent arbitrator of its own flawed regulation."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "Young immigrants in the country illegally have escalated their protests against deportations this week, creating awkward dilemmas for Obama administration officials who are pressing the House of Representatives to pass broad immigration legislation this fall.... Organizers said they wanted to highlight continuing deportations under Mr. Obama, even as the president has championed legislation that would provide legal status and eventual citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants."

Paul Krugman: "... India, Brazil, and a number of other countries are now experiencing similar problems. And those shared problems define the economic crisis du jour.... The main lesson of this age of bubbles -- a lesson that India, Brazil, and others are learning once again -- is that when the financial industry is set loose to do its thing, it lurches from crisis to crisis."

Nick Gass of Politico: "President Obama called Antoinette Tuff, the woman who calmly talked down an armed 20-year-old as he walked into an Atlanta-area elementary school, on Thursday to thank her for her 'courage.'"

The Washington Post has a special section with links to articles about the March on Washington of August 28, 1963.

"Angry White Dummies." Tom Scocca of Gawker: "America's opportunistic race-hustlers, unsatisfied by their victory in the Trayvon Martin case, won't stop looking for reasons to rile up white people. So now the latest yapping point in our national conversation about race is the murder of Christopher Lane, the white Australian student allegedly killed for kicks by two black teenagers, with a white teenager as their accomplice in the shooting. In the world of white victimology, this proves that there is a media conspiracy to underplay crime against whites.... If you are one of the angry white dummies asking this question, try a different one: What is the outrage? ... Here's what happened in Oklahoma: a young man was shot to death. The police investigated it as a crime, arrested suspects, and charged them with murder.... The reason the killing of Trayvon Martin became a national scandal was that even though an unarmed young man was shot to death, the local authorities decided not to treat it as a crime."

Local News

Craig Gustafson of the San Diego Union-Tribune: "All signs point to Bob Filner resigning Friday as San Diego's 35th mayor, but one lingering question remains: How much is it going to cost taxpayers to show him the door? A tentative agreement between Filner and other city leaders that includes his formal resignation will be considered by the City Council in closed session Friday, but the particulars won't be revealed until after the council votes sometime in the late afternoon."

David Goodman of the New York Times: "The [New York] City Council voted Thursday to greatly increase oversight of the New York Police Department and of its widespread use of stop-and-frisk tactics.... The move on two bills marked a decisive swing of the pendulum toward reining in the practices of officers and the policies of their leaders. The votes, a week and a half after a federal judge ruled aspects of police stops in the city unconstitutional, amounted to a stinging personal defeat for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.... The two bills, which the mayor had vetoed and will now become law, represented an effort by frustrated elected officials to force changes on the police from the outside...."

Justin Snow of Poliglot: "The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Thursday that a wedding photographer who refused to provide services to a same-sex couple violated the state's Human Rights Act. '[W]e conclude that a commercial photography business that offers its services to the public, thereby increasing its visibility to potential clients, is subject to the antidiscrimination provisions of the [New Mexico Human Rights Act] and must serve same-sex couples on the same basis that it serves opposite-sex couples,' the state's highest court ruled."

Susan Guyett of Reuters: "Planned Parenthood on Thursday filed a federal challenge to a new Indiana law requiring clinics that administer the so-called abortion pill to have full surgical facilities, a requirement it says would halt abortion services at a central Indiana clinic."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A military jury on Friday found Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan guilty of carrying out the largest mass murder at a military installation in American history."

New York Times: "Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who pleaded guilty to slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians inside their homes, will spend the rest of his life in prison, a military jury decided on Friday. The decision came after three days of wrenching testimony that painted a moment-by-moment, bullet-by-bullet account of one of the worst atrocities of the United States' long war in Afghanistan."

Reuters: Bradley/Chelsea Manning, Bales & Hasan may all go to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, "the only maximum security - or 'Level 3' - prison operated by the Department of Defense, handling military men who draw lengthy sentences for crimes deemed among the worst of the worst."

New York Times: "Senior officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence agencies met for three and a half hours at the White House on Thursday to deliberate over options [re: Syria], which officials say could range from a cruise missile strike to a more sustained air campaign against Syria."