The Commentariat -- Aug. 22, 2013

** Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The National Security Agency unlawfully gathered as many as tens of thousands of e-mails and other electronic communications between Americans as part of a now-discontinued collection method, according to a 2011 secret court opinion. The 86-page opinion, which was declassified by U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday, explains why the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled the collection method unconstitutional":

The Court is troubled that the government's revelations regarding NSA's acquisition of Internet transactions mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program. [...] Contrary to the government's repeated assurances, NSA has been routinely running queries of the metadata using querying terms that did not meet the standard required for querying. The Court concluded that this requirement had been 'so frequently and systematically violated that it can be fairly said that this critical element of the overall ... regime has never functioned effectively. [Emphasis added.

... The New York Times report, by Charlie Savage & Scott Shane, is here. ...

... Hayes Brown of Think Progress: "The release of the formerly Top Secret documents is being portrayed as part of the Obama administration's efforts to shine light on the NSA, in hopes of tamping down on criticism that the body lacks transparency.... However, the documents' release was not entirely voluntary, instead being the result of a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Freedom Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union." ...

... Mark Rumold of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional." ...

... Charles Pierce on Chief Justice Roberts' appointment of a ConservaDem to the FISA court (see yesterday's Commentariat -- almost all of Roberts' previous appointments were Republicans): "Roberts is not going to appoint anyone -- Democrat or Republican -- who's going to rock the boat on the FISA court, where so are they all, all honorable men. So he searched around and found the most surveillance-friendly Democrat he could find and, presto! Bipartisanship! The Beltway must be plotzing." ...

... ** Dana Milbank: "You don’t need to agree with what [Bradley] Manning did to agree with [his attorney David] Coombs that government secrecy has gone too far." ...

... New York Times Editors: "Bradley Manning's sentence is excessive.... In their drastic attempt to put Private Manning away for most of the rest of his life, prosecutors were also trying to discourage other potential leakers, but as the continuing release of classified documents by Edward Snowden shows, even the threat of significant prison time is not a deterrent when people believe their government keeps too many secrets." ...

... Digby: "'No charges have been filed against the American soldiers in the Apache helicopter who shot and killed the civilians in the video [which Manning released to WikiLeaks].' So the people who did that wanton killing will pay no price. But Bradley Manning will do many years in prison for revealing what they did." ...

     ... CW: I thought the adage was "The coverup was worse than the crime." Turns out disclosure of the crime is worse than the crime.

... Scott Lemieux in Lawyers, Guns & Money: "... the idea that his leaks merit a 35-year sentence is absurd. And as I said before, it’s particularly appalling when you consider the Obama administration's 'look forward not back' approach on torture. It's hard to square this life-ruining sentence with the fact that no torturer was even considered worthy of being charged. I'd also say that at this point that it's pretty hard to the American government to complain when other countries refuse to extradite whistleblowers." ...

... Scott Stump, for NBC's "Today" show: "Bradley Manning ... revealed he intends to live out the remainder of his life as a woman. 'I am Chelsea Manning. I am female,' the Army private wrote in a statement read on TODAY Thursday. 'Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition.'" ...

... John Aravosis of AmericaBlog: "Now that he -- Manning asked to be referred to as 'she' in the future -- she has acknowledged being transgender, it is no longer clear if Manning is gay. It's a bit complicated, but being gay means you are attracted primarily to the same-sex. If Manning was gay because he, a man, was attracted to other men, and he now says she is a woman, then she is a woman attracted to men. So while she is trans, she is no longer gay.... Manning's news will certainly lead to more discussion of, and education on, trans issues."

** CW: Yesterday I linked to a piece in which the New Yorker's Jeff Toobin, not for the first time, excoriated Ed Snowden for stealing classified documents, which Toobin asserts Snowden handed over, whether knowingly or not, to both Russian & Chinese intelligence personnel. I would guess Toobin is right about that. But maybe Jeff Toobin is not the best messenger. Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake reminds us of Toobin's youthful misadventures: "In journalist Michael Isikoff's book, Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story, he described how Toobin was caught 'having absconded with large loads of classified and grand-jury related documents from the office of Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh' in 1991.... Toobin was 'petrified' that he would have to face criminal charges for stealing information for a rather dubious book deal.... Toobin 'resigned from the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn (where he had gone to work after Walsh) and abandoned the practice of law.'"

Danielle Douglas of the Washington Post: "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wednesday that it has launched investigations at banks and other financial firms after finding myriad problems in the way they service residential mortgages."

Tom Edsall of the New York Times: President "Obama has put the goal of a revived middle class at the top of his agenda, but he has not publicly voiced an understanding of the size and scope of the problem he seeks to address." CW: Edsall doesn't really develop this point, but this is a question I have, too; it so often seems that President Obama doesn't understand macroeconomics, or that his "understanding" is hopelessly skewed by the narrow views of the boys on his economic & political teams.

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama will offer a series of proposals this week aimed at making college more affordable by reshaping the way Americans pay for higher education, he said in an e-mail to supporters on Tuesday." ...

... Update. Tamar Lewin of the New York Times: "A draft of the [Obama] proposal, obtained by The New York Times and likely to cause some consternation among colleges, shows a plan to rate colleges before the 2015 school year based on measures like tuition, graduation rates, debt and earnings of graduates, and the percentage of lower-income students who attend. The ratings would compare colleges against their peer institutions. If the plan can win Congressional approval, the idea is to base federal financial aid to students attending the colleges partly on those rankings."

Jay Hancock of Kaiser Health News, in USA Today: "Partly blaming the health law, United Parcel Service is set to remove thousands of spouses from its medical plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere. Many analysts downplay the Affordable Care Act's effect on companies such as UPS, noting that the move is part of a long-term trend of shrinking corporate medical benefits. But the shipping giant repeatedly cites the act to explain the decision, adding fuel to the debate over whether it erodes traditional employer coverage." CW: Just about every winger outlet picked up this story; I can't find any commentary from the left. ...

... The New York Times report, by Steven Greenhouse, is here. "Several health care experts ... said they believed the company was motivated by a desire to hold down health care costs, rather than because of cost increases under the law."

Paul Krugman: "The merits of Yellen versus Summers aside, it sounds as if the WH wants Summers, and doesn't want Yellen, for all the wrong reasons. They want a team player -- and consider Yellen's somewhat independent stance as a liability, even though she has been consistently right.... All in all, this whole episode is not making anyone think better of Obama's judgment."

Our Brilliant Electorate. Tom Kludt of TPM: "A significant chunk of Louisiana Republicans evidently believe that President Barack Obama is to blame for the poor response to the hurricane [Katrina].... The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed ... [28] percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans -- 44 percent -- said they aren't sure who to blame." ...

... Steve Benen: "... I imagine if PPP asked, a non-trivial number of Louisiana Republicans would also blame the president for 9/11, Watergate, the Hindenburg disaster, the 1919 White Sox, and the U.S. Civil War. In other words, Louisiana Republicans may say they blame Obama for the response to Katrina, but what they're really saying is they just hate the president and blame him reflexively for everything." ...

... Elsewhere in Real America, there's trouble a'brewin' along with the Tea. Alex Rogers of Time: "The defund ObamaCare effort may be fading in Washington, but for many GOP members of the House and Senate vacationing in their home districts, there has been no break from the constant pressure from outside groups. The late-summer burst of organized conservative opposition to Republican incumbents is the sort of red-on-red conflict that bodes poorly for the fall, when Republican leaders hope to form a united front on issues as varied as funding the government, dealing with immigration reform and extending the debt ceiling."

** Dark Money. Alex Altman of Time: "On Wednesday, Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, filed a federal lawsuit against the IRS, claiming that the agency's rules fail to comply with tax law, unfairly permitting Van Hollen's political opponents 'to obtain an improper benefit -- the advantage of tax exemption without the requirement of donor disclosure.'"

"Obama Hasn't Evolved on Pot -- Yet." Steven Dennis of Roll Call: "President Barack Obama doesn't favor changing marijuana laws 'at this point' but he also believes that federal law enforcement resources should not be focused on individual users, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Wednesday. Earnest was asked for a second day if the White House might re-examine its hard line on marijuana after Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- the CNN health reporter who Obama once eyed for the surgeon general post -- penned a column explaining why he changed his mind on the benefits of marijuana. He also apologized for his earlier reporting on the issue."

Don Terry of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in Salon: "Ron Paul to be keynote speaker at anti-Semitic conference. Beyond the obvious, what do a far-right Italian politician, the president of the John Birch Society and former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul have in common? In early September, the men are all scheduled to speak -- along with a lengthy list of archconservative clergy, lawyers and academics -- at a conference in Canada sponsored by the Fatima Center, part of the 'radical traditionalist Catholic' movement, perhaps the single largest group of hard-core anti-Semites in North America." ...

... Charles Pierce: "There is no secular political reason why Crazy Uncle Liberty (!) should be appearing at this conference. Neither is there a specifically religious reason, since he's not a Catholic. The only reason he's going is because he feels comfortable among these people.... And he's as much of a Nativist nutbag as he's always been."

Killer Asteroid. Gail Collins: "The Obama administration is currently promoting an 'asteroid grand challenge,' in which we're invited 'to find all asteroid threats to human populations' and figure out what to do about them.... Even members of Congress who pooh-pooh the peril of global warming believe in the danger of global asteroid-exploding.... [But] there hasn't been all that much money spent on the mission.... It's ... conceivable that the Science Committee doesn't like the Obama plan because it's the Obama plan. This has been known to happen in the House."

Gubernatorial, Senatorial, Presidential Races, Whatever

Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said Wednesday night he will not run for Massachusetts governor in 2014. Brown said he wanted to remain in the private sector, noting that another run for public office would take a lot of 'thought, analysis, money and sometimes personal sacrifice.' ... Brown had left the door open to a run for governor and possibly another Senate race after his loss to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in 2012.... In a recent interview, he said he was curious if there was an interest in a [presidential] run in 2016."

Local News

CBS News/AP: "Embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner on Wednesday reached a tentative deal involving a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him -- but details were not made public, including whether settlement hinged on the former congressman resigning. CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reported that a source close to the talks says it appears that Filner's resignation is part of the settlement, but nothing will be official until the city council approves the agreement on Friday." ...

... Craig Gustafson & Mark Walker of the San Diego Union-Tribune suppose Filner is on his way out inasmuch as "political aides to potential mayoral candidates by insiders Wednesday night to expect a special election campaign to begin Saturday." CW: Unfortunately, the sentence is missing a verb, but I think the reporters mean that aides to local politicians in on the mediation are anticipating a near-future special mayoral election to replace Filner. ...

... UPDATE: Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times: "Mayor Bob Filner will resign from office as part of a mediation deal reached in his sexual harassment lawsuit, sources familiar with the negotiations said Thursday. Filner's decision to resign comes after three days of closed-door mediation and after six weeks of scandal in the city. At least 18 women have publicly accused Filner of sexual harassment, including one former aide who filed the lawsuit."

Carpetbagging Liar Nabbed in Wyoming. Angus Thuermer, Jr., of the Jackson Hole News & Guide: "U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Lynne Cheney posted a $220 bond in Ninth Circuit Court in Teton County on Monday on a charge of making a false statement to procure a fishing license. A citation/complaint ticket in the court file states that Cheney 'fail[ed] to meet residency requirements as required,' according to the ticket signed by Wyoming Game and Fish Jackson Supervisor Tim Fuchs." CW: just a reminder to the multitudes of Wyoming Republicans who follow this site: Liz Cheney is using you people. She doesn't give a flying fish about Wyoming. ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "That's apparently where we're going to be drawing the line now, with the Cheney clan; you can drum up support for a badly premised war, you can violate international prohibitions on on the torture of prisoners, and you can shoot a guy in the face because you confused him with a six-inch bird, but you do not lie on a fishing application. You monster."

Eli Stokols of KDVR Denver: "Democratic lawmakers couldn't believe their ears as they listened to Sen. Vicki Marble, R-Fort Collins, deliver a long soliloquy explaining that more blacks and Hispanics live in poverty, in part, because of fried chicken."

News Ledes

Politico: "Army Pfc. Bradley Manning will have access to psychiatric services while serving a prison sentence for his role in the WikiLeaks case, but the Army will not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery, a spokesman said Thursday."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 21, 2013

** Steve Freiss, in BuzzFeed: "The National Rifle Association has rallied gun-owners -- and raised tens of millions of dollars -- campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners. But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country's largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby's secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy." Thanks to contributor safari for the link.

Siobhan Gorman & Jennifer Valentino-Devries of the Wall Street Journal: "The National Security Agency -- which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens -- has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans' Internet communications than officials have publicly disclosed, current and former officials say. The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology, these people say." CW: Firewalled. To access, copy & paste part of text into Google search. ...

... Michael Isikoff, et al., of NBC News: "More than two months after documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden first began appearing in the news media, the National Security Agency still doesn't know the full extent of what he took, according to intelligence community sources, and is' overwhelmed' trying to assess the damage." ...

... Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "... for all the excitement generated by Snowden's disclosures, there is no proof of any systemic, deliberate violations of law.... But, because of Snowden's disclosures, the government will almost certainly have to spend billions of dollars, and thousands of people will have to spend thousands of hours, reworking our procedures." Toobin goes on to rip Snowden as a malevolent lamebrain, tho those aren't the words he uses. ...

... Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "Having gone global and remained free to readers on the Web, with a newsroom in New York as well as in London, The Guardian is a much harder news organization than most to intimidate or censor, as the British government, with no written Constitution or Bill of Rights to enshrine protections of free speech, has discovered. But the tale of the last two months, as [editor Alan] Rusbridger tells it, at least, is an extraordinary one of attempted political interference." ...

... Julian Borger of the Guardian provides details on why the Guardian decided to destroy the laptops & how the whole "bizarre" incident went down. ...

... MEANWHILE, Lisa O'Carroll of the Guardian: "Lawyers for the partner [David Miranda] of the Guardian journalist [Glenn Greenwald] who exposed mass email surveillance have written to home secretary Theresa May and the head of the Metropolitan police warning them that they are set to take legal action over what they , say amounted to his "unlawful" detention at Heathrow airport under anti-terror laws. ...

... Dana Milbank on the President's nonsense claim that Edward Snowden would have come out fine if he had gone through "channels" to voice his concern. Milbank has followed the tribulations of Gina Gray, "the Defense Department whistleblower [who] ... exposed much of the wrongdoing at Arlington National Cemetery — misplaced graves, mishandled remains and financial mismanagement -- and she attempted to do it through the proper internal channels.... Sadly, Gray's case is emblematic of the way this administration has handled whistleblowers.... Snowden's case is quite a bit different, and murkier; his dalliances with China and now Russia raise questions about his motives. But Gray's case shows that Snowden was correct about one thing: Trying to pursue the proper internal channels doesn't work." ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: " Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has filled a secret court that oversees surveillance almost entirely with Republican-appointed judges, has named Judge José A. Cabranes, a Democratic appointee, to the panel.... Although Judge Cabranes was appointed to United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by President Bill Clinton, he is considered among the more conservative-leaning Democratic appointees on crime and security issues. In 2005, some supporters -- including Michael Mukasey, who later became President George W. Bush's attorney general -- floated his name as a potential Supreme Court nominee.... Judge Cabranes ... is not a liberal counterweight to conservatives on privacy rights, legal experts said."

Kyle Cheney & Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Gov. Rick Perry wants to kill Obamacare dead, but Texas health officials are in talks with the Obama administration about accepting an estimated $100 million available through the health law to care for the elderly and disabled.... Perry health aides are negotiating with the Obama administration on the terms of an optional Obamacare program that would allow Texas to claim stepped-up Medicaid funding for the care of people with disabilities. The so-called Community First Choice program aims to enhance the quality of services available to the disabled and elderly in their homes or communities. Similar approaches have had bipartisan support around the country. About 12,000 Texans are expected to benefit in the first year of the program."

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "As [former Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner has helped [Lawrence] Summers navigate the uproar [over the President's nominee to chair the Federal Reserve] this summer, he also has been consulted by the president on whom the next Fed chair should be, according to a person familiar with the matter. Longtime campaign advisers to Obama such as Jim Messina and Stephanie Cutter, now in the private sector and more skilled in the world of politics and media than Summers, offered to lend a hand to their former colleague. Meanwhile, allies of [Janet] Yellen publicized her attributes in the media while privately lobbying on her behalf -- often without much success." ...

... Neil Irwin of the Washington Post outlines the reasons the White House prefers Summers to Yellin: (a) Yellin isn't known for being a team player (yeah, & Summers is!); (b) she is "methodical" & "always meticulously prepared," unlike some of the "manic" people on the White House econ team; & (c) President Obama thinks Summers will be more responsive to popping future economic bubbles (because, um, because). CW: Obviously, Irwin's sources are on the White House economic team. So let me reinterpret their reservations: Yellin is a woman. ...

Art via Digby.... Oh, Digby read Irwin's report, too: "So Janet Yellen's a great gal, smart and thoughtful and what not. But she's just not one of the boys." ...

... Max Nisen of Business Insider: "The Obama Administration Has The Stupidest Possible Reasons For Not Liking Janet Yellen.... So basically: Yellen is too methodological, independent, and is too interested in fixing the current employment problem, rather than pricking bubbles which haven't even formed yet. Depressing."

Ashley Parker & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Ted Cruz, after two days of bedevilment over his birthplace and eligibility for the presidency, returned to form on Tuesday night with a rally [in Dallas, Texas] before the conservative faithful aimed at ginning up support to defund President Obama's health care overhaul." ...

... O Canada! David Ljunggren of Reuters: "U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who says he recently discovered he is likely a Canadian, must win security clearance from Canada's spy agency, fill out a four-page form and then wait up to eight months to sever his ties to America's northern neighbor.... As part of the process, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service spy agency must issue a security clearance to anyone who wants to give up their citizenship. Once officials have examined a file and cleared an applicant, it goes to a citizenship judge for a final decision." ...

... CW: it seems to me the best thing to do in this grievous situation is for the U.S. to begin deportation proceedings immediately. ...

... Tom Bevan, the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics, is right upset that the liberal media are picking on Ted Cruz, just the way they picked on Mitt Romney, dredging up stories from the gentlemen's youths to place them in an unfavorable light. "The Daily Beast's piece on Cruz represents a new low for the genre and for modern political journalism...." CW: I guess we should assume conservative & mainstream media never once published an unflattering portrait of a Democratric candidate & his youthful adventures.

Kathie Obradovich of the Des Moines Register: "The co-chairman of the Polk County, [Iowa,] Republican Party has resigned and changed his party registration to independent, saying the GOP has become too conservative and is condoning 'hateful' rhetoric. Chad Brown, 34, of Ankeny ..., said in a phone interview that he became disgusted by a party he believes is being run by the Christian right and the National Rifle Association. He cited Congressman Steve King's recent, controversial comments on illegal immigrants as an example of his philosophical conflict with the party."

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "Officials at the Internal Revenue Service were encouraged to flag groups with the word 'emerge' in their names as well as potential successors to the anti-poverty organization ACORN, according to documents released by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday. The documents add another complicated layer to the ongoing (albeit diminished) controversy surrounding the IRS screening of Tea Party groups in 2010 and 2011. They also take additional steam out of the Republican Party's insistence that the tax agency was politically motivated against conservative groups when it considered whether or not to grant tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status."

Corky Siemaszko of the New York Daily News: "A spokesman for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) ... told the Daily Beast that the Obama Administration is 'temporarily suspending most forms of military aid' [to Egypt,] but a White House rep said 'No specific decisions have been made' at this point." ...

Peter Schwartzstein of the Atlantic: "There Are No More Good Guys in Egypt. One thing that makes this crisis so vexing: Each of the country's major groups have done something totally horrible in the past few weeks." (See also Tuesday's News Ledes.)

Gubernatorial Race

Quinnipiac University: "Democrat Terry McAuliffe has a 48 - 42 percent lead over Republican State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in the race to become Virginia's next governor, according to today's Quinnipiac University poll, the first survey in this race among voters likely to vote in the November election."

Local News

Katharine Seelye & Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: "The Portland Press Herald reported Monday night that two anonymous lawmakers said they had heard [Maine Gov. Paul LePage] say at a private fund-raiser this month that President Obama 'hates white people.' ... On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. LePage, 64, a Republican elected with Tea Party support who avoids talking to the news media as much as possible, stepped forward and denied having said any such thing.... The problem for Mr. LePage, as even some of his allies acknowledge, is that whether or not he made this particular comment, he has made so many other startlingly blunt assertions that while one more may not matter, the accumulation of such comments could." LePage has a good chance of winning re-election, however, because independent candidate Eliot Cutler, who won 36.5 % of the vote in 2010, intends to run again, perhaps allowing LePage to squeak through as he did in then.

Gee, it seems some of the vigilante border patrol/Arizona Minutemen are taking aim at real law enforcement officials, & Sheriff Joe Arpaio is threatening to shoot the self-described militia. If only we could somehow get a "well-regulated militia."

News Ledes

NPR: "Marian McPartland, who gave the world an intimate, insider's perspective on one of the most elusive topics in music -- jazz improvisation -- died of natural causes Tuesday night at her home in Long Island, N.Y. She was 95. For more than 40 years, she hosted an NPR program pairing conversation and duet performances that reached an audience of millions, connecting with jazz fans and the curious alike. She interviewed practically every major jazz musician of the post-WWII era." Includes related links. The New York Times obituary is here.

Al Jazeera: "Syrian activists accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of launching a gas attack that reportedly killed hundreds Wednesday. If confirmed, the attack would be the worst reported use of chemical arms in the two-year-old civil war, and would cross what President Barack Obama has called a 'red line.' ... The White House said it was 'deeply concerned' over the reports.... It also said it had no 'independent verification' about the use of chemical weapons in Syria."

Washington Post: "Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak could leave prison as early as Wednesday night, government officials and legal experts said, after a Cairo court ordered the release of the deposed autocrat who ruled Egypt for three decades." ...

... Al Jazeera: "The European Union decided Wednesday to suspend exports of weapons and some goods to Egypt. The move was meant to block the transfer of materials that could be used for internal repression amid a military crackdown on supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi."

AP: "In the hours after President Richard Nixon delivered a public Watergate address as scandal exploded, two future presidents called him to express their private support, according to audio recordings released Wednesday. The April 30, 1973, calls with Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. were captured on a secret recording system that Nixon used.... The final chronological installment of those tapes -- 340 hours -- were made public by the National Archives and Records Administration, along with more than 140,000 pages of text documents. Seven hundred hours remain sealed for national security and privacy reasons." You can listen to the tapes here.

AP: "The soldier on trial for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood rested his case Wednesday without calling any witnesses or testifying in his own defense. Maj. Nidal Hasan is acting as his own attorney but told the judge that he wouldn't be putting up a defense. About five minutes after proceedings began, the judge asked Hasan how he wanted to proceed. He answered: 'The defense rests.'"

USA Today: "Army Col. Denise Lind said she will announce the sentence [of Bradley Manning] at 10 a.m." today. ...

     ... Update: Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison. Will get credit for 3-1/2 years he's already served. Is eligible for parole. Also received a dishonorable discharge, reduced in rank by one rank & forfeits pay. Could end up serving a minimum of 10 years. All per NBC News. No link. ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "A military judge on Wednesday morning sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison...." ...

     ... Guardian Update: "Bradley Manning will send a personal plea to Barack Obama next week for a presidential pardon after he was sentenced on Wednesday to 35 years in prison for passing hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks."

New York Times: Afghan villagers are "the first witnesses to testify at a sentencing hearing for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who has pleaded guilty to killing 16 Afghan civilians -- most of them women and children -- as he stalked through their mud-walled compounds in Kandahar Province in March 2012."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 20, 2013

Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast: "The U.S. government has decided privately to act as if the military takeover of Egypt was a coup, temporarily suspending most forms of military aid, despite deciding not to announce publicly a coup determination one way or the other, according to ... Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)...." See also today's News Ledes re: Saudi aid to the Egyptian military regime.

Erica Werner of the AP: "The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is rejecting the idea of giving immigrants in the U.S. illegally a special pathway to citizenship. Republican congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia told a town hall meeting in the Shenandoah Valley on Monday that the House must chart its own course on immigration even if it never results in a bill President Barack Obama can sign. He said that he'll do everything he can to ensure the House never takes up the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill, which includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally."

Billy Kenber & Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "U.S. officials on Monday distanced themselves from the decision of British authorities to detain the Brazilian partner of Glenn Greenwald..., amid questions over the documents officials may have confiscated. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that U.S. officials had received a 'heads up' that London police would detain David Miranda on Sunday, but he said the U.S. government did not request Miranda's detention, calling it 'a law enforcement action' taken by the British government." ...

... Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist who broke stories of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, has accused Britain of a 'total abuse of power' for interrogating him for almost nine hours at Heathrow under the Terrorism Act. In his first interview since returning to his home in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday, Miranda said the authorities in the UK had pandered to the US in trying to intimidate him and force him to reveal the passwords to his computer and mobile phone. 'They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn't co-operate,' said Miranda." ...

... Steve M. of NMMNB: "You have a reasonable suspicion that Miranda has stolen national security secrets? Get a damn warrant. Arrest him in a conventional way. Allow him legal counsel. Act like a country where people actually are free." ...

... ** Bob Cesca of the Daily Banter: "So Miranda, Greenwald's spouse, served as a paid courier to transfer stolen, top secret national security documents from Greenwald to [filmmaker Laura] Poitras, and from Poitras back to Greenwald. That's a huge piece of the puzzle, not to mention a total debunking of any hysterical assertion that Miranda was being harassed and intimidated just because he's Greenwald's spouse. He was, in fact, detained because he was transporting stolen national secrets." Read the whole post. Via Steve M. ...

... Helen Davidson of the Guardian: "Amnesty International has condemned the detention of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner at a London airport as 'unwarranted revenge tactics' based solely on his relationship with Greenwald." ...

... AND "Reporters Without Borders is outraged that US journalist Glen Greenwald's Brazilian partner David Miranda was detained and questioned for nine hours yesterday at London's Heathrow airport under the UK's Terrorism Act, and that his mobile phone, laptop and other computer equipment were all seized." ...

... Revenge Journalism. Pedro Fonseca of Reuters: Glenn Greenwald, "the journalist who first published secrets leaked by fugitive former U.S. intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden, vowed on Monday to publish more documents and said Britain will 'regret' detaining his partner for nine hours.... 'I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England, too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did,' Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio de Janeiro's airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil." ...

... CW: Let me get this straight. It's "an unwarranted revenge tactic" when the U.K. detains Greenwald's husband who is reputedly carrying stolen classified documents across international borders, but it's A-okay for Greenwald to retaliate by publishing documents that could compromise U.K. security. WTF am I missing here? Revenge is sweet when I do it? It's a travesty when you do it. Sorry, Glennbots, your hero is a punk. (And, yeah, I get that it's helpless little ole Glenn vs. the mighty Queen's secret service.) ...

... CW: Here's another question -- If the Guardian wanted a mole to smuggle in state secrets, couldn't they have hired a less obvious mule than Greenwald's husband? Say, a little old British lady who might have been traveling on holiday to see the Pergamon Altar & visit the Reichstag? Or did they just want another sensational story? ...

... CW: I see Gary Legum of Wonkette shares my skepticism: "Expertly baited trap, Glenn Greenwald, you evil genius you. Way to fall for it, British authorities. Now Glenzilla gets to inject some fresh energy into a story that had been wilting in the August doldrums and The Guardian gets a burst of web traffic. And we get yelled at for being leg-humping Obamabots. Everybody wins!" ...

... AND Joshua Foust, a national security writer, after excoriating the British authorities for the lengthy detention of Miranda, writes, "Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of his decision to help pilfer and distribute the treasured secrets of several governments, to do so openly, with such braggadocio, is not only arrogant it is misguided. This is not a game, especially to the governments being exposed, and casually involving a spouse to take a hit when he won't risk it is a bizarre and troubling decision.... It sounds a lot like [Miranda] is being used by Greenwald and doesn't fully understand the seriousness of what he's wrapped up in." Foust also notes that Miranda wasn't denied a lawyer; rather he was offered one & refused. ...

... Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, defends the paper's tactics & relates intimidating incidents, during one of which Whitehall personnel destroyed some of the Guardian's documents & hard drives:

Miranda's professional status -- much hand-wringing about whether or not he's a proper 'journalist' -- is largely irrelevant in these circumstances. Increasingly, the question about who deserves protection should be less 'is this a journalist?' than 'is the publication of this material in the public interest?'

... Driftglass: "Now that a non-journalist in their employ has apparently been caught couriering stolen, classified national security documents across Europe, the Guardian has quickly moved to redefine the parameters of who gets journalist protection from 'journalist' to 'anybody'.... However, before we officially sign off abolishing the distinct category of 'journalist' altogether..., perhaps we should pause for just a moment to consider how that exciting new professional standard will be received by Rupert Murdoch and his merry band of phone hackers." ...

... Foust again: after providing a short list of over-the-top, fact-free reactions from "professional journalists" to the Miranda detention, "... being on the side of the truth is, apparently, not an option here -- the world is not a series of complex events, but a simplified bifurcation into 'us' and 'them,' and 'them' always must be vilified as your enemy. I expect this sort of manicheanism from Beltway partisan rags, but not from high-brow magazines and ostensibly professional journalists… but that is, apparently, naive of me." ...

... Oh, how could I have missed this? Chris Good of ABC News: "Julian Assange is a 'big admirer' of both Ron and Rand Paul, the Wikileaks founder said during a recent interview -- while calling some of the younger Paul's views 'sometimes simplistic.' ... Assange cited the Pauls' positions on foreign wars, military drafts, taxes, and abortion." (Emphasis added.) ...

... Travis Waldron of Think Progress: Rand "Paul would replace the current progressive tax system with a flat tax rate, effectively providing the wealthiest Americans with a massive tax cut while raising taxes on many middle- and lower-class families.... Paul's plan finds a way to grant the wealthy an even bigger tax cut by also eliminating all taxes on capital gains, dividends, and other investment income."

... Laura Chapin in U.S. News: "Rand Paul is not only anti-choice, he embraces 'personhood,' the far end of the extremist spectrum on opposing reproductive rights.... As a senator, Paul has introduced the Life at Conception Act, which codifies the notion of 'personhood' into federal law. 'Personhood' is a fringe movement that would give full legal and constitutional rights to fertilized eggs under the law. It would outlaw abortion in all cases, even for victims of rape or incest. It would outlaw many forms of hormonal contraception and IUDs, and limit emergency contraception and in vitro fertilization." ...

... CW: Julian Assange is a glib, self-centered ignoramus, who -- when flailing around looking for something to entertain himself -- latched onto the idea of hacking for fun, fame & profit. The results so far -- mixed.

Here's another guy whose insights into policy issues would not be worth reading -- except he is in a position to do more than opine:

It's not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections. -- Justice Antonin Scalia, re: the Court's decisions on gay marriage & federal benefits for same-sex couples ...

... Joe Coscarelli of New York: "But don't even ask about term limits for justices: "Who is drooling on the bench?" Scalia said last night. Don't answer that."

Michael Shear & Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "President Obama urged the nation's top financial regulators on Monday to move faster on new rules for Wall Street, telling them in a private White House meeting that they must work to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

Steve Benen: "... a small business owner in Las Vegas who had some straightforward questions for Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.): 'Why would you oppose the ACA at every turn?' and 'Why would you oppose something that's helping me now?'" This is a beautiful thing to see. Heck's response is the real "train wreck": he claims, falsely, that Republicans had no opportunity to participate in the crafting of ObamaCare & that if the businessman increases his staff to 50+ employees, he'll be screwed:

Document No. 9. Chris Buckley of the New York Times: "Even as Xi [Jinping, China's leader,] has sought to prepare some reforms to expose China's economy to stronger market forces, he has undertaken a 'mass line' campaign to enforce party authority that goes beyond the party's periodic calls for discipline." "Document No. 9 warns against "'Western constitutional democracy'; ... promoting 'universal values' of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civic participation, ardently pro-market 'neo-liberalism,' and 'nihilist' criticisms of the party's traumatic past."

Presidential Election 2016

Patricia Murphy of the Daily Beast interviews some of Ted Cruz's Princeton classmates. His freshman year roommate, Craig Mazin, sez, "I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book." Some people Murphy interviewed liked Cruz, but "several fellow classmates ... described the young Cruz with words like 'abrasive,' 'intense,' 'strident,' 'crank,' and 'arrogant.' Four independently offered the word 'creepy,' with some pointing to Cruz's habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm's hallway where the female students lived." ...

... Not Running for Canandian Prime Minister. Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News: "Sen. Ted Cruz acknowledged late Monday that he probably has been a lifelong Canadian and vowed to renounce that citizenship now that he realizes he's had it. 'The Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship,' Cruz, a freshman Republican from Texas, said in a statement. 'Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American by birth and as a U.S. senator, I believe I should be only an American.'" ...

... Dan Amira of New York posts a copy of Cruz's official Canadian citizenship renunciation application. Best part: Cruz's reasons for renouncing his citizenship. And, yes, it's possible Amira took some liberties. ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM provides this link to the full form in case you are in need of renouncing your Canadian citizenship. Also, Marshall says it will cost $100. Maybe Ted can take it out of his exploratory committee expense fund. ...

... Aaron Blake: "No, Ted Cruz 'birthers' are not the same as Obama birthers.... Questions about Cruz's eligibility have everything to do with interpretation of the law; the questions about Obama's eligibility had everything to do with a dispute over the underlying facts.... In Cruz's case, nobody is disputing the underlying facts of the case..., but it's not 100 percent clear that that is the same thing as a 'natural born citizen' -- the requirement for becoming president. Most scholars think it's the same thing, and the Congressional Research Service said in 2011 that someone like Cruz 'most likely' qualifies to run for president. But to this point, there is no final word from the courts, because while foreign-born candidates have run -- including George Romney and John McCain -- none of them has actually won and had his eligibility challenged." ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: none of these messy facts has stopped CNN from comparing the years of Obama birther hoo-hah to Ted Cruz's one-day story, even though "I've not seen one Democrat make an issue about this other than to snicker and laugh.... Because, you know, Ted Cruz voluntarily releasing his birth certificate and everyone yawning is the same as a sustained multi-year effort to delegitimize President Obama while asserting he is Kenyan and blah blah blah. Also, too, both sides do it." CW: the CNN writers are "professional journalists," the Fates help us.

Al Hunt of Bloomberg News: "Hillary Clinton doesn't want the biopics, either.... Members of the Clinton camp ... worry the TV series are more likely to hurt than help their candidate in the likely event she decides to run. They calculate the Republicans are already, in the words of one pundit, 'working the refs' -- meaning the networks now would have to bend over backward to avoid turning the programs into flattering portraits. And they note the director of the CNN program is Charles Ferguson, who won an Academy Award for 'Inside Job,' a scathing documentary on the Wall Street financial crisis. That film cast blame, in part, on key figures in President Bill Clinton's administration for their roles in the events leading up to the crash."

Local News

CBS News/AP: "City Hall opened as usual Monday but Mayor Bob Filner was nowhere to be found, still out of public view as he tries to survive a recall effort prompted by a cascade of sexual harassment allegations that led the entire City Council and many leading fellow Democrats to call for him to resign.... According to San Diego's 10News, Filner's attorneys were in a mediation session Monday morning with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith and attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing some of the women who claim they were sexually harassed by the mayor. The station reported that the lawyers were negotiating a deal that could lead to Filner's resignation."

News Ledes

Daily Beast: "U.S. officials followed the Internet trail of an al Qaeda courier to learn the details of an electronic conference between more than 20 of the organization's top officials."

New York Times: " Days before he opened fire inside a medical processing building at Fort Hood here in 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sent two e-mails to his Army superiors expressing concern about the actions of some of the soldiers he was evaluating as a military psychiatrist."

Washington Post: "The Muslim Brotherhood vowed Tuesday that it would not take up arms in response to the arrest of the group's spiritual leader, as it reeled from a crackdown that threatens to paralyze Egypt's most prominent Islamist organization." ...

... New York Times: Across Egypt, Christians & their churches have been the targets of Islamist violence. "As Christians were scapegoated for supporting the military ouster of Mr. Morsi, the authorities stood by and watched: in Nazla, as in other places, the army and the police made no attempt to intervene." ...

... Washington Post: "... more than 60 churches ... have been attacked, vandalized and in many cases set aflame across Egypt in a surge of violence against Christians that has followed the bloody Aug. 14 raid by Egyptian security forces on two Islamist protest camps in Cairo. The attacks, most of them in Egypt's Nile Valley, have lent legitimacy to the military-backed government's claims that it is fighting a war against terrorism."

New York: Crime novelist Elmore Leonard has died at the age of 87. Update: the New York Times obituary is here.

New York Times: "Saudi Arabia has emerged as the foremost supporter of Egypt’s military rulers, explicitly backing the violent crackdown on Islamists and using its oil wealth and diplomatic muscle to help defy growing pressure from the West to end the bloodshed in search of a political solution. As Europeans and the United States considered cutting cash aid to Egypt, Saudi Arabia said Monday that it and its allies would make up any reduction -- effectively neutralizing the West's main leverage over Cairo." ...

... Washington Post: "Security forces arrested the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood on Monday night, in an escalating showdown with the influential Islamist movement that has led to the ouster of Egypt's first democratically elected president and some of the bloodiest urban violence in its modern history."

New York Times: "A Pakistani court indicted Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday in connection with the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the first time that a former military leader has faced criminal proceedings in Pakistan."