The Commentariat -- Aug. 4, 2013

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Fox News’s Chris Wallace challenged House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and the GOP-controlled House for failing to pass key appropriations before the government runs out of money in September, demanding to know why the party is wasting time holding its 40 Obamacare repeal vote and pursuing other highly partisan partisan measures." ...

... Igor Volsky: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) reiterated on Sunday that the House would not bring the Senate's immigration reform bill, which includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, to the floor for debate and a vote."

Dion Nissenbaum of the Wall Street Journal: "A federal grand jury is investigating whether the company that conducted the last security background check on National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden improperly rushed cases without proper review.... At the heart of the criminal probe, which is being conducted by federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are allegations that the company improperly cut corners to boost its processing of background checks, a practice known inside USIS as 'flushing.' ... Such activity could violate the False Claims Act, which outlaws actions that defraud the U.S. government."

Socialized Medicine, Oh My!

Physicians for a National Health Program: "Upgrading the nation's Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses. That's the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said." Via Susie Madrak.

Dan Boyce of NPR: "A year ago, Montana opened the nation's first clinic for free primary healthcare services to its state government employees.... Bottom line: a patient's visit to the employee health clinic costs the state about half what it would cost if that patient went to a private doctor. And because it's free to patients, hundreds of people have come in who had not seen a doctor for at least two years." There is anecdotal evidence the clinic is improving health, too, as physicians are finding early signs of illnesses that patients otherwise would not have detected." Thanks to contributor Barbarossa for the lead.<>br_/

Alex Pareene of Salon: "Ted Cruz is the right man for the decadent decline stage of the conservative movement, which has always encouraged the advancement of fact-challenged populist extremists, but always with the understanding that they'd take a back seat to the sensible business interests when it came time to exercise power. The result has been a huge number of Republican activists who couldn't figure out why the True Conservatives they kept voting for kept failing to achieve the creation of the perfect conservative state once in office. That led to an ongoing backlash against everyone in the party suspected of anything less than perfect ideological purity. Meanwhile all the crazies got rich simply for being crazy. There's no longer any compelling reason, in other words, not to act like Ted Cruz, and the result is Ted Cruz."

Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: Ted Cruz says he doesn't trust Republicans, & he isn't alone. "The Republican Party has not embarked on a grand civil war, with battle lines drawn and generals appointed. It's more like one of those fights in a cartoon, with characters jumping into a swirl of limbs and dust and cowboy hats. It is a rolling ball of cheerful hate, careening downhill, uprooting trees and legislative priorities, heedless of where it, or the country, is going."

CW: In case you care about the National Popular Vote interstate compact, Rick Hertzberg has the latest: Rhode Island has signed on. I happen to think this is a loony idea that -- should it ever be invoked, which is not unlikely -- would had the Electoral College over to the Supreme Court again. For Hertzberg, it's a pet project.

Sarah Jones of Wall of Separation: "The Kentucky chapter of the American Family Association (AFA) just released a petition that declares, in no uncertain terms, that prayer in schools will take us back to Jesus and best of all, boost student test scores, lower the crime rate and even decrease the rate of HIV infection. 'After prayer was removed from our schools, teen pregnancy went up 500%, STD's went up 226%, violent crime went up 500% and SAT scores went down for 18 years in a row, opening the door for the AIDS epidemic and the drug culture,' asserts the petition. Take that, science!" Via Steve Benen.

Senatorial Campaign

Aw, Everybody's Picking on Mitch. of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell found himself under withering attack on Saturday from both his right and left as he tried to make his case for reelection before a boisterous crowd at St. Jerome Catholic Church's annual picnic and political event in far western Kentucky."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The State Department said Sunday that it was extending the closing of 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and North Africa through at least next Saturday because of continued fears of an attack by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates." ...

... ABC News: "On the day that almost two dozen U.S. embassies and consulates across North Africa and the Middle East are closed following the identification of a significant threat from an al-Qaeda affiliate, a senior U.S. official is providing new details about the communications intercepted from the terrorists, telling ABC News that al-Qaeda operatives could be heard talking about an upcoming attack. The official described the terrorists as saying the planned attack is 'going to be big' and 'strategically significant.'"

New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry has recommended that Robert S. Ford serve as the next American ambassador to Egypt, American officials said Sunday. A longtime Middle East hand, Mr. Ford is well known for his role as ambassador to Syria, where he challenged President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown before American diplomats there were pulled out for their own safety. Most recently, Mr. Ford has served as the top American envoy to the Syrian opposition."

AP: "A man condemned to death for fatally stabbing a neighbor during a Cleveland burglary was found hanged in his cell Sunday just days before his Wednesday execution. Billy Slagle, 44, was found at about 5 a.m. at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution south of Columbus and was declared dead within the hour, prison spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said."

USA Today: "John Palmer, a veteran reporter for NBC News who covered wars and Washington over a career that spanned 40 years, died Saturday at a Washington hospital."

Guardian: "The United States and Britain have expressed their concerns after Robert Mugabe was declared the winner of Zimbabwe's presidential election on Saturday with 2,110,434 votes, giving him 61% of the total and Morgan Tsvangirai 34%. The margin was enough to avoid a repeat of the runoff of 2008.... John Kerry, the US secretary of state, commended Zimbabweans for rejecting violence but added: 'Make no mistake: in light of substantial electoral irregularities reported by domestic and regional observers, the United States does not believe that the results announced today represent a credible expression of the will of the Zimbabwean people.' William Hague, the British foreign secretary, also expressed 'grave concerns' about the conduct of the vote."

Reuters: The Obama administration has overturned a U.S. trade panel's ban on the sale of some older iPhones and iPads, reversing a ruling that had favored Samsung Electronics Co Ltd over Apple Inc in their long-running patent battles. The U.S. International Trade Commission in June banned the import or sale of the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G distributed by AT&T Inc, saying the devices infringed a patent owned by the South Korean electronics giant. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman on Saturday vetoed the ban, saying his decision was in part based on its "effect on competitive conditions in the U.S. economy and the effect on U.S. consumers." He said Samsung could continue to pursue its case through the courts."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 3, 2013

CW: Pardon my ignorance. Yesterday I mentioned coming across Websites that claimed homosexuality was the cause of the fall of the Roman empire. (Akhilleus wrote a great rebuttal to that particular "historical theory" in yesterday's Comments.) I thought this was a novel -- and ludicrous, anti-historical -- theory, but it turns out not to be so novel:

The point that I make is that goddamit, I do not think that you glorify, on public television, homosexuality! You ever see what happened, you know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Aristotle was a homo, we all know that. So was Socrates.... The last six Roman emperors were fags. You see, homosexuality, immorality in general, these are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They're trying to destroy us. -- President Richard Nixon, early 1970s, discussing the television show "All in the Family"

Peter Kasperowicz of the Hill: "The House voted Friday to prevent the IRS from enforcing any aspect of ObamaCare, a bill meant to exact revenge against an agency that Republicans say is incapable of neutral enforcement of the law. Members approved the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act in a 232-185 vote. Four Democrats supported the bill along with every Republican.... Friday's vote was the 40th time the House has tried to fully or partially repeal ObamaCare. But it was also a chance to slam the IRS, which Republicans say has shown itself unworthy of neutrally enforcing the controversial law." ...

... Gail Collins: after doing nothing (well except for the Biblically symbolic 40th attempt to deny health insurance to millions of Americans), Congress has taken the month off. Too bad it isn't run by women, who can get something done & be polite about it.

** Dana Milbank: "Republican lawmakers seem to think that Americans have short memories and lack Internet connections, for their latest line of attack -- that Obama's health-care and tax policies favor the corporate elite -- directly contradicts their previous allegation that Obama was waging 'class warfare' with 'socialist' policies attacking these very same corporate elites.... Republicans need to make up their minds: Is President Obama a socialist or a corporate stooge?" Milbank's examples of GOP inconsistency are rich.

David Freedlander of the Daily Beast interviews Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.). "House Republicans? Have done more damage to American competitiveness than al Qaeda ever could. 'What is happening is sabotage. Terrorists couldn't do a better job than the Republicans are doing.' The Tea Party? Defeat them the same way segregation was beaten. 'It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police. They didn't care about how they looked. It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough."

Speaking of White Crackers.... Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: the Tea party astroturf organization "FreedomWorks believes it has identified a core weakness of Obamacare: the young adults who are crucial to keeping premiums in the Affordable Care Act's new coverage programs low, the same demographic the White House sees as crucial to the health law's success. Young adults tend to have lower medical bills, which would hold down premiums for the entire insurance market. If only the sick and elderly sign up, health costs would skyrocket. FreedomWorks wants to make that happen and, in so doing, doom the law." An associated astroturf group, Americans for Prosperity, founded & funded by the Koch brothers, Americans for Prosperity, "has spent more advertising against the health law since President Obama signed it than they did during the legislative battle." ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "... there's a flaw in the [FreedomWorks] plan. The money [the veep of FreedomWorks] is telling people to pay in fines will just go back into funding Obamacare for the not really stupid people who do get health insurance. But hey gang, knock yourselves out. Because nothing says Freedom! like spending hours in the emergency room waiting to see a doctor for the burn you got from torching a fake Obamacare card." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic outlines six reasons young people will probably enroll in Obamacare insurance plans. ...

... Lori Robinson & Justin Cohen of FactCheck.org on some of the untrue claims the Republican National Committee & leading Republicans claim about healthcare & insurance costs under ObamaCare.

Niels Lesniewski of Roll Call: "Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy says Democrats should bring back the idea of changing the [Senate] rules with a simple majority if Republicans block nominees to a federal appeals court. 'I think that the rules change will come back on the table if it's filibustered because it is one thing if you had somebody who is not qualified. These people are extraordinarily well-qualified,' the Vermont Democrat said of three nominees pending to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in an interview that will air Sundayon C-SPAN's 'Newsmakers.' Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last month that his plan to change the Senate's procedures with a simple majority vote (the 'nuclear option') would have applied only to executive branch nominees, not judges."

Profile in Cowardice. At a town hall meeting, Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) encouraged a member of the audience who called President Obama a "foreign-born, America-hating communist despot." Tim Murphy of Mother Jones has the video. ...

... Jed Lewison: "... when contacted by NBC about her answer, Roby's office put out a statement defending the questioner and the audience.... This kind of thing is so commonplace it's hard to get shocked or even outraged by it. But the fact remains that a good chunk of the GOP's activist base is totally and entirely delusional -- and elected Republicans are either too afraid to stand up to it, or are as delusional as their constituents."

Shmucks-in-Arms. CW: Steve Rattner is apparently one of the former Obama officials whom the White House has sent out to do Larry Summers' bidding. In a New York Times op-ed, we learn Larry is really a great guy! despite everything you have heard. As for Rattner himself, the former car czar settled that pension-fund corruption/kickback case for millions of dollars out of his own pocket & some loose change from his corporation. Also, he's a deficit hawk. So his recommendation vis-a-vis managing the national economy is worth a lot. Millions maybe.

Senatorial Race

The New York Times Editors endorse Newark Mayor Cory Booker among four solid candidates with progressive records for the Democratic nomination in the special U.S. Senate race in New Jersey. CW: isn't that something? -- four excellent primary candidates in New Jersey; Liz Cheney & Mike Enzi in Wyoming.

Gubernatorial Race

Tom Hamburger & Ben Pershing of the Washington Post: "An electric-car company co-founded by Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its conduct in soliciting foreign investors, according to law enforcement documents and company officials. In May, the SEC subpoenaed documents from GreenTech Automotive and bank records from a sister company, Gulf Coast Funds Management of McLean. The investigation is focused, at least in part, on alleged claims that the company 'guarantees returns' to the investors, according to government documents." ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times characterizes the investigation as a cloud over McAuliffe's campaign in the vein of the gifts scandal that has dominated Republican rival Ken Cuccinelli's run.

Local News

Alex Dobuzinskis of Reuters: "A federal judge on Friday blocked a portion of a Wisconsin law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital near their practice. U.S. District Judge William Conley last month temporarily stopped the measure, days after Republican Governor Scott Walker signed it into law, and his latest ruling extends that indefinitely while a lawsuit proceeds against the provision. Planned Parenthood, which filed the suit, is challenging the requirement that doctors performing an abortion have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their practice."

Tom Brown of Reuters: "Florida lawmakers will hold hearings this fall on the state's 'Stand Your Ground' self-defense law, which has become a lightning rod for criticism following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. The announcement on Friday by Will Weatherford, the speaker of Florida's House of Representatives, marked the biggest concession yet by the state's Republican leaders to protesters' demands for a top-to-bottom review of the law, which allows people in fear of serious injury to use deadly force to defend themselves rather than retreat."

Monica Garcia & John Keilman of the Chicago Tribune: "... Gov. Pat Quinn signed the state's medical marijuana bill into law, with Illinois joining 19 other states and the District of Columbia that have legalized cannabis for patient use."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Robert Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since it threw off white rule in 1980, won another term as president after a hotly disputed election held on Wednesday, defeating his main challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, with 61 percent of the vote, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said Saturday."

AP: "Despite warnings from California officials, the nation's highest court is refusing to delay the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates by year's end to ease overcrowding at 33 adult prisons. In its decision Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed an emergency request by the Gov. Jerry Brown to halt a lower court's directive for the early release."

Reuters: "Employers slowed their pace of hiring in July but the jobless rate fell anyway, a pair of mixed signals that could make the Federal Reserve more cautious about drawing down its huge economic stimulus program.... Gains in employment were enough to push the jobless rate down to 7.4 percent, its lowest level since December 2008."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 2, 2013

Filibusted Again. Ted Barrett of CNN: "In yet another sign that Congress is headed for a clash in the fall over government spending, Senate Republicans Thursday blocked a transportation and housing bill, arguing it would break budget spending caps. It was a significant defeat for Democrats and a win for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, who persuaded several Republicans who had previously voted to support the higher spending level to change their positions and vote to block the bill." ...

... All I can tell you is he has never worked harder against a member of his own party than he did against me today. -- Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the only Republican who voted for the transportation bill, when asked if Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's fear of his tea party challenger might explain why he pressured Republicans to vote no

P.S. In neon-red Kentucky, even McConnell's Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, is polling even with him. -- Constant Weader ...

... Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "The Senate confirmed President Obama's nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. On an 87-10 vote Wednesday, the Senate approved the nomination of Samantha Power. Nearly 30 GOP senators voted with Democrats to approve her nomination." CW: Power was not one of the seven nominees Senate Republicans agreed to confirm in a deal to avert a rules change that would eliminate the 60-vote threshold for administration appointees. ...

... Jeremy Herb of the Hill: "The Senate confirmed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey to a second two-year term by voice vote on Thursday. The Senate approved Dempsey's nomination as part of a large package of nominations that were approved by voice vote before the Senate kicked off its month-long August recess. The Senate also approved Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. James Winnefeld and a host of other military nominations." ...

... Jonathan Weisman & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Congress appeared at a dead end, unable to pass spending bills at the levels mandated by the across-the-board spending cuts, but unwilling to retreat to higher numbers set by the 2011 Budget Control Act before those cuts went into force." After the Senate bill failed, a [bipartisan??] bloc of eight Senators went to the White House to discuss Plan B (or X or whatever). CW: Worse news: Obama is still talking deficit reduction, & McConnell (who was not in the group of eight) still says the U.S. is about to become Greece.

Hastert Rule, Part 1. Greg Sargent: House "Republicans will obey the Hastert Rule until the end of time." In answer to a question posed in a town-hall meeting, Rep. Paul Ryan gave advocates some hope that immigration reform bills would come to the floor whether or not they had the support of a majority of Republicans; turns out he was lying. CW: Ryan has always been adept at lying directly to constituents' faces on matters he knows to be untrue. ...

     ... Steve Benen: "It's frustrating, but the fate of immigration reform largely comes down to one person: House Speaker John Boehner. And as of now, he's too weak, cowed, and confused to do much of anything." ...

Hastert Rule, Part 2. If You Thought We Were Cruel Last Week.... Erik Wasson of the Hill: "House Republicans are drafting legislation that would cut $40 billion from the federal food stamp program over 10 years. That's nearly double the $20.5 billion in cuts that were included in the farm bill legislation that failed on the House floor in June. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) ... wants to pass the food stamp bill with only GOP votes. [Emphasis added.] The deeper cuts are meant to attract conservatives who felt the $20.5 reduction was too low." ...

... Tim Egan: "Just now, a cell of several hundred people has been dispatched into the American summer, to picnics, town halls, radio stations, hospitals and Little League playing fields, with a mission to derail the economic recovery and drum up support for sabotaging federal law. They're not terrorists, nor are they agents of a foreign government. This is your United States Congress, the Republican House, on recess for the next five weeks. They even have a master plan, a 31-page kit put together by the House Republican Conference, for every member to follow...." ...

"The Grifter," Act II, Scene 1

Ted Cruz: Republicans should simply vote to fund all of federal government except for Obamacare.

Audience Member: What are the chances of that?

Cruz: The chances of that today are zero.

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "So if Cruz was right when he said there was 'zero chance' of his plan actually working, then why is he pushing it? The most obvious answer is that he thinks it will help position him for 2016.... And why are outside GOP groups like Club for Growth and Heritage Action joining Cruz? Because there's a big portion of the GOP base that has no idea how absurd the defund Obamacare scheme is -- and they are ready, eager, and willing to keep on sending money to people who are willing to mislead them. So, yes, this is sort of a civil war. But at its core, what's really going on is hilarious mix of 2016 ambition and grift."

** Fareed Zakaria, in the Washington Post, on the root of all of Washington's ills: lobbyists. "The permanent government of the United States is no longer defined by party or a branch but by a profession comfortably encamped around the federal coffers.... The result is bad legislation." Zakaria draws a parallel with the fall of the Roman Empire when senators institutionalized corruption; hardly original, but apt. ...

... CW Note: I thought I might like a painting of the fall of Rome to illustrate Zakaria's column. So I Googled images for the "fall of Rome," & I found quite a few. Most of the pictures were used to illustrate sentiments like this one from someone named Paul Benedict, who describes himself as a libertarian: "... the fall of Athens and of the Roman Republic can be linked to evidence of rampant, institutionalized homosexuality." And so on & so forth. What's particularly discouraging is that Benedict (& writers at the other sites I visited) are articulate essayists.

NEW. Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama is now in the process of interviewing three candidates for the position at the helm of the central bank: [Lawrence] Summers; Janet L. Yellen, the vice chairwoman at the Federal Reserve, who had generally been considered the front-runner for the job; and a dark horse for the post, Donald L. Kohn, a former Fed vice chairman." Meanwhile, Summers' fans -- many of whom work in the White House -- are busily buffing his image, just as the President did in a closed-door meeting with Democrats this week. CW: I don't think our "Summers Sucks" tee-shirts are gonna work.

** Paul Krugman: "Janet Yellen, the vice chairwoman of the Fed's Board of Governors, is ... the best-qualified person in America to take over when Ben Bernanke steps down as chairman. Yet there are not one but two sexist campaigns under way against Ms. Yellen. One is a whisper campaign whose sexism is implicit, while the other involves raw misogyny.... Both campaigns have another problem, too: They're based on bad economic analysis."

Obama 2.0. AP: "Barack Obama has chosen [John Koskinen,] a retired corporate and government official with experience managing numerous organizations in crisis, to take over the Internal Revenue Service, which is under fire for screening of political groups." CW: The story doesn't say so, but the IRS post requires Senate confirmation. ...

... CW: now, in our educational series "The Hackery Chronicles," contrast the AP's lede with Politico's characterization, by Lauren French: "Obama said Thursday he plans to nominate Koskinen for a job that's never glamorous but has become all the more daunting after the IRS revealed in May that it subjected tea party groups to inappropriate scrutiny when they applied for a tax exemption. The pressure is only growing as Congress pummels the IRS over its role in enforcing Obamacare." (Emphasis added.)

      ... This is the second graf of the Politico story, & it contains at least two misleading statements, one suggesting that the IRS scrutiny was limited to right-wing groups & the other that "Congress" -- not "Congressional Republicans" -- were "pummeling" the IRS. In addition, it isn't clear that the scrutiny was "inappropriate" -- that's a controversial charge, not a fact. And there's no hint that the IRS "revelation" was a Darrell Issa Production, not the product of a spontaneous IRS audit. French goes on to write, "Fallout from the tea party targeting practice consumed the White House in the early months of the summer and though the administration has more recently dismissed the debacle — Obama lamented 'phony' scandals -- Republicans won't let go." Not a hint, mind you, as to the substantive reasons Obama dismissed the Tea Pity Party "targeting" as a "phony" scandal.

Andrew Miga of the AP: " The Postal Service takes pictures of every piece of mail processed in the United States -- 160 billion last year -- and keeps them on hand for up to a month. In an interview with The Associated Press, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the photos of the exterior of mail pieces are used primarily for the sorting process, but they are available for law enforcement, if requested. The photos have been used 'a couple of times' by to trace letters in criminal cases, Donahoe told the AP on Thursday, most recently involving ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 'We don't snoop on customers,' said Donahoe, adding that there's no big database of the images because they are kept on nearly 200 machines at processing facilities across the country. Each machine retains only the images of the mail it processes."

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "President Obama told key members of Congress on Thursday that he was 'open to suggestions' for reforming the National Security Agency surveillance programs that have embroiled his administration in controversy. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who is among the Senate's leading critics of the NSA's bulk phone records collection, said he left a meeting at the White House confident that 'constructive' changes to the programs would soon take shape." ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama is even less likely to go through with a visit to Moscow this fall after Russia's decision on Thursday to grant Edward J. Snowden temporary asylum. For Mr. Obama, though, the Snowden affair is only one of myriad reasons to beg off the scheduled meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin.... The decline in the American-Russian relationship has been remarkably swift since Mr. Putin's return to the presidency last year." ...

... Alec Luhn, et al., of the Guardian: "The White House expressed anger and dismay on Thursday after Russia granted temporary asylum to the American whistleblower Edward Snowden and allowed him to leave the Moscow airport where he had been holed up for over a month.... [White House press secretary Jay Carney said,] 'As we know he's been in Russia now for many weeks. There is a huge risk associated with ... removing that information from secure areas. You shouldn't do it, you can't do it, it's wrong.'" ...

... Alissa de Carbonnel of Reuters: "U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden will publish no more leaks but instead look to build a life in Russia where he has been granted a year-long asylum, his lawyer said on Thursday. Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who is assisting Snowden, said the 30-year-old has found shelter in a private home of American expatriates after leaving Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.... A pledge not to publish more information that could harm the United States was the condition under which Russian President Vladimir Putin said the American could receive safe harbor." ...

... Julia Joffe of the New Republic has more on this new chapter in young Lord Snowden's adventuresome life: "Edward Snowden is already getting job offers and calls from Russian girls, says his laywer." Also, ironically, the government has almost certainly bugged the place he's living, wherever that maybe (maybe with U.S. spies), & Russian spooks are likely to stop by from time to time when he's not home. ....

... A Cautionary Tale. CW: Had I run these links earlier today, the caution would have been, "Don't Google 'backpacks' & 'pressure cookers' in the same time frame if you don't want a 6-person terrorist task force dropping by to grill you. Because, um, Ed Snowden was right." Or, as the Michele Catalano, the author of the original story wrote,

This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do. All I know is if I'm going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I'm not doing it online. I'm scared. And not of the right things. ...

Artwork by EastburyIllustration.com... BUT now it turns out the caution is, "Your employer is monitoring your every keystroke." Alexia Tsotsis of Tech Crunch: "Turns out the visit was prompted by the searches, but not in the way most speculation asserted -- by a law enforcement-initiated, NSA-enabled dragnet of the couple's web history. It turns out either Catalano or her husband were conducting these searches from a work computer. And that employer ... called the police on their former employee." ...

... CW: it was the husband of their son, & he's no longer working at the company. And that "terrorist task force" turned out to be the Suffolk County police. That employers monitor their employees' activities is not news, and it's (mostly) legal. ...

... "How a Paranoic Blogger Made Everyone Scared to Google Pressure Cookers." Adrian Chen of Gawker: "... the speed at which Catalano's post spread* shows the resonance of any surveillance stories, post-Edward Snowden. The scope of the NSA's revelations must have led journalists and Twitter-ers to ignore the fact that Catalano's story seemed fishy from the beginning."

... * For instance, the Guardian republished Catalano's post in its entirety. And as Chen's post illustrates with multiple examples, her claims engendered an instant "internet privacy shit-storm." ...

... Digby's take: "... it looks as though the 'Insider Threat' program is working quite well even in the private sector. Even if Big Brother isn't personally watching you, your employer is doing it on his behalf." ...

... CW: IMHO, the employer was wrong to snoop on the employee, but once s/he had done so, s/he was right to notify the cops if s/he had a real concern & wasn't just acting out of spite. AND, BTW, the nosy neighbor (or employer) is still more effective at highlighting suspicious activity than is the NSA -- unless you assume that the NSA is just smarter than the Suffolk police & "reasoned" -- via some algorithm -- that the husband/son wasn't a terrorist.

Benghazi! Jake Tapper of CNN: "Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground [the night four Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya], and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret. CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.... The lack of information and pressure to silence CIA operatives is disturbing to U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf [R], whose district includes CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.... Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels." ...

... Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog: "The right ... is now cackling in triumph.... But wait -- wasn't the scandal of Benghazi supposed to be that Obama, who hates America and wants our enemies to win, allowed the consulate to go undefended, then covered up what happened because he was running for reelection claiming to have Al Qaeda on the run...? Doesn't this kinda blow that narrative completely out of the water?"

Ben Protess & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "A federal jury found the [former Goldman Sachs] trader, Fabrice Tourre, liable on six counts of civil securities fraud after a three-week trial in Lower Manhattan. The case had given both sides -- the government and Mr. Tourre -- a chance to repair their reputations. For the Securities and Exchange Commission, a regulator dogged by its failure to thwart the crisis, the case offered a shot at redemption following one courtroom disappointment after another, including two similar mortgage-related cases that crumbled last year."

Amy Chozick & Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times on how the Clintons try to protect Huma Abedin, the wife of Anthony Weiner.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "A suspected al-Qaeda threat prompted the United States to issue a rare worldwide travel alert Friday, just a day after it announced that it would shutter 21 U.S. embassies across the Muslim world this weekend. U.S. officials said the threat was tied to al-Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate, which previously has been linked to plots to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner and cargo flights. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC News that ... an exact target was not known, 'but the intent seems clear. The intent is to attack Western, not just U.S., interests.'"

Reuters: "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Pakistan Egypt's army had been 'restoring democracy' when it toppled [President Mohamed] Mursi. 'The military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people, all of whom were afraid of a descendance into chaos, into violence,' he told Pakistan's GEO TV. 'And the military did not take over, to the best of our judgment so - so far.'"

Reuters: "A supreme court ruling upholding a tax fraud conviction against former center-right leader Silvio Berlusconi has left the fate of Italy's fragile ruling coalition in the balance, although his supporters said the government would not be brought down."