The Commentariat -- July 17, 2013

Interesting comments yesterday. Mostly.

Roni Rabin & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect, state officials are to announce on Wednesday. State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower." CW: people who live in states that refuse to cooperate with the ACA of course will not reap the benefits of the subsidies, though they can buy into insurance through a federally-facilitated exchange. If you're not sure what your state is up to, this site will help. ...

... AND Republicans' reaction to the good news? Catherine Hollander of the National Journal: "The House is set to vote Wednesday on two bills that would delay implementation of key pieces of the 2010 health reform law.... The legislation isn't likely to go anywhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate — and the White House has said it would veto the measures."

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "... even after the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] opened its doors in July 2011, almost exactly two years ago, its legal authority remained uncertain so long as Republicans prevented the confirmation of a director to lead the agency, as required by law. That barricade collapsed on Tuesday. Republicans agreed to allow the confirmation of Richard Cordray, by a vote of 66 to 34, cementing a new era of expansive federal oversight of companies that lend money to consumers. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who conceived the agency when she was a Harvard professor and supervised its creation as an Obama administration official, presided over the 66-to-34 confirmation vote, announcing the results with obvious satisfaction." ...

Here's the most recent reporting on the Senate filibuster deal, which came out somewhat better for Democrats than reported earlier. Jonathan Weisman & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The deal began to take shape during late-night talks on Monday between Democrats and a Republican, John McCain of Arizona, who appeared to bypass his own leadership. They ended with early-morning commitments in the Senate gym. A clear winner was Mr. Obama, who gained a functioning consumer agency created on his watch, resurrected a defunct labor board and secured confirmation of a new E.P.A. chief and a disputed labor secretary. The Senate will also vote Wednesday to confirm Fred P. Hochberg to a new term at the helm of the Export-Import Bank. Democrats withdrew two nominees for the National Labor Relations Board whom the president had appointed during a Senate recess. On Tuesday Mr. Obama nominated as replacements Nancy Schiffer and Kent Hirozawa. Ms. Schiffer retired last year as an associate general counsel at the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and Mr. Hirozawa is the chief counsel to the board's chairman." However, "... the new deal did not put in place any framework for restricting [obstructive] procedural tactics in the future or address the larger question of how to unclog the Senate." ...

... CW: But I'm with the New York Times Editors: "... it's regrettable that Mr. Reid and the Democrats didn't vote to change the rules for this Senate and for a future one controlled by Republicans. They should have stood up for the principle that simple-majority votes should determine confirmation of executive appointments, not a 60-vote threshold that gives minority parties a veto over a president's team and that was unintended by the Constitution." ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times: "... last night John McCain and a group of other mainstream Republican senators completely undercut [Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's] position, cutting a deal to vote on seven contested nominations without further argument. Mr. McConnell was nowhere to be found in that deal, and in fact voted against it this morning. He voted instead to continue a filibuster against Richard Cordray, nominated to run the Consumer Financial Protection Board, while 17 more sensible Republicans went the other direction.... This afternoon, after voting against the deal, he told reporters how terrific it all was.... And he insisted that Republicans gave up none of their rights.... In fact, Mr. McConnell lost quite a bit of power today." ...

... Ezra Klein: "It's clear now that Reid will change the rules if he believes it necessary. But so too will McConnell. If Republicans retake the Senate in 2014 and the presidency in 2016, there's no way Majority Leader McConnell will permit Democrats to routinely filibuster or otherwise obstruct President Christie's nominees. If they do, he'll throw Reid's words back in their face and make the change Reid threatened to make today." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "If you score these things the way Washington usually does, this is a huge win for the Democrats. It's also a huge win for their leaders in the Senate -- particularly Harry Reid, who emerged with virtually everything he wanted to achieve.... Still, if this is a win, it's a win in a game that never should have been played." ...

... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) lost big in the filibuster battle that ended Tuesday morning. Senators struck a tentative deal to confirm seven nominees to run federal agencies and departments, in exchange for Democrats agreeing not to nuke the filibuster on executive branch nominations -- for now. But McConnell is still winning the war.... Legislation can continue to be filibustered by Republicans as a matter of course -- sometimes to be thwarted entirely (such as the DREAM Act of 2010 and gun control legislation of 2013) and sometimes to be used as leverage to extract concessions. That remains a huge redefinition of the Senate minority's power that has reached unprecedented heights under McConnell, and which Democrats still have no answer to." ...

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: the "Maverick" is back. If you want to know why, take a look at this WashPo photo, taken yesterday (I guess):

If in fact the House recognized the smart thing, the right thing to do, was to go ahead and send the Senate [immigration] bill to the floor for a vote, I think it would pass tomorrow. We need to just go ahead and get this done. -- President Obama, yesterday, on Telemundo Dallas, sticking it to John Boehner

Like it or not, the Hispanic media perceives that approving or rejecting immigration reform is in the hands of John Boehner. When you listen to local radio stations and even national media, most of us are concentrated on John Boehner. We don't even have a problem pronouncing his name. -- Jorge Ramos, Univision news anchor ...

... John Stanton of BuzzFeed: "Conservatives in Congress have been actively opposing immigration reform in recent months, citing a fear that well-funded primary challengers will take them on if they compromise on the issue -- a line of reasoning that has crystalized into conventional wisdom in Washington. But interviews with operatives, campaign aides, and activists from groups like the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, as well as a review of recent election data, suggests the likelihood of Republicans facing serious primary challenges is not only overstated but probably won't have much of anything to do with immigration." CW: so let's just speculate -- if it ain't about the race, what could it be? Oh. Racism. ...

... Manuel Roig-Franzia & Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. strongly condemned 'stand your ground' laws Tuesday, saying the measures 'senselessly expand the concept of self-defense' and may encourage 'violent situations to escalate.' The statutes, which have been enacted in more than 30 states, have become the focus of a complicated national debate over race, crime and culpability since the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla.":

... Scott Powers of the Orlando Sentinel: "The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday afternoon appealed to civil rights groups and community leaders, nationally and in Sanford, for help investigating whether a federal criminal case might be brought against George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, one advocate said. The DOJ has also set up a public email address to take in tips on its civil rights investigation." ...

... Over at the Washington Post, racial profiling is totally justified. (And so is sexual harassment.) Tom Scocca of Gawker: "Not every columnist would look at the death of an unarmed 17-year-old black kid, shot after he was racially profiled, as an occasion to write a column about how all black teenagers deserve to be racially profiled. But the Washington Post's Richard Cohen is a very special columnist." ...

... Elspeth Reeve of the Atlantic: "Cohen appears to believe all black men are the same, and that they are violent. Cohen says he's 'tired' of politicians and activists 'who essentially suggest that, for recognizing the reality of urban crime in the United States, I am a racist.' He justifies Zimmerman's assumption that Martin was a criminal by citing statistics about crime in New York [City]. ...

... Um, maybe Geraldo was right, after all. Juror B-37 is very Paula Deen-y. ...

Good for Chuck. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that he has ordered a 20 percent cut in the number of top brass and senior civilians at the Pentagon by 2019, the latest attempt to shrink the military bureaucracy after years of heady growth. Hagel's directive could force the Pentagon and military command staffs to shed an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 jobs.... He said the personnel cutbacks would happen regardless of whether the White House and Congress are able to sidestep automatic budget reductions that are scheduled to take place in the coming years."

I guess the only way to do that would be for the president to, somehow or other, fire him. -- Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), on how to hold NSA Director James Clapper accountable for lying to Congress (Levin, unfortunately, is not calling on President Obama to can Clapper.)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren explains to CNBC "experts" why Glass-Steagall should be reinstated. Thanks to Julie L. for the link:

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "What do these large dollar numbers have in common: $6.5 billion, $5.5 billion, $4.2 billion, and $1.9 billion? They represent the latest quarterly net profits made by too-big-to-fail banks -- in order, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs, the last of which reported its second-quarter figures before the market opened on Tuesday. Five years after being bailed out by the federal government, the U.S. banking system ... is generating record profits.... One of the many ironies of government's response to the crisis is that it accentuated rather than resolved the too-big-to-fail problem. By encouraging further consolidation in the financial industry..., which guaranteed them access to the Fed's emergency-lending facilities, the government created an élite group of banks that can raise money cheaply, because everybody knows they are backstopped by the taxpayer."

Jill Treanor of the Guardian: "Barclay's and four of its power traders have been ordered to pay a total of $453m (£299m) in fines by the US energy watchdog, which accuses the bank of attempting to manipulate the US electricity market.... First announced last October, the fine by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) relates to allegations for the two years to December 2008. The FERC told Barclays it had to pay a $435m fine to the US treasury within 30 days; one of its traders must pay a $15m fine, and three other traders $1m each.... The bank must also give up $34.9m in profits which will to be distributed to low-income homeowners in California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington to help them pay their energy bills...." ...

     ... Update: David Sheppard of Reuters: "Barclays will contest a record $453 million fine imposed by a U.S. energy regulator against the British bank and four of its power traders, setting up a likely federal court battle."

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "David Brooks Wonders Why Men Can't Find Jobs: Comedy Ensues." CW: Yes, pondering the laziness of the non-working poor is a cottage industry for right-wing "thinkers." This isn't the first Brooks has theorized about why those lazy bastards don't get off their asses & participate in the American dream.

AP: "... Edward Snowden could leave the transit zone of a Moscow airport after Russian authorities review his asylum request, his lawyer said Wednesday. President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Snowden has been warned against taking any actions that would damage relations between Moscow and Washington." ...

... Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor on why the Snowden Saga is actually newsworthy. "... while he may or may not be a whistleblower with his disclosures about NSA domestic surveillance..., his decision to reveal details about NSA spying on other countries indicates a willingness to go far beyond that. While Greenwald and Snowden said the principal reason for the leaks was preserving US liberty, disclosures about intelligence collection methods in China, Brazil, and Europe have nothing to do with that. What might, in the fullness of time, he decide to disclose next? ... Snowden makes for more than irresistibly great copy. He has information that's vital to the foreign spying programs of the US, and the chances that he can and will use it as bargaining chips with foreign powers are real." Read the whole essay; Murphy does a good job of synthesizing the threat Snowden poses to U.S. security.

When a major university's president tries to secretly curb academic freedom & ban books, ferchissakes, he might be Mitch Daniels. Charles Pierce has the goods on Former Teensy Gov. Hoosier.

Congressional Races

Worth watching:

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Liz Cheney, the older daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, announced Tuesday that she intended to challenge Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming in a Republican primary clash in next year that national and state party officials had hoped to avoid."

Local News

So if you're managing the campaign of Ken Cuccinelli, candidate for Virginia governor, & your guy is down by 4 points in a legitimate poll, what to do? Oh, you could make up your own poll out of whole cloth in which you announce your candidate is 13 points ahead. Yup. This strategy worked wonders for President & Lady Romney.

Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast interviews the "new" Eliot Spitzer. Amusing, if not convincing on the Newness of Eliot.

Right Wing World

Buy-a-Blogger. Rosey Gray of BuzzFeed: "Several conservative bloggers repeated talking points given to them by a proxy group for the Ukrainian government -- and at least one writer was paid by a representative of the Ukrainian group, according to documents and emails obtained by BuzzFeed."

News Ledes

Reuters: "BP Plc ... asked a U.S. judge on Tuesday to temporarily halt payments from a court-supervised settlement fund for certain claims for damages related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill while former FBI director Louis Freeh investigates possible misconduct.... BP had sought an investigation into allegations that a lawyer working for the administrator of the payments had referred claims to a New Orleans law firm in exchange for a share of subsequent settlement payments."

AP: "The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaida confirmed on Wednesday that the group's No. 2 figure, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, was killed in a U.S. drone strike. The announcement, posted on militant websites, gave no date for the death of Saudi-born Saeed al-Shihri. The confirmation was significant, however, because al-Shihri had twice before been reported dead but the terror group later denied those reports."

AP: "Gunmen assassinated a prominent Syrian pro-government figure at his home in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in the latest sign of Syria's civil war spilling over into its smaller neighbor, security officials said. Mohammed Darrar Jammo was gunned down, shot nearly 30 times, in the coastal town of Sarafand, a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, the officials said...."

The Commentariat -- July 16, 2013

Jonathan Weisman & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Senator Harry Reid of Nevada took a defiant and uncompromising stand on Monday ahead of a closed-door meeting of the Senate, saying that pushing through a rules change to end filibusters of executive branch nominations would 'save the Senate from becoming obsolete.'" ...

... John Bresnahan & Burgess Everett of Politico: as all Senators meet into the night to try to avoid the "nuclear option," John McCain comes to the rescue with a fantastic solution: let Republicans pick the nominees! David Koch & a couple of Walton heirs for the NLRB, Charles Koch for Secretary of Labor, Lloyd Blankfein to head up the CFPB, & a few Scalia kids for open judgeships. ...

... Ed O'Keefe & Paul Kane of the Washington Post with a 9:23 pm ET Update: "The Senate made an eleventh-hour bid Monday night to avert an unprecedented maneuver to change the chamber's rules governing presidential appointees, with nearly all 100 senators huddled in a rare bipartisan, closed-door caucus.... All sides reported some progress, but there remained some critical distance on whether Obama's current picks to run the National Labor Relations Board would be confirmed or whether new selections would be sent to the Senate for confirmation.... If senators fail to reach a new agreement, Reid plans to hold a key test vote Tuesday morning on Cordray's nomination, needing 60 votes to move to a debate and final confirmation vote. Up after that would come the NLRB nominees, followed by less controversial selections to lead the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the EPA and the Labor Department. "CW: Sounds like they're taking up McCain's idea! ...

... Alex Rogers of Time: "After the meeting Reid continued to meet with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to hammer out a compromise, but Democrats said he was still prepared to act without Republican support. The issue is likely to come to a head on the Senate floor Tuesday morning." ...

... Ed O'Keefe & Paul Kane: "Senators reached a tentative deal Tuesday on averting a constitutional showdown over confirming President Obama's agency nominations." No word on what the deal is. MSNBC is saying some of the nominees will get an up-or-down vote, but there's apparently still some question on the NLRB nominees. ...

... New York Times Editors: "... this is a precedent worth setting. Whether Republican or Democrat, a president should get a vote on executive appointments, giving nominees a chance to make a case to a simple majority that they are fit for office. The American people have come to detest Congress for its contentiousness and inaction. On Tuesday, the Senate has a chance to begin restoring its reputation."

Vladimir Isachenkov of the AP: National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden on Tuesday submitted a request for temporary asylum in Russia, his lawyer said. Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer who is a member of the Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory body, said that Snowden submitted the asylum request to Russia's Federal Migration Service. The service had no immediate comment." ...

Another Upside to the Snowden Leaks

Adam Liptak of the New York Times points to the Catch-22 in the U.S.'s secret surveillance programs: the government has argued -- and the Supremes have agreed -- that the only persons who "have standing" to bring a Fourth Amendment claim against the intelligence-gathering are those who can show it was the source of the government's case against them. BUT the government has also argued, in other venues, that it does not have to inform a defendant that the secret programs were the sources of their evidence. Ergo, nobody has standing to challenge the law or the intelligence-gathering. Neat. ...

... MEANWHILE, Jerry Markon of the Washington Post writes, "But the legal landscape may be shifting, lawyers say, because the revelations by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and the principal source of the leaks, forced the government to acknowledge the programs and discuss them. That, they say, could help plaintiffs overcome government arguments that they lack the legal standing to sue or that cases should be thrown out because the programs are state secrets. A federal judge in California last week rejected the government's argument that an earlier lawsuit over NSA surveillance should be dismissed on secrecy grounds." ...

... Glenn Greenwald Is Still Nasty. Dylan Byers of Politico: "Veteran investigative reporter Carl Bernstein publicly criticized The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald on Monday over a statement he made about the National Security Agency secrets that could leak 'if anything should happen' to former security contractor Edward Snowden. 'That statement by that reporter is out of line,' Bernstein, who would not refer to Greenwald by his name, said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. In a subsequent email to Politico, Greenwald dismissed Bernstein ... as someone who 'hasn't done any actual reporting for a couple decades now.'"

Russell Luscombe of the Guardian: "One of the six female jurors who acquitted the Florida neighbourhood watch leader George Zimmerman of murdering Trayvon Martin has revealed that three of the panel originally wanted to convict him. The middle-aged woman, who is white and has grown-up children, said she and her fellow jurors believed that Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, threw the first punch in the fatal confrontation, leaving Zimmerman in fear of his life. That, she said, was the determining factor in why the three changed their minds." ...

... Philip Rucker & Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Current and former Justice Department officials said Monday that bringing civil rights charges against George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin ... would be extremely difficult and may not be possible." ...

... William Branigin & Sari Horwitz of the Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday he shares concerns about 'the tragic, unnecessary shooting death' of an unarmed black teenager in Florida last year, and he vowed to pursue a federal investigation into the matter. In a speech at the social action luncheon of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Holder pledged that the Justice Department would 'continue to act in a manner that is consistent with the facts and the law' and would work to 'alleviate tensions, address community concerns and promote healing' in response to the case." ...

... ** Ta-Nehisi Coates: "The jury's performance may be the least disturbing aspect of this entire affair. The injustice was authored by a country which has taken as its policy, for the lionshare of its history, to erect a pariah class. The killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman is not an error in programming. It is the correct result of forces we set in motion years ago and have done very little to arrest." CW: exactly. ...

Sadly, all the facts in this tragic case will probably never be known. But one fact has long been crystal clear: 'shoot-first' laws like those in Florida can inspire dangerous vigilantism and protect those who act recklessly with guns. Such laws -- drafted by gun lobby extremists in Washington -- encourage deadly confrontations by enabling people to shoot first and argue 'justifiable homicide' later. -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg

... Jamelle Bouie in the American Progress: "... what's clear to me is that, for all the real progress we've made, this country has yet to relinquish its long-standing hostility to blackness." ...

... Charles Blow: "The whole system failed Martin. What prevents it from failing my children, or yours?" ...

... Lawyers have been arguing about it, but Nichole Flatow of Think Progress outlines how Florida's stand-your-ground law was central to George Zimmerman's case -- and will figure in any civil suits that are brought. CW: One thing I didn't know: Zimmerman claimed on CNN that he knew nothing about the stand-your-ground law, but a professor of his testified that he covered it extensively in a course Zimmerman aced -- one of many reasons his lawyers didn't put him on the stand, I guess. ...

... Newt Gingrich seeks & finds the worst possible, most racially-charged thing to say about the Zimmerman acquittal & its aftermath. I'd like to hear Karl Rove comment on how Newt is "bringing the nation together." Update: see safari's excellent remarks in today's Comments.

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "In a homecoming tinged with nostalgia and an unspoken sense of farewell, President Obama on Monday welcomed his oldest living predecessor, George Bush, to the White House, where the two men, separated by nearly four decades but united in their fervor for volunteer service, presented an award to a retired Iowa couple. Appearing together in the East Room, Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush, who is 89, bestowed the 5,000th 'Daily Point of Light' award -- named after Mr. Bush's signature initiative on volunteer service – to Floyd Hammer and Kathy Hamilton, who founded a nonprofit organization that delivers free meals to hungry children in 15 countries":

Washington Post Editors Caught Flogging Dead Horse: "Don't write off the deficit."

Where Are They Now?

Ariel Kaminer of the New York Times: " the news that David H. Petraeus, the former C.I.A. director and commander of the allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be a visiting professor at the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY this coming academic year was supposed to be great publicity all around. Instead it turned into a minor scandal all its own, as some professors and politicians expressed outrage over his six-figure salary, and others accused the university's administration of lying about just what the salary was."

Remember Her? Stephen Webster of the Raw Story: "President Barack Obama (D) may throw the 2014 House races to his Democratic allies by producing a 'magic wand' that grants non-citizens the right to vote in U.S. elections, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said in a video published Monday." CW: yes, she's still totally wacko -- and totally irrelevant. ...

... Caught on Bachmann's Surveillance Camera. Mila Mimica of NBC Washington: "An aide for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is out of a job after allegedly stealing cash from a Congressional office building. According to U.S. Capitol Police, 37-year-old Javier Sanchez was arrested July 11 and is facing charges of second-degree misdemeanor theft from the Rayburn House Office Building."

Local News

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times reveals that Ken Cuccinelli -- Virginia's attorney general, the Republican candidate for governor & former ward of Kate Madison -- has been slightly less successful than have Gov. Bob McDonnell & the Missus at extracting gifts & benefits from Jonnie Williams, the phony diet supplement mogul.

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "'Glee' star Cory Monteith died of a 'mixed drug toxicity' involving heroin and alcohol, according to results released Tuesday by the British Columbia Coroner's Service in Canada."

Guardian: "The defence team representing Bradley Manning, the US soldier who leaked reams of state secrets to WikiLeaks, has made one last attempt to persuade the judge presiding over his court martial to dismiss the most serious charge against him: that he 'aided the enemy'."

Los Angeles Times: "A peaceful protest of the George Zimmerman verdict in Los Angeles turned violent Monday after youths broke away from the main demonstration in Leimert Park, stomped on cars, broke windows, set fires and attacked several people. KCBS-TV/KCAL-TV reporter Dave Bryan and his cameraman were among those who came under assault. One of the two journalists was taken to a hospital with a possible concussion.... Protesters also stormed a Wal-Mart in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles.... A short while later, LAPD officers wearing helmets and carrying batons swarmed the store as others marched through the parking lot."

Al Jazeera: "Health officials say that clashes overnight between police and supporters of Egypt's deposed President Mohammed Morsi have left at least seven people dead in Cairo. Khaled el-Khateib, a senior health ministry official, said that about 261 people were also injured in the violence that broke out late on Monday and carried on into the early morning hours in four different locations in the capital. Mohamed Sultan, the head of Egypt's emergency services, told the Reuters news agency that two people were killed at a bridge in central Cairo and five more in the city's Giza district. The Muslim Brotherhood said that police used birdshot and live ammunition against protesters."

New York Times: "The leader of one of Mexico's most violent and feared drug organizations, the Zetas, was captured Monday in a city near the Texas border, an emphatic retort from the new government to questions over whether it would go after top organized crime leaders. The man, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, 40, who goes by the nickname Z-40 and is one of the most wanted people on both sides of the border, was detained by Mexican marines Monday morning...."

New York Times: "A 30-year old Poughkeepsie murder mystery is solved, when the body is found in the basement after the murderer -- the victim's husband -- died."

The Commentariat -- July 15, 2013

Paul Krugman: "Long ago, when subsidies helped many poor farmers, you could defend the whole [farm bill] package as a form of support for those in need. Over the years, however, the two pieces diverged. Farm subsidies became a fraud-ridden program that mainly benefits corporations and wealthy individuals. Meanwhile food stamps became a crucial part of the social safety net. So House Republicans voted to maintain farm subsidies -- at a higher level than either the Senate or the White House proposed -- while completely eliminating food stamps from the bill.... One of our nation's two great parties has become infected by an almost pathological meanspiritedness...."

CSI Macy's. Stephanie Clifford & Quentin Hardy of the New York Times: "Nordstrom's experiment [in shopper-tracking] is part of a movement by retailers to gather data about in-store shoppers' behavior and moods, using video surveillance and signals from their cellphones and apps to learn information as varied as their sex, how many minutes they spend in the candy aisle and how long they look at merchandise before buying it. All sorts of retailers -- including national chains, like Family Dollar, Cabela's and Mothercare, a British company, and specialty stores like Benetton and Warby Parker -- are testing these technologies and using them to decide on matters like changing store layouts and offering customized coupons." CW: and you're apopletic because the government is storing your e-mails??? ...

... Jenny Barchfield of the AP: "Edward Snowden has very sensitive 'blueprints' detailing how the National Security Agency operates that would allow someone who read them to evade or even duplicate NSA surveillance..., [Glenn Greenwald] said Sunday." ...

... CW: I am growing more & more pissed at the NSA for allowing such access to a kid who had worked for the agency for only weeks. The "experts" who are supposed to be protecting us from so-called terrorists can't even protect themselves from a new-hire hacker with little formal education. Whatever you may think of Snowden's motives, the bottom line is that he did it because he could. ...

... Ellen Nakashima & Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "In his eight years at the helm of the country's electronic surveillance agency, [Gen. Keith] Alexander, 61, has quietly presided over a revolution in the government's ability to scoop up information in the name of national security. And, as he did in Iraq, Alexander has pushed hard for everything he can get: tools, resources and the legal authority to collect and store vast quantities of raw information on American and foreign communications." ...

... Ian Cobain of the Guardian writes an interesting piece on the U.S. "disposition matrix," a/k/a Obama's "kill list" & how Great Britain has used it to target individuals with dual British-&-Someplace citizenship.

The No-Policy Policy. George Packer of the New Yorker: "In the two and a half years since the popular protests that overthrew the Mubarak regime, the Administration has followed a pattern: express concern about tumultuous events [in Egypt], then accept their outcome as a fait accompli and make the best of the new status quo, without a perceptible effort to use whatever influence the U.S. still has over the main actors in Egypt's political drama."

Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "The fallout over the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin reverberated across the country on Sunday from church pulpits to street protests, setting off a conversation about race, crime and how the American justice system handled a racially polarizing killing of a young black man walking in a residential neighborhood in Florida." ...

... Statement by the President. "I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son." ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Sunday urged the Justice Department to review federal charges against George Zimmerman who was acquitted in Sanford, Fla., of murder and manslaughter in the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin."...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "Federal prosecutors are pressing forward with their investigation into the killing of Trayvon Martin following the acquittal of the man who shot him, George Zimmerman, on state charges, a spokesperson for the Justice Department said Sunday.... The Justice Department's civil rights division as well as the FBI are continuing to investigate Martin's death, the statement said." ...

The evidence didn't support prosecution and the Justice Department engaged in this, the President engaged in this and turned it into a political issue that should have been handled exclusively with law and order. -- Rep. Steve King (RCrazy-Iowa)

... the grand jury in the case also did find that there was 'probable cause.' King's suggestion that a 'not guilty' verdict proves that there should not have been an investigation or trial at all suggests a stunning disregard for the value of Martin's life. But his -- and [Fox 'News' host Chris] Wallace's -- inference that there would not have been a prosecution if not for President Obama is flatly contradicted by the facts. -- Josh Israel, Think Progress

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Republican strategist Karl Rove on Sunday accused President Barack Obama of tearing the country apart by sympathizing with the parents of slain teen Trayvon Martin.... 'We need a president to bring us together, not rip us apart,' he added. 'And I hope the Justice Department does not respond to the ill-advised recommendation of the NAACP to continue this controversy.'" CW: so according to Karl, the best way to "bring us together" is to condone or at least ignore radical, random violence against young black men. ...

... Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: " Mr. Zimmerman had the power of self-defense laws on his side, and was helped by a spotty police investigation and prosecutorial missteps." Alvarez provides a good explanation of why the jury found Zimmerman not guilty. ...

... CW: if you're blaming -- or partially blaming -- the jury for their verdict, you're making a mistake. And no, Geraldo, the verdict does not support your contention that the white women on the jury would have acted just as Zimmerman did. ...

... CW: I don't agree with this, but it is pretty funny. Thanks to James S. for sending it along:

Fucking punks. These assholes. They always get away. -- George Zimmerman, shortly after shooting Trayvon Martin dead ...

... Charles Pierce: "George Zimmerman can load his piece, tuck it into the back of his pants, climb into his SUV, and drive around Sanford, Florida looking for assholes and fucking punks who are walking through neighborhoods where he, George Zimmerman, defender of law and order, doesn't think they belong.... The Sanford P.D. was ready to hand Zimmerman back his gun with a fast shuffle until people got into the streets and suggested, loudly, that maybe the circumstances required another look. This is something that should be remembered now by all those sharp guys who talk about how the evidence cut both ways, and about how the prosecution overcharged the defendant, and about how well the defense mounted its case. There wasn't supposed to be a trial at all." ...

... Yup. Matt Guttman & Seni Tienabeso of ABC News: "George Zimmerman will get his gun back now that he has been cleared of murder and his lawyer said today that Zimmerman needs the weapon 'even more' than before.... Mark O'Mara [the attorney] ... said that Zimmerman intends to rearm himself." CW: because killing one hoodie-wearing scary kid is not enough. ...

... The Real Victim. Chris Francescani of Reuters: "After his acquittal on murder charges for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman may go to law school to help people wrongly accused of crimes like himself, close friends told Reuters on Sunday." ...

CW: Lest it should possibly get lost among the hype, "not guilty" does not equal "innocent." That is especially true in Florida, where the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did not act in self-defense. Here the tie goes to the one who didn't get shot dead.

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "Last night's not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial will enable the neighborhood-watch volunteer to resume his case against NBC News for the mis-editing of his widely distributed call to police. Back in December, Zimmerman sued NBC Universal Media for defamation over the botched editing, which depicted him as a hardened racial profiler."

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker describes "... a Republican strategy to defeat immigration reform, increase its support among whites, and make it harder for some nonwhites to vote. It's a recipe for a future in which America's two parties are largely defined by race. The unpleasant conclusion of this debate -- and of the Obama years -- could be the opposite of where we thought we were headed as a country.... The decision that Republicans make on immigration reform in the coming months will help determine that future." ...

... CW: now ask yourself why conservatives are embracing George Zimmerman. It is not foolish, BTW, to see the glorification of the Second Amendment as racism-inspired. Worth noting: the Second Amendment found its way into the Bill of Rights specifically because Southerners wanted to make sure they could put down slave rebellions.

Paul Fahri of the Washington Post: "Faced with news articles they consider flawed or biased, the [Koch] brothers and their lieutenants ... take the offensive, with detailed responses that oscillate between correcting, shaming and slamming journalists who've written unflattering stories about the company or the Kochs' myriad political and philanthropic activities.... Unlike most companies, which tend to work out their differences with reporters behind the scenes, Koch ... often takes its feuds public.... Journalists who've run afoul of the Kochs will often see their personal e-mail exchanges with company executives posted, on the Koch Web site.... KochFacts also posts lengthy, point-by-point critiques of news stories and calls out reporters for alleged factual errors and biases. A typical KochFacts headline from May: 'New Yorker's Jane Mayer Distorts the Facts and Misleads Readers Again.'" CW: The Kochs's all-out war on Mayer must cheer her immensely.

Local News

Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "Just six months after declaring 'the prison crisis is over in California,' Gov. Jerry Brown is facing dire predictions about the future of the state's prison system, one of the largest in the nation. A widespread inmate hunger strike in protest of California's policy of solitary confinement was approaching its second week on Sunday. The federal courts have demanded the release of nearly 10,000 inmates and the transfer of 2,600 others who are at risk of contracting a deadly disease in the state's overcrowded prisons. State lawmakers have called for an investigation into a new report that nearly 150 women behind bars were coerced into being sterilized over the last decade. And last week, a federal judge ruled that prisoners were not receiving adequate medical care"

News Ledes

Guardian: "A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, has blocked the execution of Warren Hill, an intellectually disabled man who was set to be put to death by lethal injection despite a US supreme court ban on judicial killings of 'mentally retarded' people. Hill, 52, has been granted a slim window in which to argue that his rights have been violated by a recent state law that imposes secrecy on the drugs that would be used to kill him. Under the new Lethal Injection Secrecy Law, the identity of the suppliers of the sedative pentobarbital that would be given to him in a lethal dose has been deemed a 'state secret' in an effort to bypass a growing international boycott of the use of pharmaceuticals in death sentences."

New York Times: "Leonard Garment, a Wall Street litigator who was a top adviser to President Richard M. Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal and who went on to flourish as one of the capital's most powerful and garrulous lawyers, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89."

AP: "Thousands of demonstrators from across the country -- chanting, praying and even fighting tears — protested a jury's decision to clear neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager while the Justice Department considered whether to file criminal civil rights charges. Rallies on Sunday were largely peaceful as demonstrators voiced their support for 17-year-old Trayvon Martin's family -- and decried Zimmerman's not guilty verdict as a miscarriage of justice...."

Guardian: Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, "the first senior US official to visit Egypt since the army toppled the country's elected president will hold high-level talks on Monday in Cairo, where thousands of supporters of the ousted Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi are expected to take to the streets."

BBC News: India's telegraph service shuts down forevah. CW: BTW, "private" correspondence, in telegraphic form, was not exactly private.