The Commentariat -- June 28, 2013

Name This Shady Character & Get a Free Car Alarm (okay, just kidding about the free alarm). No Photoshopping has harmed this likeness:

NEW. How Stupid Is This? Spencer Ackerman & Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "The US army has admitted to blocking access to parts of the Guardian website for thousands of defence personnel across the country. A spokesman said the military was filtering out reports and content relating to government surveillance programs to preserve 'network hygiene' and prevent any classified material appearing on unclassified parts of its computer systems."

Declan Walsh & Rick Lyman of the New York Times: " South Africans awaited fresh word on Friday about the fate of Nelson Mandela as a heady blend of rumor and official reports deepened concerns over his health despite an assurance from the president's office on Thursday that Mr. Mandela's condition had stabilized. The worries spread as South African leaders prepared to welcome President Obama on Friday evening on the second leg of his African tour after a visit to Dakar, Senegal."

CW: Tim Egan pulls a MoDo & runs down a laundry list of President Obama's failings, real & perceived (by Egan). I guess you have to be in the mood for it; I wasn't convinced, and I usually appreciate Egan's takes on his subjects. For example, he contrasts an off-the-cuff remark by Obama with a prepared speech by Dubya. And he writes that Obama's climate-change speech "seemed more dutiful than alarmed.... To say the obvious: the speech will not join the words of Thoreau or Leopold in Earth Day tributes." By contrast, Krugman describes "a terrific speech" and "a very big deal." Let me know what you think. ...

... Paul Krugman: "... unlike earlier efforts to address climate change, [President Obama's plan] can bypass the anti-environmentalists who control the House of Representatives.... Right now [Republicans] don't seem eager to attack climate science, maybe because that would make them sound unreasonable (which they are). Instead, they're going for the economic angle, denouncing the Obama administration for waging a 'war on coal' that will destroy jobs." Krugman discusses the likely job shifts & concludes, "We really can invest in new energy sources, divest from old sources, and actually make the economy stronger."

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Senators approved sweeping legislation Thursday to remake the nation's immigration system for the first time in a generation by spending tens of billions of dollars to bolster security along the U.S. southern border and offering a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. By a vote of 68 to 32, senators concluded a nearly month-long debate of the 1,200-page measure. Fourteen Republicans voted with every member of the Senate Democratic caucus to approve the bill.To note the significance, Vice President Biden presided over the vote and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) made the unusual request that senators sit at their assigned desks and stand to vote when called." ...

... The New York Times story, by Ashley Parker, is here. ....

... Dan Berman of Politico lists the Republican Senators who voted for the bill. All 52 Democrats & the two Independents voted "aye." ...

No. -- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), when asked if the GOP could recover in 2016 if immigration reform dies

... Marco Rubio will be a formidable presidential candidate:

     ... Weaving a personal story into a string of patriotic platitudes works.

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that any immigration legislation will have to have the support of a majority of House Republicans in order to come to a vote."

Claudio Sanchez of NPR: "The interest rate on government-backed student loans is going to jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent Monday. Republicans, Democrats and the Obama administration could not agree on a plan to keep it from happening. Lawmakers say a deal is still possible after the July 4 recess. But if they don't agree on a plan soon, 7 million students expected to take out new Stafford loans could be stuck with a much bigger bill when they start paying the money back."

Chris Christie is running for president on the Grand Old Straight White Men Party ticket. Noah Rothman of Mediaite: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie scoffed at the Supreme Court's decision on Wednesday to declare the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. During his regular 'Ask the Governor' appearance on New Jersey 101.5 on Wednesday, Christie blasted what he characterized as the Court exercising 'judicial supremacy' in overriding an act of Congress. Christie said he opposes gay marriage.... Christie vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature that would have made same-sex marriage legal in the Garden State, but insisted he would not object to a referendum being put to the state's voters." ...

... AND, like every elected GOSWMP candidate, Christie is clueless in more ways than one. According to Christie, the DOMA ruling "... was a bad decision, but it has no effect on New Jersey at all...." Actually, that's wrong. Zack Ford of Think Progress:"Wednesday's DOMA decision probably has a bigger impact on New Jersey than on any other state. In the 2006 case Lewis v. Harris, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state's constitution guarantees 'every statutory right and benefit conferred to heterosexual couples through civil marriage.' The Court left it up to the legislature to determine how those rights are conferred, and lawmakers ... passed a civil unions bill. An investigation that concluded in 2008 found that these 'separate but equal' unions ... did not meet the Supreme Court's expectations, and a lawsuit is already pending to challenge their unequal status.... A state judge has already scheduled a hearing .. to fast-track Lambda Legal's lawsuit in light of [the DOMA ruling].... Full marriage equality is now the only way to fulfill New Jersey's constitutional guarantee of equality for same-sex couples." ...

... The "New" GOP. Awwwkward! Beth Reinhard of the National Journal: "Crusading against gay marriage, a timeworn Republican strategy to rally social conservatives, is out of step with polls that show increasing support for gay marriage, particularly among young voters. The court also put congressional Republicans on the spot by demanding a rewrite of the landmark law protecting minority voting rights, setting up potentially awkward battles with African-American and Hispanic leaders that would reprise the rallying cry in those communities last year over voter ID laws."

This is unprecedented, Congressman .... During the Nixon Administration, there were attempts to use the Internal Revenue Service in manners that might be comparable in terms of misusing it. I'm not saying that ... the actions that were taken are comparable, but I'm just saying, you know, that the misuse of the -- causing a distrust of the system occurred some time ago. But this is unprecedented. -- IRS Inspector General Russell George, during Congressional testimony earlier this month ...

... Tamara Keith of NPR: "Changing its story. Walking it back. Clarifying. Whatever you call it, the IRS inspector general now has a different account of what investigators knew about the ideologies of the groups that underwent extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status." Get this: "On Tuesday the spokeswoman said the treatment of progressive groups was outside the scope of the audit requested by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif." Now, in a series of walkbacks, the IG & his spokesperson are saying that the instructions on the "Be on the Lookout" (BOLO) pages were different for "progressive" & "tea party." [Yeah, the "progressive" & "blue" designations were labeled "overtly political."] And, um, the IG didn't notice the "progressive" pages. And other bullshit. ...

     ... CW: Read the story. If you have trouble following it, that could be because IG Russell George keeps changing his story. Did I mention that George was a Bush II appointee? Did I mention that an IG is supposed to be non-fucking-partisan? S/he's supposed to be the person who guarantees the integrity of an agency or department & protects Americans from its politicalization. Instead, George politicized an investigation of IRS employees who had no political motives. This whole "scandal" was a Republican production from start to finish. And it is finished, except for some Democratic pushback. Back to Benghaaaaaazi!! ...

... Steve Benen has more details. Thanks to Haley S. for the link. ...

... Greg Sargent: "Congressional Democrats have sent a letter to House Republicans formally demanding that they call the author of the now-infamous audit on IRS targeting of conservative groups to come back to the Hill and testify under oath -- where he'll be pressed to explain why the audit failed to detail that progressive groups had also been targeted." Sargent also points out more of George's "misstatements" and "clarifications." ...

... Now This Is an IRS Scandal. Jim McElhatton of the Military Times: "Braulio Castillo broke his foot* in a prep school injury nearly three decades ago at the U.S. Military Preparatory School, which he attended for nine months before playing football in college. He owns a technology business certified as a service-disabled, veteran-owned company eligible for government set aside contracts.... [The hearing excerpted in the video below was part of] a months-long House probe into whether Castillo's company won IRS contracts thanks, in part, to help from a top contracting official and friend inside the IRS named Greg Roseman, who pleaded the Fifth Amendment when called to testify." ...

     ... *CW: According to Rep. Duckworth & other reports, Castillo actually twisted his ankle rather than broke his foot. His firm won IRS contracts, based on his "disability," worth as much as $500 million. Thanks to James S. for the lead:

Martin Finucane & John Ellement of the Boston Globe: "Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev faces a 30-count indictment by a federal grand jury that charges him with using weapons of mass destruction and killing four people. The indictment alleges that Tsarnaev, who had been inspired by Al Qaeda publications, left a confession in the boat where he was captured in a Watertown back yard, saying, 'I don't like killing innocent people' but it was justified because of US government actions abroad." ...

... Michael Scherer of Time: "... embedded within the indictment are new details about Tsarnaev's alleged motivations, actions and the planning involved in the attack." Scherer runs down the details.

Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "... the former second ranking officer in the U.S. military is now the target of a Justice Department investigation into a politically sensitive leak of classified information about a covert U.S. cyber attack on Iran's nuclear program. Retired Marine Gen. James 'Hoss' Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has received a target letter informing him that he's under investigation for allegedly leaking information about a massive attack using a computer virus named Stuxnet on Iran's nuclear facilities.... Last year, the New York Times reported that Cartwright ... conceived and ran the cyber operation, called Olympic Games, under Presidents Bush and Obama. According to the front-page story by chief Washington correspondent David Sanger, President Obama ordered the cyber attacks sped up, and in 2010 an attack using the Stuxnet worm temporarily disabled 1,000 centrifuges that the Iranians were using to enrich uranium." With video.

Chris Hayes wonders why government officials are not declaiming against CNN reporter Barbara Starr who reported information of interest to Al Qaeda -- leaked by government officials. Starr's print report is here:

Eun Kyung Kim of NBC News: "The father of Edward Snowden acknowledged Friday that his son broke U.S. law, but maintained that he is not a traitor for releasing classified information about the government's previously secret surveillance programs. Snowden said he has told Attorney General Eric Holder through his lawyer that his son will probably return home if the Justice Department promises not to detain him before a trial nor subject him to a gag order. He also wants his son to select where a trial would take place." With video. ...

... Tom Hamburger & Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Federal investigators have told lawmakers they have evidence that USIS, the contractor that screened Edward Snowden for his top-secret clearance, repeatedly misled the government about the thoroughness of its background checks.... The alleged transgressions are so serious that a federal watchdog indicated he plans to recommend that the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees most background checks, end ties with USIS unless it can show it is performing responsibly...." CW: now compare this to honest IRS employees trying to figure out if Tea Party groups were political under the terms of ambiguous Congressional law. Ain't corporatization great?

Ed Beeson of the New Jersey Star-Ledger: "A federal agency has sued former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine over his disastrous run as head of MF Global. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission walloped Corzine with charges that he violated his duties as chairman and chief executive officer to properly supervise the futures brokerage, which imploded and left in its wake the unprecedented disappearance of more than $1 billion in customer cash."

Ian Crouch of the New Yorker on accused murderer & (now former) Boston Patriots star Aaron Hernandez & the NFL's culture of violence. "...according to a recent report, twenty-eight N.F.L. players have been charged with crimes since the Super Bowl ended in February."

Local News

Man-splaining. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) directly attacked state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) during a speech at the National Right To Life conference on Thursday, arguing that the state senator who filibustered for 13 hours to defeat an omnibus anti-abortion bill should have learned from her own life experiences as a single mother to value 'every life':

Rick Perry's statement is without dignity and tarnishes the high office he holds. They are small words that reflect a dark and negative point of view. Our governor should reflect our Texas values. Sadly, Gov. Perry fails that test. -- Wendy Davis

Rick Perry's remarks are incredibly condescending and insulting to women. This is exactly why the vast majority of Texans believe that politicians shouldn't be involved in a woman's personal health care decisions. Women are perfectly capable of deciding whether to choose adoption, end a pregnancy, or raise a child, and they don't need Rick Perry's help making that decision. -- Planned Parenthood

It really takes some brass for this privileged jackass to not only tell women what they can do with their own bodies but also lecture them on the lessons they should take from their own life experience. -- Digby

... Gail Collins: "Texas is a state with one of the nation's highest teenage motherhood rates, where a majority of women who give birth are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. So, naturally, its political leaders have declared war against the right of women to choose whether or not they want to be pregnant. Funding for family planning has been slashed. This month, Gov. Rick Perry tried to pass a new law that would have shut down almost all the abortion clinics in the state, under the guise of expanded health and safety requirements. Huge crowds showed up to protest! ...A few years back, Davis told me about an incident during a debate when she had asked a veteran Republican a question about a pending bill. Dodging her query, he said: 'I have trouble hearing women's voices.' I guess they can hear her now." ...

... Stephen Webster of Raw Story: "Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said he hopes that Sen. Wendy Davis (D), who conducted a 10-hour filibuster against a bill that would close all but five abortion clinics in the state and ban all abortions after 20 weeks, will run for statewide office.... Hinojosa said she would likely win a bid for the governor's office thanks to her marathon filibuster." ...

... Markos Moulitsas: "Davis wants to run for governor, the only question is whether she'll be able to rally a big enough movement to propel her in what would undoubtedly be a tough battle."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A Yemeni detainee who was found dead last year at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, committed suicide by taking an overdose of psychiatric medication, according to a military report made public on Friday. The 79-page report found that the detainee, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, had hoarded medication prescribed for mental illness and died after ingesting two dozen capsules of a drug known as Invega, confirming a

Boston Globe: "Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, already facing charges in a murder last week in North Attleborough, is also being investigated in connection with a July 2012 double murder in Boston, according to two law enforcement officials.... The two officials ... said investigators now believe that Odin Lloyd, the man Hernandez is charged with killing in a North Attleborough industrial park June 17, may have had information about Hernandez's role in the slayings of Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado."

Reuters: "A senior Vatican cleric suspected of trying to help rich friends bring millions of euros into Italy illegally was arrested on Friday as part of an investigation into the Vatican bank, police sources and his lawyer said. Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, worked as a senior accountant in the Vatican's financial administration and is already involved in another investigation by magistrates in southern Italy.... Also arrested in the investigation were a member of Italy's secret services and a financial broker."

The Commentariat -- June 27, 2013

Glenn Greenwald & Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata 'every 90 days'. A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011."

Does it have to be humans? -- Sen. Rand Paul (RTP-Ky.), wondering if the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA will lead to legalizing bestiality

He's right. A court that has given corporations a right to vote and believes that life begins on the first date, is capable of anything. -- Dan Lowery, Reality Chex contributor ...

Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the DOMA case, spoke to the press yesterday:

... Adam Serwer of NBC News: "Families headed by married same-sex couples will now be recognized by the federal government as families. Service members fighting for their country will not have to worry about their spouses being denied benefits. The same-sex spouses of Americans who are not U.S. citizens will not be denied green cards on the basis that their marriages don't count. Kennedy's opinion striking down DOMA applies to states where same-sex marriage is already legal. But Kennedy's reasoning, that same-sex marriage bans violate Americans' constitutional right to equal protection under the law, could easily be applied to state bans on same-sex marriage as well. That fact was not lost on the rest of the conservative bloc, which treated the decision as a tragedy of epic proportions." CW: not sure why we're delicately calling the opponents of marriage equality "conservatives"; after all, many conservatives favor same-sex marriage. Isn't "homophobes" or "bigots" more apt? ...

My personal belief, but I'm speaking as a president as opposed to a lawyer, is that if you've been married in Massachusetts and you move someplace else -- you're still married, and under federal law you should be able to obtain benefits. -- President Obama, today, on the DOMA ruling

... Richard Socarides of the New Yorker: Justice "Kennedy suggested that laws distinguishing people on the basis of sexual orientation needed to be subjected to 'careful consideration' when 'determining whether a law is motivated by an improper animus or purpose.' This is not quite the standard of 'heightened scrutiny' that some were hoping for, but in terms of gay-rights jurisprudence it is new and important." ...

... Emma Dumain of Roll Call: "House Democrats ripped GOP leadership Wednesday for spending millions defending the Defense of Marriage Act after the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that it violated the Constitution. House Democrats said the GOP spent $2.3 million on outside lawyers after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the Justice Department would no longer defend DOMA in court. They also noted that the Congressional Budget Office has scored repealing DOMA as reducing the deficit by $450 million a year." CW: now, there's a scandal for you, Darrell. You should investigate. ...

... Boehner Backfire. Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "... by hiring the best Supreme Court lawyer money can buy [$900/hour], Boehner helped ensure that the court ruled squarely on the merits of the law, and thus reject DOMA, instead of getting bogged down in procedural questions and possibly even tossing the case out on standing grounds." ...

Marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted. -- Rep. Michele Bachmann (RTP-Minn), Bible-thumping expert, reacting to the DOMA decision

Jacob had two wives.... Esau, Jacob's older brother, had three wives. David had at least five wives and countless fecund concubines. The wise King Solomon had 'seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.' Even Moses had a second, Cushite wife, and God had his back, punishing Moses's siblings, Miriam and Aaron, for speaking out against the marriage. In Deuteronomy, there is even a legal provision for how to split up the inheritance between sons born to two wives, rather than to a wife (isha, in Hebrew) and a handmaiden (pilegesh). -- Julia Joffe of The New Republic

... Jake Sherman & Ginger Gibson of Politico: "Congressional Republican leaders are speaking with resounding unity: the same-sex marriage fight is ending on Capitol Hill. While conservative rank-and-file want to continue the fight that has, in part, defined the Republican Party for much of the last few decades, leadership is eager to shift it to state capitals across the country."

** E. J. Dionne: "In the wake of this week's decision gutting the heart of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, its actions must now be viewed through the prism of the conservative movement's five-decade-long quest for power.... On issues directly related to political and economic influence, the court's conservative majority is operating as a political faction, determined to shape a future in which progressives will find themselves at a disadvantage.... The marriage rulings ... should not distract from the arrogance of power displayed Tuesday in Shelby County v. Holder. Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion involved little constitutional analysis. He simply substituted the court's judgment for Congress’s.... And in other recent cases, the court has weakened the capacity of Americans to take on corporate power. The conservative majority seems determined to bring us back to the Gilded Age."

Ed Kilgore: "Many political observers from both sides of the partisan barricades are genuinely puzzled that so many congressional Republicans seem willing, even eager, to court 'demographic disaster' by opposing comprehensive immigration reform and thus reinforcing their party's unsavory image among Latinos and Asian-Americans.... [It is because] a lot of Republicans in and out of Congress don't buy the basic premise that improved performance among minority voters is the best and only path to majority status. And a lot of them are reading, or are being influenced indirectly by, Sean Trende's series of analytical columns at RealClearPolitics suggesting that the more obvious route to a Republican majority, at least over the next couple of decades, is to intensify the GOP's appeal to white voters...."

It's a pain to click through, but might be worth your while to review the National Memo's compilation of "Darrell Issa's 5 biggest lies about the IRS" fake scandal.

Fareed Zakaria, in Time: "The larger question Big Data raises is, Should any government be permitted to use computer analysis -- even if highly accurate -- to observe, inform on, quarantine or even arrest people simply because they are likely to do something bad? That seems like a scenario from a horrifying sci-fi thriller. Yet here we are, very close to a real-world version. Is that compatible with life in a free society?" ...

I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker. -- President Obama, today, confirming that he has not been personally involved in extradition proceedings against Ed Snowden ...

... The Evolution of Ed. Peter Finn & Julie Tate of the Washington Post: "When he was working in the intelligence community in 2009, Edward Snowden ... appears to have had nothing but disdain for those who leaked classified information, the newspapers that printed their revelations, and his current ally... WikiLeaks, according to [his] newly disclosed chat logs. Snowden, who used the online handle 'TheTrueHOOHA,' was particularly upset about a January 2009 New York Times article that reported on a covert program to subvert Iran's nuclear infrastructure, according to the logs, which were published Wednesday by Ars Technica, a technology news Web site. 'They're reporting classified [expletive],' Snowden wrote. 'You don’t put that [expletive] in the NEWSPAPER.' At the time of the posting, in January 2009, Snowden was 25 years old and stationed in Geneva by the CIA. 'Are they TRYING to start a war?' he asked of the New York Times. 'Jesus christ they're like wikileaks.' Snowden's libertarian and dogmatic online persona adds to the emerging portrait of a shape-shifting young man whose motivations and decision-making remain in flux."

Local News

Rick Perry Must Control Women. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Wednesday called for a special legislative session to convene July 1, reviving GOP hopes of passing a controversial bill to tighten abortion restrictions just hours after it was stymied." ...

... Karen Tumulty & Morgan Smith of the Washington Post on Wendy Davis's epic filibuster. ...

... Nora Bricker of The New Republic: Wendy Davis didn't do it alone.

News Ledes

Orlando Sentinel: "Jurors this afternoon heard more testimony from a crucial state witness in the George Zimmerman murder trial: A young South Florida woman who was on the phone with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in the moments before his shooting.... The key witness, 19-year-old Rachel Jeantel, gave a dramatic account of Trayvon's killing on Wednesday, followed by at-times-contentious cross examination by defense attorney Don West, which continued for several hours today."

ESPN: Former New England Patriot "Aaron Hernandez has been charged with murdering his friend after the two had a dispute during a trip to a nightclub. Hernandez was arrested Wednesday and charged with the first-degree murder of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player whose body was found in an industrial park about a mile from the former New England Patriots tight end's home." ...

... Boston Globe: "Police on Wednesday found .45-caliber bullets in a condo rented by former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez and in a car linked to him, the same caliber ammunition Hernandez allegedly used to shoot and kill Odin L. Lloyd in a North Attleborough industrial park on June 17, a prosecutor said today."

Houston Chronicle: " As scores of death penalty protesters chanted, clapped and sang Wednesday, Dallas County convicted murderer Kimberly McCarthy became the 500th Texas inmate executed since the state re-activated the death penalty 31 years ago."

The Commentariat -- June 26, 2013

Adam Liptak has the New York Times story.

The Los Angeles Times liveblog is here. "President Obama this morning tweeted: "Today's DOMA ruling is a historic step forward for #MarriageEquality. #LoveIsLove"

     ... Update: here's President Obama's statement. The working part: "... I've directed the Attorney General to work with other members of my Cabinet to review all relevant federal statutes to ensure this decision, including its implications for Federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly."

... Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog: "Here's a Plain English take on Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage: After the two same-sex couples filed their challenge to Proposition 8 in federal court in California, the California government officials who would normally have defended the law in court, declined to do so. So the proponents of Proposition 8 stepped in to defend the law, and the California Supreme Court (in response to a request by the lower court) ruled that they could do so under state law. But today the Supreme Court held that the proponents do not have the legal right to defend the law in court. As a result, it held, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the intermediate appellate court, has no legal force, and it sent the case back to that court with instructions for it to dismiss the case." ...

... Pete Williams: 5-4 vote; Supreme Court decided it cannot take up challenge to Prop 8. Kennedy dissents, joined by Thomas, Alito & Sotomayor. Sets no precedents for other states. Allows trial judge's decision to stand. So same-sex marriage legal in California. ...

... Opinion: The case is remanded. The Ninth Circuit had no jurisdiction to review the state law. ...

... SCOTUSblog: "Majority is Roberts with Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan." "From the opinion: 'We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.'" ...

... The opinion & dissent are here.

Court Strikes Down DOMA

The Guardian profiles Edith Windsor, the gutsy 84-year-old widow of Thea Spyer. Windsor brought the DOMA suit, which is captioned "UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR, EXECUTOR OF THE ESTATE OF SPYER, ET AL."

Leahy Gets the Last Laugh. Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post has an overview of the decision. CW: Here's something cool: "... comprehensive immigration reform probably need not include a provision specifically tailored to making sure bi-national partners of same-sex couples can get visas automatically, the same as opposite-sex partners." Take that, Marco Rubio. & the rest of you bigoted GOP Senators who forced Pat Leahy to remove his amendment guaranteeing equal immigration rights to same-sex couples. ...

The New York Times' liveblog on DOMA is here. ...

... SCOTUSblog's liveblog is here. Decision is 5-4; Kennedy wrote the opinion, joined by Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagen. "DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment." "Justice Scalia is reading from his dissent right now. [10:10 am ET] The Court's opinion both in explaining its jurisdiction and its decision 'both spring from the same diseased root: an exalted notion of the role of this court in American democratic society.'" ...

... NBC expert Kenji Yoshino: will not affect states that don't recognize same-sex marriage, so same-sex couples will not get federal benefits (that come thru marriage) in those states. ...

... The opinion & dissents are here. ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... shortly after 10 a.m. [today] the [Supreme Court] justices will announce their rulings on challenges to two laws that define marriage to include only unions of a man and a woman."

The Blue Marble. "The snapshot taken by astronauts on December 7, 1972, at 5:39 a.m. EST (10:39 UTC) -- is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence.[2] The image is one of the few to show a fully illuminated Earth, as the astronauts had the Sun behind them when they took the image. To the astronauts, Earth had the appearance and size of a glass marble, hence the name." -- WikipediaPresident Obama speaks on his plan for reducing the effects of climate change. The transcript is here. The New York Times story, by Mark Landler & John Broder, is here:

... Al Likes It. Al Gore: "This was a terrific and historic speech, by far the best address on climate by any president ever. I applaud the new measures announced by President Barack Obama this afternoon to help solve the climate crisis -- particularly the decision to limit global warming pollution from existing as well as new power plants." CW P.S. Take that, Bill Clinton.

Jackie Calmes, et al., of the New York Times: "President Obama on Tuesday said he was 'deeply disappointed' with the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision ruling a central piece of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, and he called on Congress to pass legislation protecting access to voting." The President's statement is here. ...

... Attorney General Eric Holder responds to the Supreme Court's decision to decimate the Voting Rights Act. Worth listening to:

... Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post has a rundown of expert opinions on the effects of the Shelby County decision. ...

... Ari Berman of the Nation takes a look back at the many failed attempts -- until yesterday -- to gut the Voting Rights Act: "The VRA hasn't changed, but the Republican Party has. Today's 5-4 decision by the Roberts Court gutting the VRA was the result of three factors, as I wrote in February: 'a whiter, more Southern, more conservative GOP that has responded to demographic change by trying to suppress an increasingly diverse electorate; a twenty-five-year effort to gut the VRA by conservative intellectuals, who in recent years have received millions of dollars from top right-wing funders, including Charles Koch; and a reactionary Supreme Court that does not support remedies to racial discrimination.'" ...

... CW: underlying all that is the strongly-held (and barely-hidden) belief that the United States was perfect in 1790, right before the Bill of Rights was adopted. It has been downhill from there, what with allowing non-propertied white men to vote, abolishing slavery, letting women vote, then ensuring that minorities could vote, too. Slowly, slowly, the right is returning the U.S.A. to the "perfection" of its birth.

... ** "A Decision as Lamentable as Plessy or Dred Scott." Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic: "Five unelected, life-tenured men this morning declared that overt racial discrimination in the nation's voting practices is over and no longer needs all of the special federal protections it once did. They did so, without a trace of irony, by striking down as unconstitutionally outdated a key provision of a federal law that this past election cycle alone protected the franchise for tens of millions of minority citizens. And they did so on behalf of an unrepentant county in the Deep South whose officials complained about the curse of federal oversight even as they continued to this very day to enact and implement racially discriminatory voting laws." ...

... Richard Hasan, in a New York Times op-ed: "... The chief justice couches his opinion in modesty, stating that the court is striking only the Section 4 coverage formula and not Section 5. But don't be fooled: Congress didn't touch the formula in 2006 because doing so would have doomed renewal. Congress avoided the political issue then, and there's no way today's more polarized Congress will agree upon a new list of discriminatory states." ...

... ** Jamelle Bouie of the American Prospect: "... our long history of apartheid, discrimination, and white supremacy requires an equally long attempt at repair and reconciliation. It's why the 2006 reauthorization extended the VRA for another quarter century: because '40 years has not been a sufficient amount of time to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination following nearly 100 years of disregard for the dictates of the 15th amendment,' the law's authors note. The last three years are proof positive of this assessment." ...

... Washington Post Editors: "LED BY Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court on Tuesday gutted a key element of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most potent anti-discrimination tools Congress ever devised. It was an audacious ruling devoid of the restraint the chief justice and his colleagues in the majority should have shown." ...

... Rep. John Lewis and others react to the ruling. (You could skip what the American Enterprise guy says. Like the Stephen Colbert character, he evidently doesn't see color.) ...

... Scott Lemieux in the American Prospect: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) is arguably the most important and successful civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress. Today, without remotely adequate justification, a bare majority of the Supreme Court cut the heart out of the centerpiece of the Great Society. That this outcome was expected doesn't make it any less outrageous." CW: Roberts is a smooth operator who is very good at pretending to be "reasonable & fair." You will not catch him making faces at Ginsberg. ...

... Ah, Adam Serwer of NBC News makes that point about Roberts, too. "By kicking the decision of whether Section 5 the Voting Rights Act lives or dies to Congress, Roberts avoids the blame for its demise.... Rather than killing a landmark civil rights law by borrowing the racial resentment of Scalia or the historical inversions of Thomas, Roberts chooses a route that appears more narrow but may be no less final, one that better insulates the high court from criticism. Roberts didn't kill Section 5, he simply anesthetized a terminally ill patient and left her in the operating room, waiting for a surgeon who will never arrive." ...

Huh. My experience with John Lewis in Selma earlier this year was a profound experience that demonstrated the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all. I'm hopeful Congress will put politics aside, as we did on that trip, and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected. -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), in a statement ...

... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declined to comment...." ...

... "Ku Klux Kourt." Greg Palast in Truth-Out: "The Jim Crow majority on the Supreme Court just took away the vote of millions of Hispanic and African-American voters by wiping away Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965." CW: this sounds about right to me. The white supremacists who dominate state legislatures & administrations, along with their loyal ALEC assistants, must be busy little bees tonight initiating new plans to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters. What is needed is a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote & giving the Justice Department the same responsibilities for all states that it had under the Voting Rights Act for some. Thanks to James S. for the link. ...

... If You Think the GOP Is Bad Now.... Joshua Green of BusinessWeek: "The Supreme Court's decision to strike down a central provision of the Voting Rights Act will make it easier for Republicans to hold and expand their power in those mainly Southern states. That will, in turn, make it easier for them to hold the House. It will also intensify the Southern captivity of the GOP, thereby making it harder for Republicans to broaden their appeal and win back the White House." ...

... Via Ed Kilgore:

... See also today's Local News.

Quote of the Day. The speaker [Boehner] has said, within a period of a little over 24 hours, we're going to pass immigration but we're going to have Democratic votes to do it. As soon as his crazies heard that, I guess they talked to him and next day he comes back and said: 'I will only pass it if I have the majority of the majority.' So the point is, I'm not sure that he -- or anyone else in leadership in the House -- really know what they're doing. -- Harry Reid, speaking to reporters Tuesday

Mark Hosenball, et al., of Reuters: "Even as U.S. intelligence agencies and their global partners assess potential damage from Edward Snowden's disclosures about surveillance programmes, militants have begun responding by altering methods of communication, a change that could make it harder to foil attacks, U.S. officials say. Intelligence agencies have detected that members of targeted militant organizations, including both Sunni and Shi'ite Islamist groups, have begun altering communications patterns in what was believed to be a direct response to details on eavesdropping leaked by the former U.S. spy agency contractor, two U.S. national security sources said." ...

... Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "... Edward Snowden ... has a plan B. The former NSA systems administrator has already given encoded files containing an archive of the secrets he lifted from his old employer to several people. If anything happens to Snowden, the files will be unlocked. Glenn Greenwald ... told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden 'has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.... If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.' The fact that Snowden has made digital copies of the documents he accessed while working at the NSA poses a new challenge to the U.S. intelligence community...." ...

... Diane Bartz & Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters: "Government auditors discovered four years ago that a select group of private contractors conducting background checks for high-security jobs were not doing enough to ensure the quality of their investigations. Some investigators hired by the companies were not adequately trained or closely supervised, and the background reports they turned over to agencies for hundreds of thousands of prospective employees had missing information that could lead to risky hiring, the inspector general for the Office of Personnel Management said in a 2010 report that got little attention. Now ... the report's findings are drawing new attention. Some lawmakers are calling for a full review of how security clearances are done."

Congressional Race!

Michael Levenson, et al., of the Boston Globe: "Veteran Democratic US Representative Edward J. Markey edged past Republican businessman Gabriel E. Gomez today in a special election for US Senate in Massachusetts that had been marked by its brevity and by low voter interest. The Associated Press called the election at about 9:15 p.m." CW: Thanks to contributor Julie, et al., for your good works. ...

... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post profiles Sen. William "Mo" Cowan, the man Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick chose to keep Secretary of State John Kerry's Senate seat warm until voters picked a replacement.

Local News

Kate Alexander of the Austin Statesman: "Hundreds of orange-clad abortion rights supporters filed into the gallery of the Texas Senate Tuesday morning to support state Sen. Wendy Davis' planned filibuster to kill a controversial abortion bill. And there to greet them was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards." ...

... CW @ 11 pm ET Tuesday: State Senate Republicans are being beyond cruel to Davis, attempting to end her filibuster because she put on a back brace. ...

     ... Austin Statesman Update (4:12 am ET): "Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst returned to the Senate floor at 3:01 a.m., banged the gavel and announced that, 'regrettably, the constitutional time expired' on the special session. Senate Bill 5 cannot be signed because it passed after midnight, he said.... The crowds in the Capitol, loudly cheering early word that the bill had failed, let loose with another rousing cheer when told that it was official. Speaking to reporters afterward, Dewhurst said he was furious about the night's events. 'An unruly mob, using Occupy Wall Street tactics, disrupted the Senate from protecting unborn babies,' he said." CW: all hail the unruly mob. And Wendy Davis. ...

... Manny Fernandez & Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Hours after claiming that they successfully passed some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country, Republican lawmakers reversed course on Wednesday and said a disputed late-night vote on the bill did not follow legislative procedures, rendering the vote moot and giving Democrats a bitterly fought if short-lived victory. The reversal capped a remarkable day in the Texas Legislature here. A petite Fort Worth Democrat in pink sneakers staged a 10-hour-plus filibuster marathon in which she never sat down. Abortion rights activists succeeded in disrupting Republican senators, and the fate of a bill that Gov. Rick Perry had made a priority devolved into a legislative mess...." ...

... Huffington Post: "Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), who captivated the country with her attempted 13-hour filibuster of a sweeping anti-abortion bill, likely would have lost her seat in 2012 to redistricting if not for the Voting Rights Act that was gutted Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court."

Voter Suppression Now! Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Officials in Texas said they would rush ahead with a controversial voter ID law that critics say will make it more difficult for ethnic minority citizens to vote, hours after the US supreme court released them from anti-discrimination constraints that have been in place for almost half a century. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, declared that in the light of the supreme court's judgment striking down a key element of the 1965 Voting Rights Act he was implementing instantly the voter ID law that had previously blocked by the Obama administration.... The provocative speed with which Texas has raced to embrace its new freedoms underlines the high-stakes nature of the supreme court ruling." ...

... Gary Robertson of the AP: " Voter identification legislation in North Carolina will pick up steam again now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, a key General Assembly leader said Tuesday." ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "The eagerness with which Abbott and others are certain that now they'll be able to get away with things that the federal government wouldn't let them get away with before puts a rather large dent in the Court's theory that we can stop being quite so diligent against the efforts now."

Another Texas Milestone. Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle: "For the second time in two days, Texas' highest appeals court on Tuesday rejected Dallas killer Kimberly McCarthy's request that it consider irregularities in the selection of her jury. McCarthy, 52, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday for the July 1997 robbery-murder of a 71-year-old Dallas woman. McCarthy would be the 500th killer put to death since the state resumed executions in 1982."

Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "A prominent political donor purchased a Rolex watch for Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, according to two people with knowledge of the gift, and the governor did not disclose it in his annual financial filings. The $6,500 luxury watch was provided by wealthy businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr.... He is the chief executive of dietary supplement manufacturer Star Scientific and the person who paid for catering at the wedding of the governor's daughter.... Williams's gift came in August 2011 -- about two weeks after he met with a top state health official to pitch the benefits of his company's health products at a meeting arranged by first lady Maureen McDonnell.... Williams bought the watch at the urging of Maureen McDonnell, who admired Williams's own Rolex and suggested that he buy her a similar one she could give to her husband.... Her proposal occurred moments before the meeting she had arranged with the state official...."

News Ledes

Orlando Sentinel: "From the witness stand Wednesday, the state's star witness in the George Zimmermanmurder trial, Rachel 'Diamond' Jeantel, gave her account of Trayvon Martin's last seconds -- and they were dramatic."

AP: "Moscow's main airport swarmed with journalists from around the globe Wednesday, but the man they were looking for -- National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden -- was nowhere to be seen."

New York Times: "The former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday pulled off one of the most sensational political comebacks in this country's history, ousting in a party vote the woman who replaced him as leader of the Labor Party in a 2010 party coup, Prime Minister Julia Gillard." The Sydney Morning Herald's liveblog is here.

Reuters: "More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, now the longest and most violent of the recent Arab uprisings, a monitoring group said on Wednesday." ...

... Reuters: "Talks between the United States and Russia to set up a Syrian peace conference produced no deal on Tuesday, with the powers on either side of the two-year civil war failing to agree when it should be held or who would be invited."

Bloomberg News: "Marc Rich, the commodities trader who fled the U.S. to avoid federal indictments during the 1980s before President Bill Clinton pardoned him two decades later, has died. He was 78."