The Commentariat -- June 17, 2013

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Arizona may not require documentary proof of citizenship from prospective voters, the Supreme Court ruled in a 7-to-2 decision on Monday. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, No. 12-71, said a federal law requiring states to 'accept and use' a federal form displaced an Arizona law.... The decision ... effectively affirmed a 2010 ruling from a three-judge panel that included Justice Sandra Day O'Connor...." The decision is here. Justices Thomas & Alito dissented. More details from Tejinger Singh of SCOTUSblog.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama on Monday opened a three-day diplomatic trip to Northern Ireland and Germany ... with young residents of [Belfast, Northern Ireland]..., urging them to build on the peace that America helped broker 15 years ago." The AP story, by Jim Kuhnhenn, is here.

Shawn Pogatchnik of the AP: "British Prime Minister David Cameron says leaders gathering Monday for the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland should reach speedy agreement on trade and tax reforms, and draw inspiration from the host country's ability to resolve its own stubborn conflict."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Obama's top foreign policy aides said Sunday that they planned to press Iran's newly elected president to resume the negotiations over his country's nuclear program that derailed in the spring. But while the election of the new president, Hassan Rowhani, a former nuclear negotiator who is considered a moderate compared with the other candidates, was greeted by some administration officials as the best of all likely outcomes, they said it did not change the fact that only the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would make the final decision about any concessions to the West."

Ramzy Mardini, who served in the Bush II State Department, in a New York Times op-ed: President Obama should not have listened to President Clinton's opinion on Syrian intervention. "The Syrian revolution isn't democratic or secular; the more than 90,000 fatalities are the result of a civil war, not a genocide -- and human rights violations have been committed on both sides. Moreover, the rebels don't have the support or trust of a clear majority of the population, and the political opposition is neither credible nor representative. Ethnic cleansing against minorities is more likely to occur under a rebel-led government than under Mr. Assad.... And finally, a rebel victory is more likely to destabilize Iraq and Lebanon...." ...

... Robert Fisk of the UK Independent: "... a military decision has been taken in Iran -- even before last week's presidential election -- to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad's forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years. Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad's regime...."

** Jill Lepore writes an absolutely fascinating little "history of privacy" in the New Yorker and concludes by highlighting the "paradox of an American culture obsessed, at once, with being seen and with being hidden, a world in which the only thing more cherished than privacy is publicity. In this world, we chronicle our lives on Facebook while demanding the latest and best form of privacy protection -- ciphers of numbers and letters -- so that no one can violate the selves we have so entirely contrived to expose." The article is particularly interesting to me because Lepore wraps her story around the British government's invasion of the privacy of Italian radical Giuseppe Mazzini, a friend of my family's. ...

... "Snoop Scoops." Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker: "The N.S.A. programs represent a troubling increase in state power, even if — so far, and so far as we know -- they have not occasioned a troubling increase in state wrongdoing. Obama's 'difficult questions' have a new urgency." ...

... Ewen MacAskill, et al., of the Guardian: "Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic. The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday -- for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings.... The evidence is contained in documents -- classified as top secret -- which were uncovered by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden...." ...

... Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "British and American spy agencies monitored the e-mails and phone calls of foreign dignitaries at two major international summits in London, according to a new trove of documents supplied by Edward J. Snowden ... and disclosed by the Guardian newspaper." ...

... CW: Once again, Snowden has revealed classified information that the public does not need to know and which could harm national security by destabilizing international relations. That the Brits & the U.S. spy during international conferences is hardly a shocker, & this revelation does not expose any wrongdoing. Snowden has trashed his pretense of patriotism. At the same time, as contributor Ken Winkes suggested in a comment a few days ago, he has also exposed one of the weaknesses of libertarianism -- when every citizen makes his own rules, he undermines his own state. ...

... Mehashyam Mali of the Hill: "The intelligence community on Sunday rejected claims from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and reports that suggested analysts were able to listen to domestic phone conversations without warrants. 'The statement that a single analyst can eavesdrop on domestic communications without proper legal authorization is incorrect and was not briefed to Congress,' said the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in a statement." ...

... CW: In an interesting autopsy on how CNET had to walk back -- & eventually repudiate -- its story that the NSA can listen to your every phone call, Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog takes this overview, which I share: "There's a lot to dislike about this approach to national security. There's plenty to be appalled at. But the government really isn't as interested in most of us personally as some of us seem to want to believe." ...

     ... Ultimately, the real problem is that Ike's "military-industrial complex" is now the "military-industrial-financial-spying complex," & most Congressmembers, absent campaign finance reform, are beholden to at least one arm of the behemoth. Booz Allen has been a big campaign contributor, in the last few years, giving much more to Democrats than to Republicans. So when Congressman X has to decide whether or not the Ed Snowdens of the company should be able to access (and scoop up) top secret data, Mr. X is more concerned with pleasing Booz Allen than he is with shoring up national security. I have no confidence that Congress -- even a quasi-responsible Congress, which we certainly don't have now -- is capable of making decisions in the public interest on this or on a host of other issues. ...

... Ben Geman of the Hill: "White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said President Obama will make more remarks about National Security Agency telephone data and internet surveillance programs in the coming days. McDonough, speaking on CBS on Sunday, said Obama holds the privacy of Americans 'sacrosanct' and is seeking to strike the right balance between civil liberties and securing the country against the threat of terrorist attacks."

Paul Krugman: "Last week the International Monetary Fund, whose normal role is that of stern disciplinarian to spendthrift governments..., argued that the sequester and other forms of fiscal contraction will cut this year's U.S. growth rate by almost half, undermining what might otherwise have been a fairly vigorous recovery. And these spending cuts are both unwise and unnecessary. Unfortunately..., Christine Lagarde, the fund's head, called on us to 'hurry up with putting in place a medium-term road map to restore long-run fiscal sustainability.' ... The whole argument for early action on long-run fiscal issues is surprisingly weak and slippery.... Influential people need to stop using the future as an excuse for inaction. The clear and present danger is mass unemployment, and we should deal with it, now."

The Word According to Cheney

I think he's a traitor. I think he has committed crimes in effect by violating agreements given the position he had. I think it's one of the worst occasions in my memory of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous damage to the national security interests of the United States. -- Dick Cheney on Ed Snowden

Evidently it slipped Cheney's memory that -- almost certainly at Cheney's behest -- his top aide Scooter Libby revealed the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband's revelation that one of the major pieces of 'evidence' Cheney cited for going to war in Iraq was fake. -- Constant Weader

Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney (R), whose false statements helped propel the United States into an eight year war in Iraq, said Sunday that citizens should simply 'trust' the federal government on matters of privacy and security. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Cheney laughed off questions about why federal surveillance of phone records need be kept secret, suggesting that since the people who authorize the program are elected by voters, voters should simply trust their judgment." CW: I usually follow the rule, "If Dick Cheney likes it, it can't be good." ...

... AND exactly how does Cheney's "trust" in the government jibe with this remark, made in the same interview? -- Erik Wasson of the Hill: Cheney "said Obama's alleged handling of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the IRS harassment of conservatives means that people had weakened the president. 'I don't think he has credibility,' Cheney said." So, um, we should trust our top elected official on massive secret surveillance but not on anything else?

Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warns that the GOP will go into a "demographic death spiral" if they don't pass immigration reform:

... The Grim Reaper? Esther Lee of Think Progress: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R- FL), the architect of a comprehensive immigration bill that would legalize 11 million undocumented immigrants, refused to say on Sunday whether he supports the legislation he helped draft. He instead claimed that the measure does not have strong border enforcement provisions and would not receive bipartisan support." ...

     ... Related AP story, by Philip Elliott, here. ...

... Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "Senators are girding for a contentious floor fight next week over more than 100 immigration reform amendments that will be crucial to determining whether the chamber approves comprehensive legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has warned members to prepare for a long slog in dealing with the deluge of amendments -- including the prospect of weekend votes -- in a bid to pass immigration reform before the July 4 recess." Cox lists six contentious amendments that would have major impacts on the Senate bill. ...

... Eric Lipton & Julia Preston of the New York Times: "A surge in migrant traffic across the Southwest border into Texas has resulted in a milestone: the front line of the battle against illegal crossings from Mexico has shifted for the first time in over a decade away from Arizona to the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. This shift has intensified a bitter debate under way in the Senate over whether the border is secure enough now, or ever will be, to move ahead with legislation that could give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already here."

Congressional Race<

Frank Phillips & Michael Levenson of the Boston Globe: "Democrat Edward J. Markey holds a solid lead over his Republican rival, Gabriel E. Gomez, as the two enter the final week of the special US Senate campaign, according to a new Boston Globe poll. Markey, who has driven up concerns about his GOP opponent with a barrage of hard-hitting television ads, leads Gomez 54 percent to 41 percent, with only 4 percent of the respondents saying they were still undecided about whom to support in the June 25 election."

Your Louis Gohmert Weekly Reader

Evan McMurry of Mediate: "On the House floor on Friday, Texas Representative Louie Gohmert accused various federal agencies of aiding Islamic terrorists organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America in their attempts to enact Sharia Law.... Gohmert accused the Obama administration of changing policy so that the FBI, State Department, and others had to 'partner with' CAIR and ISNA, rather than treat mosques as terrorist recruitment centers.... 'They want Sharia law to be the law of the land, not our Constitution.'"

The Putin Report -- The Ring Caper

News Ledes

New York Times: "Pharmaceutical companies that pay rivals to keep less-expensive generic versions of best-selling drugs off the market can expect greater federal scrutiny after a Supreme Court ruling on Monday. In a 5-to-3 vote, the justices effectively said that the Federal Trade Commission can sue pharmaceutical companies for potential antitrust violations, a decision that is likely to increase the number of generic drugs in the marketplace and benefit consumers.... Justice [Stephen] Breyer's decision, which was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, reversed a decision of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had thrown out the F.T.C.'s case.... Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. recused himself from the case."

AP: "The United States and Cuba will resume talks this week on restarting direct mail service despite a deadlock between Washington and Havana over detainees that has largely stalled most rapprochement efforts.... U.S. and Cuban diplomats and postal representatives will meet in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday for technical talks aimed at ending a 50-year suspension in direct mail between the United States and the communist island."

New York Times: "Turkish authorities widened their crackdown on the antigovernment protest movement on Sunday, taking aim not just at the demonstrators themselves, but also at the medics who treat their injuries, the business owners who shelter them and the foreign news media flocking here to cover a growing political crisis threatening to paralyze the government of Prıme Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan." ...

... AP: "Turkish trade unions urged their members to walk out of work Monday and join demonstrations in response to a widespread police crackdown against activists following weeks of street protests." ...

     ... Reuters Update: "Turkish riot police backed by water cannon faced off with around 1,000 trade union workers in the capital Ankara on Monday, after a weekend of some of the worst clashes since anti-government protests erupted late last month." ...

... Reuters: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she was shocked at Turkey's tough response to anti-government protests but she stopped short of demanding that the European Union call off accession talks with the candidate country. 'I'm appalled, like many others,' Merkel said of Turkey's handling of two weeks of unrest that began over a redevelopment project in an Istanbul park but has grown into broader protest Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government."

AP: "Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who was allowed to travel to the U.S. after escaping from house arrest, said Monday that New York University is forcing him and his family to leave at the end of this month because of pressure from the Chinese government. The university denied Chen's allegations."

The Commentariat -- June 16, 2013

Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "Al Gore has called on Barack Obama to veto the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, describing it as 'an atrocity'."

Glenn Greenwald, Short Version: Democrats are hypocrites. Also, "... we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly." CW: probably doesn't make the Obama administration too happy that someone as volatile as Greenwald is sitting on stuff that actually could compromise national security. ...

... Greenwald: "... the stories thus far published by the Guardian are already leading to concrete improvements in accountability and transparency." ...

... Paul Harris of the Guardian: "... the Age of Obama is not one of hope and change; it is the era of the National Security President." ...

... Meh. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "A recent briefing by senior intelligence officials on surveillance programs failed to attract even half of the Senate, showing the lack of enthusiasm in Congress for learning about classified security programs. Many senators elected to leave Washington early Thursday afternoon instead of attending a briefing with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials." ...

... Dan Roberts & Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The US intelligence community has written to Congress to confirm the existence of two sweeping surveillance programmes revealed by the Guardian, but defended their legality and usefulness in preventing terrorism. In the fullest official account yet of how the US gathers domestic telephone data and overseas internet traffic, the document sent on Saturday claims that both programmes were authorised by Congress under section 215 of the Patriot Act and section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. This has been disputed by a number of senators and congressmen, including one of the authors of the Patriot Act, who say it is more sweeping than they envisaged, but the document details a number of internal checks put in place since that seek to minimise the exposure of private data obtained inadvertently from citizens who are not terrorist suspects." ...

... Kimberly Dozier of the AP: "Top U.S. intelligence officials said Saturday that information gleaned from two controversial data-collection programs run by the National Security Agency thwarted potential terrorist plots in the U.S. and more than 20 other countries -- and that gathered data is destroyed every five years. Last year, fewer than 300 phone numbers were checked against the database of millions of U.S. phone records gathered daily by the NSA in one of the programs, the intelligence officials said...." ...

... ** Barton Gellman of the Washington Post: "Foreigners, not Americans, are the NSA's 'targets,' as the law defines that term. But the programs are structured broadly enough that they touch nearly every American household in some way.... The White House, the NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the record for this article. A senior intelligence official agreed to answer questions if not identified." ...

... ** Thom Hartmann: "Privatization enthusiasts praise contractors as efficient and responsible purveyors of public service, but corporations, by virtue of being corporations, are incompatible with the functions of representative government. The lack of accountability or transparency inherent to corporations isn't a huge deal if a company is making, say sneakers, but it is a problem if that company is in control of an essential part of the commons like national security." Thanks to contributor Tommy B. for the link. ...

... ** David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "... as Booz Allen profits handsomely from its worldwide expansion..., which sells itself as the gold standard in protecting classified computer systems and boasts that half its 25,000 employees have Top Secret clearances -- [it has] a lot of questions to answer. Among the questions: Why did Booz Allen assign a 29-year-old with scant experience to a sensitive N.S.A. site in Hawaii, where he was left loosely supervised as he downloaded highly classified documents about the government's monitoring of Internet and telephone communications, apparently loading them onto a portable memory stick barred by the agency?" ... Removing contractors from the classified world would be a wrenching change." The writes profile Mike McConnell, vice-chair of Booz Allen, & one of Dubya's NSA directors, who has passed through the revolving government/private sector door more than once. Oh, P.S. "A new job posting appeared on [Booz Allen's] Web site for a systems administrator in Hawaii, 'secret clearance required.'"

... John Broder & Scott Shane of the New York Times: Ed Snowden, high-school dropout, considers himself a "great mind." ...

... Carol Leonnig, et al., profile Snowden for the Washington Post. CW: I assume there are millions of video-game players who are not delusional sociopaths, but I must say that game geekiness is frequently prelude to outrageously destructive behavior. Inasmuch as a predilection to geekiness can produce a skills set of particular utility in cybersecurity work, I'd say we have a problem, Washington. ...

Karen DeYoung & Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "President Obama's decision to begin arming the Syrian rebels followed more than a year of internal debate over whether it was worth the dual risks of involving the United States in another war and seeing U.S. weapons fall into the hands of extremist groups among the rebels. The White House said the final push came this week after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded with 'high certainty' that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces had used chemical weapons against the rebels. But U.S. officials said that the determination to send weapons had been made weeks ago and that the chemical weapons finding provided fresh justification to act." ...

... The Return of Obambi. The Post story came out Saturday morning in the town where MoDo lives. But apparently Dowd didn't read her local paper because in today's column, she credits Bill Clinton (with a hat-tip to John McCain) for getting Obama to send a few arms to Syrian rebel forces. Dowd even selectively read the Times story by Peter Baker, which she cites in her column. According to Baker, "While an aide said Mr. Obama's decision was made even before Mr. Clinton's comments this week endorsing more robust intervention, the president ended up satisfying neither side in the Syrian debate."...

... McCain's Former Sidekick Cannot See Syria from Her Back Porch. Erik Wasson of the Hill: "... Sarah Palin told a Washington audience Saturday that the U.S. should not get involved in the Syrian civil war.... 'Until we have a commander in chief who knows what he is doing....let Allah sort it out!' she told the Faith and Freedom Coalition. The statement shows how far Palin has drifted from former running mate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is the chief Senate proponent of U.S. military action to help the Syrian rebels."

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "The Russian government on Saturday stepped up its attack on the accusation by the United States that Syria had used chemical weapons in its civil war, saying that evidence cited by the Americans was unreliable because the samples were not properly handled by experts until they reached a laboratory."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to the attention of the FBI on at least two occasions prior to a Russian government warning in March 2011 that said he appeared to be radicalizing, FBI Director Robert Mueller said in Congressional testimony this week. The earlier references have led some lawmakers to question whether the FBI acted too quickly in closing an assessment of Tsarnaev's potential ties to terrorism done in response to the Russian request."

A Reason for Immigration Reform. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity. -- Jeb Bush

Local News

War on the Constitution. David Knowles of the New York Daily News: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry is fighting on the front lines in the so-called 'war on Christmas.' On Thursday, Perry signed what has been dubbed the 'Merry Christmas bill' into law. The measure allows schools to display religious symbols such as nativity scenes and Christmas trees so long as at least one other religious image or secular icon is also included. In addition, the new law allows staff members and students at the state's public schools to exchange traditional holiday greetings, such as 'Merry Christmas,' 'Happy Hanukkah' and 'happy holidays' without fear of reprisal.... At the Thursday signing ceremony for the new law, cheerleaders from Kountze High School wore t-shirts that read 'I cheer for Christ.' In May, a Texas judge ruled that the cheerleaders could continue to display signs at football games emblazoned with Bible verses." ...

... Oh, Crap. Virgin Mary Still Earns Only 77 Percent of Joseph's Pay. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) vetoed a bill on Friday that would have allowed women suffering wage discrimination to take legal action, alleging that the measure 'duplicates federal law, which already allows employees ... to file a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.' ... Forty-two states have passed s[t]ate-based equal pay laws, recognizing that Lilly Ledbetter was not enough."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said he had cut all diplomatic ties with Damascus on Saturday and backed a no-fly zone over Syria, pitching the most populous Arab state more firmly against President Bashar al-Assad. Addressing a rally called by Sunni Muslim clerics in Cairo, the Sunni Islamist head of state also warned Assad's ally, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah, to pull back from fighting in Syria."

AP: "North Korea's top governing body on Sunday proposed high-level nuclear and security talks with the United States in an appeal sent just days after calling off talks with rival South Korea."

AP: "Turkish riot police on Sunday sprayed tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators who remained defiant after authorities evicted activists from an Istanbul park, making clear they are taking a hardline against attempts to rekindle protests that have shaken the country. Bulldozers cleared all that was left of a two-week sit-in and police sealed off the area to keep demonstrators away from the spot that has become the focus of the strongest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his 10 years in office."

AP: "A solar-powered plane nearing the close of a cross-continental journey landed at Dulles International Airport outside the nation's capital early Sunday, only one short leg to New York remaining on a voyage that opened in May."

The Commentariat -- June 15, 2013

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... Here's the transcript. AP story here.

Here's the link to Juan Cole's piece on arming Syrian rebels, which Kate M. discusses in the Comments. The kicker for me: Cole's reminder of the U.S. arming of Afghan jihadists in the 1980s, a policy that worked so well it brought us Al Qaeda & the Taliban & the long-term destabilization of both Afghanistan & Pakistan: "You never, ever want to encourage the rise of private militias and flood a country with high- powered weaponry." ...

... Dan Roberts, et al., of the Guardian: "The White House will use next week's G8 summit to seek international support for further intervention in Syria that may go beyond the limited military assistance announced on Thursday night, in an attempt to force the Assad regime and its Russian allies into meaningful peace talks."

Dana Milbank: "Where have all the liberals gone? ... With some exceptions, progressive lawmakers and the liberal commentariat have been passive and acquiescent toward the secret spying programs, which would have infuriated the left had they been the work of a Republican administration." ...

... Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "The National Security Agency's blanket collection of US citizens' phone records was 'not really the American way', Al Gore said on Friday, declaring that he believed the practice to be unlawful. In his most expansive comments to date on the NSA revelations, the former vice-president was unsparing in his criticism of the surveillance apparatus, telling the Guardian security considerations should never overwhelm the basic rights of American citizens. He also urged Barack Obama and Congress to review and amend the laws under which the NSA operated." ...

... AP: " Facebook and Microsoft Corp. representatives said that after negotiations with national security officials their companies have been given permission to make new but still very limited revelations about government orders to turn over user data. The announcements Friday night come at the end of a week when Facebook, Microsoft and Google, normally rivals, had jointly pressured the Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on national security orders." ...

... Vindu Goel of the New York Times: "Facebook ... said that in the last six months of 2012, it had 9,000 to 10,000 requests for information about its users from local, state and federal agencies. Those requests covered 18,000 to 19,000 user accounts.... Facebook said it was legally prohibited from saying how many of the data requests were related to national security. But generally speaking, the vast majority of the law-enforcement data requests received by tech companies are for other matters, like local criminal cases."

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: Elijah Cummings stands up to Darrell Issa. It appears Issa is withholding as "sensitive" the testimony of a self-described "conservative Republican" IRS agent in the Cincinnati office who "said that he and he alone first 'centralized' the Tea Party cases, without any direction from any superiors and without any political motivation." Cummings has been pressing Issa to get over his "sensitivity." "For the right..., the potential high crimes and misdemeanors don't have to have taken place. They just need to have been presented as plausibilities on Fox and Friends.... And even if the case collapses, then it's all still good in a way, because it can be chalked up to a vast media conspiracy to protect Obama." CW: I think one thing that really pisses off Republicans is that in their hearts they know they're wrong.

I wonder what Marco Rubio's problem is with equal rights for gays. (Yeah, I asked that yesterday, too.) Think Progress catches him making the argument that laws protecting women & minorities are "established law," (video at link) but, as Steve Benen notes, Marco didn't see any reason to, um, establish new law protecting gays from employment discrimination; to wit, ENDA -- the Employment Non-Discrimination Act -- which now has 50 Senate co-sponsors.

An answer to the haters who made such racist remarks that Cheerios had to disable the YouTube comments section accompanying the ad. Watch all the way through:

Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress: "If you are going to base all your efforts to win political power on a single economic theory, as conservatism has over the last 30 years, you might want to make sure it works. But that's what's so surprising about supply-side economics: Despite the fact that its central claim has been belied by decades of economic experience, it persists.... Contrary to supply-side's central thesis, the wealthy are precisely the wrong people to whom to give tax cuts." Via Jonathan Bernstein.

Sensational News! Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Employers will struggle to comply with the new health care mandates, drop insurance coverage, increase costs, and lay off workers! Low-income employees will be subject to sky high premiums, a health care mandate they can't afford, or go uninsured altogether!" Or so the AP reports. "But skip down to the end of the piece and you'll find a curious quote from Neil Trautwein of the National Retail Federation, which represents the very employers the AP claims are going to take advantage of the health law's impurities to increase health care costs for low-income workers while avoiding its penalties. He appears to disagree entirely with the AP's premise...." ...

... Tim Egan: "... In six months' time, the heartless practice of refusing to let sick people buy affordable health insurance -- private-sector death panels, the most odious kind of American exceptionalism -- will be illegal.... The law, as honest conservatives predicted, before they orphaned their own idea, is injecting competition into a market dominated by a few big names.... Out among the states that are actively building the foundations of Obamacare, the law seems to be doing what it was supposed to do.... As in 1935 and in 1965, the ossified right is warning once again of an impending end to American life as we know it. Thankfully, they're right." ...

... The Sky Is Falling. Again Aaron Carroll: "... history repeats itself when it comes to health care reform. Everyone acts as if what we're doing is crazy new, as if it's never been done before.... We're seeing the same thing again with respect to Medicaid and the ACA. Many of the claims about the expansion's imminent failure involve arguments that aren't new. In fact, they were the same as those being employed against traditional Medicaid decades ago." Carroll & his assistant Jaskaran Bains, provides examples of "media coverage of Medicaid when it was passed."

When all you do is talk to people who are owners, talk to folks who are Type A's who want to succeed economically, we're talking to a very small group of people. No wonder they don't think we care about them. No wonder they don't think we understand them. -- Rick Santorum, boy populist, explaining why Mitt Romney lost in 2012 ...

... Not. My. Fault. Veep first-runner-up Paul Ryan has quit blaming "urban voters" & claims he & Romney lost because of ObamaCare & ObamaRhetoric. ...

... CW: funny how it's always some kind of messaging problem & never the substance of GOP philosophy & policies.

RE: Smart Judicial Ruling against Obama. Pam Belluck of the New York Times profiles Judge Edward Korman, who made the Obama administration to make the morning-after pill available to women of all ages without a prescription.

RE: Stupid Judicial Ruling against Obama:

I expect consequences. So I don't just want more speeches or awareness programs or training, but ultimately folks look the other way. If we find out somebody's engaging in [sexual assault], they've got to be held accountable -- prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period. -- Barack Obama, May 7, 2013 ...

... Erik Slavin of Stars & Stripes: "Two defendants in military sexual assault cases cannot be punitively discharged, if found guilty, because of 'unlawful command influence' derived from comments made by President Barack Obama, a judge ruled in a Hawaii military court this week. Navy Judge Cmdr. Marcus Fulton ruled during pretrial hearings in two sexual assault cases -- U.S. vs. Johnson and U.S. vs. Fuentes -- that comments made by Obama as commander in chief would unduly influence any potential sentencing, according to a court documents obtained by Stars and Stripes."

Ben Fox of the AP: "The men undergoing forced-feeding [at Guantanamo] aren't permitted to speak to journalists, but Ahmed Zuhair knows what the experience is like. Until he was released from U.S. custody in 2009, he and another prisoner had the distinction of staging the longest hunger strikes at the prison. Zuhair kept at it for four years in a showdown that at times turned violent.... Zuhair, a former sheep merchant who was never charged with any crime during seven years at Guantanamo, stopped eating in June 2005, and kept up his protest until he was sent home to Saudi Arabia in 2009.... Zuhair spoke to The Associated Press in a telephone interview along with his lawyer, Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York." ...

... Former Bush II attorney John Bellinger: three weeks ago President Obama announced he would appoint a special envoy "to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries." But the president has yet to appoint an envoy (or envoys) & it appears he's having trouble filling the job(s). Via Jonathan Bernstein.

Local News

Ben Pershing of the Washington Post: in Virginia, "neither major party nominated a woman for governor, lieutenant governor or attorney general this year. In fact, former attorney general Mary Sue Terry (D) is the only woman to have won statewide office in Virginia.... Terry ... ran unsuccessfully for governor against George Allen in 1993. She was elected attorney general in 1985 and won reelection in 1989.... Virginia is one of only seven states with no women in statewide elective office."

News Ledes

Guardian: "The Perth radio presenter Howard Sattler says he will pursue legal action against Fairfax radio after he was sacked for asking Julia Gillard whether her partner was gay. Sattler's live radio interview on Thursday night made international headlines after he asked the prime minister about Tim Mathieson's sexuality."

AP: "China's Cabinet has announced measures to curb the country's notorious air pollution, one of the many environmental challenges facing the country that are increasingly angering the public. The broad measures approved by the State Council include putting strict controls in place for industries that produce large amounts of waste and pollution, but it will likely be up to local governments to work out the details."

New York Times: "Iranian officials spent Saturday tallying votes in the nation's presidential election, with a surge of interest apparently swinging the tide in the favor of the most moderate candidate. With a fraction of the vote counted, the moderate candidate, Hassan Rowhani, was holding a strong lead, but it was uncertain whether he would exceed the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff next week." ...

     ... Guardian Update: "The moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani has won the Iranian election and will succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, Iran's interior minister announced on national television on Saturday. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said Rouhani had secured just over the 50% of the vote needed to avoid a runoff, after a turnout of 72%."

AP: "... jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online. It was the culmination of 18 months' work on what Google calls Project Loon, in recognition of how wacky the idea may sound. Developed in the secretive X lab that came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, the flimsy helium-filled inflatables beam the Internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind."

AP: "Protesters will press on with their sit-in at an Istanbul park, an activist said Saturday, defying government appeals and a warning from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the two-week standoff that has fanned nationwide demonstrations to end."