The Commentariat -- May 31, 2013

AP: "College students are joining President Barack Obama at the White House as he calls on Congress to keep federally subsidized student loan rates from doubling on July 1. Friday's White House event marks the beginning of a public campaign by Obama to temporarily extend current rates or to find a long-term compromise that avoids the scheduled rate increase."

Dan Donahue, et al., of CNN: "Officials intercepted Thursday a letter addressed to President Barack Obama that was similar to threatening letters sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a gun-control group he founded. (See also Thursday's News Ledes.) 'The law enforcement people I've spoken to say that the letters are virtually identical," said Congressman Peter King, R-New York.... Initial testing on the two letters sent to Bloomberg and his group came back positive for ricin, which has become the deadly poison of choice lately for mail attackers. A source tells CNN that those letters contained the message:

You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns. Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional God given right and I will exercise that right till the day I die.

... CW: You can thank the NRA & its Congressional (& Supreme Court) enablers for inciting this kind of dangerous crackpot. This was definitely not what the Founders had in mind.

... Update. Aaron Katersky, et al., of ABC News: "FBI agents are questioning a man they consider a person of interest in the mailing of letters possibly laced with the poison ricin to public officials, according to a source familiar with the case. The agents are questioning a man from New Boston, Texas, whose wife called authorities after she noticed strange material in her refrigerator, and noticed computer searches for ricin, the source said."

Michael Schmidt & Ellen Berry of the New York Times: "A man who was killed in Orlando, Fla., last week while being questioned by an F.B.I. agent about his relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, had knocked the agent to the ground with a table and ran at him with a metal pole [or maybe a broomstick!] before being shot, according to a senior law enforcement official briefed on the matter." ...

... Dashiell Bennett of the Atlantic: "Law enforcement officials are still trying to explain how a supposedly peaceful interview with an important witness in the Boston bombing case turned into a deadly shooting, but as usual, every new attempt to explain the death of Ibragim Todashev only raises more troubling questions. After originally accusing the suspect and potential murderous accomplice of Boston bomber Tamleran Tsarnaev of attacking an FBI agent with a knife, and then walking back that claim entirely, an new anonymous source says Todashev, may have injured the agent with a table and a metal pole. Or maybe not.... The new version of event also doesn't answer the question of why the FBI agent immediately began firing his weapon or why the other police officers in the room failed to intervene. Which leaves us right back where we started: A confusing scene, an apparently unnecessary death, and a lot of unanswered questions. And on top of all that, the FBI lost what could have been one of their most valuable sources of information on what the Tsarnaev brothers were really up to before the carried their attack."

Also from Bennett: "A new report by the Congressional Budget Office finds that just ten popular tax breaks eat up more of the federal budget than Medicare, Social Security, or defense spending. And -- prepare to be shocked -- the benefits skew overwhelmingly to the rich." ...

... Paul Krugman extols the many virtues of food stamps. "So what do Republicans want to do with this paragon of programs? First, shrink it; then, effectively kill it.... Why must food stamps be cut? We can't afford it, say politicians like Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican of Tennessee, who backed his position with biblical quotations -- and who also, it turns out, has personally received millions in farm subsidies over the years, [a nice irony since the Ag department administers both farm subsidies & food stamps].... The supposed rationale: We're becoming a nation of takers, and doing stuff like feeding poor children and giving them adequate health care are just creating a culture of dependency -- and that culture of dependency, not runaway bankers, somehow caused our economic crisis.... This is a time to get really, really angry."

Tim Egan: "Today, many Republicans, cornered into rethinking their absolutist position by the nation's inevitable demographics, still oppose a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people who have been in the United States for years. They want storybook immigrants, nothing less -- a blanket fantasy. Of course, there are those who waited in line, and had the money or connections or smarts to come into the country clean. But so many others, who are productive, proud Americans in every way but their citizenship papers, started their new lives in the shadows."

Linda Greenhouse has a good overview of how all three branches of government have thwarted the closing of the prison at Guantanamo.

Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post: "Media executives and editors are divided over whether to attend an off-the-record meeting this week with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss guidelines for dealing with journalists in leak investigations, an issue that's gotten a lot of attention amid controversies involving the AP and Fox News. Here's how it looks so far if any meeting with Holder remains off-the-record:

"Not going: New York Times, AP, Huffington Post, McClatchy, CNN, CBS News, Fox News, Reuters, and NBC News.

"Going: The Washington Post, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times/ Chicago Tribune, ABC News, Bloomberg, USA Today." ...

... Jonathan Easley & Jordy Yager of the Hill: "The boycotting news outlets said that the Department of Justice's insistence that the media groups not report on the content of the discussions violated their journalistic guidelines or was a conflict of interest." ...

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "A Justice Department official confirmed to the Erik Wemple Blog that two meetings of Washington bureau chiefs on Thursday and Friday would be off the record. Another round of discussions will pull in media executives and counsel under the same off-the-record ground rules. What it all means is that the folks in attendance can't emerge from the meeting and write accounts of the meeting's ins and outs." ...

... CW: when the Justice Department keeps doing stuff wrong, one is inclined to invoke the adage, "A fish rots from the head down." ...

... CW: Most of the U.S. attorneys general whose names I can remember were horrible or fairly horrible: John Mitchell, Ed Meese, Janet Reno, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales. Nick Gillespie of the Daily Beast explains why. ...

... Dylan Byers of Politico on Walter Pincus's column on the press's overheated reactions to the AP & James Rosen cases. Pincus's controversial column (also linked May 29) is here.

E. J. Dionne: "In fact, Bachmannism is far from finished. The Minnesota right-winger deserves to be memorialized with an 'ism' because she perfected a tactic well-suited to the current media environment: continually toss out outlandish, baseless charges, and, eventually, some of them will enter the mainstream media.... Her video provided choice examples of the Bachmann method and the extent to which it is now being emulated by others." ...

... The smart person's Michele Bachmann is of course Ted Cruz. Greg Sargent demonstrates how deftly and effectively Cruz manages to use unfounded suppositions & unrelated events to deftly "explain" his outlandish positions. See also my response in today's Comments to OldStone50. Cruz's twisting of facts is of the same ilk as OldStone50's. Cruz, of course, knows what he's doing.

... Henry Decker of the National Memo: "According to a new study from the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, Republicans are significantly more likely to lie than Democrats -- and the gap is widening as President Barack Obama spends more time in office.... Notably, the credibility gap seems to be growing with time. In May, as Republicans have obsessively tried to tie the president to a series of scandals, their percentage of false claims has risen to 60 percent." CW: the good news for Republicans? Since the study is slightly sciencey, they can just pretend it's a hoax. OR THIS ...

... Billy Hallowell of Glenn Beck's the Blaze says the results may reflect PolitiFact's bias against Republicans. ...

... Tim Graham at NewsBusters agrees with Hallowell. ...

... CW: Oh, I'm being so unfair. It turns out Red State's Erick Erickson is totally into science:

I'm so used to liberals telling conservatives that they're anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology, when you look at the natural world, the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it's not antithesis, or it's not competing, it's a complimentary role. -- Erick Erickson ...

... Amanda Marcotte, in Slate: "Erickson must have this nifty scientific 'fact' by studying the animals in the well-known academic text, The Berenstain Bears, which clearly shows Papa Bear going out and earning the money while Mama Bear stays at home and cooks the food for the cubs. Of course, in the actual natural world, bears don't make money -- plus there's a lot of diversity in how animals raise their young." Please read the whole piece, in which Marcotte takes on the all-male panel Fox "News" chose to discuss the news that in 40% of families with children, the female is the primary breadwinner. ...

... Steve Benen: "... the key takeaway from the all-male Fox panel Erickson participated in: men, they said, should be economically dominant in American society. To disagree is in Fox's Doug Schoen's words to invite 'catastrophic' consequences that 'could undermine our social order.'"

Local News

Steve Eder of the New York Times: "New details about the vetting process [of Rutgers' new athletic director Julie Hermann], which included a 28-member search committee that even its own members found unwieldy, raise serious questions about the thoroughness of the search, and how much university officials, including Dr. [Robert] Barchi, [the university president,] knew about their high-profile hire. Interviews with people close to the search process, as well as internal e-mails, show that it felt rushed and secretive, leaving some elected officials, major donors and search committee members deeply uneasy with how Rutgers responded to one of the biggest scandals in its history." ...

... AND Ted Sherman & Jenna Portnoy of the Star-Ledger: "Rutgers University, beset by the ongoing scandal in its athletics program, got more bad news yesterday from Wall Street, which raised questions about the school's complex merger with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Moody's Investor Service downgraded Rutgers' bond rating, saying it had concerns about the impact of the merger on the university's finances."

News Ledes

Houston Chronicle: "Four firefighters died in a five-alarm blaze that broke out at a restaurant Friday afternoon along U.S. 59 in southwest Houston, according to the mayor's office. An arson explosive task force is now involved in the investigation at the scene of the fire, said Franceska Perot, spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives."

New York Times: "Japan and South Korea suspended some imports of American wheat, and the European Union urged its 27 nations to increase testing, after the United States government disclosed this week that a strain of genetically engineered wheat that was never approved for sale was found growing in an Oregon field. Although none of the wheat, developed by Monsanto Company, was found in any grain shipments -- and the Department of Agriculture said there would be no health risk if any was shipped -- governments in Asia and Europe acted quickly to limit their risk."

Reuters: "Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at demonstrators in central Istanbul, wounding scores of people and prompting rallies in other cities in the fiercest anti-government protests in years."

AP: " After years of heartbreakingly close calls, Arvind Mahankali conquered his nemesis, German, to become the champion speller in the English language. The 13-year-old from Bayside Hills, N.Y., correctly spelled 'knaidel,' a word for a small mass of leavened dough, to win the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee< on Thursday night. The bee tested brain power, composure and, for the first time, knowledge of vocabulary."

AP: "Russia's MiG aircraft maker said Friday it plans to sign a new agreement to ship at least 10 fighter jets to Syria, a move that comes amid international criticism of earlier Russian weapons deals with Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime."

Bloomberg: "Consumer spending in the U.S. unexpectedly declined in April as incomes stagnated, putting the biggest part of the U.S. economy on shaky ground at the start of the second quarter."

Reuters: "Unemployment has reached a new high in the euro zone and inflation remains well below the European Central Bank's target, stepping up pressure on EU leaders and the ECB for action to revive the bloc's sickly economy. Joblessness in the 17-nation currency area rose to 12.2 percent in April, EU statistics office Eurostat said on Friday, marking a new record since the data series began in 1995."

Missed this: Reuters: "A Colorado judge on Wednesday rejected challenges to the state's insanity defense statute and death penalty law by accused movie theater gunman

The Commentariat -- May 30, 2013

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former hedge fund executive who served as a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to two people with knowledge of the selection." ...

... In 2007, Comey testified before a Senate committee (that's Chuck Schumer asking the questions) about the March 2004 incident in which White house counsel Alberto Gonzales & chief-of-staff Andy Card invaded the hospital sickbed of AG John Ashcroft to get him to sign off on reauthorizing an electronic surveillance program. Massimo Calabresi of Time provides context:

Charlie Savage & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., a lightning rod of Republican attacks during President Obama's first term, is now contending with a new round of criticism over the Justice Department's campaign against leaks to the news media." Some major news organizations, including the New York Times & the Associated Press, will not attend an off-the-record session Holder called to get media input on how leak investigations should be modified. ...

... Igor Bobic of TPM: "The Department of Justice claims it has proof it alerted the parent company of Fox News of a subpoena used to obtain the phone log records of Washington correspondent James Rosen as part of an investigation into a 2010 leak of classified information, according to CNN.... The Justice Department previously said it had notified News Corp. of the seizure on Aug. 27, 2010, but company official over the weekend countered by claiming they had no such record. News Corp.'s chief legal counsel at the time also issued a strong denial of ever receiving a subpoena from the government." ...

... CW: Fred Kaplan of Slate, who is an actual expert on national security, makes the same point I did as soon as I learned of James Rosen's Fox "News" report: that Rosen's report breached national security. "... the alarm bells went off not because he reported that North Korea was about to conduct a nuclear-weapons test but because he reported that the CIA learned of this fact from a source inside North Korea. In other words, Rosen revealed that the CIA had a source inside North Korea. It's unclear whether the source was a human spy or a communications intercept; it's also irrelevant because, thanks to this story, the source is probably no longer alive or active." Responsible reporters know better & will self-censor, delay or even kill a story that could compromise national security &/or security personnel.

Droning On. Mark Mazzetti & Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "Less than a week after President Obama outlined a new direction for the secret drone wars, Pakistani officials said that a C.I.A. missile strike on Wednesday

** Q: How is the Miss America Pageant like the Tea Party? A: They're both tax-exempt social welfare organizations. Michael Grunwald of Time: "... why should any group be tax exempt? The entire concept of a tax-exempt nonprofit -- not only the controversial 501(c)(4) social-welfare shelters but also motherhood-and-apple-pie 501(c)(3) charities and foundations -- is odd. An organization that doesn't make any taxable profit shouldn't need a special status to avoid paying taxes.... Charities, foundations and other intentional nonprofits shouldn't need tax exemptions unless they have profits they need to shelter. Which many of of them do. In 2012, the U.S. had 1,616,053 tax-exempt organizations, 10 times the number of fast-food restaurants. Harvard University is tax exempt even though it has a $31 billion endowment; it's basically a huge hedge fund with a lucrative merchandising operation attached to a school." CW: forgive Grunwald for making sense. ...

     ... CW: what Grunwald doesn't mention is that donors use the tax-exempt charities & "charities" as a tax dodge, too, and indeed the tax dodge is their incentive to donate. As I understand it, donations to 501(c)(4)s, like these Tea Party groups & Karl Rove's Americans for Prosperity, are not tax-exempt. But AFP's sister organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, "is a 501(c)(3), which allows donations to be tax-deductible but has restrictions on political activity." The Heritage Foundation (now under the direction of former Sen. Jim DeMint [RTP-S.C.]) is another example of a C-3 "charitable organization," & you can deduct your contributions to it from your taxes. So your civic-minded wealthy winger can redirect his tax contribution from the government to organizations dedicated to undermining said government.

Congressional Races

We've got a great chance of taking back the House. And I'm going to be working tirelessly wherever I get the opportunity to make the case to the American people that our ideas are the right ones. -- Barack Obama, in Chicago yesterday

John Byrne & Kim Geiger of the Chicago Tribune: "President Barack Obama came home to Chicago on Wednesday to raise money for Democratic congressional candidates as part of his party's push to take back control of the House and preserve Democrats' majority in the Senate next year." ...

... Demographics. In a Hill op-ed, Democrat Mark Mellman explains why retaking the House will be difficult for Democrats.

... Dana Milbank: "Bob Dole must be some kind of prophet.Not 72 hours after Fox News Channel aired the former Republican leader's suggestion that the GOP put out a 'closed for repairs' sign, Michele Bachmann announced that she's going out of business. Just like that, the Republican conglomerate got an unexpected chance to shutter one of the balkiest shops in its supply chain." ...

... John Avlon of the Daily Beast on Michele Bachmann's Congressional career (which ain't over yet, folks): "Over her eight years in congress, Bachmann quickly achieved notoriety because of her cavalier disregard of facts (her staff told me she gets most of her information from WorldNetDaily) and her impulse to play mini-McCarthy (routinely accusing political opponents of being anti-American) and then turn around and play the victim card to raise millions of dollars online.... The way Bachmann chose to use her time at the podium of public service was a disgrace. She degraded national debate, consistently chose fearmongering over facts, and exhibited every impulse of the demagogue and the ideologue." ...

... Reid Wilson of the National Journal: "Rep. Michele Bachmann's decision to retire from Congress next year in the face of investigations by at least five different government agencies will bring to a close a political career full of sound and fury, signifying -- well, not much.... The FBI, the Federal Election Commission, the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee and the Urbandale, Iowa, police department are all investigating various aspects of Bachmann's campaign.... her enduring legacy may be the lessons she taught in how to lose friends and become completely uninfluential. With her exit, Democrats lose a potent fundraising tool. Republicans lose a headache they would just as soon do without." ...

... Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker: "As one of our colleagues put it, 'The entire fact checking industry may have to hold a national day of mourning.'" ...

... Gail Collins: "... the Tea Party caucus Bachmann founded in the House has lost its traction. In the Senate, right-wing newcomers like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have captured the limelight from the congresswoman from Minnesota who once won the Iowa straw poll." ...

... Mistermix of Balloon Juice: "I expected [her videotaped announcement] to end with 'Marcus' arrest for activities in a truck stop restroom had no bearing on my decision to pack up my bags and go home.'" ...

... In view of the FBI investigation of Bachmann, Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog seems all surprised: "Wait: a proud constitutional conservative and fervent believer in limited government is under investigation by the FBI -- part of Antichrist Eric Holder's Justice Department -- and the GOP and right-wing noise machine aren't rushing to her defense? No one's calling this a witch hunt? No one's claiming that this is part of the Obama jihad against True Patriots? No one's dismissing the other investigations as traffic-ticket stuff? Well, obviously the GOP establishment considers Bachmann a liability -- it's done no pushback on her behalf." ...

     ... CW: I would add that the Grand Old White Boys do not like a grandstanding dame who, among countless other outrageous acts of self-promotion, gave her own State of the Union response instead of endorsing the Paul Ryan's official party response. As Tim Murphy of Mother Jones noted a few years ago, "... in an interview with Politico, a [former Minnesota Gov. Tim] Pawlenty [R] aide [said]: 'She's a real pain in the ass.' Former state Sen. Dean Johnson, who was the Republican minority leader during Bachmann's stint in St. Paul, has said, 'I don't think I ever served with anybody who I mistrusted more, from either side of the aisle.'" Murphy's column reprises some of Bachmann's greatest hits. ...

... Jonathan Chait of New York assembled his own list of "Bachmann’s ten greatest insights as President of Crazyland." ...

... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "Some of her comments were just amusing, in an ignorant sort of way, like when she said the Revolutionary War began in New Hampshire. Some were distinctly unamusing, in an ignorant sort of way, like when she suggested that the vaccine against H.P.V. made people 'retarded.' Some were sinister, like comments intended to suggest that armed insurrection is a nice way to express your political views. Last year, for example, she said she wanted 'people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax.' In July of 2012, she accused Huma Abedin, an adviser to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of being a jihadist infiltrator in the government."

Alexander Burns of Politico: "Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, [who was formerly a Republican,] will formally switch his party registration Thursday, abandoning his status as an independent and joining the Democratic Party, the governor's office told Politico. Chafee quietly informed President Barack Obama of his intention to affiliate as a Democrat after reaching that decision in private....

Matt Miller in the Washington Post: Lawrence Lessig, the professor who has made campaign finance reform his cause, proposes a "money bomb" to encourage legislators to quit spending half their days dialing for dollars. You'll have to read Miller's column to see how Lessig's plan would work (or not). CW: I thought this anecdote was interesting: "When I worked in the Clinton White House, I heard Al Gore say something I've never forgotten. It was in an early meeting on health care reform in the Cabinet Room. Gore observed matter-of-factly that 'we'll never do health care reform right unless we do campaign finance reform first.' Twenty years later, his point still rings true for every major plank on the agenda for American renewal."

Local News

Kelly Heyboer of the Star-Ledger: "The controversy over the appointment of Julie Hermann as Rutgers athletic director continued today as e-mails emerged showing infighting within the university over whether the new hire was properly vetted.... Ssme in the 28-member [search committee] felt the process of appointing a new athletic director was rushed."

Dr. Doug Cox, a conservative Republican Oklahoma state legislator, writes an op-ed in the Oklahoman against his fellow legislators' obsession with passing bills "aimed at limiting abortion and contraception.... What happened to the Republican Party that felt that the government has no business being in an exam room, standing between me and my patient? Where did the party go that felt some decisions in a woman's life should be made not by legislators and government, but rather by the women, her conscience, her doctor and her God?" ...

... Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "This year, Cox was the recipient of Planned Parenthood's Barry Goldwater Award, which is presented to 'outstanding' public officials in the Republican Party who have demonstrated their support for reproductive health issues." ...

... By contrast, here's what happens when you have a Democratic legislature:

... Patrick McGreevy & Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times: "California lawmakers Wednesday advanced a dozen gun-control measures, including background checks for ammunition buyers, and gave early approval to a tax penalty on the Boy Scouts for barring openly gay leaders."

Bryce Covert of Think Progress: "The California Assembly is expected to vote on Wednesday on a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, which passed both the Assembly and Senate last year only to be vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D). The bill, AB241, would guarantee housekeepers, nannies, and caregivers for the elderly and disabled overtime pay, meal and rest breaks, and the right to use kitchen facilities. It also provides live-in workers the right to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep." ...

... AP: "Republican Assemblyman Brian Jones of Santee says the bill would make in-home help unaffordable for all but the wealthy. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill last year citing the financial effects on families." CW: how does this make sense? What about the "financial effects" on the families of domestic workers?

Leave It to BuzzFeed. Benny Johnson compiles puns on Anthony Weiner's last name that made it into print during his 2011 sexting debacle, most courtesy of the New York Post. The best, IMHO, was not a pun on Weiner's name, but -- also from the Post -- this headline: "Erections Have Consequences."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Ibragim Todashev was being interrogated in his Orlando, Fla., home by the FBI and Massachusetts police when he was killed early in the morning of May 22. Now his family and friends want an independent investigation of how Todashev, an acquaintance of the man accused of organizing the bombing of the Boston Marathon, died at the hands of authorities.... In an interview with the Los Angeles Times after his news conference, Todashev said it appeared that his son had been shot by multiple agents from both the front and back."

New York Times: "The federal authorities are investigating whether the person responsible for sending poison-laced letters to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a lobbyist for his gun-control campaign in recent days may have also sent a similar letter to President Obama...."

Seattle Times: "In a proposed deal to avoid the death penalty, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales has agreed to plead guilty to killing 16 Afghans during a March 2012 tour of duty with an Army unit from Joint Base Lewis-McChord.... If the deal is approved, Bales would receive a life sentence, either with or without the possibility of parole.... In Afghanistan, the plea deal could inflame tensions."

AP: "Two threatening letters containing traces of the deadly poison ricin were sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York and his gun-control group in Washington, police said."

AP: " The Syrian president has told Lebanon's Hezbollah-owned TV station that Damascus received the first shipment of Russian air defense missiles, according to remarks released by the station Thursday.... Israel's defense chief, Moshe Yaalon, said earlier this week that Russia's plan to supply Syria with the weapons is a threat and that Israel was prepared to use force to stop the delivery.... Israel has long lobbied Moscow over the planned sale of S-300 air-defense missiles to Syria. However, on Tuesday, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said his government remained committed to the deal."

The Commentariat -- May 29, 2013

Gov. Christie & President Obama spoke at the Jersey Shore yesterday:

... "One and Done." Christie bests Obama without even trying:

... Michael Shear of the New York Times reports on the Obama-Christie buddy events.

... AND it takes the genius of Rush Limbaugh to see the recovery effort engineered by the federal & state governments as a "master-servant" relationship between Obama & Christie. Notice how Rush makes the point that he's not going to say "master-slave." Rush is so fucking evolved:

Maureen Dowd reproduces her "Obama Is Aloof" column, this time getting Jonathan Alter to write it for her. Dowd & Alter wonder if it's too late for Obama to learn to spend quality-time with Louis Gohmert & Tailgunner Ted so he can be famous for something besides being the first African-American president.

David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to the campaign of abortion opponents to 'defund' Planned Parenthood. Without comment, the justices turned away Indiana's defense of a 2011 law that would ban all Medicaid funds to an organization such as Planned Parenthood whose work includes performing abortions. The high court let stand decisions by a federal judge in Indiana and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago that blocked the measure from taking effect. The 'defunding law excludes Planned Parenthood from Medicaid for a reason unrelated to its fitness to provide medical services, violating its patients' statutory right to obtain medical care from the qualified provider of their choice,' Judge Diane Sykes said last year for the 7th Circuit." ...

... Adam Liptak of the Times reports on the decisions.

New York Times Editors: "On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed down two important criminal procedures decisions, both allowing defendants to seek habeas corpus review of their convictions in federal court. The 5-to-4 majority, with Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the court's four moderate liberals, reached the right result in each case. But, in a larger sense, the two decisions show how much the scope of habeas review has been curtailed by the Supreme Court in the last three decades, so that it now must work around earlier precedents to avoid doing injustice.... The ... cases show how heavily engaged the court has gotten in the regulation of criminal justice. Even when the court does the right thing, as it did in these two cases, it often appears to be finding exceptions to harsh rules that it created or upheld in earlier cases."

Republicans Are Outraged Obama Is Doing His Job. Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "Republican senators are fuming about President Barack Obama's attempt to fill empty seats on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, charging him with 'court-packing' and alleging that his push to confirm nominees is all politics. But not only is Obama not 'court-packing' -- a term describing an attempt to add judges to a court with the goal of shifting the balance, not filling existing vacancies -- but Republicans' efforts to prevent Obama from appointing judges amount to their own attempt to tip the scales in their favor. What's more, some of the GOP senators trying to prevent his nominees from advancing previously voted to fill the court when there was a Republican in the White House."

Charles Pierce: "I don't believe there ever has been a time like this in our history.... Right now, we have a polarization based on the fact that an uncontrollable faction of one of our two political parties -- a faction with its own sources of money and power that exist outside conventional political accountability -- has decided that the only thing that the national government should do is nothing, a faction that is perfectly situated to make that at least part of a political reality, and a faction that is growing even faster out in the states than it is in Washington." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein, in the Washington Post: the GOP's nihilistic approach to government is hurting even the interests of groups that normally align with Republicans. ...

... What's an Idle Congressman to Do? -- Issue Subpoenas! Ginger Gibson of Politico: "Rep. Darrell Issa issued a subpoena on Tuesday demanding more documents from the State Department for records related to the controversial talking points used in the days after the attack on the Benghazi consulate."

When Rigid Ideologies Clash -- Just Pretend They Don't. David Nather of Politico: "Members of a House immigration group are considering a rule that would force immigrants to buy their own health insurance while they wait for citizenship. The Republicans and other conservatives say their rule wouldn't be like Obamacare's at all. Their argument: It's simply fair to ask immigrants to show they won't be a drain on the system before getting full citizenship. Some conservative groups that support immigration reform think the contradiction is so glaring -- no mandate for citizens, but one for immigrants -- that Republicans should rethink their position. 'That is virtually the opposite of the main point they made against Obamacare,' said Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute.... Under the health care law, illegal immigrants are not entitled to purchase plans in the exchanges and they aren't eligible for subsidies."

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: in the Senate, the Gang of Eight has successfully fought off ultra-conservatives' attempts to derail or substantially weaken the immigration reform bill. (Nakamura doesn't write anything about the GOP's success in forcing Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) to withdraw his amendment extending the law to gay immigrants.)

** Walter Pincus of the Washington Post: "I believe the First Amendment covers the right to publish information, but it does not grant blanket immunity for how that information is gathered. When First Amendment advocates say [James] Rosen [of Fox "News"] was 'falsely' characterized as a co-conspirator, they do not understand the law. When others claim this investigation is 'intimidating a growing number of government sources,' they don't understand history. The person or persons who told the Associated Press about the CIA operation that infiltrated al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and [Stephen Jin-Woo] Kim -- or someone else -- who informed Rosen about North Korea, were not whistleblowers exposing government misdeeds. They harmed national security and broke the law."

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied under oath during his May 15 testimony on the Justice Department's (DOJ) surveillance of reporters.... 'In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material -- this is not something I've ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy,' Holder said during the hearing. However, NBC News reported the following week that Holder personally approved a search warrant that labeled Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen a co-conspirator in a national security leaks case." ...

... Philip Bump of the Atlantic: "Justice ... acknowledged that Holder had been involved in the Rosen case -- officially, U.S. vs. Kim, after Rosen's alleged source for the leak, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim.... Rusty Hardin, a Houston-based attorney ... [who] represented Roger Clemens when the pitcher faced perjury allegations after testifying on the Hill..., was blunt. 'Do we really believe seriously that the Attorney General is going to sit up there in a public hearing with the intent to obstruct justice? Really? Seriously? Give me a friggin' break.' The only people who might think so, he said, were 'insane partisans.'" ...

... Winger Rich Lowry, winger editor of the winger National Review, writes a funny piece titled "Being Eric Holder."

Hope Yen of the AP: "America's working mothers are now the primary breadwinners in a record 40 percent of households with children -- a milestone in the changing face of modern families, up from just 11 percent in 1960. The findings by the Pew Research Center, released Wednesday, highlight the growing influence of 'breadwinner moms' who keep their families afloat financially. While most are headed by single mothers, a growing number are families with married mothers who bring in more income than their husbands."

"Taxing the Rich." Paul Krugman: "... over the past three decades we've seen a soaring share of income going to the very top of the income distribution ... even as tax rates on high incomes have fallen sharply, with the recent Obama increases clawing back only a fraction of the previous cuts.... If we choose to raise less revenue from the rich than we can without hurting the economy, we will be forced either to raise more taxes from or provide fewer valuable services to everyone else." With a chart.

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "Paul Volcker ... plans to begin a foundation called the Volcker Alliance, aimed at improving how government works at the local, state and federal levels."

Congressional Race

** Gerry Mullany of the New York Times: "Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who made an ill-fated run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, announced Wednesday that she would not seek a fifth term in Congress next year. She made the announcement just six months after being re-elected in what was her most challenging Congressional campaign since she was first elected to the House in 2006. Her announcement also comes as her former presidential campaign faces inquiries into its fund-raising activities.... She also said she expected 'the mainstream liberal media to put a detrimental spin' on her decision...." ...

     ... CW: huh. How is it that god answered my prayers & has been pretty much ignoring Bachmann's prayers to tank ObamaCare? I should ask Pat Robertson if that means I'm a better Christian than Bachmann, which would be a trick because I'm not a Christian. Worth noting: Mullany completely ignores Bachmann's exhortations that her decision has nothing to do with the close race she won last November or with the ethics committee inquiry. I guess Mullany is a "mainstream liberal media" hack. ...

... The Star-Tribune story, which includes Bachmann's announcement video, is here.

Local News

Washington Post Editors: "Robert F. McDonnell took office admirably determined to change a scandalously antiquated system by which the state has deprived several hundred thousand felons of their voting rights -- permanently. To his credit, he's done a better job than any of his predecessors at restoring the vote for former offenders who have served their sentences.... The essential problem is a provision in the state's constitution, reaffirmed by racist lawmakers more than a century ago, that deprives felons of the vote unless their rights are individually restored by the governor. Mr. McDonnell (R) has supported a change in the constitution, and so has the state Senate. But they’ve been blocked by Republicans in the House of Delegates, who may fear an infusion of African American voters.... The result is that more than 7 percent of the state's voting-age population is ineligible to vote, even though most of them have already served their sentences. The racial imbalance is appalling. Twenty percent of the state's voting-age population of African Americans, and about a third of its black males, is ineligible to vote." [Emphasis added.]

Texas Legislature, Governor, Cut Off Their Noses to Spite Texans. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "1.5 million low-income Texans may go without health care coverage after lawmakers in the state voted against expanding Medicaid using $100 billion in federal funds offered under President Obama's health care law.... 'Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration's attempt to force us into this fool's errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system,' [Gov. Rick] Perry said. The decision means a loss of approximately $7 billion for Texas hospitals, which comes on top of the $700 million a year reduction in Medicaid payments from state budget shortfalls and cuts under sequestration." As a result of the decision, Texas's working poor also will lose out on federal tax credits for purchasing health insurance. "Texas will continue paying for the taxes that pay for Medicaid expansion but will be sending those dollars (and benefits) to other states." CW: No master-servant relationship here! ...

... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "Unlike [Gov. Jan] Brewer [RTP-Az.], Mr. Perry has made the ideologically consistent choice rather than the responsible one." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... quite a few (including most of the South) [are] just flat out refusing to do anything for people with incomes under the federal poverty line. And that creates a very large 'coverage gap,' leaving an estimated 5.7 million folk who don't qualify for Medicaid or for the Obamacare health exchange subsidies. While this coverage gap is reminiscent (though much larger and more devastating to those affected) of the 'doughnut hole' that existed in Medicare Part D before the Affordable Care Act began closing it, we don't have a name for it just yet. I'd suggest the 'wingnut hole.'"

Tom Canavan of the AP: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that he has 'absolute confidence' in the president of Rutgers University even as some lawmakers have called for Robert Barchi to step down amid a string of embarrassing revelations for the university's athletic department. Christie said he doesn't want to micromanage the university and won't say whether incoming athletic director Julie Hermann should start at the school as scheduled on June 17. 'Not my call,' he said Tuesday during his monthly call-in show on TownSquare Media." The Star-Ledger story is here.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "A Chechen man who was fatally shot by an FBI agent last week during an interview about one of the Boston bombing suspects was unarmed, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. An air of mystery has surrounded the FBI shooting of Ibragim Todashev, 27, since it occurred in Todashev's apartment early on the morning of May 22."

New York Times: "In a shock to humanitarian aid workers, suicide bombers in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday assaulted the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, an organization that has worked in the country for more than 30 years without suffering a concerted attack and has received praise from all sides."

New York Times: "The Swiss government is considering a proposal to disclose bank client names and pay a multibillion-dollar fine to the United States to help resolve a long-running dispute between the two countries over the handling of tax-evasion cases, American and Swiss sources briefed on the matter said on Tuesday. The fine, which could reach at least $7 billion to $10 billion according to these people, could be paid in part by the Swiss government, which would then seek reimbursement from the banks."

Reuters: "Accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan will ask a U.S. military court on Wednesday to rule he can represent himself at his trial this summer which could bring the death penalty on charges he killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage. Jury selection in Hasan's military trial at Fort Hood was delayed until next week after he asked the judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, to let him fire his lawyers and represent himself."

AP: " Moscow's highest court has rejected an appeal by punk group Pussy Riot against their sentence for a protest against Vladimir Putin."