The Commentariat -- May 25, 2013

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

     CW: In the Republicans' weekly address, Sen. Jim Inhofe speaks of the tornado that hit Moore. He doesn't just ignore climate change; except for asking for handouts, he pretty much ignores the rest of the country because the "Oklahoma Standard" ensures that Okies will take care of themselves. Bernie Becker of the Hill reports.

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen's private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.... Yesterday, hours after President Obama said, in a speech at National Defense University, that he had asked Attorney General Eric Holder to review the Justice Department's policies concerning investigations of the media, NBC News reported that the warrant to search Rosen's e-mail account was personally approved by Holder." CW: which part of the First Amendment don't you understand, Eric? Ah. The "freedom of the press" part. I said Holder was a mistake as soon as Obama nominated him. I'm still right. ...

... Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "The Justice Department pledged Friday to review its policies relating to the seizure of information from journalists after acknowledging that a controversial search warrant for a Fox News reporter's private emails was approved 'at the highest levels' of the Justice Department, including 'discussions' with Attorney General Eric Holder." ...

... D. S. Wright of Firedoglake: "During Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony before the House Oversight Committee he made an interesting statement in response to a question from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)... :

HOLDER: I would say this with regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. That is not something I've ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy. In fact my view is quite the opposite.

      ... Holder was under oath at the time raising the possibility of a perjury charge."

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: " Fox News chairman Roger Ailes yesterday released a statement describing that administration's actions as 'an attempt to intimidate Fox News.' But while Ailes and his team will no doubt try to spin this into a partisan confrontation, the First Amendment doesn't say that 'Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of The Fox News.' Especially given the AP phone records subpoena, the issue isn't some sort of political witch hunt against Fox. Instead, it's that the government put its desire to stop leaks ahead of the Constitutional right to freedom of the press without even giving the press a chance to defend itself. That's a problem that needs to be fixed." ...

... Leonard Downie, Jr., former executive editor of the Washington Post, in a long Post op-ed: "... the Obama administration's steadily escalating war on leaks, the most militant I have seen since the Nixon administration, has disregarded the First Amendment and intimidated a growing number of government sources of information -- most of which would not be classified -- that is vital for journalists to hold leaders accountable. The White House has tightened its control over officials' contacts with the news media, and federal agencies have increasingly denied Freedom of Information Act requests on the grounds of national security or protection of internal deliberations." ...

... The Big Chill. Christine Haughney of the New York Times: reporters who cover national security say their sources are drying up. CW: So I guess this crackdown on leaks thing is working.

... The Press Is Really Whiney. Jack Shafer of Slate Reuters takes a contrarian POV: "... all this legal battering of the press, while real, hardly rises to the level of war.... Obama's wholesale deflation of their standing has made comrades out of ideological enemies. How else to explain Len Downie hollering 'Nixon' at the same time Fox News's Roger Ailes is invoking 'McCarthy' to denounce the Obama administration?" CW: I largely disagree with Shafer's conclusion, but he makes a number of valid points in reaching it. Also, he uses the phrase "prelude to a kiss-off." ...

... Also, as Schafer wrote the other day, Rosen is a lousy investigative reporter: "Rosen's journalistic technique, if the Post story is accurate, leaves much to be desired. He would have been less conspicuous had he walked into the State Department wearing a sandwich board lettered with his intentions to obtain classified information and then blasted an air horn to further alert authorities to his business." Plus, his big scoop-di-doo was stupid." CW: and it seems to me it did, at least marginally, cause a national security risk -- for no good reason -- & could possibly endanger some covert agents.

David Firestone of the New York Times: "The most striking thing about President Obama's speech on counter-terrorism yesterday was his eagerness to end the 'global war on terror' and redefine it as a series of smaller-scale skirmishes. And the most striking thing about the reaction of Republicans was their stated refusal to end it, their longing to keep it going as the pinnacle of national priorities.... Anti-terrorism is a definitional position for a party that spent decades using Communism as a foil and seemed lost after the Soviet Union fell." ...

... CW: also underlying GOP saber-rattling are two things: some Republicans are too simple-minded to think beyond knee-jerk machismo; others assume the public is too simple-minded to think beyond knee-jerk machismo, so talking tough is just good PR. As Jim Fallows wrote (linked yesterday), Obama treated his listeners as adults as he explained the complexities of American foreign policy; unfortunately, the opposition party is operating at the level of youthful video-war-games aficionados. ...

... "Steve Coll and Dexter Filkins talk to Amy Davidson about the speech Obama gave on Thursday":

Brian Beutler of TPM: "... in California, where the state government and advocacy groups are actually interested in doing Obamacare right, things are looking pretty good. They're standing up their exchanges and it turns out premiums for basic bronze and more comprehensive silver health plans will actually come in lower than anticipated. This is almost unambiguously good news for Obamacare.... "All the states trying to make the law fail will look very stupid and terribly craven if California pulls this off." ...

... Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post has the data on which Beutler based his post. ...

... ** GOP War on Poor People. NEW: Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The refusal by about half the states to expand Medicaid will leave millions of poor people ineligible for government-subsidized health insurance under President Obama's health care law even as many others with higher incomes receive federal subsidies to buy insurance.... More than half of all people without health insurance live in states that are not planning to expand Medicaid." These states include Texas, Florida, Kansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia. ...

... Paul Krugman: "The whole political calculus was supposed to be that Republicans in red states could point to the horrors of Obamacare and ride them to political victory. Instead, it looks as if we're going to see blue-state residents reaping the benefits of a functional health care system, while red-state residents are denied many of those benefits, for what looks like no better reason than mean-spirited spite -- because what's going on is, indeed, mean-spirited spite." ...

Oh Yeah? Don't be so smug, Krugman. The IRS is rifling through your most intimate medical files:

When people realize that their most personal, sensitive, intimate, private health-care information is in the hands of the IRS that's been willing to use people's tax information against political opponents of this administration, then people have pause and they pull back in horror. -- Michele Bachmann, May 20

Bachmann has made a sweeping claim.... There is no evidence to support this assertion, and she is simply scaring people when she repeats it on television. Bachmann thus continues her record-breaking streak of outlandish claims.-- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, SO

Oh. Never mind. -- Constant Weader

Floyd Norris of the New York Times: "In the 84 years that the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has been calculated, it doubled during the terms of only four presidents before Barack Obama's election in 2008. This month that number rose to five as the index climbed to more than twice what it was when he took office." The other 4 presidents were FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan & Clinton. "... none came close to the average annual gain so far under Mr. Obama."

Gail Collins considers whether women or Ted Cruz have done more to get Senators working together again. And here's that moment Collins refers to "in the State of the Union address when President Obama called for more bridge repair projects and John Boehner failed to applaud" (unfortunately, the camera cuts away from Boehner quickly [I guess because he didn't applaud]):

... Jonathan Chait puts John McCain's outbursts against his Tea Party colleagues in context: "McCain is a cranky man in general, and the latest punks he told to get off his lawn include tea-party hoodlums Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.... McCain's disagreement over what appears to be a technical point of Senate process is actually a fundamental split over the party's approach toward Obama. The conservatives want to continue their stance of total opposition and instigating crises -- the stance that has defined the party throughout the Obama era -- while McCain wants to engage in compromise and negotiation." Read the whole post. ...

... Jonathan Bernstein disagrees with Chait's analysis: "... it's a combination of electoral incentives and personal vendettas." CW: I think they're both right.

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said Friday that the 'Gang of Eight' immigration bill doesn't have enough votes to pass the Senate. The bill won approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 13-5 vote, but Menendez said it lacks the 60 votes necessary to clear the Senate -- despite the bill's four Republican co-sponsors."

Yesterday President Obama signed "a bill designating the Congressional Gold Medal commemorating the lives of the four young girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing of 1963":

President Obama gave the commencement address yesterday at the U.S. Naval Academy (see yesterday's Commentariat for a link to a New York Times report on his speech):

Local News

J. J. Hensley of the Arizona Republic: "A federal judge's ruling that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office engaged in racial profiling against Latinos could bring significant changes to the agency's controversial approach to immigration enforcement. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow issued a lengthy ruling that prohibits sheriff's deputies from using race as a factor in law-enforcement decisions, from detaining people solely for suspected immigration violations and from contacting federal immigration authorities to arrest suspected illegal immigrants who are not accused of committing state crimes." The decision is here. ...

... bmaz of emptywheel: "The decision is long at 142 pages, but it is beautiful and contains specific findings of fact and conclusions of law that will make it hard to reverse on appeal...."

News Ledes

New York Times: "One of the top officials in the Archdiocese of Newark has been forced out for failing to properly monitor the activities of a priest who had been forbidden from having contact with children, the archdiocese announced on Saturday. The dismissal of Msgr. John E. Doran, who reported to Archbishop John J. Myers, is the latest fallout from a sexual abuse scandal that stretches back more than a decade."

Boston Globe: "On this dreary, drizzly morning, thousands of runners and their supporters came out to finish what they started [-- the Boston Marathon --] jogging the final mile from Kenmore Square to the finish line and reclaiming the long-imagined moment they were denied."

AP: "Gay-rights campaigners and their opponents clashed at an unsanctioned rally in the Russian capital on Saturday, but a heavy police presence in kept the two sides apart at that country's first-ever gay pride march. Russian police said they arrested at least 30 gay rights campaigners and Christian Orthodox vigilantes in Moscow."

The Commentariat -- May 24, 2013

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama will address Naval Academy graduates on Friday morning.... White House officials said Mr. Obama is likely to address the sexual assault issue in his speech to the graduates in Annapolis. Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense, is expected to do the same at the West Point graduation on Saturday." ...

     ... Update. New Lede: "President Obama used a commencement speech before Naval Academy graduates on Friday to urge them to follow an 'inner compass' and to warn that rising numbers of sexual assaults in the military threatened to erode America’s faith in the armed forces."

This war, like all wars, must end. -- Barack Obama

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama on Thursday announced new restraints on targeted killings and narrowed the scope of the long struggle with terrorists as part of a transition to a day he envisions when the nation will no longer be on the war footing it has been on since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." ...

... The prepared text is here. Toward the end, Obama went off script several times to respond to a heckler. It was, IMHO, an impressive speech that addressed numerous matters, including the issue of journalistic freedom:

Jim Fallows of the Atlantic highlights important points of the President's speech. (CW: Of course I would like Fallows' take as he picked the same one I did as the overarching message.) ...

... Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: "One first impression left by President Obama's much-anticipated speech ... is that of the contrast between Bush's swagger and Obama's anguish over the difficult trade-offs that perpetual war poses to a free society. It could scarcely be starker." ...

The President's speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory. -- Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) ...

... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: President Obama's GOP Senate critics respond. CW: the usual suspects with the usual whining. They raise some valid issues, but shouldn't they be helping to solve these conundra instead of just bellyaching? ...

... Saxby there should have caught the top of Rachel Maddow's show. Osama bin Laden's central demand & reason for killing Americans was to force the U.S. to get its military bases out of his home country of Saudi Arabia. We did. Quietly. The same week George W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq (April 2003). Similarly, after the deadly bombing of the U.S. barracks in Beiruit, Lebanon, in 1983, carried out to force U.S. peacekeeping troops out of Lebanon -- Ronald Reagan pulled the troops out of Lebanon. What about that, Saxby?

... The ACLU responds. Via Jonathan Bernstein. ...

... Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "Arguably, no agency has changed more in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks than the C.I.A., and no agency could be affected more by the new direction of the secret wars laid out by American officials on Thursday. More than half of the C.I.A.'s work force joined the agency after 2001, and many of those new officers have spent the years since almost exclusively on the work of man-hunting and killing. Some American officials and outside experts believe it could take years for a spy agency that has evolved into a paramilitary service to rebalance its activities."

Nick Anderson of the Washington Post: "The House approved a Republican proposal Thursday to allow interest rates on federal student loans to rise or fall from year to year with the government's cost of borrowing, ending a system in which rates are fixed by law. The proposal cleared the GOP-led House on a largely party-line vote of 221 to 198, but it faces opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate and a veto threat from the Obama administration. The legislation responds to a looming deadline: On July 1, unless the law is changed, rates for a certain type of new loan for undergraduate students in financial need will double to 6.8 percent, from 3.4 percent."

Jonathan Chait: absent any evidence that the President was directing the IRS to hassle wingers, the IRS story has nevertheless metastasized into a right-wing/GOP conspiracy theory based wholly on the presumption that Obama Is a Bad Guy. ...

... Obama Is a Bad Guy, one supposes, is also the underlying premise of numerous fantastic right-wing theories, including my newest favorite: that the Moore tornado -- though it could have been a natural phenomenon -- might well have been a "government weather weapon." Yes, this is as crazy a theory as I've heard, & it wouldn't be humorous if it had not been pitched by radio host Alex Jones, a popular guy among "former Rep. Ron Paul and current Sen. Rand Paul; Fox News figures Lou Dobbs and Andrew Napolitano; gun activists Ted Nugent and Larry Pratt; and climate misinformer Marc Morano [who] have all repeatedly appeared on Jones' show," according to an April 16 report by Ben Dimiero & Eric Hananoki of Media Matters. ...

... Bernie Becker & Peter Schroeder of the Hill: "Congressional Republicans are skeptical the IRS's treatment of conservative groups warrants a special prosecutor, fearing that step could limit their own investigation into the agency.... A special prosecutor concentrating on criminal violations, they say, might not look into ways Tea Party groups were harmed that fall short of a crime." CW: Right. Because a special prosecutor would step on Republicans' sworn duty to carry on endless sensationalist hearings right through election season 2014. And 2016. ...

It scares me: Who will appoint the special prosecutor? Holder! Do I really want the administration that I don't trust appointing a prosecutor right now? I think not. -- Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.)

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Lois Lerner, the head of the Internal Revenue Service’s division on exempt organizations, was put on administrative leave Thursday, a day after she invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to testify before a House committee investigating her division's targeting of conservative groups. Lawmakers from both parties said Thursday that senior I.R.S. officials had requested Ms. Lerner's resignation but she refused, forcing them to put her on leave instead. Whether her suspension will lead to dismissal was unclear, given civil service rules that govern federal employment." ...

A president that touts ego, power, and a hatred for dissent above everything else, that's Barack Obama, that's the leader of this country. I don't think this administration realizes that the First Amendment wasn't a suggestion. The Bill of Rights is not a wish list, it's a set of non-negotiable limits on the federal government. -- RNC Chair Reince Priebus, Monday evening ...

I don't think this Lois Lerner did herself or the scandal any favors by pleading the Fifth Amendment yesterday, which -- whether you agree with it as a basis of law or not -- implies there are some criminal aspects of the investigation.... I understand. I went to law school. I get it.... You don't need to plead the Fifth if you've done nothing wrong.... If you have an administration that says they've done nothing wrong & this is just a bunch of low-level people in Cincinatti, & then you have Lois Lerner come forward & plead the Fifth, I think it raises questions. -- Reince Priebus, Thursday morning

Sometimes, it's such a short distance between you and your own petard. -- Charles Pierce

Apparently the Fifth Amendment is "just a suggestion" which is debatable "as a basis of law." -- Constant Weader

... the [Fifth Amendment] privilege protects the innocent as well as the guilty. -- U.S. Supreme Court, per curiam.

... This part of the discussion among Prince Rebus, John Heilmann & PretendDem Harold Ford -- from the same "Morning Joe" show -- is interesting, too. Heilmann, BTW, is not a partisan; he's an even-handed journalist who obviously sees no reason to give Squeaky a pass on his sleights of hand -- "we must wait for the facts, which are that Obama is the mastermind of a vast criminal operation." (Notice how Squeaky doesn't see anything wrong with that "logic.") Also, Jeanne B. & I were unaware there were 132 Democratic Senators:

... Juliet Eilperin & Ed O'Keefe: "House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is inclined to recall Internal Revenue Service official Lois G. Lerner to testify before his panel, but will await recommendations from committee lawyers, the nonpartisan House Counsel, other outside legal experts and committee Democrats before making a final decision, he said Thursday." ...

... Andy Borowitz: "In a dramatic departure from existing White House procedures, President Obama requested today that his staff start cc’ing him on stuff." ...

... ** Norm Ornstein, writing in the National Journal, gives the IRS story some needed context: it "is all about disclosure of donors, and about political actors trying to find ways to avoid disclosure. And we should be clear that the ability to conceal donors, to launch stealth attack ads, or to threaten lawmakers with such ads if they don't support the policy preferences or legislative goals of the donors is something the Supreme Court rejected 8-1 in the famous Citizens United decision. But political professionals on both sides of the aisle, through their high-priced campaign lawyers, have for many years probed for ways to finesse the law and the norm of disclosure endorsed by the Supreme Court (most eloquently, by the way, by Justice Antonin Scalia)." Read the whole article.

Surprise! Tom Curry of NBC News: "With one of President Barack Obama's key nominees on the verge of being confirmed by the Senate on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appeared to edge away Wednesday from an idea that some Democrats are calling for: enacting a change in Senate rules to stop filibusters which delay votes on Obama appointees. During a debate on the Senate floor with Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, Reid said, 'I'm not saying we're going to change the rules' regarding the filibuster, but argued that the Senate must move faster to confirm Obama nominees." ...

... BUT on Thursday, McConnell Blinked. Brian Beutler of TPM: "McConnell caved Thursday morning on the Senate floor. A small cave. But a cave nonetheless. [Sri] Srinivasan will be confirmed [as a judge in the DC Circuit Court] Thursday afternoon. But the 'cave' is only a small part of the story.... McConnell is actively trying to undermine Reid's efforts to present Republicans with a Sophie's choice between dropping their filibuster threats against nominees they oppose and standing by as Democrats do away with the filibuster on presidential nominees altogether." ...

     ... Update. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "Sri Srinivasan – the principal deputy solicitor general President Obama has nominated to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was confirmed in a 97 to 0 vote Thursday. The vote is significant for several reasons. Srinivasan is the first D.C. Circuit nominee confirmed since 2006...."

... Jonathan Bernstein in the Post: "Even though one might think there's an incentive for both sides to eventually find an equilibrium in which Republicans block some nominees but not quite enough to trigger the nuclear option, the chances for miscalculation are pretty large." ...

... Bernstein: "... it's absolutely ridiculous that a unanimous pick took eleven months.... Having given up on Srinivasan, will Republicans now blockade the remaining three vacancies on the DC Circuit Court, perhaps on the bogus pretext that those judges aren't actually needed? ... And ... it would help if there actually were nominees for those three vacancies." ...

... Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) explains to Chuck Grassley (RDopey-Iowa) what "packing the court" means after Grassley complains 5 times that Democrats are attempting to pack the D.C. Circuit Court, a preposterous assertion. Via Dylan Matthew of the Washington Post:

Thursday morning on the Senate floor, John McCain ripped Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee, who is a frequent co-conspirator with Tailgunner Ted & Li'l Randy:

... Greg Sargent: "Tea Party Senators have pushed their disregard for basic governing norms so far that even fellow Republicans are calling them out for it.... As McCain rightly pointed out, the Tea Party demand is effectively is that Republicans must not negotiate over the budget 'unless certain conditions are imposed' on the negotiations beforehand 'that happen to be important to a small group of United States Senators.' ... This is really remarkable stuff, and again goes to a basic fact about today's politics, which is that Tea Party lawmakers have -- willfully, it seems -- decided that they no longer have any obligation to engage in basic governing."

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "The Boy Scouts of America on Thursday ended its longstanding policy of forbidding openly gay youths to participate in its activities, a step its chief executive called 'compassionate, caring and kind.' ... The Scouts did not consider the even more divisive question of whether to allow openly gay adults and leaders." ...

... Jack Ohman of the Sacramento Bee: "... when I read yesterday that the Boy Scouts had come up with what can only be described as a pathetic Solomon-like decision of allowing gay boys to join the scouts, but not allowing gay men to be scout leaders, I had to observe that this is perhaps the worst signal that could be sent to aspiring gay scouts. That message is: you're ok as a gay child, but it's not ok to be a gay man. We think you'll eventually become a pervert." Thanks to James S. for the link.

Paul Krugman: "... the really remarkable thing about 'Abenomics' -- the sharp turn toward monetary and fiscal stimulus adopted by the government of Prime Minster Shinzo Abe -- is that nobody else in the advanced world is trying anything similar. In fact, the Western world seems overtaken by economic defeatism.... So, how is Abenomics working? The safe answer is that it's too soon to tell. But the early signs are good...."

Plus ça change.... An excellent post by Eric Lipton & Ben Protess of the New York Times on how banks are writing financial "regulation" bills again. "The cordial relations [between bank lobbyists & members of Congress] now include a growing number of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, whose support the banks need if they want to roll back parts of the 2010 financial overhaul, known as Dodd-Frank." CW: How could this happen? "The lawmakers who this month supported the bills championed by Wall Street received twice as much in contributions from financial institutions compared with those who opposed them, according to an analysis of campaign finance records performed by MapLight, a nonprofit group."

Local News

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Anthony D. Weiner ... re-emerged on the city's political stage Thursday as his essential, unadulterated self, at once gratingly self-mythologizing and charmingly self-effacing." ...

... Former Congressman, Currently Unemployed. Will Accept Mayoralty of Any Major U.S. City. Azi Paybarah of Capital New York: "The New York City skyline is one of the most recognizable in the world. The skyline portrayed in the banner on Anthony Weiner's campaign website isn't it. It's Pittsburgh. To be precise, the banner shows the top of what appears to be the Roberto Clemente Bridge." The photo has since been swapped out & Weiner's marketing firm "takes full responsibility." Via Gawker. ...

... Oh, Great. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Former congressman and newly announced New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D) said in an interview Thursday morning with WNYC-FM that there could be women coming forward with more e-mails or photos from the inappropriate digital conversations that led to his resignation in 2011."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Haynes Johnson, a distinguished Washington Post journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for civil rights coverage in the 1960s and later sought to pierce the mysteries of the politics and gamesmanship of the capital, died May 24 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He was 81."

Dan Sligh describes his "rough day" after he & his wife plunged in their truck into the Skagit River after an I-5 bridge in Washington state collapsed:

Seattle Times photo.

Seattle Times: "A chunk of Interstate 5 collapsed into the Skagit River near Mount Vernon on Thursday evening, dumping two vehicles into the icy waters and creating a gaping hole in Washington state's major north-south artery. Officials said the highway will not be fixed for weeks at the very least. Rescuers pulled three people with minor injuries from the water after the collapse, which authorities say began when a semitruck with an oversized load struck a steel beam at around 7 p.m....The bridge, built in 1955, was inspected twice last year and repairs were made.... The bridge is classified as a 'fracture critical' bridge by the National Bridge Inventory. That means one major structural part can ruin the entire bridge, as compared with a bridge that has redundant features...."

Reuters: "A North Korean envoy told China's president on Friday that his reclusive country was willing to take 'positive actions' to ensure peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, as China steps up diplomatic efforts to bring Pyongyang back to talks." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, bluntly told a North Korean envoy on Friday that his country should return to diplomatic talks intended to rid it of its nuclear weapons, according to a state-run Chinese news agency."

The Commentariat -- May 23, 2013

Charlie Savage & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama plans to open a new phase in the nation's long struggle with terrorism on Thursday by restricting the use of unmanned drone strikes that have been at the heart of his national security strategy and shifting control of them away from the C.I.A. to the military.... In [a] letter to Congressional leaders, [AG Eric] Holder confirmed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who died in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. Mr. Holder also wrote that United States forces had killed three other Americans who 'were not specifically targeted.'"

Thomas Edsall, in the New York Times: "... lobbyists have become a semi-permanent class with ever-expanding reach -- they write legislation, they kill legislation. They have usurped many of the political functions that once belonged to elected officials, in part by adapting to new political ecologies faster than those who seek to counter their influence. Insofar as they are protecting the status quo, lobbyists insulate calcified interest groups from challenge....At a time when sectors of the economy ranging from health care to education to manufacturing are under more or less permanent siege, the tentacles of the lobbying community are choking off open exchange between officeholders and the voters they represent. They have created and now maintain a stifling stasis. It is hard to see how this ends well." AND, corporations get a GREAT return on their investment in lobbyists -- on average, for instance, multinationals get 22,000 percent!

Gail Collins: "The [immigration reform] bill, which would give millions of undocumented residents a path toward eventual citizenship, now goes to the full Senate, where it actually looks as though it's going to pass. Any further progress would require cooperation from the House of Representatives, the circle of hell where the damned are condemned to spend eternity voting to repeal the health care reform law."

Philip Rucker & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: In April (of 2013, I presume,) White House counsel "Kathryn Ruemmler shared the news [of the IRS audit] with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior White House aides, who all recognized the danger of the findings. But they agreed that it would be best not to share it with President Obama until the independent audit was completed and made public, in part to protect him from even the appearance of trying to influence an investigation....But Ruemmler and McDonough's careful plan for the IRS was upended on May 10, when Lois Lerner ... broke the news by admitting that the IRS had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Senior White House officials were stunned to see the IRS trying to get ahead of its own story -- and in doing so, creating a monstrous communications disaster.... Many prominent Washington lawyers say Ruemmler made the sensible legal call." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in an interview aired late Wednesday that it's 'inconceivable' someone didn't inform President Obama about the IRS's targeting of conservative groups." ...

... Rachael Bade of Politico: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chair of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, claims that IRS employee Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights by making an opening statement, & he may pursue contempt charges. Legal experts, however, say Issa's argument that Lerner has waived her Fifth Amendment rights might not be as strong as he suggests."

One more reason Sheldon Whitehouse is one of my heroes. He is a man for the ages -- one of those few great orators who lend credence to the Senate's usually dubious moniker "the world's greatest deliberative body":

     ... BTW, this wasn't a speech Whitehouse had been honing for years. He delivered it Monday afternoon in response to the tornado that had flattened Moore, Oklahoma, tornado a few hours earlier. ...

     ... CW Oopsie Update. I was wrong about that. Fox "News": "Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has apologized for remarks Monday in which he linked Oklahoma 'cyclones' to climate change while berating Republicans for their stance on the issue -- around the time a massive tornado killed dozens in that state. A Whitehouse spokesman said Tuesday the politically charged remarks were pre-written as part of the senator's weekly Senate floor speech on climate change." How humiliating to be corrected by Fox "News." Still, no apology necessary, Senator.

Going Nuclear? Brian Beutler of TPM: "Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would hold a vote on Richard Cordray's nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before the Senate skipped town for Memorial Day. Plans change. Cordray will now most likely get his chance after immigration reform legislation clears the Senate. And not because Reid is giving up on Cordray's nomination, but because he wants to turn Cordray and a handful of other nominees into a test of the GOP's vows to filibuster top Obama picks, including two designated cabinet secretaries."

Steve Benen: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Az.) went winger wacko in a Congressional hearing today over the unsubstantiated and untrue rumor that Mitt Romney hadn't paid taxes in 10 years. Harry Reid spread the rumor during the campaign season last year based on what he said an associate of Romney's told him. Gosar told former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman that this was an "alarming" story which the IRS should have investigated, which happens to make no sense. ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "It was bad enough when Reid made his outlandish charges during the campaign. But now Gosar has compounded the error by treating it as an accepted fact -- long after it has been disproven -- in order to browbeat a witness at a congressional hearing. At the very least, he should have acknowledged that there was no truth to Reid's charge, rather than suggesting that Reid 'obtained' something legitimate from the IRS."

It's All Petraeus's Fault. New York Times Editors: "As Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson reported in The Washington Post on Wednesday, the e-mails [among the C.I.A., State Department & White House related to the Benghazi talking points] show that Mr. Petraeus was critical to producing talking points 'favorable to his image and his agency.' ... The State Department did a full a public review of its behavior.... Reforms are under way. Congress needs to look closely at the C.I.A.’s role and insist that the agency do the same." CW: Republicans have no incentive to go after Petraeus -- their former hero whom they hoped to make President Petraeus (R) -- so they don't give a flying fuck what the C.I.A. did under his watch. Unless Obama orders a C.I.A. probe -- and he could -- there won't be one.

M. B. Pell, et al., of Reuters: "The fertilizer-plant explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 others in Texas last month highlights the failings of a U.S. federal law intended to save lives during chemical accidents.... Known as the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the law requires companies to tell emergency responders about the hazardous chemicals stored on their properties. But even when companies do so..., it is up to the companies and local firefighters, paramedics and police to plan and train for potential disasters. West Fertilizer Co of West, Texas..., had alerted a local emergency-planning committee in February 2012 that it stored potentially deadly chemicals at the plant. Firefighters and other emergency responders never acted upon that information to train for the kind of devastating explosion that happened 14 months later..., a failing that likely cost lives. It's a scenario that has played out in chemical accidents nationwide...."

Joe Nocera: "On Tuesday, despite the overwhelming evidence presented by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that Apple engaged in dubious tax avoidance gimmicks, [Apple CEO Tim] Cook claimed that Apple never resorted to tax gimmickry.... Apple is as much an innovator in tax avoidance as it is in technology.... [Sen. Carl] Levin [D-Mich.] has proposed a bill that would curb the most blatant abuses of the tax code like the Double Irish." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "One thing became clear this week on Capitol Hill: It is better to be a tax dodger than a tax collector. Armed with a blistering report that said Apple had avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes, senators ... called [Timothy D. Cook] a 'pretty smart guy' and praised the 'incredible legacy' his company had left. They gushed over his products, calling Apple 'a great company' that had managed to 'change the world.' ... It was considerably different for the officials of the Internal Revenue Service.... Wednesday's I.R.S. hearing felt like an inquisition -- unforgiving, angry, prosecutorial." ...

... Howard Schneider of the Washington Post: "A global effort to tighten corporate tax rules is gaining momentum as politicians in Europe and the United States take aim at American tech giants whose savvy use of international tax laws has provoked a public backlash. A day after a U.S. Senate report slammed Apple's use of Irish regulations to minimize payments to the U.S. government, European heads of state said they hoped for quick action from an international effort to change rules that let companies shelter profits." CW: I sure hope European countries' (where perhaps fewer politicians have corporate sponsors) tax reforms help the U.S. because the U.S. Congress isn't going to help the U.S. See Michael Shear's report above.

Stephanie Gaskell of Politico: "The Army is investigating a soldier who helped train cadets at West Point amid allegations that he made secret videos of female cadets, the latest in a rash of cases that have brought heavy political pressure on the Pentagon to crack down on sexually oriented offenses in the ranks. The Army said Sgt. 1st Class Michael McClendon, a 23-year veteran who did two tours in Iraq, was charged with indecency, dereliction of duties, cruelty and maltreatment for being in 'possession of inappropriate images taken without consent.'"

** John Cassidy of the New Yorker has some questions for President Obama on just how far he is willing to go to pursue leak cases. ...

... Dana Milbank: "The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of. ...

... Oops, missed this: James Goodale in a New York Times debate forum: "The search warrant filed to investigate the Fox News reporter James Rosen proved as many had suspected: President Obama wants to make it a crime for a reporter to talk to a leaker. It is a further example of how President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom." Goodale is an attorney; he represented the Times in the Pentagon Papers case. ...

... CW: I agree that at this point the Rosen probe appears to be a "flagrant assault of civil liberties," but going Nixon on this & on the AP probe is premature. So far, there is no evidence that Obama or his top staff directed these investigations of journalists -- with the exception, of course, of Eric Holder, whom the White House likes to claim is "independent" of White House influence. In addition, whether you think they violate the First Amendment or not (I tend to think they do), the FBI had proper warrants for its search of Rosen's records. Nixon, of course, did directly order & encourage suppression of journalists & he didn't ask a judge if it was okay -- because it wasn't. ...

... John Stanton of BuzzFeed: "According to Republicans, at least two [House] committees -- the Judiciary and Government Affairs and Oversight panels -- are currently discussing holding separate hearings into spying on reporters from the Associated Press and Fox News by the DOJ as part of its efforts to root out leaks."

FAIR makes the case that the New York Times is going all Judy Miller on weak evidence that the Assad government has used chemical weapons. (CW: I tried to read the FAIR piece with skepticism, but unless they have omitted NYT articles [or qualifiers in the articles cited] that are more cautious, the FAIR argument seems, well, fair to me.) Just Foreign Policy has a form you can complete asking the Times' public editor Margaret Sullivan to "push the Times to be more skeptical." Thanks to Kate M. for the lead.

Maybe NOW no Sunday morning producer will ever book Peggy Noonan again:

Right Wing World

There Is the Only Trustworthy Person in the Whole U.S.A and He Is Ted Cruz. The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don't trust the Republicans. I don't trust the Democrats and I think a whole lot of Americans likewise don't trust the Republicans or the Democrats because it is leadership in both parties that has got us into this mess. -- Ted Cruz, on the Senate floor Wednesday

... Nevertheless, Trustworthy Ted used to be willing to at least camouflage his trusty intransigence -- back in 2000 when he was working for Dubya's campaign. Beth Reinhard of the National Journal: "Cruz helped craft the campaign's immigration policy, which called for speeding up the application process, increasing the number of work visas, and allowing the relatives of permanent residents to visit the U.S. while their applicants were pending.... Tuesday ... Cruz ... called the [immigration reform] bill 'toothless' to enforce border security. His amendments, which failed, would have tripled the number of border-patrol agents and barred illegal immigrants from earning citizenship."

Local News

Jim Nolan of the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Gov. Bob McDonnell is under investigation over the statements of economic interest he has filed. The investigation was initiated by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who sent a letter in early November 2012 to Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring, appointing him to review McDonnell's statements. By law, elected officials are required to account for all gifts received in excess of $50.... McDonnell, the titular head of the state Republican Party who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2016, is supporting the attorney general [in his race for governor] and helping to raise money for him."

News Ledes

AP: "The United States and Israel raised hopes Thursday for a restart of the Middle East peace process, despite little tangible progress so far from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's two-month-old effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table."

Reuters: "An envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told a senior Chinese leader on Thursday that North Korea is willing to take China's advice to start talks to resolve tension on the Korean peninsula, China's state television reported."

The Washington Post on Ibragim Todashev, the associate/acquaintance of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whom an FBI agent shot & killed in Orlando yesterday. "Law enforcement officials said Todashev ... was being interviewed about his possible role in a triple slaying in Waltham, Mass., in September 2011. They said Todashev acknowledged involvement in the killings and also implicated Tsarnaev in what the law enforcement officials described as a drug deal that went bad."

Reuters: "Public defenders representing James Holmes, accused of killing 12 moviegoers in Colorado last summer, will return to court on Thursday to challenge the state's insanity defense law in a bid to try to avoid the death penalty for their client. Lawyers representing Holmes, 25, are challenging Colorado's capital punishment statute on several fronts, and on Thursday are arguing that it unconstitutionally bars him from calling his own mental health experts at sentencing if he refuses to cooperate with court-appointed psychiatrists."

AP: "The nation's record-low teen birth rate stems from robust declines in nearly every state, but most dramatically in several Mountain States and among Hispanics, according to a new government report. All states but West Virginia and North Dakota showed significant drops over five years. But the Mountain States of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Utah saw rates fall by 30 percent or more.... Hispanic women have been part of that trend, possibly due to the economy and to illegal immigration crackdowns in some states that reduce the number of young Hispanic females entering the country from Mexico and other nations, said John Santelli, a Columbia University professor of population and family health."

AP: " A government investigation found that 'extremely' poor quality construction materials and a series of violations caused the collapse of a garment factory building in Bangladesh that has been called the worst garment-industry disaster in history.... The report found that building owner Sohel Rana had permission to build a six-story structure and added two floors illegally.... The report also said the building was not built for industrial use and the weight of the heavy garment factory machinery and their vibrations contributed to the building collapse."

New York Times: "Boy Scout leaders from around the country, engulfed in a culture war over homosexuality, gathered for a vote [in Grapevine, Texas,] Thursday on a landmark proposal that would permit openly gay youths -- but not openly gay adult leaders -- to participate in scouting."