Just back from #syria. Hardly saw rebel three star flags. Lots of black banners at checkpoints
— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) June 25, 2013
... however the Snowden episode turns out (and don't be surprised if the Russians wind up handing him over in exchange for an unspecified American favor), what it mainly illustrates is that we are living in an age of American impotence. The Obama administration has decided it wants out from nettlesome foreign entanglements, and now finds itself surprised that it's running out of foreign influence.Continue reading.
That is the larger significance of last week's Afghan diplomatic debacle, in which the Taliban opened an office in Doha for the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan"—the name Mullah Omar grandiloquently gave his regime in Kabul before its 2001 downfall. Afghan President Hamid Karzai responded by shutting down negotiations with the U.S. over post-2014 security cooperation.
Now the U.S. finds itself in an amazing position. Merely to get the Taliban to the table for a bogus peace process, the administration agreed at Pakistan's urging to let Mullah Omar come to the table on his owns terms: no acceptance of the Afghan Constitution, no cease-fire with international forces, not even a formal pledge to never again allow Afghanistan to become a haven for international terrorism. The U.S. also agreed, according to Pakistani sources, to allow the terrorist Haqqani network—whose exploits include the 2011 siege of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul—a seat at the table.
Yet having legitimized Haqqani and given the Taliban everything it wanted in exchange for nothing, the U.S. finds itself being dumped by its own client government in Kabul, which can always turn to Iran as a substitute patron. Incredible: no peace, no peace process, no ally, no leverage and no moral standing, all in a single stroke. John Kerry is off to quite a start.
What's happening in Afghanistan is of a piece with the larger pattern of U.S. diplomacy. Iraq? The administration made the complete withdrawal of our troops a cornerstone of its first-term foreign policy, and now finds itself surprised that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won't lift a finger to prevent Iranian cargo planes from overflying his airspace en route to resupplying Bashar Assad's military. Syria? President Obama spent two years giving the country's civil war the widest berth, creating the power vacuum in which Iran, Hezbollah and Russia may soon achieve their strategic goals.
.@Instapundit Debbie Wasserman Schultz freeze frame at the video is hilarious. http://t.co/J61EvFjwHQ #Fugly
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 25, 2013
I cannot recall, in the last five years, Barack Obama ever identifying the Iranians, Hezbollah, or the late Hugo Chavez as among our “enemies,” in the fashion that he once urged Latino leaders to punish conservatives at the polls: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.” If only the president would treat those who don’t like the United States in the same manner that he does those who do, he might bring great clarity to his now listless foreign policy. Indeed, why waste his rich vocabulary of teleprompted invective on fellow Americans, when there is an entire world out there that wishes the United States ill?Well, O was gonna heal the waters so to speak, although that's not working out too well now.
As much entertainment as Yasiel Puig has provided in his three weeks with the Dodgers, his presence hasn't had a pronounced effect on the team's win-loss record.RTWT.
Until now, perhaps.
By virtue of a 3-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium on Monday, the Dodgers won three consecutive games for the first time since the opening week of the season.
Puig was a central figure in the triumph, as he hit his seventh home run in the first inning and drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth. The Dodgers (33-42) are 10-10 in games in which Puig has played and are eight games behind the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West.
Meanwhile, the Giants fell to 38-38. The last time the Giants were .500 this late in the year was in 2008, their last losing season.
Until Monday night, the Dodgers had dropped five consecutive decisions to the Giants. And until the first inning, the Dodgers hadn't scored against Giants starter Madison Bumgarner in 16 consecutive innings.
Puig ended that streak right away, homering to the opposite field to put the Dodgers ahead, 1-0.
“Crazy stuff,” Manager Don Mattingly said.
.@RepRyanWinkler Don't worry. That tweet is safe and sound. pic.twitter.com/gClffltNJj
— William J. Miller (@WilliamJMiller) June 25, 2013
Where was the president? This is a simple question, one to which the American people might reasonably expect an answer, but more than nine months after that deadly night, we still have not gotten a detailed answer and most in the media seem to have lost all interest in the question. White House correspondents have let themselves be played like chumps, treated like court stenographers whose job is to transcribe the administration’s talking points. No one seems to have tried to pin down Obama himself on this question — what, exactly, was he doing while Islamic terrorists brutally slaughtered four Americans? — and only rarely have any of the presidential henchmen been asked about it. One of the few exceptions to the media’s see-no-evil policy of voluntary ignorance occurred last month, when Chris Wallace of Fox News asked the president’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer about Benghazi.Continue reading.
Wallace began by reiterating what is known about Obama’s actions that day, saying the president “had a meeting with [Defense Secretary Leon] Panetta in the afternoon … [and] wanted them to deploy forces as soon as possible. The next time he shows up is that [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton says she spoke to him at around 10 o’clock that night, after the attack at the consulate — not as it turned out, at the annex, but the attack at the consulate — had ended. Question: What did the president do the rest of that night to pursue Benghazi?”
Pfeiffer responded that “the president was kept up to date as it happened throughout the entire night, from the moment it started till the end.” Pfeiffer then proceeded to portray Obama as the helpless target of “a series of conspiracy theories the Republicans are spinning.” The adviser elaborated on the number of documents released and the congressional hearings held. What “we are going to do,” Pfeiffer said, is “to move forward and ensure it doesn’t happen again.” Wallace listened patiently to this lengthy evasion and then said: “With all due respect, you didn’t answer my question. What did the president do that night?”
Anyone who saw that memorable interview — and if you missed it, please click here to watch it on YouTube — knows what a reaction Wallace’s persistence provoked from the White House aide. Pfeiffer blustered with indignation at what he called an “offensive” suggestion “that the president didn’t take action” and huffed that “there’s no evidence to support” such a suggestion. Wallace remained calm and reiterated: “I’m simply asking a question. Where was he? What did he do?” Whatever the facts of the matter may be, Pfeiffer refused to answer specifically, and so the question lingers: Where was the president?
@TwitchyTeam Msnbc doesn't know what Supreme Court John Roberts looks like pic.twitter.com/DgbF67KL8Z
— Autiger (@autiger2k2) June 25, 2013
The Senate's Democratic leadership and bipartisan Gang of Eight were in such a hurry to stop debate on their 1,200-page immigration bill that they didn't want anyone to read it. It's the latest in a long line of political travesties that threaten the future of our 237-year-old republic.
Sadly, those who pass our laws can't be bothered even to read them these days.
But if they did, they might be shocked to discover that the "Immigration Reform Bill," after the Corker-Hoeven amendment, has turned into a giant pinata stuffed with all kinds of hidden pork and goodies to make it easier for senators to choke down.
"When you pass complicated legislation and no one has really read the bill," Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward noted on Fox News Sunday, "the outcome is absurd."
He's right. Just like the bloated, pork-filled ObamaCare bill before it, immigration reform has lots of juicy tidbits in it to buy the votes of key legislators.
And, also like ObamaCare, legislators and average citizens alike will have to "pass the bill to find out what's in it," in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's now-infamous phrase.
Among other things, the bill:
• Adds $1.5 billion to President Obama's failed jobs stimulus, a gift to socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
• Turns the Travel Promotion Act, which was supposed to end in 2015, into a permanent program at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Prime beneficiaries? Las Vegas casino interests, a gift to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
• Makes a range of serious crimes for which U.S. citizens can be arrested and imprisoned — including assault and battery, drunk driving and tax fraud — "waivable" for illegal immigrants when it comes to their amnesty status.
• Gives Alaskan "Seafood processing" jobs special status as "shortage occupations," letting those industries hire low-skilled illegal immigrants to fill "temporary" jobs, a bipartisan favor to Alaska Sens. Mark Begich (Democrat) and Lisa Murkowski (Republican).
That, no doubt, isn't a comprehensive list. But since no one has read the bill — the latest version of immigration reform was issued less than 75 hours before Monday's vote — it's impossible even to say how much pork is in the bill the Senate is voting on.
But even if you took out all the pork, the bill should be rejected.
The Supreme Court upended a longstanding pillar of civil-rights-era legislation, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ruling that the decades-old formula that Congress used to identify areas of the country subject to stringent oversight of election procedures is no longer constitutional.Also at Legal Insurrection, "Supreme Court Voting Rights Act Decision — Section 4 invalid."
The court ruled unconstitutional Section 4 of the law, which provides a coverage formula used to determine which voting districts must "pre-clear" voting changes with officials in Washington.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 5-4 ruling for the court, which was divided along its usual ideological lines.
The court didn't rule on two gay-marriage cases Tuesday. It said it would issue the final opinions of the 2012-13 term on Wednesday, when the gay-marriage rulings are expected to come.
Chief Justice Roberts said Congress failed to update the Voting Rights Act formula that singles out many localities, mostly in the South, and requires them to seek the approval of the U.S. Justice Department before making any changes to their voting procedures.
"Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions," Chief Justice Roberts wrote in a 24-page opinion.
The court said it wasn't issuing any ruling on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which puts the formula into effect. "Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions," Chief Justice Roberts wrote. However, that may be a difficult proposition in a deeply divided Congress.
The case involved Shelby County in Alabama, which is subject to the extra oversight under the law.
Congress has repeatedly reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, most recently in 2006, when President George W. Bush signed bipartisan legislation extending it 25 years.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a 37-page dissent, joined by the three other members of the court's liberal wing. She said Congress's move in 2006 shouldn't be overridden by the courts. "In my judgment, the Court errs egregiously by overriding Congress' decision," she wrote.
Rarely has the Supreme Court ended its term with as much suspense about its final rulings as now. On Monday morning, the Justices sent a case that could have ended affirmative action back to a lower court; Tuesday, the next scheduled day for decisions, may bring a ruling that strikes down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. And the two most anticipated remaining cases, expected by the end of the week, are on the future of same-sex marriage. Whatever the Court decides, it will, in an instant, dramatically change the political and legal landscape for gay rights.I'm not going to be surprised if that's the eventual outcome.
What’s at stake? If you are part of a same-sex couple and are or want to be married, or are the child of gay or lesbian parents, your life and your choices will be directly affected. One of the cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry, a challenge to Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban, should, at least, determine whether or not you can marry the person you love in that state. That could provide the template for how courts view other states’ bans. Depending on how the decision is written, it could bring marriage equality to seven states, or to fifty. (The New Yorker has put together a map with possible outcomes.) Most ambitiously, the plaintiffs are asking the justices to find that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
The other case, United States v. Edith Windsor, is a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages sanctioned by the states. This means that it affects same-sex marriage in any of the twelve states that currently allow it, as well as any future ones. If DOMA is overturned, couples will be entitled to the federal benefits of marriage (preferential estate-tax treatment, social-security benefits) as well as the responsibilities (listing a spouse’s assets on financial disclosure forms), not to mention the dignity that comes with full recognition.
Exactly how the Court will rule has been subject to a lot of speculation. The expert consensus, which I think is correct, is that DOMA will be ruled unconstitutional. Prop 8 will end up being nullified, but not on the merits; instead, the Court will rule that the Prop 8 case is not properly before it and thereby allow a lower court ruling striking it to stand...
SÃO PAULO—Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called for a national referendum on overhauling a political system often criticized as unaccountable and corrupt, unveiling a far-reaching response to two weeks of mass demonstrations that have rocked this South American nation.She's a communist. No doubt street protesters will cut her some slack. And should she shower the demonstrators with more social spending, poof!, away go the protests.
Under Ms. Rousseff's plan, Brazilians would vote on whether to convene an assembly to potentially alter the country's 1988 constitution. She announced other initiatives, including a bill to make political corruption a serious felony, rather than a minor offense, and additional funding for health and education.
The plan, announced at an emergency meeting with state governors and city mayors, underscored concern with the near-daily protests that have killed four people, brought cities to a standstill and threatened Ms. Rousseff's popularity. In it, Ms. Rousseff seeks to resolve what many see as the root of a matrix of national grievances expressed by protesters, from the poor quality of public services to corruption.
"This could release enormous political energy and, if done right, could be a way for her to come out on top," said Paulo Sotero, who directs the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "Every Brazilian knows the political structure is completely messed up, and though the initiative to change it is coming from the street, she is showing she is listening and understands it."
By responding to protesters' demands, Ms. Rousseff has adopted a different strategy from the heavy-handed responses of other developing-world leaders who have faced mass demonstrations, such as Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Much of the explanation lies in the fact protesters weren't targeting Ms. Rousseff explicitly. And Ms. Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla and the country's first female president, still sees herself as a revolutionary in office dedicated to improving governance in a country that shed a military dictatorship in 1985.
In her speech, Ms. Rousseff defended her record, and that of her Workers Party, in power for the past decade. She cited low employment, years of economic growth and promised to leverage the street protests into long-standing changes.
"Everyone knows what the problems are. And we also know about the innumerable difficulties to resolve them," Ms. Rousseff said. "I have encountered since taking office, numerous obstacles, but the energy that is coming from the streets is bigger than any obstacle."
Customers taunt Lisa Weiss. “Talk dirty to me,” they joke. “We know you like it.” Colleagues refuse to speak with her. Strangers mock her in nasty online messages.She agreed to it. That's the puzzle for me. Why did women exchange vulgar Twitter messages with the dude, who was not only a Member of Congress but also a married man? The thrill of it all, I guess.
“Clearly she’s got mental issues,” declared the latest.
Anthony D. Weiner’s improbable campaign for mayor of New York City is a wager that voters have made peace with his lewd online behavior, a subject he has largely left behind as he roils the race with his aggressive debating style and his attention-getting policy proposals.
But for the women who were on the other end of Mr. Weiner’s sexually explicit conversations and photographs, his candidacy is an unwanted reminder of a scandal that has upended their lives in ways big and small, cutting short careers, disrupting educations and damaging reputations.
“I cannot tell you the devastation,” said Ms. Weiss, a 42-year-old blackjack dealer in Nevada who exchanged dozens of explicit messages with Mr. Weiner, then a congressman, in 2010 and 2011.
Ms. Weiss, a die-hard Democrat who once volunteered for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and was inspired by “Fahrenheit 9/11,” a film critique of the Bush administration, said she had reached out to Mr. Weiner after watching him joust with Republican rivals on cable news. They traded admiring messages on Facebook that, at his prompting, became intimate and raunchy, she said.
When their correspondence eventually became public, she said in an interview, conservative-minded colleagues sought to have her fired. The press lined up outside of her house and showed up at her casino, causing her to miss work for weeks. One night, she turned on the television to find the HBO host Bill Maher and the actress Jane Lynch performing a dramatic reading of the bawdy messages. Ms. Weiss, an avowed Maher fan, said she sat in her living room crying. While coping with the onslaught, she drank heavy amounts of alcohol, a habit that persists.
“I obsess about it,” she said, “every day.”
I hate to say this. Well, maybe I don’t.Continue reading.
It appears that Edward Snowden, the 30-year-old computer analyst hiding in broad daylight, has managed not only to throw a wrench into U.S. foreign policy, but to outfox the very national security apparatus whose overreach he warned against.
It’s pretty astonishing that our government can figure out a way to vacuum up our every phone call, email and text message, but can’t get its hands on Snowden, who left Hong Kong for Russia on Sunday, and may be there still, as he figures out how to make his way to what he has (inexplicably) described as a democratic nation for asylum.
Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham put his finger on it when he told Fox News on Sunday that “The freedom trail is not exactly China-Russia-Cuba-Venezuela.” (I guess somewhere along the line, Iceland dropped off Snowden’s list.)
In New Delhi during a three-day visit to India, Secretary of State John Kerry sarcastically called Russia and China “bastions of Internet freedom” and admonished governments that have helped or may help Snowden remain out of the grasp of American authorities.
“There would be, without any question, some effect and impact on the relationship, and consequences,” Kerry said, according to my colleague Henry Chu. “I’d urge them to live within the law. It’s in the interest of everyone.”
Still, one has to wonder why it took the government until Sunday to revoke Snowden’s passport, as the AP reported . It may not have mattered in the long run, but why wait two weeks to take that step?
When Snowden left Hong Kong, according to a detailed New York Times story posted Monday http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/asia/snowden-departure-from-hong-kong.html?pagewanted=1&hp, he was allowed to pass through normal airport checkpoints, despite his annulled passport.
The story also said that Snowden decided to leave Hong Kong after attorneys there advised him that he might not be able to remain free on bail while fighting extradition to the U.S. If he were incarcerated during that time, they said, he would probably not have his computer. Giving up his computer, the attorney said would be “totally intolerable.” (Forget waterboarding. Confiscate a 30-year-old’s computer and watch him beg for mercy.)
One also wonders why the feds revealed Friday that Snowden had been indicted on three felonies, including two charges under the 1917 Espionage Act, which made it likely, in the view of some foreign policy experts, that countries antagonistic to the United States (i.e. Cuba and Venezuela) would not be inclined to respect the State Department’s notice advising governments that Snowden should not be allowed transit to or through their countries.
In any case, as this amazing story continues, in slow motion, like a global version of the famous white Bronco chase, the Obama administration has itself to blame for this mess.
