I’m writing early, and by the time this is posted tomorrow, I will be a non smoker.  ARGH!  I made it to the doctor.  The friend who was going to accompany me couldn’t make it due to a family emergency.  I had to take a cab home.  Walking 1/4 mile to the bus stop, another 1/4 home, and taking on a double flight of stars was more than I could manage.  What can I say?  I survived the trip.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 5:35).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Human genes may not be patented, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday. The decision is likely to reduce the cost of genetic testing for some health risks, and it may discourage investment in some forms of genetic research.

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Given that the generic test will cost $2,200, I think research will continue. I'm shocked! SCOTUS got one right.  I wonder if they can fix my defective jeans.

From The New Yorker: Word that the News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife, Wendi Deng, came as a “total surprise” to longtime Murdoch confidant Satan, the Lord of the Underworld said today.

“I am totally blindsided by this,” Satan told reporters. “He and I talk every day.”

Citing his long history with the media titan, the Hound of Hell said, “We go way back. I gave him the idea for Fox News. I told him to hire Roger Ailes. That’s why this is such a shock.”

A frequent dining companion of the Murdochs, Satan said he “didn’t have a clue that they were having problems.”

Although this is satire, I find it quite credible. 😉

From Blue Oregon: If you own or run a small business, I'm guessing you've had moments when you want to heave after hearing the National Chamber of Commerce or NFIB or any number of ranking Republicans declare what's "good for business."

You know, more deregulation, more or bigger upper-end tax cuts, and occasionally, from the more shameless ones, proposals to stuff even more corporate goodies into the tax code. Gotta make life fat for the "job-creators" if we want them to make life better for the rest of us.

If you're looking for a different voice out there on what's good for business, meet the Main Street Alliance of Oregon. They're one of the most vibrant chapters of a national movement of business people putting forward a whole different message: businesses succeed over time if they're grounded in communities of secure people who enjoy access to good health care, good education and genuine economic opportunity.

This sounds like a great idea, and their website contains a link to their national network.  Click through.

Cartoon:

Once upon a time, the residents of North Carolina enjoyed the benefits of US citizenship, but I’m sad to inform you that the state of North Carolina has now been replaced by the Fascist Totalitarian Plutocracy of McCrorystan, and their TEAfuhrer, Pat McCrory, is goose-stepping them backwards into the 19th century.

“Outsiders are coming in and they’re going to try to do to us what they did to Scott Walker in Wisconsin,” North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory said yesterday, in response to the growing “Moral Monday” protest movement.

North Carolina is the new Wisconsin, but not for the reasons McCrory alleges. Like in Wisconsin, a homegrown grassroots resistance movement has emerged—and grown rapidly—to challenge the drastic right-wing agenda unveiled by Republicans in the state. Just like the Koch brothers backed Scott Walker, the Koch’s billionaire ally and close associate Art Pope funded North Carolina’s Republican takeover in 2010 and 2012. (Only McCrory went a step further and actually named Pope to his inner circle as deputy budget director.) And North Carolina, like Wisconsin, is “a state fight with national implications,” says Rev. William Barber of the North Carolina NAACP. Republicans have imported a slew of ALEC-inspired policies in an attempt to turn the New South back into the Old Confederacy.

Melissa Harris-Perry covered the North Carolina “Moral Monday” movement extensively on her MSNBC show last Saturday. I [Ari Berman] was one of the panelists.

 

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In a few months since taking over power for the first time in one hundred years, North Carolina Republicans have passed or introduced legislation that would: eliminate the earned income tax credit for 900,000; decline Medicaid coverage for 500,000 and privatize public healthcare in the state; end unemployment benefits for 165,000 in a state with the country’s fifth-highest unemployment rate; cut pre-K for 30,000 kids while shifting $90 million from public education to voucher schools; cut taxes for the top 5 percent while raising taxes on the bottom 95 percent; allow for guns to be purchased without a background check and carried in parks, playgrounds, restaurants and bars; do away with public financing of judicial races; prohibit death row inmates from challenging racially discriminatory verdicts; and on it goes. (Unlike in Wisconsin, North Carolinians have no collective bargaining rights to protect).

In order to make it harder for opponents of these right-wing policies to challenge their sponsors, North Carolina Republicans have unloaded the kitchen sink of voter suppression…

Inserted from <The Nation>

On the one hand, I feel very sorry for the victims of TEAfuhrer McCrory. On the other, we should take this as an object lesson of what happens when voters on the left stay home and/or waste their votes on protest candidates who cannot win.  As imperfect as the Democratic Party may be, when it comes to pure evil, they cannot hold a candle to this.

I have extreme kudos for McCrorystan's Moral Monday Movement and fully support their attempts to wrest their control McCrorystan from TEAfuhrer McCrory and reinstate North Carolina. (corrected 6/14 – Thanks Lynn)

The punishment for apathy is Republican tyranny.

WAKE UP!!

One might think that there are enough scandals afoot, both real those of Republican manufacture.  Sadly one would be wrong, because we have now been served a fresh set of scandals from the State Department, coupled with the larger scandal that State may have been covering up by squashing investigations into those scandals.

The State Department is reviewing how allegations of sexual and other misconduct were handled following claims that internal investigations were quashed or whitewashed, the department said Monday.

A report from the department inspector general’s office listed eight alleged examples of improper interference from above to head off or water down inquiries by the department’s law enforcement branch, CBS News reported Monday.

The cases included allegations that security agents assigned to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton regularly hired prostitutes while traveling on the job and that a sitting ambassador was suspected of soliciting prostitutes in a public park.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed the draft inspector general’s complaint but gave no specifics about the cases. She said that all were investigated or are being investigated and that the department has brought in outside law enforcement investigators to review cases and procedures, she said.

Psaki called the idea that the department would look the other way at criminal behavior by an ambassador “preposterous.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Washington Post>

Last night  Rachel Maddow provided the details.

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Earlier tonight, Lawrence O’Donnell and David Corn had this update.

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Corn was spot on about one thing. You certainly can’t trust Darryl Issa (R-InsaniTEA).

I certainly hope that the outside law enforcement review of this behavior comes quickly, and is reported transparently, regardless of the outcome. The right-wing media bubble is already on this like slime on a teacup. Even if proven false, the truth will never receive as much exposure as the scandals.  It could become a fatal flaw for Hillary’s 2016 Presidential candidacy, and we need to consider alternatives for the Democratic nomination, if Hillary is actually implicated.  Hillary claims to have been unaware of the investigations until the scandal broke.

Republican politicians and wonks have been telling us the the leaker(s), of the Version and PRISM scandals had to be someone high in the NSA, possibly with close links to Obama himself, as they attempt to conflate these issues with their non-issue sandals of Benghazi and the IRS.  That the leaker was an IT tech, now working for a government contractor, no less, raises far greater concerns than what he actually leaked.

The man who some U.S. officials say caused enormous national security damage by leaking details of top-secret surveillance programs hid Monday in plain sight, waiting out his fate in a Hong Kong hotel room as Justice Department officials began what is likely to become a criminal investigation.

Edward Snowden, 29, acknowledged in an interview published Sunday by the Guardian newspaper that he was the source of leaks detailing U.S. surveillance programs that collect records on domestic telephone calls and overseas Internet activity in the global hunt for terrorists and criminals.

The former CIA employee who most recently worked for the computer consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton — working with the National Security Agency — said he did it to end what he sees as an excessively intrusive surveillance system, the Guardian reported.

"The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to," he told the paper… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <CNN>

Karen Finney and her panel explored Snowden’s acts and intent.

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It’s certainly a tangled web, isn’t it. There can be no doubt that Snowden broke the law. He probably has no defense as a whistleblower, because he did not reveal anything that is illegal. Nevertheless, he has done a valuable public service by bringing to public attention activities that should be illegal. He apparently took care not to reveal anything that would endanger intelligence operatives or foreign sources. Therefore, I think we can take his assertions about his intent at face value. He has pointed out the need for a public debate about how to protect our security and provide us safety, without sacrificing our core values that make our security worth defending.

What concerns me more than what Snowden revealed is this.   A low level IT technician for a government contractor has access to the level of information that Snowden could have revealed, but didn’t. Snowden may have been motivated by conscience to reveal the things he did, but how many other low level functionaries with that level of access might be motivated by greed to reveal such secrets that truly threaten our national security to enemies? I can hardly justify sacrificing privacy for a program that leaves our safety and security so vulnerable.

After writing this, I saw that Rachel Maddow has the same take on it that I do.