Lisa Mascaro | Washington | May 25

LAT - In a momentary flash of bipartisanship, the Senate approved legislation that would allow Americans speedier access to generic drugs as well as breakthrough treatments for life-threatening diseases as part of a Food and Drug Administration revamping that now heads to the House.

But the comity didn't last, and the FDA accord was quickly followed by another round of partisan fighting over President Obama's push to keep student loan interest rates low. On party-line votes, senators blocked Democratic and Republican efforts to prevent interest rates from rising this summer.

John Markoff | San Francisco | May 25

NYT - A just-completed report from a presidential advisory committee urges President Obama to adopt new computer technologies to make better use of a huge swath of the radio spectrum now controlled by federal agencies.

The shift, which could be accomplished by presidential signature — and without Congressional involvement — would relieve spectrum congestion caused by the popularity of smartphones, and generate far more revenue for the federal government than auctioning spectrum to wireless carriers, according to the authors of the report.

The Guardian has two good peices that need to be read together today. First, Mehdi Hasan points out that Barack Obama, like Mitt Romney, is an apologist for the 1%. Then Gary Younge writes that while the white working class is often said to 'vote against its own interests' by rejecting Democrats, we could equally ask why poor black and latino folk consistently vote against their interests by turning out for Dems.

Those who are struggling and believe Romney will improve their economic lot are wrong, regardless of their race. Eight years of George W Bush proved that. But it does not follow automatically from that that their home should be supporting Democrats under whom things have gotten less bad less quickly. True, those are the only two choices on offer. But if you're poor they are not great choices. What they need is a party that represents their interests. In a country where corporate money chooses the candidates and therefore shapes the debate that will demand a change in politics, not just politicians.

Or as one of my friends crudely put it: "the difference is that the Dems at least offer to buy you dinner before they date-rape you. But you still don't get that dinner."

Michael Tarm | Chicago | May 24

AP - U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said Thursday he isn't sure what his future holds as he steps down from the job he has held for 11 years. He ruled out elected office and hinted that switching sides and becoming a defense attorney wouldn't suit him.

But the highly regarded Fitzgerald, 51, did say he could see himself accepting another government position, if asked.

"Whenever the phone rings in the future and the (caller) ID says `public service calling,' I (will) answer the phone," said Fitzgerald, addressing a news conference in Chicago.

He added that he has not discussed the possibility with the Obama administration about becoming FBI director, a job for which his name has surfaced several times.

When you compare them head-to-head, the Obama and Romney tax plans are nearly identical:

Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, is offering a 20 percent tax cut for everyone. Given the mood of the conservatives in the United States today, that may not surprise you. But even President Barack Obama, who is routinely described as a socialist by his opponents, is peddling a plan under which 99 percent of Americans would pay less than they did under the last Democrat in the White House, Bill Clinton.

Alok Jha | May 24

The Guardian - Notoriously reclusive Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong gives video interview to Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia

As the first person to walk on the moon, he is a man whose name will be remembered for generations to come. But perhaps one of the other well-known things about Neil Armstrong is that he hardly ever gives interviews.

It was therefore something of a coup for Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia, to secure almost an hour of Armstrong's time to discuss the astronaut's trip to the moon.

In the illuminating conversation posted online on the CPA Australia website, Armstrong revealed how he thought his mission, Apollo 11, only had a 50% chance of landing safely on the moon's surface and said it was "sad" that the current US government's ambitions for Nasa were so reduced compared with the achievements of the 1960s.

"Nasa has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve," said Armstrong. "It's sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people."

** CPA Australia Presents
An Audience with Neil Armstrong
In this four part series the first man to walk on the moon, gives a personal commentary on Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing, his thoughts on leadership and taking risks to innovate for the future

Chris Boyette | May 23

CNN - A fire was burning Wednesday evening on a nuclear submarine docked at a U.S. Navy shipyard in Maine, and four people were injured, authorities said.

The USS Miami's reactor was not operating at the time and was not affected, according to Gary Hildreth, a public affairs officer for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.

Navy spokesperson Lt. Myers Vasquez said the attack sub was in dry dock for regularly scheduled maintenance when the fire started.

We probably shouldn't be, because something similar could happen to Democrats, eventually:

Washington (CNN) -- When presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears before Latino small-business owners in Washington on Wednesday, he'll address a group whose explosive birth rates foreshadow a seismic political shift in GOP strongholds in the Deep South and Southwest.

"The Republicans' problem is their voters are white, aging and dying off," said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who studies minority political engagement.

TomDispatch/TruthDig, By Chris Hellman & Mattea Kramer, May 22

Recent months have seen a flurry of headlines about cuts (often called “threats”) to the U.S. defense budget. Last week, lawmakers in the House of Representatives even passed a bill that was meant to spare national security spending from future cuts by reducing school-lunch funding and other social programs.

Here, then, is a simple question that, for some curious reason, no one bothers to ask, no less answer: How much are we spending on national security these days? With major wars winding down, has Washington already cut such spending so close to the bone that further reductions would be perilous to our safety?

In fact, with projected cuts added in, the national security budget in fiscal 2013 will be nearly $1 trillion—a staggering enough sum that it’s worth taking a walk through the maze of the national security budget to see just where that money’s lodged.

By Evelyn M. Rusli & Michael J. De La Merced | New York | May 23

NYT - Just days before Facebook went public, some big investors grew nervous about the company’s prospects.

After publicly warning about challenges in mobile advertising, Facebook executives held conference calls to update their banks’ analysts on the business. Analysts at Morgan Stanley and other firms soon started advising clients to dial back their expectations. One prospective buyer was told that second-quarter revenue could be 5 percent lower than the bank’s earlier estimates.

John M. Broder & Matthew L. Wald | Washington | May 21

NYT - Gregory B. Jaczko, whose three-year tenure as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been marked by bitter battles with colleagues and with Congress, announced Monday that he would step down as soon as a successor was confirmed.

The White House said it would name a successor “soon,” but it is unlikely that anyone will be confirmed to succeed Dr. Jaczko for many months, ensuring continued turmoil at the deeply divided agency. The commission’s inspector general is preparing a report to be issued in coming weeks that is expected to repeat some of the charges of mismanagement and verbal abuse of subordinates that have isolated Dr. Jaczko from other members.

Over at AmericaBlog, Gaius Publius cogently argues that "if Occupy leaders (organizers) don't take on and reject violence, they will do lasting damage both to Occupy and to the broader movement of which Occupy is just one part." The heart of his argument is that:

You don't stop police violence with non-violence; but you justify it by violent acts of your own. Your violence guarantees escalation of violence on both sides, and guarantees that their violence (police beatings; pepper-swabbed eyeballs and throats; multiple strip searches; extended stays in urine-soaked solitary cells) will be sold as "necessary" by the entire troop of millionaire news-blond(e)s.

But if non-violent protest won't halt police violence, in a time when it is increasingly normalized, what will? And if it cannot be halted, where do we end up?

Washington, DC - Last week we witnessed the capo di tutti capi of political and policy evolution. President Barack Obama, after Vice-President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan played the role of his social-issue Shofar, came out in favour of the equality of marriage for all in the US, regardless of sexual orientation. To put it in simple terms: for the first time in the history of this country, the president of the United States supports gay marriage.

This is obviously a big moment. For those seeking to enter loving relationships recognised by law, nothing has changed in that realm. But culturally, when the president or other major political figures make strong statements on issues, it changes everything. To quote Republican House Leader Shelley Runyon in the film The Contender: "What I say, the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me."

A report from a couple of weeks ago that German police fired only 85 bullets in action during the whole of 2011 is still drawing amazed comment from American friends on Twitter.

Officers fired 36 times at people, killing six and injuring 15. This is a slight decline from 2010, when seven people were killed and 17 injured. Ninety-six shots were fired in 2010.

Meanwhile, in the United States, The Atlantic reported that in April, 84 shots were fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, and another 90 at an unarmed man in Los Angeles.

"Our police officers are no thugs in uniform," Lorenz Caffier, interior minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, said at a press conference Tuesday.

People shouldn't be so amazed at the German figure, rather they should be outraged at American statistics. American gun culture is run amuck.

Suzanne Goldenberg | May 21

The Guardian - Gregory Jaczko, the beleaguered US nuclear regulator, has announced he is stepping down from his post after months of bureaucratic warfare over the safety of America's ageing reactor fleet.

Jaczko had been at the forefront of attempts to bring in new safety regulations in the wake of the the Fukushima disaster.

He had also been accused of an abrasive management style, and was forced to deny accusations that he harassed female colleagues.

"After nearly eight years on the commission, I am announcing my resignation as chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, effective upon the confirmation of my successor. My responsibility and commitment to safety will continue to be my paramount priority after I leave the commission and until my successor is confirmed," Jaczko said in a statement.

He said he would leave as soon as a successor is appointed.

The main industry lobby acknowledged there had been long-running tensions with Jaczko. "We have had significant differences with the chairman on how best to achieve our mutually shared goals," the Nuclear Energy Institute said in a statement.

But it added: "To his credit, we've always had open lines of communications and a willingness to respectfully discuss the issues."

Tyler Clementi committed suicide last year by jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson valley. While it has never been definitively established that Clementi's suicide attempt was directly tied to an ugly incident where one of his roomates, Dharun Ravi, broadcast a sexual encounter between Clementi and another student, it's seems to have been the straw that broke Clementi's back.

Ravi has been tried and convicted on multiple counts of bullying and hate crimes, and is scheduled to be sentenced today. He faces up to 10 years in prison and therein lies an interesting tale: many gay advocates and advocacy groups do not want him to be jailed.

New York Times Editorial, May 19

Despite the persistent gender gap in opinion polls and mounting criticism of their hostility to women’s rights, Republicans are not backing off their assault on women’s equality and well-being. New laws in some states could mean a death sentence for a pregnant woman who suffers a life-threatening condition. But the attack goes well beyond abortion, into birth control, access to health care, equal pay and domestic violence.

Republicans seem immune to criticism. In an angry speech last month, John Boehner, the House speaker, said claims that his party was damaging the welfare of women were “entirely created” by Democrats. Earlier, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, sneered that any suggestion of a G.O.P. “war on women” was as big a fiction as a “war on caterpillars.”

Chicago spent $1 million on riot control equipment in anticipation of the NATO summit, and funded, at unknown cost, a secret police control center where "officials from more than 40 different agencies sit side by side with a giant central screen before them". Bernard Harcourt, Julius Kreeger professor of law at the University of Chicago and chair of the political science department there, writes for the Guardian that "The Nato summit will come and go, but Mayor Emanuel has authorised a 'new normal' of militarised social control in Chicago."

First, it is astounding – but sadly, not surprising – that the City of Chicago would deny protest permits or make protest so difficult in Chicago because of alleged inconveniences to traffic and ordinary business. Our new Chicago lockdown belies any suggestion that the city cares about such inconveniences. While Mayor Emanuel has bent backwards for Nato, first amendment free speech receives dramatically less accommodation.

Second, this police state serves, in reality, as our new welfare state. The security mania represents our truly unique way of stimulating the economy, of employing piece labor, of creating government jobs and subsidized contracts. Just think of the amount of overtime pay that we are disbursing with all this policing. Instead of investing in schools and education, in job training, or in re-entry programs, this is how we invest in our future. And we never think of it as government welfare because it falls in that sacred space of security – because, essentially, of the American paradox of laissez-faire and mass punishment.

Third, and finally, all of this is, sadly, here to stay. Nato will come and go, but the new anti-protest laws, the new riot-gear, the two LRAD sound cannons, and all the normalization of this police state … that will be with us for a long time.

This is, I'd contend, in perfect tune with the Obama administration's continuation of the notion of the Imperial Presidency, which holds simply that if the President's doing it then it's not illegal and that the "elected monarch" has veto powers over the Constitution. Such a mindset stems from 1%-er dislocation from the people and is absolutely to be expected from members of the elite like Emmanuel too. If only we'd asked the damn question.

Matthew Walberg, Lolly Bowean, Jeff Coen, David Heinzmann & Annie Sweeney | Chicago | May 19

Chicago Tribune - Chicago Police and NATO protesters clashed repeatedly in a series of pushing and shoving confrontations tonight in the Loop following a day of cat-and-mouse marches that tested the physical and mental stamina of both sides.

Police detained several protesters but allowed the march to continue as night approached and the crowd -- as few as 300 strong earlier in the day -- swelled to many times that.

The first big confrontation flared at Washington and State Streets when protesters tried to push through a line of police on bicycles. An officer went down, police in heavy garb and riot helmets moved in and several protesters were detained.

Mississippi State Rep. Andy Gipson (R.), the man who denounced gays by quoting from the famous biblical passage on homosexuality found in Leviticus (20:13), has refused to retract his remarks. Mr. Gipson wrote this morning on his Face Book page, “To be clear, I want the world to know that I do not, cannot, and will not apologize for the inspired truth of God's Word. It is one thing that will never 'change.'"

Good for Mr. Gipson. We are all getting tired of pusillanimous, limp-wristed Republican politicians, conservative voters, and religious leaders who speak up against the gay menace in this country, but then back down the minute there is the slightest peep of a protest from liberals.

Peter Wallsten | May 19

WaPo Election 2012 Blog - The NAACP’s board of directors voted Saturday to endorse same-sex marriage rights – adding the influential voice of the country’s leading black civil rights organization to a debate that has divided the African-American community.

The decision has political implications for President Obama, who needs an enthusiastic turnout from black voters to help him win reelection in November but angered some African-American church pastors with his announcement this month that he believes gays and lesbians should have the right to marry.

Buzzfeed - An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.
..
The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”

words fail

May 18

BBC - Gay couples can get divorced in Maryland even though same-sex marriage is not yet allowed in the US state, its highest court has ruled.

Maryland's Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in the case of two women married in California who were denied a divorce in the state in 2010.

Dan Froomkin | Richmond, VA | May 18

Huffington Post - The Obama administration Friday morning continued its headlong attack on the right of reporters to protect their confidential sources in leak investigations.

Before a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a Department of Justice lawyer argued that New York Times reporter James Risen should be forced to testify in the trial of former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is charged with leaking classified information to Risen about a botched plot against the Iranian government.

Benedict Carey | Princeton, N.J. | May 18

NYT — The simple fact was that he had done something wrong, and at the end of a long and revolutionary career it didn’t matter how often he’d been right, how powerful he once was, or what it would mean for his legacy.

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry, who turns 80 next week, lay awake at 4 o’clock on a recent morning knowing he had to do the one thing that comes least naturally to him.

He pushed himself up and staggered into the dark. His desk seemed impossibly far away; Dr. Spitzer suffers from Parkinson’s disease and has trouble walking, sitting, even holding his head upright.

The word he sometimes uses to describe these limitations — pathetic — is the same one that for decades he wielded like an ax to strike down dumb ideas, empty theorizing, and junk studies.

Now here he was at his computer, ready to recant a study he had done himself, a poorly conceived 2003 investigation that supported the use of so-called reparative therapy to “cure” homosexuality for people strongly motivated to change.
...
Dr. Spitzer’s fingers jerked over the keys, unreliably, as if choking on the words. And then it was done: a short letter to be published this month, in the same journal where the original study appeared.

“I believe,” it concludes, “I owe the gay community an apology.”