Despite everything the president had promised to libs and failed to deliver — that could be ignored. It didn’t matter until Obama went after the press. Via Newsbusters, here’s Schutlz interviewing The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald:

SCHULTZ: My God, this just doesn’t even sound like Barack Obama, it just doesn’t.  You know, your, your film, “War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State,” shows that the recent crackdown is not the first time the DoJ, the Department of Justice under the Obama administration has come after journalists. Now, with “War on Whistleblowers” as a backdrop and then this story surfaces, what are we to believe? … This is tough times and, hard times and bubble gum for, for Obama supporters, don’t you think? It’s tough to chew here.

GREENWALD: It’s very tough times and, you know, that’s what I said, I don’t think anyone wants, you know, people who are Obama supporters or supporters of progressive policies, this is not gleeful jumping up and down, this is saying this is sad, this is painful, but we’ve got to speak the truth and we’ve gotta create pressure. And maybe, you know, one positive thing to think about is, think about what people in the immigrant community (have) done, and the LGB community. When they were not getting what they needed, they pushed back. It’s similar with civil liberties, it’s going to be similar with war, it’s going to be similar with drones. We need to push back on this. And sadly, there is a pattern and this happens with all presidents, whether you call it the military industrial complex or the national security state, which checks on 1.7 billion emails every day, think about that power. They have a tremendous impact and power on whosever president. And it’s our job as real patriots to push against that.

SCHULTZ: Well, you know, if somebody’s politically motivated, they can destroy people’s lives. They can, they can, they can destroy candidates, they can destroy people’s lives. I mean, this is almost like a secret society that’s operating here. And if this goes all the way to the president, it’ll be the end of Barack Obama, it will. If this goes all the way to the president, this could be, this could be his downfall.

The whole piece from Newsbusters here.

James Cole, the Deputy Attorney General investigating the AP is well known to Democrats. From his official DOJ bio:

While in private practice in 1995, Mr. Cole was tapped to serve as Special Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. In that role, he led an investigation into allegations that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had improperly used tax-exempt money for partisan purposes and misled the Committee in its inquiry. His investigation led to a bipartisan resolution that was approved by an overwhelming majority of the full House, and resulted in a formal reprimand of Speaker Gingrich and a requirement that he pay penalties.

I wonder if the AP ever complained about Cole’s tactics in the Gingrich investigation?

What’s getting missed in the re-litgation of the Benghazi “sideshow” talking points is the fact that this happened during the final months of the 2012 election. The New York Times, back in September 2012, published this timeline on who said what, when. Granted, nobody really knew the truth at the time, but it’s informative to take a look at it once again, now that we do know what actually happened.

For example, here’s Hillary Clinton at 10:08 p.m. on Tuesday. This statement is after our embassy in Cairo tweeted (why are they tweeting anyway?) that the video was to blame for the attack on our embassy in Cairo:

I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.

This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.

This got the ball rolling in the “blame the video” direction. Remember, it’s an election year. If the attack is a spontaneous event, and thus out of the president’s control, that’s a lot better narrative than al Qaeda being able to pre-plan the attack. Romney responded at 10:24 p.m.:

I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.

The AP reports on themselves:

The Justice Department has secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists for The Associated Press in what AP’s top executive says is an unprecedented intrusion into newsgathering.

Prosecutors took records showing incoming and outgoing calls for work and personal numbers for individual reporters, plus for general AP offices in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn. The government also seized those records for the main phone number for AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

The rest here.

Not only were Bloomberg reporters snooping in on Bloomberg-terminal users for their reporting, but the Financial Times is reporting that private memos have been leaked as well:

More than ten thousand private messages sent between users of Bloomberg’s financial terminals have leaked online, undermining the company’s attempts to restore faith in its ability to keep client data confidential as it scrambles to allay clients’ privacy concerns.

Two long lists showing confidential Bloomberg messages between traders at dozens of the world’s largest banks and their clients have been online for several years, the Financial Times has learnt.

The documents from one particular day in 2009 and also from 2010, contain messages sent in by clients so Bloomberg could extract price data for their use on bonds, credit default swaps and other financial products from traders’ messages.

The messages had been found, a financial markets professional said, through a simple Google search. They were taken down from the internet on Monday, after the FT enquired about them.

So, how long until Mayor Bloomberg’s name surfaces in all of this? The rest here.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m amazed when SNL is actually funny or relevant as political satire, but Saturday’s cold open wasn’t just a dud as a joke, but completely offensive to the four Americans who lost their lives in Benghazi. To sum it up, it’s a mock hearing on what happened in Libya with an attempt to make some sort of commentary on the media. Bonus: SNL not only offends on Benghazi, but adds in the horror of the three kidnapped women in Cleveland.

It’ so unfunny and so offensive, somebody should really lose their job over it. Who could have seen this skit in rehearsal and thought it was even remotely funny? You can watch the train-wreck here:

Looks like the techies behind the “Facebook phone” based on the Android platform were iPhone users and didn’t design their product to meet the needs of actual Android phone users. This is the kind of  short-sightedness you’d expect from a kid selling lemonade for the first time, not from a major company like Facebook. TechCrunch has the details:

Facebook didn’t realize just how important widgets, docks, and app folders were to Android users, and that leaving them out of Home was a huge mistake. That’s because some of the Facebookers who built and tested Home normally carry iPhones, I’ve confirmed. Lack of “droidfooding” has left Facebook scrambling to add these features, whose absence have led Home to just 1 million downloads since launching a month ago.

As I wrote in November, Facebook has been desperately trying to get more employees “droidfooding” — carrying and testing Android devices. You can see the posters encouraging employees to pick up a droid below. The issue was that Facebook handed out iPhones to employees for years. Facebookers could request an Android handset, but otherwise would basically get an Apple phone by default. That wasn’t as dangerous years ago when the iPhone still had more marketshare and Facebook users, but since then Android has rocketed into the lead. If Facebook wants to reach the largest audience, it needs employees living and breathing Google’s mobile operating system.

The lack of droidfooders didn’t have serious consequences until Home, Facebook’s new “apperating system”. It replaces the lock screen, homescreen, and app launcher of compatible Android phones with a Facebook-centric experience. It offers Cover Feed, a big, beautiful way to browser the news feed the second you bring your phone out of sleep. It’s missing the ability to build real-time information widgets, put your most used apps in a persistently visible dock, or organize your collection of apps into folders.

The rest here.

There are a ton of clips of Jason Richwine talking about race and immigration floating around the Internets. For example, Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed posted a one-minute excerpt from an AEI event that Richwine attended and wrote:

Here’s Video Of Another Time The Heritage Analyst Said Blacks and Hispanics Have Lower IQs

Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and co-author of a controversial report on the economic costs of immigration reform, said at a 2008 event that the “most important way” race was different was in IQ. He made similar comments in a 2009 PhD dissertation, which have received attention this week.

Yes, he said that. But the entire video — which is not hidden away in some secret vault, but available on C-Span — paints a very different picture and Kaczynski omits everything else that Richwine talked about, focusing on the bit that will grab some clicks.

Here’s the link to the entire event, which lasted close to 90 minutes. It’s actually a discussion from 2008 with Mark Krikorian and his book, The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal. The talk was moderated by David Frum with Fred Siegel, Richwine, and Krikorian as the panelists. Questions were taken from the audience from both liberal and conservative attendees, including questions on Richwine’s thesis.

In other words, it wasn’t some secret KKK-like talk, but just a normal day at a think-tank.

I thought Krikorian did a fine job his work. As far as a real discussion on race and immigration, that doesn’t happen until about the one-hour mark, when the panel starts taking questions from the audience. If you’re really interested in the race aspect of all this, watch from then on and skip the one-minute clips from the link-baiters.

Mark was very specific in saying that he didn’t agree with Richwine’s alleged ethnic-based immigration policy, based on IQ or anything else. Siegel pointed out his issue with using IQ as an actual measure of intelligence or the ability to succeed. And Richwine ending up clearing up what he said earlier and ending up stating that he, too, was against a ethnic-based immigration policy.

What I think is lost in Richwine’s entire IQ thesis is that he’s focusing on assimilation issues and is theorizing that IQ scores play a part. For the record, I don’t buy Richwine’s argument, but the idea that we should be focusing on immigrant populations and whether or not that can successfully assimilate into U.S. society is an important point to discuss.

One thing all three seemed to agree on was that public schools were failing immigrants and that, until you can fix failing schools, the assimilation problems of newly arrived immigrants will not be solved.

Another important idea discussed at great length was Mark’s contention that each new wave of immigrants hurts the immigrant groups already established in America. This fits in well with the Reihan Salam-Matt Yglesias debate over on The Agenda on the effects of immigration on low-skilled workers.

A last thought on Richwine, who is being painted as a racist by many (including some on the right.)

To borrow a line from our president, let me be perfectly clear: Richwine’s views have been public knowledge for years and are only now becoming an issue because of his co-authorship of the Heritage study on the cost of immigration reform. If you don’t like the Heritage study, then fine. But end this bogus witch hunt by pretending that Richwine’s views are something new.

For example, back in 2009, the New York Times asked in their “Idea of the Day” column — citing Richwine’s research — “Today’s idea: Research finds that ethnic diversity reduces social trust and cohesion, at least in the short term. Is admitting smarter immigrants one answer?”

What’s more, the Times invited Richwine to contribute to their “Room for Debate” as recently as January. Richwine’s views were well known. If Richwine is a racist as alleged, why did the Times invite him to participate?

If Richwine is a racist, then so is the New York Times. Oddly, we don’t hear that charge, do we?

Let’s by all means have a debate on all of this, but the default reaction that Richwine is somehow a racist because of his statistical research is a dishonest attempt to spin the immigration reform issue, and it should stop.

Too bad, so sad:

Variety:

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) on Thursday unveiled legislation that would upend the cable and satellite business, forcing them to let customers pick-and-choose which channels they would like to get rather than take programming in bundles.

“The video industry, principally cable companies and satellite companies and the programmers that sell channels, like NBC and Disney-ABC, continue to give consumers two options when buying TV programming: First, to purchase a package of channels whether you watch them all or not; or second, not purchase any cable programming at all,” McCain said in remarks prepared to deliver on the floor of the Senate.

“This is unfair and wrong, especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of industry and against the American consumer.”

The rest here.

To counter McCain’s argument, Variety’s Andrew Wallenstein thinks the idea of a-la-carte is pricing out-of-date and makes no sense in today’s “on-demand” world:

A la carte might seem too damned reasonable to criticize. After all, if the average U.S. home watches only about 16 channels per month out of the 135 channels a typical pay TV subscription provides, why can’t it just be given a menu from which to pick and choose channels?

But programmers and distributors have more than $30 billion worth of reasons to not break up the bundle of channels they’ve sold together since the pay TV biz began.

Still, let’s put aside for a moment the contention that content companies have long made, which is that individual channels would cost so much more in an a la carte scenario that unbundling won’t be worth it. Instead, think about your favorite channel: How many individual programs on it do you regularly watch?

There’s no available data on this, but consider there are maybe one or two channels out there at most that inspire the kind of devotion where you’re watching more than half of the content available on a particular channel. But beyond that, who really watches more than 10% of what’s available on any single channel?

In our long-suppressed zeal to free ourselves of the multichannel bundle, it’s easy to overlook that a network in and of itself is just another kind of bundle.

A la carte is a conceptual slippery slope: If a consumer is given the ability to cherrypick, say, Bravo, but forgo Disney Channel and Nickelodeon why would the same consumers be OK with paying for Bravo shows “Rachel Zoe Project” and “Watch What Happens Live” when all they want is “Top Chef?” If I just want one hour of a channel, why would I pay for 23 others I don’t want?

And if you enjoy “Top Chef,” it’s possible you’re likelier to watch Food Network’s “Chopped” or HGTV’s “Ace of Cakes” than non-foodie Bravo programming. A cross-channel purchase based on genre is more compelling than any one channel.

A la carte confuses the true brand currency of the TV kingdom: it’s the shows, not the channels. The programming-to-pricing ratio will be out of whack as long as the channel model holds sway.

To create a marketplace truly better off without the bundle, content companies would have to share their product in one massive trove for onestop shopping of tens of thousands of programs, where they can be re-aggregated by consumers free of traditional borders including channels, production companies and the conglomerates themselves. Then let great user experience and data-mining take care of the rest.

The whole thing here, 

In case you missed it, Meghan McCain wasn’t happy with Mark Sanford’s win in South Carolina last night and she expressed this displeasure on her Twitter feed. She has since deleted some of the sillier ones in an effort to . . . well, who knows why? Deleting tweets doesn’t make them go away. Here’s the one that started it all, since deleted, via The Daily Caller’s Jim Treacher:

​McCain later tweeted, “Any republican that voted for Mark Sanford in South Carolina but is against gay marriage is an unbelievable hypocrite.”

​As was quickly pointed out to Ms. McCain, Mark Sanford and her father share very similar backgrounds like cheating on their wives and voting against gay marriage. It got worse for McCain, however, when an old Daily Beast piece she wrote titled “Forgive Mark Sanford” surfaced and news that her father’s PAC had donated to the Sanford election effort.

If Mark Sanford is “what is wrong with American politics,” then so is John McCain. Oddly, Meghan has yet to hit her father with the same vitriol she levels against his carbon-copies.

Now, I’m no fan of Meghan McCain. And since she blocked me from her Twitter feed, I can assume the feeling is mutual.

But let me just say that what happened last night after these tweets went viral is not the way our side should be acting. It’s OK to be sarcastic. It’s OK to point out flaws in her arguments. It’s OK to point out her hypocrisy. It’s OK to question her political opinions.

But name-calling? I don’t need to copy what was written here — just search her Twitter feed for yourself — but directing such language at her, or anyone, is wrong.

If we want to be the party of Reagan here’s a hint: act like Reagan.

Exit question: would any of the anonymous tough-guys on Twitter have the cajones to say what they wrote on Twitter to Meghan McCain’s face? If they do, I hope her brother — the U.S. Marine — is on hand to respond in the appropriate manner.

Over the weekend, the Times reported — through anonymous White House staffers — that the president’s use of a “red line” in Syria was actually a gaffe on the president’s part.

Today press secretary Carney denied those charges:

“The president’s use of the term ‘red line’ was deliberate and was based on U.S. policy,” press secretary Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing.

And Team Obama doesn’t like what the U.N. is saying about who used chems in Syria:

Carney also dismissed claims from a U.N. investigator that Syria’s rebels, not President Bashar Assad’s forces, used chemical weapons. “We find it incredible, not credible, that the opposition has used chemical weapons,” he said. “We think that any use of chemical weapons in Syria is almost certain to have been done by the Assad regime.”

I don’t see why it would be “incredible” that the opposition used chemical weapons and not Assad. Let’s just wait and see what the investigators really find, no?

CNN’s Carol Costello writes on Facebook:

Good Morning. In retrospect, what happened to me yesterday is insignificant in light of what happened in the Boston. 
Still, I feel the need to vent. And isn’t that what friends are for?
I was robbed.
And I am angry.
I was walking down a beautiful, leafy Atlanta street, talking on my IPhone. 
Guess what happened next?
Three teenagers ran up behind me. One of them grabbed my IPhone. Stupidly I struggled to hold on-to it. But, he was a big guy. And he pulled out a chunk my hair. 
I let go.
As he ran down the street, laughing, I hurled a few expletives his way.
I felt no fear at the time, I was just angry. Now I’m angry, shaken and sad. What a lousy life those kids have ahead of them. 
Turns out, according to ABC news: “cities across the country are on alert as officials warn of an uptick in stolen Apple products, dubbed “Apple picking.”
Thieves steal IPhones, wipe them clean, then sell them for up to one-thousand bucks.
So, a warning for you. Do not talk on your IPhone as you walk down the street. 
Oh, and let go of the stupid device if someone tries to steal it. 
Hope you join me at 9 and 10 AM ES.

Um, well, duh. Here’s my favorite part: Turns out, according to ABC news: “cities across the country are on alert as officials warn of an uptick in stolen Apple products, dubbed “Apple picking.”

Costello needs ABC News to tell her of this risk? Unless she’s been living in a cave since the iPhone debuted, theft of the phone has been a common occurrence all over the country. 

Wow. The Daily Beast’s Dan Gross unloads on the Twitter-verse:

It’s all very confusing. If Tina Brown pushed Howard Kurtz out, is Kurtz ”better” than Brown or is this a case “better-on-better” abuse? 

And I’m trying to figure out when Twitter is “at its best.” I’d say maybe during the Iranian protests a few years ago. The support for those seeking democracy in Iran was pretty good. But, of course, the Iranian regime probably said at the time, “why are these peons harshing on their betters?”

Politico:

The Daily Beast is dropping Howard Kurtz, the veteran media critic who made headlines this week for his erroneous report about NBA star Jason Collins.

“The Daily Beast and Howard Kurtz have parted company,” Tina Brown, the site’s editor in chief, said in a statement sent to POLITICO.

The decision comes after Kurtz published a blog post that falsely asserted that Collins, who announced he was gay in an article for Sports Illustrated, had neglected to mention his previous engagement to a woman. In fact, Collins mentioned that engagement in the article and in a subsequent interview with ABC News. The Daily Beast retracted that post on Thursday morning.

But sources at The Daily Beast also tell POLITICO that Kurtz was dropped in part because he had been dedicating much of his time to other ventures, including The Daily Download, a media criticism site. Kurtz also hosts a weekend media criticism show on CNN called “Reliable Sources.”

The rest here.

I’ve seen a bunch of links to this story on The Daily Currant: “Bloomberg Refused Second Slice of Pizza at Local Restaurant”

Come on, people — it’s a satire site. Move along. 

Get the popcorn. After getting criticized by the New York Times for endorsing stop-question-and-frisk police tactics, Mayor Bloomberg ripped the Times’s for its lack of coverage of black crime victims in New York City. Via New York Magazine:

“Last week Bronx resident Alphonza Bryant was shot and killed while standing with friends near his home. He was 17. Like most murder victims in our city, he was a minority …. Alphonza was a person — he had a loving mother, family, friends. It does not appear that he was even the intended target of the shooters. He was just a victim of too many guns on our streets. But after his murder there was no outrage from the Center for Constitutional Rights or the NYCLU. There was not even a mention of his murder in our paper of record, the New York Times. ‘All the news that’s fit to print’ did not include the murder of 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant. Do you think that if a white, 17-year-old prep student from Manhattan had been murdered, the Times would have ignored it? Me neither. I believe that the life of every 17-year-old and every child and every adult is precious.”

The rest here.

You can read the full transcript here, or my summary below:

Syria chemical weapon use? What red line?

Benghazi witnesses want to testify but are blocked? No idea what you’re talking about.

Did the CIA, FBI, DHS, etc. do everything they could to stop Boston? Hey, guys, this is “hard stuff.”

Has Russian been helpful? Yes! I even talked to President Putin. 

The hunger strike at Guantanamo? I want to close that place so blame Congress. 

Max Baucus says Obamacare is a “train wreck.” Agree? Hey, big things are hard to implement. And, “. . .for the 85 to 90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, this thing’s already happened, and their only impact is that their insurance is stronger, better, more secure than it was before. Full stop. That’s it. Now they don’t have to worry about anything else.”

[YES, THAT'S AN EXACT QUOTE ABOVE AND POTUS BELIEVES IT]

Gang of Eight? Let me be clear, any immigration-reform must make the border safer.

Security cooperation with Mexico? Well, um, we’re not really sure yet so ask me again once I take my trip to Mexico.

Jason Collins? It’s great that he can be who he really is and “can bang with Shaq.”

For real. Here’s what the White House tweeted last night:

RT if you agree: We can’t afford to cut job-creating investments in science and education. pic.twitter.com/D9xDgdCfhZ

And here’s the picture. . .

Yes. Support a generation of risk takers who borrowed their ideas from the mind of Sherwood Schwartz. What’s next? A White House architectural contest that designs a house where six kids live in two rooms with only one bathroom?

From today’s press briefing:

Q    Jay, on Syria, some questions are being raised about whether the Syrians actually used sarin on their people.  What confidence does the United States have in this evidence?  And can you characterize what exactly the evidence is in any way and what standards you’re trying to meet in terms of establishing it?

MR. CARNEY:  We have established with varying degrees of confidence that chemical weapons were used in limited fashion in Syria and the agent is sarin, as we have said.  We have some physiological tests that are part of that collection of evidence. But there is much more to be done to verify conclusively that the red line that the President has talked about has been crossed. 

And it’s very important that we take the information that’s been gathered thus far and build upon it, because an assessment of varying degrees of confidence is not sufficient upon which to base a policy reaction, as we’ve said and as the President said in the Oval Office on Friday.

So our work continues.  We have a team — or the United Nations has a team ready to deploy to Syria within 24 to 48 hours if Assad allows that team in and follows through on his stated commitment and interest in having this matter investigated.  And we are working with the French and the British and other allies and partners to gather more evidence.  Chain of custody is an important issue — establishing not just that there was an incident of chemical weapons used, but how the exposure occurred, under what circumstances, who specifically was responsible, and again, the chain of custody, how the incident itself was brought about.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this year’s White House Correspondents’ dinner, but I’ve given up criticizing the actual event itself — or similar events — as they are now a fixture of our political discourse and aren’t going away. So instead, why not judge them on a metric we are more likely to agree on: Was the host funny?

In my opinion, no. Conan O’Brien was a dud.

Here’s one example:

“The guys from Duck Dynasty are here. It can can only mean one thing: the guys from Storage Wars said no.”

Odd. Conan didn’t say anything negative about the bearded-ones when he had them on his show last year. Nor does Conan’s joke make any sense. His premise is that the stars of  Storage Wars are somehow a bigger draw then the stars of Duck Dynasty. 

Let’s go to the ratings:

Nearly 10 million people watched the “Duck Dynasty” gang fly to Hawaii for some much needed R&R Wednesday night, shattering A&E’s ratings record.

It was the show’s third-season finale.

Until “Duck Dynasty” hit town, the most popular A&E series was “Storage Wars” which hit its peak in late November of 2011 when an episode snagged an average of 5.6 million.

There is an explanation, however: Conan is jealous:

O’Brien’s ratings on TBS are not huge either — the show is averaging 906,000 viewers an episode. But TBS said it was pleased the show has one of the youngest audiences of any traditional late-night talk program. 

And now you know why Jimmy Fallon is the new host of The Tonight Show and Conan O’Brien is what you watch when you accidentally leave the TV on after a rerun of Big Bang Theory.

But back to what’s funny and what’s not. Check out this clip from the 2011 Congressional Correspondents’ dinner featuring Larry Wilmore. Now, that was funny stuff:

The rapper turned columnist for the Miami New Times has figured out “terrorism” in America:

Americans Caused Boston Marathon Tragedy

And. . .

Once everything cools down again, we’ll go back to bickering with one another about who’s better, conservatives or liberals. Meanwhile, the next terrorist — domestic or foreign — will be secretly plotting the next attack. The hatred Americans have for one another motivates radicals to commit unspeakable acts of horror here. Our divided nation, thanks to public trolls like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, inspires lunatics like Jared Lee Loughner, James Holmes, and Adam Lanza to kill children, women, and men, and seriously maim dozens of others. It’s time we take responsibility for creating terrorists at home and abroad.

Yes, it is time to take responsibility for creating “terrorists” at home, like the gangs in Chicago and thug-on-thug murders that are destroying America’s urban centers. But Luther Campbell and his extensive arrest record is probably not the best person to lead the change American cities need.

Here’s a list of topics I hope Conan O’Brien jokes about at tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I mean, what’s funnier than major news stories on how the whole world is falling apart?

French troops begin their withdrawal from Mali. But not to fear, the UN is sending 13,000 peacekeepers. I hope they test the peacekeepers for cholera this time.

Church attacked in Egypt.

New fatwa says rape in Syria is OK as long as it’s a non-Sunni woman.

Out: Red line in Syria. New red line in Syria.

Shocker: China might have lied about the terrorist attack in Xinjiang.

Sunnis forming a “tribal army” in Iraq.

“North Africa is becoming the new Afghanistan.”

But, hey, it’s not all bad. The government did fix the FAA mess. . .

. . .And just as soon as they correct the typo in the bill, the president can sign it.

I hope the delay in the FAA bill doesn’t affect Lindsay Lohan’s flight. It really would be a shame if she missed such an important event. 

Tom Friedman is quick to bash U.S. infrastructure in the course of idiotic columns on the miracle of wi-fi on China’s trains and the like, but he’s yet to write on last weekend’s earthquake in Sichuan. A disaster that’s killed nearly 200 people and set off a wave of protests against the government. Remember when Friedman wanted the U.S. to be like China for a day?

Well I pick today and encourage Tom Friedman to let us know what’s so great about China.

Media Matters was angry last night that the cable-news channels were not reporting on the West Fertilizer Co.’s Department of Homeland Security “regulation violation” regarding the storage of ammonium nitrate. They quote Reuters as their source:

Reuters: TX Fertilizer Plant Was Storing “1,350 Times The Amount Of Ammonium Nitrate That Would Normally Trigger Safety Oversight By The U.S. Department Of Homeland Security.” On April 20, Reuters reported that the West, Texas, fertilizer plant that exploded on April 17, owned by West Fertilizer, had been storing 270 tons of ammonium nitrate. Reuters noted that “[f]ertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance,” which “can also be used in bomb making,” but that West Fertilizer “did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do.” [Reuters, 4/20/13]

There are two problems here.

One, Reuters isn’t quoting someone from the DHS, but a person “familiar with DHS operations.” And two, I can’t find anything to verify that what the Reuters source says is accurate.

For example, Today’s Dallas Morning News reported, in great detail, the role of state agencies who regulate some portion of the West Fertilizer’s business – The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Office of the Texas State Chemist, the Department of State Health Services — but the only federal agency that’s mentioned in the piece is the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (transportation regulation, not storage). The News adds “There are no uniform federal rules for ammonium nitrate storage, and state rules vary.”  

Well, reporting more than “400 lb” of ammonium nitrate to DHS would certainly qualify as a “uniform federal rule,” no?

Maybe the Obama administration can help. Here’s Jay Carney form Monday’s briefing:

On the issue that you raise, this is currently, obviously, an active investigation.  The cause is still unknown.  And it is still too early to point to specific violations, if any.  The National Response Team of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives along with the National Criminal Enforcement Response Team and a criminal investigative team from the Environmental Protection Agency are on scene to investigate the explosion at the fertilizer plant.

Let’s be clear, though.  Chemical plant safety is a high priority and all of the relevant departments and agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the EPA, the Department of Labor, including OSHA within the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Chemical Safety Board continue to work together within their authorities to assess this tragic situation on the ground and provide technical assistance as requested.

Well, that didn’t help much, did it?

In any event, Reuters and Media Matters point to a specific violation. But there’s nothing from Team Obama on it. If such a glaring violation of a DHS law had been broken, wouldn’t there be some call to immediately investigate every fertilizer retailer in the country? Yet, there’s nothing.

According to the DHS website, there is a proposed regulation called the Ammonium Nitrate Security Program that might apply here, but a search of the Federal Register shows that the new regulation has yet to be adopted. The latest update on the proposal is from January 8, 2013 and states (emphasis mine):

On October 29, 2008, DHS published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Program, and received a number of public comments on that ANPRM. DHS reviewed those comments and published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the Ammonium Nitrate Security Program on August 3, 2011. NPPD accepted public comments until December 1, 2011, and is now reviewing the public comments and developing a Final Rule related to the Ammonium Nitrate Security Program.

And as for the 400 pound threshold, that gets a mention in a footnote from a 2008 proposal to amend the regulation of ammonium nitrate:

1/     The listing of AN in explosive form in Appendix A to CFATS covers any commercial grade of ammonium nitrate (with more than 0.2 percent combustible substances, including any organic substance calculated as carbon, to the exclusion of any other added substance). The screening threshold quantities for this form of AN are 5,000 lbs (as a release-explosive) and 400 lbs when in transportation packaging (as a theft-explosive). Appendix A also lists AN in solid form (with a nitrogen concentration of 23% or greater) with an STQ of 2000 lbs. This form of AN is commonly used as a fertilizer in the agricultural community and, when used in a mixture, will count toward the STQ if the mixture contains a minimum concentration of 33% or more of solid AN.

If there’s no “final rule” yet on the security program, what was the West Fertlizer Co. supposed to report to the Department of Homeland Security?

And one final thing doesn’t make sense, at least to me. Reuters wrote that the plant had on hand “1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).”

Here’s the math Reuters is using. The Texas Department of State Health service stated that the firm had 270 tons (540,000 pounds) of ammonium nitrate on hand last year. 540,000 pounds divided by 400 pounds gives us 1350. But that Texas Dept. of State Health number is for the entire year, not what was on hand the day of the plant explosion. Reuters has since reported that there was one rail car filled with ammonium nitrate at the plant and that rail car wasn’t the cause of the explosion, but the “victim of that explosion.”

And there’s nothing in this later Reuters report on any DHS violation by West Fertilizer.

Maybe the editor and writer from that first Reuters report can check again with their person “familiar with DHS operations” and find out for us.

I’ve e-mailed DHS for a comment on the Reuters story and will update this post when I hear back.

The president is off to Texas where he’ll do what he’s supposed to do . . .

Obama to Attend Memorial Service for Victims of Texas Blast

. . . do what he probably doesn’t want to do. . .

President Obama preps for Texas trip, dedication of George W Bush library

. . . and to do what he does best. . .

In Dallas tonight, 60 donors to pay between $10,000 & FEC max of $32,400 at DNC fundraiser with Pres Obama. Print pool coverage only.

This piece from today’s Dallas Morning News is probably the best summary I’ve read yet on the oversight issues surrounding West Fertilizer Co. The opener:

Texas’ environmental agency knew in 2006 that West Fertilizer Co. was handling 2,400 tons a year of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate in a warehouse near schools, houses and a nursing home, documents show.

The notation in a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality permit form apparently raised no concerns, either internally or with other agencies, about explosion risks or the proper management of a chemical already notorious in Texas history for its deadly qualities when heated to extreme temperatures or exposed to shock.

Other agencies that knew about the dangerous stockpile also failed to pose such questions to their peers, records and interviews indicate. The explosion April 17 in the Central Texas town of West killed 14 people, including 10 volunteer firefighters, burned a school and destroyed or damaged buildings over a 35-block area.

How a fire caused the ammonium nitrate to detonate is the focus of federal and state investigations into the explosion.

For the TCEQ, which has by far the longest reach of any Texas regulatory agency and issues permits for many agricultural companies, ammonium nitrate safety is the job of a much smaller agency that specializes in testing farm products for quality and purity, the Office of the Texas State Chemist.

“We don’t, at TCEQ, evaluate the explosive threat associated with these types of facilities,” said Bryan W. Shaw, Gov. Rick Perry’s appointee as TCEQ chairman. “We look at the environmental and health impacts,” such as whether routine air emissions will cause a local problem, he said.

Even when processing environmental permits for companies handling ammonium nitrate, asking about fertilizer fire and explosion risks is not the TCEQ’s job, Shaw said. At the explosion scene, the TCEQ has helped determine that the blast did not spread pollution through the town, he said.

Shaw identified the state chemist and the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration as having responsibility for regulating fertilizer fire and explosion risks.

No such scrutiny

But the regulatory scrutiny for ammonium nitrate storage that Shaw outlined does not exist.

The federal pipeline agency governs only transportation, not storage. And the head of the state chemist’s office, Tim Herrman, said his agency has no legal authority or expertise to pursue fire or explosive safety at places that store ammonium nitrate.

“That doesn’t fall within our purview, and it’s fair to say we are not fire-safety experts,” Herrman said. “Nor is that part of our inspection activity, nor is that in our law or rules.”

Uniform rules lacking

There are no uniform federal rules for ammonium nitrate storage, and state rules vary. But fire safety experts have long expounded best practices such as structural fire protection, emergency drills, worker training and protective buffer zones between storage facilities and homes and schools.

The rest here.

From today’s Washington Post:

More than a dozen Maryland state prison guards helped a dangerous national gang operate a drug-trafficking and money-laundering scheme from behind bars that involved cash payments, sex and access to fancy cars, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Thirteen female corrections officers essentially handed over control of a Baltimore jail to gang leaders, prosecutors said. The officers were charged Tuesday in a federal racketeering indictment.

The indictment described a jailhouse seemingly out of control. Four corrections officers became pregnant by one inmate. Two of them got tattoos of the inmate’s first name, Tavon — one on her neck, the other on a wrist.

The guards allegedly helped leaders of the Black Guerilla Family run their criminal enterprise in jail by smuggling cellphones, prescription pills and other contraband in their underwear, shoes and hair. One gang leader allegedly used proceeds to buy luxury cars, including a Mercedes-Benz and a BMW, which he allowed some of the officers to drive.

“The inmates literally took over ‘the asylum,’ and the detention centers became safe havens for BGF,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen E. Vogt, using shorthand for the prison gang’s name.

I guess the officers had to behave in order to drive the fancy cars? What a disgrace. The rest here, including how this might possibly impact the chances of Governor O’Malley running for president in 2016.

As we debate guns in this country, why doesn’t the MSM get that cops matter? And what cops do matters? Here’s an excerpt from a WSJ interview with former NYPD chief William Bratton:

But the gun reform that truly gets Mr. Bratton fired up is one you don’t hear much about these days. It is what he calls “certainty of punishment,” or stricter gun-crime sentences.

“People are out on the streets who should be in jail. Jail is appropriate for anyone who uses a gun in the commission of an act of violence. Some cities have a deplorable lack of attention to this issue,” he says, citing Philadelphia.

In Chicago, where the murder rate rose 16% last year, “to try to put someone in jail for gun-related activity you really have to go the extra mile,” he says. “If there’s one crime for which there has to be a certainty of punishment, it is gun violence.” He ticks off other places where help is needed: “Oakland, Chicago, D.C., Baltimore—all have gangs whose members have no capacity for caring about life and respect for life. Someone like that? Put ‘em in jail. Get ‘em off the streets. Keep people safe.”

Well, what good is the punishment of jail if jail does nothing to stop an inmate’s former illegal activity?

False alarm?

The Mississippi man charged with sending toxic letters to President Barack Obama and a U.S. senator has been released from jail, the U.S. Marshals Service said on Tuesday.

Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was released on bond, Jeff Woodfin, chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Oxford, Mississippi, told Reuters.

His release came as court documents showed a hearing on his detention has been indefinitely postponed but the charges against him had not been dropped. 

Let me hazard a guess here that there will be no charges against Mr. Curtis Woodfin. 

And I think this should be a teachable moment for the cable-newsers who relied on Senator Reid as their source for the story. In the future, be safe and don’t trust a thing that comes out of his mouth.

Here’s economics reporter Catherine Rampell writing on income inequalities in different cities:

This two-tier economy can seem inevitable, but other middle-income cities — particularly Sun Belt hubs like Houston and Charlotte — are now offering a third option, says Edward L. Glaeser, an economist at Harvard. A large part of their appeal has to do with policies that make it easier to build homes and expand the affordable housing stock for those people fleeing cities like New York. Places like Detroit are cheap, Glaeser told me, because they have become drastically less attractive locations to live and work. But places like Houston are cheap — and staying cheap, even as they grow — because the local governments have realized their comparative advantage is in deregulation, not in fancy cookies

Well, that’s not something you read very often in the Times. I assume Catherine will get back in line shortly as she seems to have missed the latest liberal meme – that lax zoning laws and no unions contributed to the devastation in West, Texas.