"President Obama and Russian leader Vladimir Putin put on an almost comically awkward show of unity for the cameras today..."

"... as they made virtually no eye contact and grimaced as the other spoke following a bilateral meeting at the G8 Summit."

That thing of not wearing ties looks really bad when they're not cozying up.

"The father wanted to rape his daughter again in the morning inside the house and..."

"... that was when the young girl picked up the bush knife and chopped her father's head off."

"Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now."

Edward Snowden answers questions, including "Edward, there is rampant speculation, outpacing facts, that you have or will provide classified US information to the Chinese or other governments in exchange for asylum. Have/will you?" His answer is such a conundrum...

This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public, as the US media has a knee-jerk "RED CHINA!" reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

... that the questioner comes back and demands "a flat yes or no." He says:

No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government. Just like with the Guardian and the Washington Post, I only work with journalists.

I still don't know the complete answer to the first question, however, which asked if he will provide — that is, in the future — classified information to the Chinese.

"Among young voters, only 48 percent approve of the president's performance, a 17-point decline..."

"... since the last CNN/ORC poll. These are the president's most loyal supporters, and the future of American politics."

The National Journal asks "Is Scott Walker the GOP's Sleeper Presidential Candidate?"

"He's a popular blue-state governor with tea party appeal...."

"The recall was a gift to him in that it put him in touch with the big funders in the Republican Party, and I'm sure he keeps that Rolodex pretty close," said Brian Sikma, a spokesman for a conservative government watchdog group in Wisconsin. "I don't see any reason why he wouldn't run, and if you look at the tea leaves, he's taking all the traditional steps."...

But despite the attacks, Democrats have struggled to find a credible challenger eager to run against Walker in [the gubernatorial race in] 2014. The governor amassed a $30 million war chest for the recall campaign, while depleting the labor unions. Charles Franklin, a Marquette University professor of law and public policy, said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is viewed as more beatable in 2016 than Walker is in 2014.

"The Democratic bench is thin right now, and Democrats face a real issue of how to fund a campaign against him," Franklin said.

So it looks like he begins with plenty of money to use to run for reelection as governor and to run for President. In retrospect, that recall looks so profoundly stupid.

CORRECTION: The link goes to the National Journal. I had "The Washington Post" in the headline for some reason.

"Miss Utah flub steals spotlight from Miss USA winner Erin Brady."

So would you rather win or be famous on the internet?

"The Ministry [of Gossip] gives it a 10 for scrambling, a 10 for rambling, and bonus points for using the phrase 'create education better.' And add 10 to that for pulling it all off in an evening gown, with a huge smile and big hair. It all adds up to third runner-up."

"The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, allows voters to register using a federal form that asks, 'Are you a citizen of the United States?'"

"Prospective voters must check a box for yes or no, and they must sign the form, swearing under the penalty of perjury that they are citizens. The state law, by contrast, required prospective voters to prove that they were citizens by providing copies of or information concerning various documents, including birth certificates, passports, naturalization papers or driver’s licenses, that are available only to people who are in the state lawfully."

The Supreme Court, 7-2, said the federal law preempted the state law, Adam Liptak explains:

The Althouse Amazon portal: your gateway to making finer, closer and more detailed touches to your artwork.

By using the Althouse portal, you can buy things you want and – while paying nothing extra – make a contribution to this blog. We notice. We appreciate it. And unless you draw us a picture, we'll never know it's you.

Pitt Artist Pens - Wallet Set of All 4 Pen Styles in Black
by Faber

"Sex on screen can teach us about so much more than sex."

Writes Mireille Miller-Young, an associate professor of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the last of a set of 6 short essays in the NYT answering the question "What's the difference between a good sex scene and a gratuitous one in films?"

The sentence above is the 4th to the last sentence in her essay. The next 3 sentences are:

At the recent Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto, Mia Gimp and Clark Matthews won “sexiest short” for their entry “Krutch,” shot on an iPhone 5 on the streets of Midtown Manhattan. The film tells the story of a disabled woman who, faced with the challenges of navigating a world made for able-bodied individuals, finds solace and erotic pleasure with her crutch. For depictions that push against sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableist, heteronormative beauty ideals – as it turns out, porn is now the place to look.

Ironically, my phobia is about movies depicting sex for the purpose of teaching me anything. Put that on your list of things you can't push against with porn.

Supreme Court live-blog.

Here. Possible excitement today.

UPDATE 1: An opinion in Salinas v. Texas — PDF — which is about the right not to incriminate oneself ("prosecutors can comment on the silence of an accused who has not yet been arrested").

UPDATE 2: Alleyene: Justice Thomas writes the opinion holding that "Any fact that increases the mandatory minimum is an 'element' that must be submitted to the jury." Joining him are Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. A 5-4 decision with Thomas and the liberals. Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Alito dissent. PDF.

UPDATE 3: A Kennedy opinion, but not the long-awaited Fisher (the affirmative action case). This is Maracich v. Spears, the Driver's Privacy Protection Act case. Another 5-4 decision. "An attorney's solicitation of clients is not a permissible purpose covered by the DPPA's litigation exception." PDF.

UPDATE 4: Scalia writes for the majority in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council: "Arizona's proof of citizenship requirement is preempted by the federal law requiring that states use the federal voter registration form." Only 2 dissenters: Thomas and Alito. PDF.

UPDATE 5: And that's it for today. There will be more opinions on Thursday.

Which of the opinions are you most interested in hearing me say something about?
	Salinas v. Texas
	Alleyene
	Maracich v. Spears
	Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council
pollcode.com free polls

"Rubio has killed himself with his base through a classic example of hubris and Freshman overreach."

"He could have gotten behind an immigration bill, but getting behind this immigration bill, another cooked-up-in-a-backroom you’ve-got-to-pass-it-to-find-out-what’s-in-it monstrosity was a mistake. His second mistake, and the really fatal one, has been expressions of contempt toward his base. Suggesting that people who don’t support his bill are racist, and that American workers are dumb, is political poison. And his staff should know better than to say this kind of thing to any journalist, however friendly-seeming. All in all, a really disappointing performance from Rubio."

Writes Instapundit.

But why did the Freshman arrive at this hubris? How did he get into this position in the "Gang of 8" from which he could do this overreaching?

Seeing where he is and knowing that it was the insane, inane hopes that conservatives reflexively projected onto him, he understandably views this base as at least rather dumb and a tad racist.

"An extraordinary fuss about eavesdropping started in the spring of 1844..."

"... when Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian exile in London, became convinced that the British government was opening his mail. Mazzini, a revolutionary who’d been thrown in jail in Genoa, imprisoned in Savona, sentenced to death in absentia, and arrested in Paris, was plotting the unification of the kingdoms of Italy and the founding of an Italian republic. He suspected that, in London, he’d been the victim of what he called 'post-office espionage': he believed that the Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, had ordered his mail to be opened, at the request of the Austrian Ambassador, who, like many people, feared what Mazzini hoped—that an insurrection in Italy would spark a series of revolutions across Europe. Mazzini knew how to find out: he put poppy seeds, strands of hair, and grains of sand into envelopes, sealed the envelopes with wax, and sent them, by post, to himself. When the letters arrived—still sealed—they contained no poppy seeds, no hair, and no grains of sand. Mazzini then had his friend Thomas Duncombe, a Member of Parliament, submit a petition to the House of Commons. Duncombe wanted to know if Graham really had ordered the opening of Mazzini’s mail. Was the British government in the business of prying into people’s private correspondence? Graham said the answer to that question was a secret."

So begins "The Prism: Privacy in an age of publicity," by Jill LePore at The New Yorker.

"Happy. Free. Confused. Oppressed by the patriarchy. At the same time."

It's FeministTaylorSwift — which WaPo tells me is a Twitter sensation. The actual Taylor Swift Twitter feed has the tag line "Happy. Free. Confused. Lonely. At the same time." Nice profile pic:



Or is this all kind of too obvious... or I mean... obvious in light of first seeing this in the context of a whole big WaPo article about it that's trending #1 most-popular on WaPo's "Most Popular" list? And — oh! — did I go off in a negative direction at the cue that another female is popular?

Happy. Free. Confused. Buffeted by mainstream media. At the same time.

"On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department’s top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal."

So begins the WaPo article titled "U.S. surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing Internet, phone metadata." It continues:

President George W. Bush backed down, halting secret foreign-intelligence-gathering operations that had crossed into domestic terrain. That morning marked the beginning of the end of STELLARWIND, the cover name for a set of four surveillance programs that brought Americans and American territory within the domain of the National Security Agency for the first time in decades. It was also a prelude to new legal structures that allowed Bush and then President Obama to reproduce each of those programs and expand their reach.

Much more at the link.

At Succulent Café...

... any juicy stories?

"China is pushing ahead with a sweeping plan to move 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities over the next dozen years..."

"The government, often by fiat, is replacing small rural homes with high-rises, paving over vast swaths of farmland and drastically altering the lives of rural dwellers...."

Across China, bulldozers are leveling villages that date to long-ago dynasties. Towers now sprout skyward from dusty plains and verdant hillsides....

Instead of creating wealth, urbanization could result in a permanent underclass in big Chinese cities and the destruction of a rural culture and religion....

“For old people like us, there’s nothing to do anymore,” said He Shifang, 45, a farmer from the city of Ankang in Shaanxi Province who was relocated from her family’s farm in the mountains. “Up in the mountains we worked all the time. We had pigs and chickens. Here we just sit around and people play mah-jongg.”