Boston, Terrorism, and Chechnya
Boston
The lives of the brothers. "The two Chechen brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombing set about building American lives after coming to the U.S. about a decade ago. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 years old, became a successful Golden Gloves boxer. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, 19, was a nursing student and became an American citizen just last year, on Sept. 11. But a close examination of the Tsarnaev family's life in the U.S. shows a hopeful immigrant trajectory veering off course." Alan Cullison, Paul Sonne, and Jennifer Levitz in the Wall Street Journal.
Terrorism
Constitution? What Constitution? "This is pretty breathtaking. Graham ... is suggesting that an American citizen, captured on American soil, should be deprived of basic constitutional rights. Keep in mind that Graham isn't just an angry citizen; he's not even just a U.S. senator. He is also a trained lawyer, a colonel in Air Force Reserve, and a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the legal arm of the Air Force." David Graham in the Atlantic.
The modern manhunt: FBI, the 'hive mind,' and the Boston bombers. "When the smoke literally cleared on Monday, investigators had a huge problem and nearly no leads. ... So they took a big leap: They copped to how little they knew, and embraced the wisdom of The Crowd. Hiding in plain sight was an ocean of data, from torrents of photography to cell-tower information to locals’ memories, waiting to be exploited. Police, FBI, and the other investigators opted to let spectator surveillance supplement and augment their own. ... All that represented a modern twist on the age-old law enforcement maxim that the public’s eyes and ears are crucial investigative assets." Spencer Ackerman at the Danger Room.
Was lockdown the correct response to the terror threat? "Public officials in Boston erred by locking down the City and most surrounding suburbs for an entire day ... The economic cost has been enormous (by one estimate about $1 billion), and it sets a worrisome precedent if a 19 year old fugitive can paralyze an entire metropolitan region. ... This response also belies our insistence that we're tough and we won't be intimidated. On the contrary: we look skittish and scared. ... I worry that potential copycats will be inspired rather than deterred by the combination of media frenzy and governmental overreaction." Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy.
Chechnya
9 questions about Chechnya and Dagestan you were too embarrassed to ask. Max Fisher in the Washington Post.
Reminder: Not all Muslims in the post-Soviet region are radical islamists or Chechen nationalists. "Russian Muslims practice various forms of Islam ... religious belief and practice is not always correlated with anti-Moscow political mobilization ... Muslims in Russia have largely opposed radical Islamic movements during the past 15 years and most likely will continue to do so." Joshua Tucker at the Monkey Cage.
Reminder #2: Chechnya is not the Czech Republic. "The mix-up has now even elicited a response from the Czech ambassador to the United States, Petr Gandalovic, who seemed rather offended and posted the following statement on the embassy's website: 'As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect. The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities - the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.'" Marya Hannun at Foreign Policy.
Politics
Abortion
More stupidity, courtesy of Kansas. "What makes the Kansas measure especially interesting are provisions from state government that instruct medical professionals as to what they must tell women seeking legal abortions. ... The law 'requires doctors to provide controversial information to patients either seeking or inquiring about an abortion of a link between the procedure and breast cancer.' Science tells us there is no link between abortion and breast cancer, which would appear to raise a series of problems." Steve Benen at Maddowblog.
Congress
Welcome to the desert of the gridlock. Please keep all progress outside of the Congress at all times. "This level of partisan polarization, veering from ideological differences into tribalism, has not been seen in more than a century. The U.S. system has always moved slowly, but in times past major advances were achieved with some level of cooperation or restraint, if not consensus, between the parties. No more." Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein at Brookings.
The Filibuster
How to tell if it is a duck - if it quacks like a duck: Manchin-Toomey and beyond. "It is wrong to say that insisting on 60 is threatening a filibuster. The demand is the filibuster, under the conditions -- which hold now, and have held for decades -- that the way a filibuster is conducted is by notifying people of the demand for 60." Jonathan Bernstein.
Fiscal Fights
Sequester set to cause airport delays. "But with no fix in sight, the Transportation Department is preparing to cut $1 billion from its budget by the end of September, including $635 million from the F.A.A. ... Reduced staffing, either in the control towers or at radar rooms distant from the airports, will cut the ability to land airplanes, and in some cases ... may require closing some runways." Matthew Wald in the New York Times.
Guns
Health
Almost 26 million people will be eligible for health tax credits under the Affordable Care Act. "As experts focus on the cost of requiring everybody to have health coverage next year, a new study highlights the broad reach of federal subsidies to help people pay for it. Nearly 26 million Americans will be eligible for tax credits under the Affordable Care Act to partly offset the cost of insurance in online state marketplaces..." Jay Hancock at Kaiser Health News.
Immigration
Will the guns debacle brighten the prospects for immigration reform? "In the strange political calculus that is Washington, the death of gun-control legislation in the Senate this week could boost the prospects of the next big contentious issue on the docket: immigration reform." Paul Kane in the Washington Post.
Does Boston mean no immigration reform? Conservatives are already going there. They should go away. "The simple fact is that the situation in Boston has little to do with the 'immigration system.' Both suspects were legal immigrants who came over as children—tougher background checks or more security wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy on Monday, or last evening’s shootout. Indeed, short of constant surveillance and identity checks—in other words, a police state—it’s hard to think of anything that could have prevented it." Jamelle Bouie in the American Prospect.
LGBT Rights
Social conservatives will prevent Republican endorsement of same-sex marriage for the foreseeable future. "Republicans — who may privately favor marriage equality — aren’t going to announce their support anytime soon. Social conservatives are still an important group within the Republican Party. They provide donors and volunteers, and are a key constituency in GOP nomination contests at all levels." Jamelle Bouie at the Plum Line.
Pre-K
Universal preschool - path to the middle class. "High-quality preschool appears to propel better outcomes by enhancing non-cognitive skills such as persistence, self-control and emotion regulation — skills that depend on early brain development and social experiences and contribute to long-term academic outcomes and career success." Arne Duncan in the Washington Post.
International
Asia
China has deployed the DF-21D opposite Taiwan. "The Chinese military has deployed its new anti-ship ballistic missile along its southern coast facing Taiwan, the Pentagon’s top military intelligence officer said today. The missile, designated the DF-21D, is one of a 'growing number of conventionally armed' new weapons China is deploying to the region, adding to more than 1,200 short-range missiles opposite the island democracy." Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg.
Middle East
US finalizing an arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. "The Defense Department is expected to finalize a $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week that will provide missiles, warplanes and troop transports to help them counter any future threat from Iran." Thom Shanker in the New York Times.
The end of Palestinian democracy? "With Fayyad's departure, Abbas seems to have overcome any institutional restraints on his power: He heads both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah, the dominant faction within it, and is also now four years past the end of his term as president of the PA, with no new elections in sight. After a two-decade experiment in Palestinian democracy ... it's now hard to deny that Abbas looks an awful lot like the autocratic Arafat." Jonathan Schanzer in Foreign Policy.
South America
Winners and losers in Venezuela's presidential election. "Nicolas Maduro's victory may be only skin-deep, and there is an upside to Henrique Capriles' loss." Charles Shapiro in the LA Times.
Science
New Earth-like, possibly habitable planets - courtesy of the Kepler project. "NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a trio of distant planets ... orbiting in the so-called Goldilocks Zone of their parent stars – the 'just-right' range at which liquid water, and life, can exist on a planet's surface. NASA's Kepler mission has been hunting for worlds beyond our solar system for a little over four years now ... In that time, it's spotted literally thousands of planetary candidates. Today, three distant worlds –dubbed Kepler-62f, Kepler-62e, and Kepler-69c –have achieved planetary confirmation, while joining an elite cadre of so-called habitable planets." io9.
Miscellaneous
The Boy Scouts are set to end the ban on gay members. But keep the ban on gay adult leaders. "The Boy Scouts of America on Friday proposed lifting a ban on gay scouts but maintaining a prohibition on gay adults from leading troops, a compromise that attempts to end a fight that has split the century-old American institution into bitter factions." Atossa Abrahamian at Reuters.
Is locavorism good policy? "The locavores seem to have missed other important lessons of Economics 101—namely, the benefits of specialization and comparative advantage. By letting people specialize in those things that they are relatively good at making and then trading with others, we all become richer and better off than if we all tried to be self-sufficient. It’s no coincidence that the cultivation of crops such as corn, wheat, potatoes, and grapes is clustered in certain parts of the country best suited to them." Henry Miller and Jayson Lusk at the Hoover Institution.
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