Saturday Reads, Summer Solstice Edition: Dreaming of a Woman President, and Other News

Good Morning and Happy Summer Solstice!!

Hillary is in the news this morning, so I thought I’d begin with her latest public remarks on the presidency. Claire McCaskill kicked off the Hillary talk on Tuesday when she said she was supporting a new superpac called Ready for Hillary.

“Hillary Clinton had to give up her political operation while she was making us proud, representing us around the world as an incredible Secretary of State, and that’s why Ready for Hillary is so critical,” McCaskill said in a statement released by the group. “It’s important that we start early, building a grassroots army from the ground up, and effectively using the tools of the Internet –- all things that President Obama did so successfully –- so that if Hillary does decide to run, we’ll be ready to help her win.”

McCaskill was one of the female Senators who abandoned Hillary to jump on the Obama bandwagon in 2008. Hillary gave her call after the announcement of support.

An early endorsement this week for a 2016 presidential run by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton merited a phone call from the potential candidate, according to Sen. Claire McCaskill.

Clinton made the call after the senator’s Tuesday announcement that she was endorsing a political action committee pushing a presidential run.

“She did call me after this all happened the other day,” the Missouri Democrat said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We had a great conversation. I’m not going to talk about what we said. But I think she’s got a big decision to make and I think she’s in the process of making it.”

McCaskill called the endorsement of Clinton an easy decision. “She is by far the strongest, most capable, most qualified candidate for President of the United States,” she said. “I am part of a lot of group of people, big huge group of people, that really wants her to run. And it seemed like coming out publicly and stating the obvious, that we all want her to run, was an important thing to do right now.”

Naturally, the corporate media is *concerned* about Hillary’s ambitions. The Washington Post sees “worries” for her in the new superpac.

The upstart super PAC, called Ready for Hillary, is fast emerging as the quasi-official stand-in for potential 2016 presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton, scooping up advisers and gathering big donations more than three years ahead of election time.

But the group is also making some advisers in Clinton’s orbit decidedly nervous about its potential impact on her own efforts, which for now consist of philanthropic pursuits and remaining mum on a presidential bid. Some allies also fear a repeat of 2008, when an assumed air of inevitability contributed to Clinton’s loss to fresh-faced challenger Barack Obama….

“It’s hard to even know what’s what any more,” said John Morgan, an Orlando lawyer who served on Bill Clinton’s 1996 national finance committee. “It’s become a cottage industry. It’s like, ‘Who are you?’ Just because you put the name ‘Hillary’ at the end of your PAC — it could be a bait and switch. I want to make sure I can get the biggest bang for my buck.”

Ready for Hillary — launched in January by Clinton boosters Adam Parkhomenko and Allida Black — is getting help from a number of veterans from Hillary and Bill Clinton’s political operation. Former Bill Clinton strategist Harold Ickes, former Clinton White House political director Craig Smith and former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Jim Lamb are advising the group on strategy, while longtime confidant James Carville recently sent out a fundraising solicitation under his name.

Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton poses with Jaden Szigeti, 9, for a snapshot before speaking to 5,000 at the Metro Convention Centre. (Toronto Star)

So what does Hillary herself have to say? Well she made a speech at the “Unique Lives and Experiences” conference in Toronto on Thursday, and she expressed a desire that many American women share. She wants to see a woman president in her lifetime. From Politico:

“Let me say this, hypothetically speaking, I really do hope that we have a woman president in my lifetime,” Clinton said in Toronto, before a women-centered event Thursday. “And whether it’s next time or the next time after that, it really depends on women stepping up and subjecting themselves to the political process, which is very difficult.”

She added that President Barack Obama’s election was historic, and said, “I hope that we will see a woman elected because I think it would send exactly the right historic signal to girls, women as well as boys and men. And I will certainly vote for the right woman to be president.” [….]

Friends and supporters of Clinton say she is genuinely undecided about whether to run again, even if some of the moves she is making now, immersing herself in domestic policy on issues affecting women and children that have been the core of her life’s work, would certainly be helpful if she launches another national campaign.
Yet that argument — the historic nature of a female president, combined with a pent-up desire among women voters to break that barrier — is the one most often espoused by Clinton backers.

Here’s the video that was posted to YouTube after the event.

In an “intimate” setting with 5,000 other people, Hillary reminisced about her life:

In a verbal stroll through her life, Clinton mentioned her mother’s difficult early years as an abandoned and mistreated child, she recalled the first time she ever heard the voice of her husband, former president Bill Clinton, back when he was a student, drawling about “the size of watermelons” in Arkansas. She mentioned the “extraordinary sense of anxiety” that she and every other American felt after the attacks of Sept. 11.

And she spoke candidly about how she had learned to cope with sexist attacks and snippy criticism about her hair, her clothes and all the things that don’t really define her.

“My attitude is different than it was 20 years ago,” she said. “I don’t care.”
The crowd clapped its approval.

“I learned to take criticism seriously but not personally” Clinton told her audience.

She is amazing. I so miss her as Secretary of State. In contrast John Kerry is so boring that he’s already become almost invisible. With Hillary as SOS, there were frequent stories about her travels with photos of her colorful outfits. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have her engaging personality, not to mention her valuable experience and brilliant mind in the White House?

In other news…

The news broke yesterday that Edward Snowden has been charged with three felonies. Most media outlets are reporting that has been charged with espionage, but so far that hasn’t been specifically stated by the government. From Politico:

Snowden was charged with conveying classified information to an unauthorized party, disclosing communications intelligence information, and theft of government property.

The charges, which can carry a penalty of up to ten years in prison on each count, were filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va., last Friday….

The charges were first reported Friday evening by the Washington Post, which said the complaint against Snowden was sealed. It’s not immediately clear whether the charges were unsealed before or after the Post report.
A Justice Department official confirmed Friday evening that a complaint was filed in the case, but declined further comment on the matter.

The Washington Post reported this morning that the charges were conveyed to Hong Kong authorities a week ago, but so far they seem to be dragging their feet about arresting Snowden.

The reason for the hold-up is unclear. There could be delays in the legal process for issuing the warrant. Or, officials may still be looking for Snowden, who is believed to be in Hong Kong but could also have found a way to leave the semiautonomous region.

The U.S. government asked Hong Kong to detain Snowden on a provisional arrest warrant June 14, the same day it filed criminal charges against him, including theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person.”

Under an extradition treaty between Hong Kong and the United States, a provisional warrant, as opposed to a regular one, is a faster way to detain suspected criminals since it does not require the initial approval of Hong Kong’s leader, currently Leung Chun-ying.

Instead, a judge can issue the warrant immediately. Simon Young, a legal professor at the University of Hong Kong said this means a warrant for Snowden’s arrest in theory could have been made as early as June 14, more than a week ago.

The Supreme Court justices are taking their own sweet time in announcing the most important decisions of this SCOTUS session. At The Daily Beast, Richard L. Hasan asks “What’s Taking the Supreme Court So Long?”

With everyone anxiously awaiting potentially blockbuster decisions on issues fromaffirmative action to voting rights to same-sex marriage, it is easy to criticize the Supreme Court for being too slow.

After all, Fisher, the affirmative-action case involving the University of Texas, was argued in Supreme Court back in October. By historical standards, the court is deciding very few cases: it issued 167 with opinions in the 1981 term, but is expected to decide only 77 this term. Why save all of the big calls for the end? Are the justices trying to create maximum suspense to get more attention?

These criticisms fundamentally misunderstand both the modern Supreme Court’s mission and the psychology of the justices. There may be a lot of reasons to criticize the court, but the end-of-the-term crunch is not one of them.Consider first the Supreme Court’s mission. Justices are unlike legislators, who simply vote to express their preferences. Justices are expected to give reasons for their decisions. Further, the court on some of the toughest questions is divided along strong ideological lines. For example, a majority opinion from a conservative justice can generate a dissenting opinion from a liberal justice. The dissenting justice won’t just say “I disagree,” but will offer reasons—reasons that the dissenting justice writes not only for history but in the hopes that one day a majority of justices will change their minds and adopt the dissenting view in a majority opinion. Both a majority and dissenting opinions will be circulated within the court, and each opinion will be modified numerous times to respond to the arguments of the other side, and to respond to the concerns of other justices who may join one or more of the opinions. Sometimes a justice will agree with the result but not with the reasoning of an opinion, and that justice will write separately, prompting another round of revisions.

We’re still waiting for decisions on 11 more cases, and those could be announced this week. It should be interesting.

Finally, today is the summer solstice, and people the world over celebrated the beginning of summer. Read about it at the the WaPo: Summer solstice observed at Times Square, Stonehenge, in D.C.

And tomorrow a unusual celestial even will take place, according to the Sydney Morning Herald: A Supermoon, when ‘people turn into lunatics’

ONLY ONCE a year Earth, Moon and Sun line up to create the perfect conditions for a so called ‘Supermoon’.
According to popular folklore, this is the time when “people turn into lunatics”, ships run aground and earthquakes rattle our planet.

According to NASA , it is the best opportunity to get a good look at Earth’s rocky satellite.
The distance between Earth and Moon varies between about 357,000km and 406,000km throughout the year, and depends on the moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth.

When the moon is on its farthest position from the earth, it is called Apogee while the closest encounter is named Perigee.

About once a year a full Moon occurs during the Perigee orbit, resulting in a 14 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter appearance.

Right wing nuts should stay indoors and avoid looking at the sky. They’re already lunatics; we don’t need them to go completely around the bend.

Now it’s your turn. What are you reading and blogging about on this first day of summer?