Morning Reads: Netanyahu's Dangerous Gambit; Systemic Racism in Ferguson

Good morning! On this date in 1917, three years before American women won the vote nationally, Montana’s Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to serve in the US Congress. She opposed America’s entry into World War I, lost her re-election bid in 1918, and was then elected to a second term in 1940. The following year, she was the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor. “As a woman I can’t go to war,” she explained, “and I refuse to send anyone else.” After the vote, she was confronted by an angry mob and had to call the Capitol police to escort her back to her office.

Guilty –> Former General David Petraeus, architect of the US “surges” in Iraq and Afghanistan, pleaded guilty to giving classified information to Paula Broadwell, his biographer and former mistress. Under the terms of the deal, Petraeus will avoid jail by paying a fine and doing two years of probation. The website ExposeFacts calls the sentence a “hand-slap.” Marcy Wheeler has more.

“Red Meat For Iran Hawks, A Dealbreaker For Democrats” –> At TPM, Eli Clifton writes that Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress may have aided his re-election bid, but at the cost of inserting a “partisan wedge” into US-Israeli relations. AND: Before the speech, The Atlantic’s James Fallows tried to figure out the “mystery” of Netanyahu’s true motivation and finds that “it’s a trickier question than it seems.” ALSO: At ThinkProgress, Igor Volsky analyzes what the Israeli prime minister omitted in his address. ALSO, TOO: Matthew Duss writes at Slate that Netanyahu did Obama a favor by highlighting the fact that there is no good alternative to a negotiated settlement with Tehran.

Systemic bias –> Sari Horowitz reports for WaPo that the Justice Department will issue findings today that “accuse the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, of racial bias and routinely violating the constitutional rights of black citizens by stopping drivers without reasonable suspicion, making arrests without probable cause and using excessive force.” AND: At MoJo, Jaeah Lee has further details of the investigation.

Taking care of his friends –> David Sirota reports for IBT that, “under Chris Christie, the New Jersey pension system paid more than $600 million in fees to financial firms in 2014 — 50 percent more than a year ago, and a higher rate than almost any other state reports paying for pension management.” But despite shelling out over the past five years almost $1 billion more than it would have under the state’s previous fee structure, “the New Jersey pension system has delivered returns that have trailed the median for similarly sized pension funds.”

Homesick? –> Edward Snowden’s lawyer said on Tuesday that the whistle-blower “is ready to return to the States, but on the condition that he is given a guarantee of a legal and impartial trial.” (AFP, via Yahoo News.)

Not so fast –> Yesterday we linked to the NYT’s report that claimed Hillary Clinton had violated federal records requirements by using a private email address for official State Department business. But Michael Tomasky reports an important little detail for The Daily Beast: “Those rules weren’t in place when she’s alleged to have broken them.”

Twice violated –> A young rape survivor sued the University of Oregon for improperly handling her complaint. Attorney Katie Rose Guest Pryal reports for The Chronicle of Higher Education that the administration “accessed the rape survivor’s therapy records from its counseling center and handed them over to its general counsel’s office to help them defend against her lawsuit. They were using her own post-rape therapy records against her.” This, it turns out, is legal because of a loophole in the state’s medical privacy laws.

Counterintuitive –> Yesterday the House caved and passed a “clean” one-year spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security. While most commenters have painted the last week’s brouhaha as a sign of Speaker John Boehner’s weakness and/or incompetence, Jonathan Bernstein argues at Bloomberg View that it all went according to Boehner’s plan.

War on science –> The House may consider two new bills that could change the way the EPA uses science as a basis for environmental regulations. One, according to Emily Atkin at ThinkProgress, “would make it easier for scientists with financial ties to corporations to advise the agency, and would make it more difficult for scientists who have applied for grants from the EPA to join the [science advisory] board.”

Novel argument –> The push to loosen marijuana laws has come primarily from patients’ advocates and liberals and libertarians who see it as a crucial justice reform. But according to the Dallas Observer, a conservative Texas state representative, David Simpson, argues that “all that God created is good, including marijuana. God did not make a mistake when he made marijuana that the government needs to fix.” His bill would go further than several competing measures proposed by more progressive lawmakers.

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