Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1031

Kanye West Is the 'Nucleus' of Culture, Says Kanye West

In case you were wondering, Kanye West has no regrets, just "complete awesomeness at all times." His beautiful interview with The New York Times and its "Visionaries" series of sit-downs popped up on the paper's site Tuesday evening ahead of this Sunday's Arts & Leisure section. West, of course, has a new album due out next week, hence the long interview treatment. It's worth a read, though we've pulled some of the highlights below. 

On regret: As we said before, he has none of this. But does he have a conception of it? his answer: 

But has that instinct led you astray? Like the Taylor Swift interruption at the MTV Video Music Awards, things like that.

It’s only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It’s only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That’s all it is.

So no regrets?

I don’t have one regret.

Do you believe in the concept of regret?

If anyone’s reading this waiting for some type of full-on, flat apology for anything, they should just stop reading right now.

And, while West HAS apologized in a manner for his famous interruption of Taylor Swift in 2009 at the VMAs, his answer here shouldn't be surprising. His very much regret-less 2010 VMA performance was arguably the heart of his response to the incident: 

West kind of said as much in the Times interview, referring to the entire album it's from as his "long, backhanded apology" after the interruption damaged his reputation. 

On race: West, in hurricane Katrina's aftermath infamously said that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," prompting a bizarre apology force from Matt Lauer, who made West watch a video of the president emoting about his remark on television: 

While that incident wasn't directly addressed in the interview, West brought up institutional bias in a different context: 

You’ve won a lot of Grammys.

“[My Beautiful] Dark [Twisted] Fantasy” and “Watch the Throne”: neither was nominated for Album of the Year, and I made both of those in one year. I don’t know if this is statistically right, but I’m assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven’t won one against a white person.

On being the Michael Jordan of music: "You know, if Michael Jordan can scream at the refs, me as Kanye West, as the Michael Jordan of music, can go and say, 'This is wrong.'"

On having a good time: "Maybe 90 percent of the time it looks like I’m not having a good time." 

On minimalism and the new album:  "You know, this one Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration. I lived in Paris in this loft space and recorded in my living room, and it just had the worst acoustics possible, but also the songs had to be super simple, because if you turned up some complicated sound and a track with too much bass, it’s not going to work in that space...like I say, I’m a minimalist in a rapper’s body." 

That quote is already raising eyebrows: 

Kanye, the minimalist, who hired twenty superstars to sing nearly indistinguishable hooks on "All Of The Lights."

— Foster Kamer (@weareyourfek) June 12, 2013

On his baby: "Well, I just don’t want to talk to America about my family. Like, this is my baby. This isn’t America’s baby.

On getting dressed:

"You even see the way I dress now is so super straight.

Does it take you less time to get dressed now than it did five years ago?

Hell, yeah.

You look at your outfits from five or seven years ago, and it’s like —

Yeah, kill self. That’s all I have to say. Kill self."

On culture: "I am the nucleus."

       

Joe Biden Can't Believe Republicans Listen to 'Two Freshman Senators'

Joe Biden went nearly full Biden at a fundraiser for Democratic Representative Ed Markey tonight, covering everything from gun control to Al Gore to the "two freshman senators" that he just can't fathom anyone is really listening to. 

Biden's speech, as written up in the pool report by The Boston Globe's Matthew Viser, referred to the "gigantic chasm" between the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The vice president then added:

“I’m not talking about the character or even the quality of the minds of the people I’m going to mention. But the last thing in the world we need now is someone who will go down to the United States Senate and support Ted Cruz, support the new senator from Kentucky -- or the old senator from Kentucky. Think about this,” he said. “Have you ever seen a time when two freshman senators are able to cower the bulk of the Republican Party in the Senate? That is not hyperbole.”

Biden circled back to Cruz and — this time by name — Rand Paul while speaking about gun control: 

"I called 17 senators out, 9 of whom were Republicans,” he added. “Not one of offered an explanation on the merits of why they couldn’t vote for the background check. But almost to a person, they said, ‘I don’t want to take on Ted Cruz. I don’t want to take on Rand Paul. They’ll be in my district.’
 

“I actually said, ‘Are you kidding? These are two freshman,’” Biden added. “This is a different, party folks." 

Of course, Biden isn't the only more seasoned politician who seems to find Cruz's quick rise to prominence a bit baffling. In May, Republican Senator John McCain wasn't a huge fan of him, either. And Senator Harry Reid referred to Cruz as the "very junior Senator from Texas." 

Markey is running to fill John Kerry's Senate seat against Republican Gabriel Gomez. The special election is later in June. On Markey's chances, Biden was obviously optimistic. But he chose a characteristically strange way to phrase his concerns about the demographic challenges facing Markey in the special election, expressing his worries that without Barack Obama on the ticket, the senate hopeful won't "automatically" get turnout from "those legions of African Americans and Latinos."

Al Gore also spoke at the Markey fundraiser, at length about ... Joe Biden. Which might be because apparently Markey couldn't make it to his own fundraiser, due to a scheduling conflict with a live debate against his GOP rival. Gore said of his successor as VP, "when Joe talks sometimes people just have to listen." 

       

George W. Bush's Pre-PRISM Approval Rating Was Great

For the first time since 2005, George W. Bush's approval rating is higher than his disapproval rating, according to the latest Gallup poll. But that milestone could very well mark his peak rating, for now: the poll was conducted just before the NSA data tracking story broke. 

Bush, who ushered in the legal framework for a whole collection of post-9/11 surveillance programs, had a pretty good nostalgia campaign going, until last week. When Bush dedicated his presidential library in April, he pocketed a relatively respectful 47 percent approval rating from a Washington Post poll. Gallup's findings more or less mirrors the Post's earlier survey: 

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His approval rating climbed for members of all political parties (though it's still split pretty dramatically, grabbing 84 percent of Republicans, 46 percent of independents, and just 24 percent of Democrats), and mirrors the popular opinion rise experienced by most ex-Presidents, as Gallup explains. 

But the poll was conducted from June 1-4, just before the Guardian and the Washington Post broke a series of big stories on the NSA data collection programs — the first Guardian story came out on June 5. And while Bush doesn't and shouldn't bear responsibility for the Obama administration's continuation of the secret practices, they are, undoubtedly, part of his legacy. 

       

The NSA's Best Defense of PRISM Didn't Even Last a Week

Looks like surveillance defenders just lost their main talking point in defense of the NSA's (formerly) secret phone and data tracking programs: Najibullah Zazi, the would-be New York City subway bomber, could have easily been caught without PRISM. That's according to a devastating rebuttal from the Associated Press out Tuesday, which further explains that those employing the Zazi defense didn't even get the details right on the attempted plot in the first place. 

In case you missed the Zazi subplot in the massive NSA story that's been dominating headlines for the past week, a quick primer: Last Thursday, Representative Mike Rogers referred to an unspecified terrorist attack that was thwarted by the blanket surveillance programs revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post. That planned attack, it turned out, was Zazi's al-Qaeda backed pan to bomb the NYC Subway system. Defenders of the NSA programs, like Rogers, have been pushing that story ever since. For example, here's Sen. Dianne Feinstein on ABC's "This Week," talking about Zazi as a phone tracking success story: 

"The second is a man who lived in colorado, who made the decision that he was going to blow up a new york subway, who went to a beauty wholesale supply place, bought enough hydrogen peroxide to make bombs, was surveilled by the FBI for six months, traveled to go to new york to meet with a number of other people who were going to carry out this attack with him." 

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As the AP points out, it looks like Feinstein misspoke there. It's PRISM, not the phone tracking program, that officials are saying led to Zazi's capture, according to declassified documents addressing the investigation that were released in the wake of the NSA news last week. And it gets worse for Team NSA: even before Feinstein et al. took to the Sunday talk shows, many had already raised credible doubts about the necessity of PRISM in the Zazi investigation, including Adam Goldman, who co-bylined today's AP story: 

Let's be clear Operation Pathway in London uncovered email that thwarted Najibullah Zazi plot in 2009. Public docs available....

— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanap) June 7, 2013

Which brings us to the Associated Press takedown. Zazi, as Goldman and Matt Apuzzo explain, was foiled when officials intercepted an email to a Yahoo email address in September of 2009. It looks like they did use PRISM to capture the incriminating missive, but here's the thing: they didn't have to. Although 2007 and 2008 laws gave the FBI the go-ahead to monitor email accounts linked to known terrorists without a warrant, investigators would have easily gotten a warrant to monitor the account in question anyway: 

"To get a warrant, the law requires that the government show that the target is a suspected member of a terrorist group or foreign government, something that had been well established at that point in the Zazi case."

In other words, the Zazi plot does little to justify blanket surveillance of millions of phone and email accounts without a warrant, because authorities found the email address they needed without PRISM, and could have monitored that account without it, too. 

But, hey, NSA defenders are going to get at least one more big chance to mount a defense of the agency's massive data tracking programs: the ACLU filed suit against the NSA on Tuesday, claiming that the programs violate the First and Fourth amendments, along with Section 215 of the Patriot Act itself. Or, they could mount their new defense in response to one of the other pending lawsuits against them for PRISM-like programs, like the two pending lawsuits filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation before last week's news even broke. 

       

The Redskins Owner Paying Frank Luntz to Spin His Team's Name Can't End Well

Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder refused to give up his beloved team's name despite     

The 5-Minute Hater's Guide to Superman

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cellphone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

So Man of Steel is supposed to be okay. The Wire's entertainment department just went to go see it. The rest of us plebes can catch up on the original Christopher Reeve edition in the meantime. And while you're waiting online for the latest version, you might as well be that guy and talk about everything that's wrong with the first one:

Speaking of old movies, we do not condone or encourage you to actually use any of the movie compliments in the supercut herein. But we do encourage to watch the whole thing:

Ahhh, BRF. Otherwise known as Bitchy Resting Face, this is a real epidemic, folks. And sometimes the real victims are the ones who don't even know they have it. Maybe all they want is a hug?

And finally, the song of summer, Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," got a "chronological cover" on YouTube. Which basically means the song was adapted to styles and trends of different eras. Like the farther back you go, the more piano you hear — and that's sort of the reason why somewhere around the 1970s, this thing starts to sound damn close to amazing:

       

Turkey Declares 'No More Tolerance' as Police Try Again to Clear Out Protesters

The situation in Istanbul is escalating once again as riot police have brought back tear gas and water cannons to try and clear demonstrators out of Taksim Square. On Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan declared "no more tolerance" for the protestors who have taken over the square over the last two weeks, drawing a line between the more violent clashes in Taksim and the protestors in Gezi Park, who have generally been more peaceful. 

Erdogan has described the protesters as "marginal groups," "looters," and "extremists," even though his deputy suggested he was willing to meet with environmentalists who led the Gezi Park protests. However, he's shown no sign that he's willing to back down on plans to turn the park (one of the last public parks remaining in Istanbul) into a business development or give into any demands from rioters. 

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REUTERS/Murad Sezer

[image error]REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Sometime around dawn in Istanbul, hundreds of riot cops began descending on the square with massive water cannons, which were met by crowds wearing gas masks and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. Many of the protesters had erected barricades or created their own homemade riot shields to try and protect themselves from the larger police vehicles. Government officials also appeared to be upset by the demonstrators' decision to use a statue of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, Turkey's revered founder, as a centerpiece of their protests by covering it in banners. Erdogan thanked police for removing the "rags" from that statue and other nearby buildings.

Photographers and other journalists on the ground have managed to capture some incredible images of the conflict and we've gathered some of the most interesting ones below.

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Protesters taunt the riot police during a protest at Taksim Square in Istanbul June 11, 2013. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

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A protester catches fire as the throws a petrol bomb at riot police during a protest at Taksim Square in Istanbul June 11, 2013. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

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Protesters take cover behind a destroyed caterpillar during a protest at Taksim Square in Istanbul June 11, 2013. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

#AFP office working as tear gaz flies on #Taksim #Turkey @cerengemini @nicolascheviron yfrog.com/obx7gddj

— Karim Talbi (@KarimTalbi) June 11, 2013

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AP Photo/Thanassis Stavraki

VIDEO: RT crew teargassed as Istanbul burns in protests youtu.be/lI6r3kQZqO8 #occupygezi #occupyturkey #turkey

— RT (@RT_com) June 11, 2013

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A police vehicle fires water cannon to extinguish a fire of another vehicle after protesters threw a petrol bomb during a police operation to evacuate Taksim Square in Istanbul Tuesday, June 11, 2013. AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis

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A protester lays under a wheel of a police water cannon as other tries to pull out him during a police operation to evacuate Taksim Square in Istanbul Tuesday, June 11, 2013. AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis

#occupygezi protesters don #Turkey's most visible statue w/ flags hours after police move in w/ teargas to clear it twitter.com/wsjemre/status…

— Emre Peker (@wsjemre) June 11, 2013

       

The Leaker, the Dancer & the Neighborly Truth: Inside a Snowden Scavenger Hunt

Now that Edward Snowden is on the lam, exact location unknown, the curious have tracked down the NSA whistleblower's family, friends, and (possible) girlfriend to learn more. In the case of the latter, onlookers also seem interested in ogling photos of the acrobat and dancer rumored to be the woman Snowden left last month. 

While the frame of Snowden's biography is now pretty visible — grew up in Maryland, high school drop out, lived in Hawaii, fled his home (and his girlfriend) at the beginning of May for Hong Kong — no one has, perhaps, read quite as much into the details as David Brooks, whose New York Times column posted late Monday seems to imply that Snowden is the worst-case-scenario for those disengaged, dangerous Millennials: 

"He could not successfully work his way through the institution of high school. Then he failed to navigate his way through community college. According to The Washington Post, he has not been a regular presence around his mother’s house for years. When a neighbor in Hawaii tried to introduce himself, Snowden cut him off and made it clear he wanted no neighborly relationships. He went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton and the C.I.A., but he has separated himself from them, too."

"He is making everything worse," the columnist concludes, because "he betrayed his oaths." Brooks isn't alone in jumping head-first into the character war, either: as we noted earlier, Jeffrey Toobin already thinks Snowden is a "grandiose narcissist." Meanwhile, others are doing their best to make the whistleblower look as unlikeable as possible. 

Despite the sweeping conclusions, there's not a lot to go on. We've got Snowden's interview with the Guardian. We know he worked for Dell, and for Booz Allen (for a short time). He didn't finish high school, and was only in the military for a short time, too. We know, via a New York Times profile out late Monday, that Snowden used a Rubik's Cube to signal to his media contacts that it was OK to talk. But he didn't have a public online presence (surprise!) so there's not a ton in the public domain to troll for clues. His neighbors don't know much about him, either, though they're talking: 

Meanwhile, Inside Edition thinks they've located Snowden's girlfriend: Lindsay Mills, a graduate of Maryland College of Art who performs as an acrobat and dancer in Hawaii.

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Photo: Lsjourney

 Buzzfeed dug up her personal blog, where the most recent update (dated Monday) reads as follows: 

For those of you that know me without my super hero cape, you can probably understand why I’ll be refraining from blog posts for awhile. My world has opened and closed all at once. Leaving me lost at sea without a compass. Surely there will be villainous pirates, distracting mermaids, and tides of change in this new open water chapter of my journey. But at the moment all I can feel is alone. And for the first time in my life I feel strong enough to be on my own. Though I never imagined my hand would be so forced. As I type this on my tear-streaked keyboard I’m reflecting on all the faces that have graced my path. The ones I laughed with. The ones I’ve held. The one I’ve grown to love the most. And the ones I never got to bid adieu. But sometimes life doesn’t afford proper goodbyes. In those unsure endings I find my strength, my true friends, and my heart’s song. A song that I thought had all but died away, when really it was softly singing all along. I don’t know what will happen from here. I don’t know how to feel normal. But I do know that I am loved, by myself and those around me. And no matter where my compass-less vessel will take me, that love will keep me buoyant.

Her Twitter account's latest message shows a similar anxiety: 

To delete or not to delete. That is the question.

— Lsjourney (@lsjourneys) June 10, 2013

Also in her most recent post, Mills includes a video of a recent dance, called "Fish out of Water":

Buzzfeed flagged a photo of Mills with her boyfriend, only referred to as "E": [image error]

Photo: Lsjourney

The possibility that Mills is Snowden's girlfriend has caught on. And that's understandable — if it's true, it'd be quite possibly the most revealing personal detail about the 29-year-old behind the extraordinary leak of NSA practice. And while the "hero" or "villain" debate surrounding a figure like Snowden is inevitable, here's hoping that with the scavenger hunt comes even more discussion of the actual information he made public. 

       

The White House Gives Up on Limiting Emergency Contraception Sales

The Obama administration gave up their fight to keep age limits on sales of over-the-counter emergency contraception pill Plan B on Monday. This, effectively, means that women of all ages will soon be able to buy the Plan B "morning after" pill without an ID, something the FDA OK'd way back in 2011. This could mark the kind of quiet end to a years-long fight by the administration to keep age restrictions in place.

In 2011, the initial recommendation by the FDA to open up Plan B sales to everyone was, in an unprecedented move, overturned by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services. She kept sales limited to those over the age of 17, which eventually led to a lawsuit, which resulted in U.S. District Judge Edward Korman's decision in favor of lifting restrictions on sales. That decision, way back in April, ordered the government to make emergency contraception available to everyone within a month. Obviously, that didn't happen, and it looked like the administration had a pretty deliberate strategy for fighting the ruling. First, the FDA approved sales of the drug to women 15 and over, which conveniently meant that the plaintiffs of the initial lawsuit (who were all over the age of 15) could now buy the pill. While there's no proven cause and effect here, the well-timed ruling seemed to weaken the case's ability to reach further on the current restrictions. Then, just before the order was to go into effect, the administration officially appealed. They also asked the judge to allow the restrictions to stay in place until the appeal was decided. Korman declined. 

The New York Times notes that the administration's decision to drop the case was quite possibly an effort to avoid making the issue even more high-profile than it already is, based on their chances for an appeal: 

"The Justice Department appears to have concluded that it might lose its case with the appeals court and would have to decide whether to appeal to the Supreme Court. That would drastically elevate the debate over the politically delicate issue for Mr. Obama."

This is a big win for reproductive rights advocates, but it's far from the finale to the fight over emergency contraceptive access. Once Plan B does go on sale without a prescription, as the Associated Press notes, the debate could turn to making cheaper generic versions of the brand-name drug available without a prescription, too. 

Via the Washington Post, here's the full letter from the Department of Justice: 

Letter to Korman Re Compliance After Denial of Stay Rev Final Copy

       

Congress Disagrees on How Many Billions to Cut From Food Stamps

The Senate passed a farm bill today that would, among other things, cut food stamp and nutrition assistance programs by nearly $4 billion over 10 years. The bill now moves to the House, where conservatives are probably going to take a cue from Republican Senator Ted Cruz and fight for much deeper cuts to food assistance programs, which make up the bulk of the farm bill spending. Somehow, we're supposed to end up with one big compromise farm bill when this is all over. But how that'll happen is still up in the air. No matter what, though, the rhetorical fight will probably focus on food stamps.

The Senate vote was pretty bipartisan — 66 to 27 — but that's not likely to happen in the House, too. Many conservatives oppose the bill, which also addresses foreign aid, farm subsidies, and a host of other food-related spending measures, mainly because of the food stamp spending. A House version of the bill would cut spending there much more drastically, by $20 billion over 10 years.

For comparison, the Congressional Research Service has a chart showing the comparable ups and downs in funding for the House and Senate bills, side-by-side ("nutrition" is where you'll find food stamps cuts): 

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After the Senate vote, Cruz released a longer statement which raised some eyebrows for its reference to "the unchecked growth of food stamp entitlements and numerous other programs unrelated to farming" in a bill that contained some pretty big cuts to the food stamp program. Last year, the Associated Press explains, the House decided not to look at legislation on the farm bill due to election-year disagreements over how much they'd like to cut from the food stamp budget, a program which one-in-seven Americans now use. As the National Journal explained this weekend, those cuts might not even be enough for some representatives. 

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, agribusiness at least is apparently pretty happy with the portions of the bill that pertain to them, despite some big changes to the country's farm subsidy program.