Barely keeping up with the news-of-the-day, its more difficult to flesh-out stories that are more analytical; nevertheless,

an effort will be made to again focus on the BHO Scandal-Sheet. [This answers a thought-experiment, inasmuch as it consumed four hours merely to excerpt e-mails that had arrived during the prior eight; this yields hope that the focus will be maintained on Scandals, Middle East, Harrisburg, and stuff-potentially-overlooked.] Illustrative of the ability of social-pressure to achieve conflict-resolution is the news-flash that Senators have reached a tentative deal on averting the constitutional showdown over confirming President Obama's agency nominations; this preserves the filibuster. First, consider exploring a website that aggregates the-most-important-things-learned-from-a-movie, then note that there are apparently six-types-of-atheist, and then absorb a Nerd/Geek Joke: Einstein, Newton, and Pascal are hanging out one afternoon. Einstein is bored, so he suggests, "Let's play hide-and-seek. I'll be it!" The others agree, so Einstein begins counting. "One... Two... Three..." Pascal runs off right away to find a place to hide. But Newton merely takes out a piece of chalk and draws a mid-sized square. He finishes and steps into the square just as Einstein shouts, "Ready or not -- here I come!" Einstein looks up and immediately spots Newton standing right in front of him. He says, "I found you, Newton!" Newton replies, "No, you found one Newton per square meter -- You found Pascal!"

LEIBOVICH'S WASHINGTON TAKEDOWN, 'THIS TOWN,' OUT TODAY -- Daniel Akst has a review this morning for Bloomberg BusinessWeek titled, "Leibovich's Portrait of D.C. Cesspool Will Make Cynics Cringe": "The title might as well be, 'Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.' Instead the book is called 'This Town,' but it's a tour of hell nonetheless -- an infernal vision of the U.S. capital as a cesspool of greed, vanity and spinelessness. And unlike Dante's version, this one isn't even a cautionary tale. On the contrary, Mark Leibovich's new book about Washington depicts a hell in which the inmates fight tooth and nail to remain in the place, glued to the Potomac and one another by easy money and mutual regard. A veteran reporter for the New York Times, Leibovich gives us a portrait of the capital so dark it makes Hieronymus Bosch look like David Hockney. Written more in snark than in anger, the book is consecutively delightful, exhausting and finally revolting. It's hard to believe anyone will be shocked to learn that Washington is awful or that the big money flowing through town nowadays dissolves principles as effectively as scotch melts ice. Yet Leibovich's dismaying chronicle of four and a half years -- from June of 2008 through Barack Obama's second inauguration -- in the life of 'This Town' will make even hardened cynics cringe."
Iran. As Russia and China Blocked U.N. Condemnation of Iran Sanctions Violations and Iranian Naval and Maritime Strategy has grown increasingly expansionistic, Israel is worried/wary while Europe will remain anti-Israel [Israel Condemns New EU Guidelines that Ban Cooperation Beyond Pre-1967 Lines, EU Bars

and Israel: New EU Directive Shows "How Disconnected" thus, will BHO [finally] act if its true that [finally] U.S. Fears Iran Will Secretly Develop Nuclear Bomb? {The U.S. is concerned that Iran would be able to deceive the West and develop a nuclear weapon "under the radar," and it is no longer certain that it would be able to learn of Ayatollah Khamenei's intentions to that effect ahead of time. A senior Western source told Shlomo Cesana (Israel Hayom) on Sunday that Tehran's accelerated uranium enrichment efforts and its multiple secret enrichment sites were cause for concern.} This is a prcis of an essay in the WSJ (by Daniel Nisman):
Cooperation with Jewish Settlements in West Bank Europe Has Become]; Israel Has Launched Long-Shot Attacks Before

Last week, Israel's outgoing ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's willingness to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons to the challenge faced by former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in May 1967. On June 5, 1967, Eshkol sent most of Israel's air force into Egypt for a surprise preemptive attack, which left less than a dozen planes to defend the entire homeland. In the six days that followed, Israel defeated multiple threatening Arab armies, changing the face of the Middle East to this day. Since the Six-Day War, successive Israeli leaders have signed off on daring operations after becoming convinced that even their staunchest allies would not come to their assistance. These include the 1976 hostage rescue in Entebbe, Uganda; the bombing of Saddam Hussein's Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981; and the attack to spoil Bashar al-Assad's own nuclear ambitions in 2007, to name a few. Netanyahu views Iran as an existential threat comparable to the Nazi Holocaust. Sources close to the prime minister assert that he keeps in his desk drawer World War II-era letters from the U.S. War Department, which decline requests to bomb gas chambers at Auschwitz. On July 14, Netanyahu commenced a widespread public and back-channel diplomacy campaign to re-rally Israel's allies to commit to both a convincing military threat and additional economic sanctions against Iran. Many Israeli pundits, as well as Oren himself, have compared Netanyahu's diplomatic push to Eshkol's last-ditch efforts to convince Washington of the existential threats posed by Arab nations in the weeks before June 5, 1967.

Meanwhile, The Israel Defense Forces report Hizbullah now has 60,000 rockets (all accumulated under the U.N.s watch) as Palestinians Protest Against Normalization with Israel and a Palestinian was Convicted of Stabbing Murder of Israeli. Bret Stephens commented on efforts to maintain the status-quo by The Boring Palestinians. Egypt. Although Arab Economic Aid Helps Egypt Avoid Reforms, it is felt that The U.S. Should Not Suspend Aid to Egypt's Army; this explains why Israel Allows Two More Egyptian Infantry Battalions into Sinai. Yesterday, there were Seven Dead in Cairo Clashes; By this morning, Egyptian authorities had arrested more than 400 people over last night's clashes. Also, the US reopened Cairo embassy as the special envoy arrived. Syria. Pro-Assad gunmen killed Syrian mediators in Homs; Syria mortar fire hits Israeli-occupied Golan.
The Syrian morass now includes recognition that "Islamist militants with links to al-Qaida attacked Free Syrian Army supply depots in northwestern Syria over the weekend in a bid to seize weapons and equipment, underscoring a growing divide between moderate and jihadist rebel forces in their shared struggle to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The increasing tension calls into question President Barack Obamas decision to send money and weapons to Syrian opposition groups, which are now openly fighting one another as well as Assads regime. 'This ought to undersco re the danger to Obama administration officials of going down that path and providing aid to the insurgency,' Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior foreign policy fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation."

Ambassadorships. BHO hands out plum ambassador posts to 19 big campaign donors.
*

Martin/Zimmerman. As the media fanned racism [AP STILL REFERRING TO ZIMMERMAN AS 'WHITE' and UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PROFESSOR claims AMERICAN GOD A 'WHITE RACIST'] and more interviews of family [e.g., Zimmerman's Parents in Hiding from 'Enormous Amount of Death Threats'] and juror* [Zimmerman had right to defend self, Screams Were Zimmerman's, Zimmerman should not have followed Trayvon Martin, Race Played No Role, and jury initially split 3-2-1 on verdict] were scored, more reaction to the verdict went-public [akon-and-nfls-roddy-white-are-mad and Cong. Lewis claimed Zimm Acquittal Justifies Stalking and Killing Innocent Black Boys] and violence persisted [Rally Shuts Down Major Intersection In Newark, LAPD vows crackdown and White jogger beaten]. Meanwhile, a consensus view emerged that Federal Criminal Charges Against George Zimmerman Face High Hurdle, but Dershowitz claimed Zimmerman Can Sue Fla. Prosecutor for Murderer Statement [even as Zimmermans lawyers suggested he might seek compensation from the prosecution] and Rush claimed Liberals Throwing 'Temper Tantrum' Over Verdict. [* - The Juror is dropping plans to write a book about her account of the controversial case.] These messages of this case have been compiled: Huge racial gap among Zimmerman trial followers. Overall, 56 percent of African Americans say they were following the trial "very closely," while 20 percent of whites said the same. That racial gap ranks among the highest when it comes to major racial incidents in America over the last two-plus decades. Aaron Blake in The Washington Post. How the media might have helped George Zimmerman go free. There is extensive research literature on what social scientists call "pretrial publicity" or PTP[P]ublicity leaves high-profile defendants worse off. But more recent research has looked at "positive PTP," or pro-defendant coverage, which has a similar but opposite impact[A]lternating exposure to positive and negative coverage had the net effect of making study participants more likely to favor the defendant. "The point-counterpoint presentation resulted in a pro-defendant (or pro-acquittal) bias," the authors conclude. Dylan Matthews in The Washington Post. SALETAN: You are not Trayvon Martin. Everywhere you look, people feel vindicated in their bitter assumptions. They want action. But that's how Martin ended up dead. It's how Zimmerman ended up with a bulletproof vest he might have to wear for the rest of his life. It's how activists and the media embarrassed themselves with bogus reports. The problem at the core of this case wasn't race or guns. The problem was assumption, misperception, and overreaction. And that cycle hasn't ended with the verdict. It has escalated. William Saletan in Slate. COATES: Martin and the irony of American justice. It is painful to say this: Trayvon Martin is not a miscarriage of American justice, but American justice itself. This is not our system malfunctioning. It is our system working as intended. To expect our juries, our schools, our police to single-handedly correct for this, is to look at the final play in

the final minute of the final quarter and wonder why we couldnt come back from twenty-four down. Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic. SUNSTEIN: Reasonable doubt is central to Zimmerman verdict. Reasonable doubt is far more difficult to meet than other legal standards, including "preponderance of the evidence" (used for most civil trials), "clear and convincing evidence" (used for deportation proceedings) and "substantial evidence" (used for administrative agency decisions). To be sure, any doubt must be "reasonable"; the law doesn't require absolute certainty. But a good defense lawyer is often able to obtain an acquittal even if most jurors essentially agree with the prosecution's account of the facts. Cass R. Sunstein in Bloomberg. CAPEHART: Trayvon Martin and the stolen youth of black children. What this means is that black adolescents cannot afford to be normal American teenagers. They cannot experiment with pot. They cannot fight in any way ever, even if it means protecting themselves from a stranger. They cannot take sophomoric pictures with middle fingers, bare chests or in silly gear. They can't have improper conversations on social media. They can't wear anything society views as menacing. And growing up, they can never ever make bad choices or mistakes -- the types that teach life lessons, foster humility and build character. Jonathan Capehart in The Washington Post. COBB: What hasnt changed in post-racial America. A cursory glance at the history of race in the U.S. shows that the moments of great advancement are accompanied by terrible setbacks, a social equivalent of the boom-bust cycle in economics. In the spring of 2007, as Obama's campaign showed the first fragile possibilities of success, enthusiasm among blacks evolved in tandem with a seldom-voiced understanding that his election wouldn't resolve the question of race, only complicate it[T]he conundrum that confronts millions of young black men: the dual fears of crime and of those in society who can only see them as the embodiment of it. Jelani Cobb in Bloomberg. Zimmerman Verdict Was Outrageousand Correct First, based on the state's laws and
the prosecutors' case, Zimmerman should not have been convicted of anything. And second, "the killing of Trayvon Martin is a profound injustice."

Jason Riley: Race, Politics and the Zimmerman Trial. The left wants to blame black criminality on racial animus and 'the system,' but blacks have long been part of running that system. Clarity from William Saletan reinforcing this theme: Stop Insisting that Every High-Profile Legal Decision Vindicates Your Worldview!: The 911 dispatcher who spoke to Zimmerman on the fatal night didn't tell him to stay in his car. Zimmerman said he was following a suspicious person, and the dispatcher told him, "We don't need you do to that." Chief prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda conceded in his closing argument that these words were ambiguous. De la Rionda also acknowledged, based on witness and forensic evidence that both men "were scraping and rolling and fighting out there." He pointed out that the wounds, blood evidence, and DNA didn't match Zimmerman's story of being thoroughly restrained and

pummeled throughout the fight. But the evidence didn't fit the portrait of Martin as a sweet-tempered child, either. And the notion that Zimmerman hunted down Martin to accost him made no sense. Zimmerman knew the police were on the way. They arrived only a minute or so after the gunshot. The fight happened in a public area surrounded by townhouses at close range. It was hardly the place or time to start shooting. That doesn't make Zimmerman a hero. It just makes him a reckless fool instead of a murderer. In a post-verdict press conference, his lawyer, Mark O'Mara, claimed that "the evidence supported that George Zimmerman did nothing wrong," that "the jury decided that he acted properly in self-defense," and that Zimmerman "was never guilty of anything except protecting himself in self-defense. I'm glad that the jury saw it that way." That's complete BS. The only thing the jury decided was that there was reasonable doubt as to whether Zimmerman had committed second-degree murder or manslaughter. In court, evidence and scrutiny have exposed difficult, complicated truths. But outside the court, ideologues are ignoring them. They're oversimplifying a tragedy that was caused by oversimplification. Martin has become Emmett Till. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is using the verdict to attack Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which wasn't invoked in this case. The grievance industrial complex is pushing the Department of Justice to prosecute Zimmerman for bias-motivated killing, based on evidence that didn't even support a conviction for unpremeditated killing. Zimmerman's lawyers have teamed up with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, inadvertently, to promote the false message that Zimmerman's acquittal means our society thinks everything he did was OK. ObamaCare. Even Unions Are Turning negative. John Goodman recapitulated problems: ObamaCare Is the Problem, Health Savings Accounts Are the Solution, Health Insurance Costs Set for a Jolt, ObamaCare Will Worsen the Physician Shortage, Covering Pre-Existing Conditions in a Market-Driven Health System is problematic, and Exchanging Medicaid is a Better Option. NSA. NSA Chief's Attitude may be to Forget Needle and simply Collect Haystack, but Snowden's surveillance leaks open way for challenges to programs' constitutionality. It has been argued that The War on Terror is a war on American freedom because, from reauthorizing the Patriot Act to waging war on whistleblowers, Obama's civil liberties record has been even worse than Bush's. Although Putin wants Snowden to leave Russia, Snowden officially applied for asylum in Russia. Immigration Reform. Judicial Watch has published a new report exposing BHO's conspiracy to grant backdoor amnesty to illegal aliens; it includes a four year timeline of evidence. Meanwhile, immigration Security Push Chafes Border Lawmakers. Jobs. Mortimer Zuckerman: A Jobless Recovery Is a Phony Recovery. Pennsylvania. District Justice William Wenner will decide if the case against six men accused of trading gifts and
campaign cash for Pennsylvania Turnpike contracts can proceed to court. The National Journal published the following observation: Ex-Rep. Marjorie Margolies (D) garnered a ton of attention earlier this year when she launched a comeback bid 18 years after leaving Congress. But despite all the fanfare and her connections to the Clintons and other prominent Democrats, Margolies' path back to Capitol Hill isn't exactly clear: she raised the least in the second quarter of the four Dems running to replace Rep. Allyson Schwartz.