News Nuggets 1196

DAYLEE PICTURE: Lake Mary outside of Flagtstaff, Arizona.  From the Smithsonian Magazine.

UP-FRONT POLITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE NUGGET!!
Conservatism and the Demise of Human Events (Jacob Heilbrunn) from the National Interest
"It was Ronald Reagan's favorite newspaper. Now Human Events, a conservative stalwart publication for decades, has hit the skids. It will maintain an online "presence," as the saying goes, but no more print. Is it an omen of a larger conservative failure, or, to put it more precisely, the collapse, not just of moderate Republicans, but also the traditional establishment right?"
While this may seem like a small thing (print media has been tanking for years) but the dirty little secret about most of these publications (Weekly Standard, American Conservative, National Review, etc.) is that they have almost always operated at a loss; they rarely if ever have been profitable.  They were always sustained by conservative fat cats or right-wing foundations that were willing to cover the losses.  What's different now is that those fat cats and foundations have (seemingly) decided that these media outlets are no longer worth the expense.

The Emancipation of Barack Obama (Ta-Nehisi Coates) from the Atlantic 
"Why the reelection of the first black president matters even more than his election."

ObamaCare is No Longer Radioactive (Taegan Goddard) from The Week  
""Well, I think the ObamaCare attractiveness and feature was something we underestimated in a — particularly among lower incomes. And we just didn't do as — as good a job at connecting with that audience as we should have." It's an extraordinary admission because Republicans spent years trying to scare voters into believing that the law would wreck the country."
Bill Clinton predicted that it would go this way.  The irony is that over the next two years are when the most irksome (and most essential) elements of the program will actually kick in.

Jeb Bush Book: Undocumented Immigrants Should Be Ineligible For Citizenship (Elise Foley) from the Huffington Post
"It is absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences -- in this case, that those who violated the law can remain but cannot obtain the cherished fruits of citizenship," Bush and lawyer Clint Bolick argue in a new book, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution. "To do otherwise would signal once again that people who circumvent the system can still obtain the full benefits of American citizenship."
So much for Bush having some appeal to Hispanics in 2016.  This position is such a hyper-moralizing non-starter!

Need some evidence?
Jeb Bush’s Immigration Flip Flop Stuns Reformers from Talking Points Memo 
"The news stunned immigration activists and aides working on a bill and who have long insisted that anything short of citizenship is a dealbreaker for reform — especially given that Bush was decisively in the pro-citizenship camp just months ago. It also was a head scratcher for political observers, giving Bush an unexpected opening in 2016 to attack not only Rubio, but several possible presidential candidates, as overly liberal on immigration reform."

Republican Consultants Plot New Tech-Savvy Infrastructure (Michael Scherer) from Time Magazine
"...the day before the start of RootsCamp, an annual conference for Democratic digital, data and grassroots strategists that is held by a liberal non-profit group called the New Organizing Institute. What he found at the event came as a sort of revelation: A vast liberal brain trust bursting with young talent who had advanced far beyond Republicans in the art and science of using data, analytics and voter outreach. ... The first part of that ecosystem, for which incorporation papers were filed last week, will be called the Empower Action Group. It is envisioned as a conservative answer to the New Organizing Institute, a place for training and connecting young conservative talent." 
Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos is contemptuous of what the GOP is planning.  Here's his response.

Escort Says Menendez Prostitution Claims were Made Up from the Washington Post
"An escort who appeared on a video claiming Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) paid her for sex has told Dominican Republic police that she was instead paid to make up the claims in a tape recording and has never met or seen the senator before, according to court documents and two people briefed on her claim."
Curiouser and curiouser!  We'll have to see how this plays out.  The conservative outlet, The Daily Caller, originally broke the story on these prostitutes (5 days before the election).  They are under a LOT of heat today to substantiate the original story and they have reacted accordingly.

GOP Sniping Over 2012 Still Going Strong from Politico
"Four months after taking an electoral pounding, Republicans can’t agree on what went wrong in 2012 — let alone on a path to recovery. Each week brings a new diagnosis of the party’s woes."

Newt Gingrich Faces Reality, Admits Conservatives Were Out of Touch (Howard Kurtz) from the Daily Beast
"No more ripping gotcha questions—Gingrich now admits conservatives were ‘kidding themselves’ to think they’d beat Obama, while Ann Romney blames the press. Howard Kurtz on who’s out of touch."

Gingrich: “In the Real World We Were Kidding Ourselves” (Steve Kornacki) from Salon 
"Newt Gingrich talks to Salon about why he and his party were so wrong about the election and the future of the GOP."

Michelle Derangement Syndrome (Ari Rabin-Havt) from the Philadelphia Inquirer
"Is there a point where one’s political dislike becomes so engrained it seeps into a personal hatred that borders on psychosis? The first lady has endured four years of attacks not on political positions -- where criticism would be completely in-bounds -- but on her style, her weight, and her butt. The reaction to her appearance, by video, at last night’s Oscars ceremony demonstrates the depth of conservative delusion."