News Nuggets 1239

DAYLEE PICTURE: An alligator in North Carolina.  From National Geographic.

Man with Ties to Boston Bombing Suspect Admits Role in 2011 Murders; Shot During FBI Questioning from NBC News
"Dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man — who was killed by the FBI on Wednesday — murdered three people in Massachusetts after a drug deal went wrong in 2011, law enforcement sources tell NBC News. Sources say that what began as a drug ripoff ended in a triple homicide when Tsarnaev and friend Ibragim Todashev realized their victims would later be able to identify them."

How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled (Paul Krugman) from the New York Review of Books
"...the case for austerity was and is one that many powerful people want to believe, leading them to seize on anything that looks like a justification. I’ll talk about that will to believe later in this article. First, however, it’s useful to trace the recent history of austerity both as a doctrine and as a policy experiment."

How Obama Handles Crisis (Jon Favreau) from the Daily Beast
"The handwringers and bed wetters in the D.C. punditocracy should know that Barack Obama will never be on their timeline, says his longtime speechwriter Jon Favreau."

Ben Bernanke to Congress: You’re Doing It Wrong (Daniel Gross) from the Daily Beast
"The Federal Reserve chairman has been working like a dog to keep the economy moving, he told Congress today, but they’re not pulling their weight. He's absolutely right."

Leaks, Privacy and Journalism (Paul R. Pillar) from the National Interest 
"The damage of leaks appears to be widely misunderstood, given how swiftly many commentators are brushing aside the issue of damage in the current case. Leaking of classified information significantly harms national security because it is awfully hard to run an effective national security operation if what stays secret and what becomes public is determined by any individual with an ax to grind or a personal agenda to push and enough of a wild streak to break the rules."

State of Play: Where the IRS Case Stands After 3 Hearings (Shane Goldmacher) from National Journal
"Despite the flurry of activity, some of the most basic details in the case remain foggy, including how exactly the targeting began, who began it, and how it was allowed to continue for so long. Both Democrats and Republicans want answers to those questions. And after more than a dozen hours of often contentious testimony, Republicans have yet to tie the targeting of tea party groups for extra scrutiny to President Obama and the White House."

She Has To Go (Josh Marshall) from Talking Points Memo
"Whether or not she should be fired for whatever she did in the scandal itself, deciding to take the fifth means she needs to be removed from her position."
YUP!

Sorry, Republicans — Nobody’s Getting Impeached (Gene Lyons) from the National Memo
"Sure, the Internet empowers crackpots. But it also enables in-house bloggers like Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein to bring facts and arguments into the online pages of the high-dollar press that could be censored out of the “mainstream” as recently as the Clinton administration. So nobody’s getting impeached on this tripartite nonsense, OK? Anyway, let’s take them one at a time:..."

Life Lessons in Fighting the Culture of Bullshit: What Politics Taught Me that Current Graduates Need to Know (Jon Lovett) from the Atlantic 
"One of the greatest threats we face is, simply put, bullshit. We are drowning it. We are drowning in partisan rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie; in industry-sponsored research; in social media's imitation of human connection; in legalese and corporate double-speak. It infects every facet of public life, corrupting our discourse, wrecking our trust in major institutions, lowering our standards for the truth, making it harder to achieve anything."

GOP Moderates Feud with Conservatives Over Stall Tactics on Budget (Lori Montgomery) from the Washington Post
"Long-simmering divisions among Republicans burst into public view Tuesday evening, when GOP moderates challenged tea-party conservatives on the Senate floor over their refusal to proceed to formal negotiations with Democrats over the federal budget."

Ted Cruz: ‘I Don’t Trust The Republicans’ from Talking Points Memo 
"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday defended his objection to initiating House-Senate budget negotiations unless Democrats take a debt limit increase off the table, saying he doesn't trust his party to hold the line. "The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don't trust the Republicans," Cruz said. "And I don't trust the Democrats.""
This guy definitely has his hand on the pulse of the GOP grassroots.  Glad to hear that he's considering running for president in 2016!

TORNADO NUGGET!!
A Tornado Chaser Talks About His Science and Craft from National Geographic
"Samaras, a National Geographic grantee known for getting instruments inside tornadoes to measure pressure and wind speeds, talked about what we still don't know about these devastating storms, why he chases them, and what he does in the off-season."

DEVASTATING BOOK REVIEW NUGGET!!
Ruthless Iran: Can a Deal Be Made? (Roger Cohen) from the New York Review of Books
"The eerie effort to whitewash the Islamic Republic in Going to Tehran is so extreme that it would be comical if it did not stray close to obscenity."

POTATO HISTORY NUGGET!!
So THIS is What Caused the Irish Potato Famine: Scientists Finally Identify Unique Pathogen that Caused the Blight from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"A strain called US-1 was long thought to have been the cause. Plant pathogen dubbed HERB-1 now identified as cause of Irish potato blight."