News Nuggets 1286

DAYLEE PICTURE: Two Red-Eyed Frogs from Indonesia.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

UP-FRONT DEMOGRAPHY & POLITICS NUGGET!!
California Republicans Turn to Immigration to Fight Extinction from Politico
"Already the California Republican Party is on the rocks: Democrats hold every statewide office and an unbreakable supermajority in both chambers of the state Legislature. It’s a situation top players in the state party say is the direct result of missing the demographic tidal wave before it hit — a lesson the national party should remember as they debate immigration reform."
THIS is the future -- and its coming way faster than predicted.  This is what is heading at the GOP nationally over the 6-10 years.

Obama and Egypt: The Limits of Pragmatism (John Cassidy) from the New Yorker
“Obama looks like a president in full flight from a world that looks nothing like what he imagined when he took office.”  That’s not a fair criticism. It isn’t that Obama is running away from the reality in Egypt, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries, or that he doesn’t have a coherent stance towards the region. He’s got a policy, and it’s the pragmatic, self-interested approach that the United States had adopted throughout the Middle East for decades until George W. Bush blundered into Iraq."

Secret Memo to Chinese Party Warns Against Western Ideas (Christopher Buckley) from the New York Times
"A document released to Communist Party cadres enumerated what it called subversive social currents, including Western-inspired notions of human rights, that must be fought."

Obama’s Snowden Dilemma (Scott Horton) from Harpers Magazine
"How will the Obama Administration handle Edward Snowden’s case in the long term?"

Glenn Greenwald Vows to Release UK Secrets After they Detained his Partner for 9 Hours from Raw Story
"The journalist who first published secrets leaked by fugitive former U.S. intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden vowed on Monday to publish more documents and said Britain will be “sorry” for detaining his partner for nine hours."
Ah, Greenwald, such a man of high principle!  I recall Assange expressing similar sentiments!  These and similar statements (in my view) reveal part of what's really going here (and with Snowden, Manning, and Assange).  All of them have had it in for the US gov't for years, and, when the heat is on, their response is to look for ways to further "damage" the US.  Principle gives way to the personal.  Rather than issue hubristic threats, he would have been wiser to adopt a slow-and-steady, unflappable position of principle.  But I guess it is too late for that.

America’s Thriving Cities, From Seattle to Boston (Brandy Zadrozny) from the Daily Beast
"With low unemployment, growing populations, and burgeoning economies, these are the top 20 urban capitals of American progress."

Why Jobs Go Unfilled Even in Times of High Unemployment (Amy Sullivan) from the Atlantic
"Companies say too many applicants just don't have the right skills. Partnerships between employers and community colleges are looking to fix that."

Stupid Is A Strategy (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"The idea of a common core disturbs a lot of people on the right not because they fear that it will lead to left-wing indoctrination — it’s far too bland for that — but because it could get in the way of right-wing indoctrination, which is what they believe schools should be doing."

Maybe the Sequester Wasn't So Overstated After All ((Alec Macgillis) from the New Republic
"Not long ago, the emerging Beltway consensus was that the impact of the budget sequestration that went into effect last spring had been wildly overstated. ... Well, just in the past few days there've been several dings in that happy complacency as more and more people—including at least one esteemed conservative—become aware of sequestration's real and unexaggerated consequences."

Business Groups Aren’t Too Happy About Tea Party Mania They Helped Unleash (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"Now that these conservatives are trying to drag Congress into multiple confrontations that could do untold economic damage, however, the groups that played such a big role in shaping this Congress are none too happy with the forces they helped unleash."

Graying Prisoners (Janie Fellner) from the New York Times
"MORE and more United States prisons resemble nursing homes with bars, where the elderly and infirm eke out shrunken lives. Prison isn’t easy for anyone, but it is especially punishing for those afflicted by the burdens of old age. Yet the old and the very old make up the fastest-growing segment of the prison population."

NYC's Disappearing Neighborhood Hospitals (Allison Kilkenny) from the Nation
"Since 2000, nineteen hospitals across the city have closed due to financial pressures—a number that could have even been higher had a judge not recently ordered Long Island College Hospital (LICH) in Brooklyn to resume services."

War on the Core (Bill Keller) from the New York Times
"... more and more, I think Gov. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s Republican rising star, had it right when he said his party was in danger of becoming simply “the stupid party.” A case in point is the burgeoning movement to kill what is arguably the most serious educational reform of our lifetime. I’m talking about the Common Core, a project by a consortium of states to raise public school standards nationwide."

Obamacare is Good for Young People. Here’s Why (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
"No one is young, healthy and rich forever, so health insurance is insulation against the inevitable."

Anti-Obamacare Rage, Once a GOP Hit, Fizzles Despite Town Halls (Jamelle Bouie) from the Daily Beast
"Heritage Action may be launching town halls against the health-care law, but the rage that fueled the Tea Party wave has died down—and even Republicans are starting to walk away, says Jamelle Bouie."

Dems’ Secret Budget Weapon (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post 
"Little-noticed wrinkle creates big leverage."

The Defund Obamacare Movement Falls on Hard Times from the National Journal
"The defunders try to drum up support on the road as potential allies say no sale."

Tea Party Groups to Target Skeptical GOP Senators on Defunding Obamacare (Aaron Blake) from the Washington Post
"A pair of tea party groups is teaming up to pressure key Republicans to support an effort to defund Obamacare.  Tea Party Patriots and the grassroots group For America are launching online ads against a dozen GOP senators who either oppose the effort or haven’t announced a position."

ANIMATED FILM NUGGET!!
Disney Animated Films: Best/Worst (Christian Blauvelt) from Entertainment Weekly
"From ''Snow White'' in 1937 to 2010's ''Tangled,'' a remarkable library of classics (but nobody's perfect...)."