News Nuggets 1297

DAYLEE PICTURE: Dolphins in the Red Sea.  From National Geographic.

Due to family obligations, the nuggets will not be posted every day until Thursday, September 12 -- although periodic posts may show up on occasion.

Syria and the Return of Dissent (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post 
"The debate over Syria is a jumble of metaphors, proof that every discussion of military action involves an argument about the last war. Yet beneath the surface, the fight in Congress over President Obama’s proposed strike against Bashar al-Assad’s regime is a struggle to break free from earlier syndromes to set a new course."

Iraq Hawks’ Flip-Flop (Ben Jacobs) from the Daily Beast
"They couldn’t wait to invade Iraq. Now they don’t want to go near Syria."

John Boehner May Save America After All (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"If Boehner wants to keep his job, he has to avoid displeasing his extremists, and his extremists are so detached from reality that they insist on wildly unrealistic demands on issues like the debt ceiling and Obamacare. But if Boehner feels liberated to flee the House, then suddenly all sorts of governing possibilities open up."

Sorry, Evangelicals, Syria Will Not Spur the Second Coming (Candida Moss) from the Daily Beast
"President Obama’s anticipated strikes against Syria have some on the Christian right proclaiming Biblical prophecy and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Easy there, writes scholar Candida Moss, we’ve been here before."

Years of Tragic Waste (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"... we would be a richer nation, with a brighter future — not a nation where millions of discouraged Americans have probably dropped permanently out of the labor force, where millions of young Americans have probably seen their lifetime career prospects permanently damaged, where cuts in public investment have inflicted long-term damage on our infrastructure and our educational system."

No Rate Shock? Obamacare Premiums Lower Than Expected from Talking Points Memo
"The main takeaway from an exhaustive new study of premiums on the Obamacare health insurance marketplaces: They’re generally going to be lower than expected, undercutting the persistent claims of “rate shock” by conservatives."

Obamacare Obstructionists Are Ironically Doing A Great Job Raising Awareness Of Exchange Navigators from the Huffington Post
"They may not like Obamacare, and they're working hard to sabotage it, but they're -- perhaps unwittingly -- helpfully informing the the public about all of the people standing at the ready to hook them up with health insurance."

Bill Clinton Does His Best to Sell Obamacare (Eleanor Clift) from the Daily Beast
"As President Obama’s signature policy victory faces a 21-state rebellion, the former president took it on himself to convince America it really, really needs the health-care law."

McConnell’s Anti-Obamacare Juggernaut Turns Against Him from Talking Points Memo
"Perhaps nobody was more responsible for making Obamacare a partisan bill than Mitch McConnell. During the grueling debate that began in 2009, the Senate minority leader worked harder than anyone else to ensure no Republican voted for health care reform. ... It’s far from clear conservatives will be able to defeat the well-funded incumbent. But if they succeed, McConnell will, in a way, have given life to the creature that brought about his own demise."

Planned Parenthood’s Rich Red-State Backers from the Daily Beast
"With his $1 million gift to Texas’s largest Planned Parenthood chapter, Ross Perot is just the latest in a long line of Texas conservatives quietly supporting family planning."

The Stranglehold on Our Politics (Elizabeth Drew) from the New York Review of Books
"... when the Republicans began their intense effort in the run-up to 2010 to take over state legislatures and draw districts free of serious Democratic challengers, they failed to anticipate that this would leave their members more vulnerable to challenges from the right. The fear of being defeated in local contests by even more radical Republicans has also taken hold in the state legislatures, which in turn affects the nature of the House."

Bad Bet: Why Republicans Can't Win With Whites Alone (Ron Brownstein) from the National Journal
"Obama lost key groups of white voters by the largest margins since the 1980s, but that doesn't mean Republicans can rely on whites to retake the White House."

GOP Dreads Prospect Of United Auto Workers Getting New Southern Foothold from the Huffington Post
"The prospect of the United Auto Workers gaining a new foothold at Volkswagen's plant in Tennessee worries some Southern Republicans, who say laws banning mandatory union membership have helped lure foreign automakers."

Jackson keeps GOP establishment at arm’s length in Va. lieutenant governor campaign from the Washington Post
"It's a virtually unheard-of forfeiture of resources for a statewide candidate. Jackson's team does not coordinate with the party, which has its own army of volunteers knocking and dialing on behalf of the entire ticket, which can lead to duplication of effort, the strategists said. Instead of using phone banks set up in the party's "victory offices" around the state, Jackson callers ring voters from home phones."
As we've been chronicling here lately, here's another below-the-radar story giving some indication of the depths of the alienation that lives within the GOP, even the most hard core of the conservative base.  Occasionally one sees the Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, or Sarah Palin come along who badmouths their party in public.  Those folks usually will still gladly take party resources -- but not here.  The fact this guy and his team think this is a winning strategy suggests that there is tremendous discontent at the party's grassroots level.