News Nuggets 1312

DAYLEE PICTURE:  An elephant in a zoo in Colorado.  From National Geographic.

U.N. Begins Process of Destroying Syrian Chemical Weapons (Daniel Politi) from Slate
"International weapons experts began what is expected to be a long, complicated process to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal as well as any machinery that can be used to create them, a United Nations official tells the Associated Press."

A New Type of Growing City: "This is Where the Talent Wants to Live" (James Fallows) from the Atlantic
"... the regional metropolis -- the place where people come to do their shopping, get their medical care, and in many cases pursue their business ambitions. Something similar is of course true of Burlington, Vermont: tiny by national standards, dominant within its state and much of the environs."

Vouchers Don’t do Much for Students from Politico
"Taxpayers across the U.S. will soon be spending $1 billion a year to help families pay private school tuition — and there’s little evidence that the investment yields academic gains."

How to Solve the Debt-Ceiling Crisis Forever (Joshua Green) from Bloomberg 
"The way out of the crisis for Boehner and Obama is to agree on a deal that allows a modest, face-saving concession to Boehner -- medical-device tax repeal? -- in exchange for reimposing the Gephardt Rule. True, Obama says he won't negotiate over the debt ceiling. But his rationale is that doing so would fatally weaken future presidents, who'd be shaken down every time a debt-ceiling vote approached. If such votes were eliminated, Obama would have nothing to fear--and this damaging showdown could finally come to a close."

Senate Dems to Call GOP’s Bluff on Debt Limit (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"Senate Democrats are planning to start the process this week for a Senate vote on a clean debt limit increase, sources tell me – a move that could call the bluff of Republicans in both chambers and force them to take a stand on whether they will allow default and economic destruction if Dems don’t accept their unilateral demands. The move has the backing of the White House, according to a source familiar with discussions."

GOP Unity Frays, Frustration Builds (Jake Sherman) from Politico
A reality is beginning to dawn on — and eat away at — many House Republicans: They aren’t at all sure of their party's strategy to re-open government and lift the debt ceiling. After forcing leadership to pick a fight it didn’t want to pick, sitting through hours of meetings with lots of internal hand-wringing and failing to force Democrats to negotiate, the path to avoid a prolonged government shutdown and the first debt default in American history is completely uncertain."

The 13 Reasons Washington is Failing (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post 
" The sooner we recognize that something is wrong with Washington, the sooner we can begin the hard work of fixing it. Here, then, are 13 of Washington's problems — ordered, subjectively, from small to big — and there are, of course, many more."

Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Political Parties (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"When it comes to major policy battles, since 2009 the GOP is 0-3. Before it fails again, David Frum offers up seven ways the party is shooting itself in the foot."

Shutdown: The Tea Party’s Last Stand (E.J. Dionne Jr.) from the Washington Post
"If the nation is lucky, this October will mark the beginning of the end of the tea party.  The movement is suffering from extreme miscalculation and a foolish misreading of its opponents’ intentions. ... Only now can we fully grasp that politics on the right has been driven less by issues than by a series of gestures. And they give up on even these as soon as their foes try to take what they say seriously."

Extremely Conservative and Incredibly Out of Touch (Kirsten Powers) from the Daily Beast
"Has the shutdown made the Tea Party go bipolar? Some of them want our pity; others are too busy celebrating to care about real people. Kirsten Powers calls for an end to the madness."

Republicans Still Have No Idea What They Want (David Graham) from the Atlantic
"With the Obamacare fight seemingly over, there's no one who can put forward a strategy and rally the party around it."

Democrats Deserve this Victory (Matt Miller) from the Washington Post 
"Trying to equate these mandates as a “fairness” issue is to assume the press and the public are idiots. Crafting a message that works only if people are idiots is a grim way to do politics — and deeply cynical. ... John Boehner may look tanned and rested, but the suave speaker has a Dorian Gray problem. Somewhere in the attic, his likeness in a painting is rotting.  There’s a wonderful poster from World War II in which Churchill exhorts British citizens to “Deserve Victory.” In this clash, Democrats do."

GOP Congressman: We Stumbled into War Over Obamacare (Byron York) from the Washington Examiner
"The crisis that House Republican leaders didn't see coming is now consuming them, with unpredictable consequences. "We're not in a situation that has been planned out and war-gamed and plotted, OK?" said the congressman. "We stumbled into a situation like Gettysburg that nobody planned, and all of a sudden each side is feeding more troops into it, and it's turning into a much bigger deal.""

GOP Shutdown Shenanigans Giving Dems a Big Recruiting Boost? (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"Rep. Steve Israel, who is in charge of winning House races for Democrats, told Dem lawmakers at a closed door meeting today that GOP shutdown shenanigans were giving Dems a big recruiting boost, by prompting reluctant Dem candidates to express renewed interest in running in very tough GOP-held districts."

The Boehner Bunglers (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"Conservative leaders are indeed ideologically extreme, but they’re also deeply incompetent. So much so, in fact, that the Dunning-Kruger effect — the truly incompetent can’t even recognize their own incompetence — reigns supreme."

Some Tea Party Congressmen Find Signs of Political Backlash at Home from the Washington Post
"Nearly three years after a band of renegade congressmen brought the tea party insurgency to Washington, there are early rumblings of a political backlash in some of their districts."

GOP Faces 20 Years in Desert Without DLC-Like Moderation (Morton Kondracke) from Roll Call
"What ideological purists — the anti-defense, anti-business, social liberal left led by Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader — did to the Democrats, their purist counterparts are doing to the GOP. These are the
pro-austerity, small-government, anti-immigrant, social conservatives led by Rush Limbaugh, the tea party, the Club for Growth and Heritage Foundation chief Jim DeMint. The purists are willing to default on the national debt, let student loan interest rates skyrocket, deny disaster aid to hurricane-hit communities, permanently alienate Hispanics — and defeat in primary elections Republicans who waver from the right-wing line."

GOP Rebels Scour the Back Pages of the Rule Book (David Hawkings) from Roll Call
"In competition of all kinds, it’s reliably true that folks on the losing side are far likelier to reach for the rule book — hoping some procedural wrinkle can be found to save them in time from a shortage of skill or good fortune. ... Lacking the legislative clout within their own party to win on the merits, at least on their own, these GOP quasi-moderates have been scouring the parliamentary back alleys for help advancing legislation to end the government shutdown with no strings attached."

Why The Shutdown Will Last Another Week (Matthew Yglesias) from Slate 
"...the government has to stay shut down all the way until the chaotic 11th hour of the debt ceiling which is still almost two weeks off. That means at least another week of stalling and posturing on the shutdown while various people lose access to important services."

Far-Right Republicans Could Hit A Tipping Point As Support Falters (Ashley Alman) from the Huffington Post
"Tension is brewing in the Republican Party as the federal government shutdown enters its seventh day and far-right members of the GOP show no sign of letting up."

Reid’s Silver Lining (Jessica Taylor) from MSNBC
"Sen. Ted Cruz’s hardline on the government shutdown is forcing Republicans to decide whether to embrace heated rhetoric ahead of the 2014 Senate primaries — music to Harry Reid’s ears. Republican primaries in states like Georgia, Alaska and North Carolina are turning into the kind of tea party-driven fights that put winnable races for the GOP in Democrats’ column the past two elections. And as the shutdown drags on and Republicans dig in on the debt ceiling, Republicans are only digging the hole deeper, endangering what should be their year to take back the Senate, with early warning shots that they could nominate candidates who will have a tough time winning a statewide election."

Shutdown Aversion: Republicans May Have Just Lost the House (Eleanor Clift) from the Daily Beast
"Boehner’s scrambling and the electorate says Republicans just aren’t acting rationally. Next year’s midterm elections may be a referendum on House management—and give Obama the Congress he wants."

Bill Ayers: I was Sarah Palin’s Road Kill (Bill Ayers) from Salon
Years of attacks didn't prepare me for the charge that Obama was "palling around with terrorists" -- meaning me."

DOG NUGGET!!
Dog are People Too from the New York Times
"FOR the past two years, my colleagues and I have been training dogs to go in an M.R.I. scanner — completely awake and unrestrained. Our goal has been to determine how dogs’ brains work and, even more important, what they think of us humans. Now, after training and scanning a dozen dogs, my one inescapable conclusion is this: dogs are people, too."