News Nuggets 1338

DAYEE PICTURE: The Ward Charcoal Ovens near Ely, Nevada.  From National Geographic.

The South’s New Lost Cause (Timothy Egan) from the New York Times
"... what is distressingly similar today is how the South is once again committed to taking a backward path. By refusing to expand health care for the working poor through Medicaid, which is paid for by the federal government under Obamacare, most of the old Confederacy is committed to keeping millions of its own fellow citizens in poverty and poor health. They are dooming themselves, further, as the Left-Behind States."

Nine Reasons the Filibuster Change is a Huge Deal (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
"The filibuster now exists in what you might call an unstable equilibrium. It theoretically forces a 60-vote threshold on important legislation. But it can — and now, in part, has —been undone with 51 votes. Its only protection was the perceived norm against using the 51-vote option. Democrats just blew that norm apart. The moment one party or the other filibusters a consequential and popular bill, that's likely the end of the filibuster, permanently."

Harry Reid, Constitutionalist (James Fallows) from the Atlantic
"Whichever party controls the government has to be able to govern. Our checks-and-balances system, crafted in the demographic and political realities of 18th-century, 13-state, slave/free, Eastern Seaboard America, and in many ways showing its age, did not ever contemplate a permanent blocking minority in the Senate as one of the regular "checks.""

The Nuclear Option and Bipartisan Fantasies (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"The initial wave of reaction to Harry Reid’s swift limited-nuclear-option strike in the Senate — shameless bipartisan hypocrisy from Republicans and Democrats who argued the opposite position eight years ago — has given way to a different sentiment: the mournful cries of the Establishmentarians. Now that the filibuster has been scaled back, what will happen to comity? Tradition? The Constitution? The dinner-party scene in Georgetown?"

Senate’s Filibuster Rule Change Should Help Obama Achieve Key Second-term Priorities (Zachary A. Goldfarb) from the Washington Post
"The Senate vote Thursday to lower the barriers for presidential nominations should make it easier for President Obama to accomplish key second-term priorities, including tougher measures on climate change and financial regulation, that have faced intense opposition from Republicans in Congress."

Harry Reid’s Gambit (Manu Raju) from Politico
"When the seismic moment finally came, shell-shocked senators in both parties couldn’t believe that Reid pulled the trigger — and were grasping to understand the far-reaching ramifications. ... a high-stakes gambit that could have enormous implications for future presidents, reshape an institution he’s served in for 26 years, and ultimately define Reid’s legacy as one of the longest-serving Democratic leaders in history — one with a penchant for bare-knuckled tactics."

Why The Filibuster Change Is Fantastic News For Obama from the Talking Points Memo
"Obama's second-term agenda largely runs through the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which often has the final word on matters of White House and executive branch authority. That's the strongest tool Obama has to still get things done, because as long as Republicans control the House, his legislative agenda isn't going anywhere. The Senate rules change clears a path for the president to confirm his three stalled nominees to vacancies on the conservative-leaning court, and make it less hostile to his executive actions."

Boom! What the Senate Will be Like When the Nuclear Dust Settles (Sarah Binder) from the Washington Post
"Will GOP senators retaliate by blowing up every remaining bridge in sight? This has historically been a viable threat that has undermined majorities’ efforts to go nuclear.  But such retaliation clearly did not dissuade Reid and his colleagues from going forward.  As he said on more than one occasion, how much worse can the Senate get?"

Nuclear Fallout: The Real-World Consequences Of Senate Filibuster Reform from the Huffington Post
"As for the future, with an ascendant multicultural coalition making Democrats the favorites in 2016, Republicans are looking at the possibility of more than a decade of Democratic lifetime judicial
appointments, which could go a long way toward Democrats winning back control of the judicial branch after decades of being outmaneuvered by better-organized conservative legal scholars."

The Right Fight for Obama and Democrats (Jonathan Capehart) from the Washington Post
"Use of the “nuclear option” sends a clear message about President Obama’s second term."

The Right-Wing Attack Machine Was Made For Moments Like This (Jason Sattler) from the National Memo
"This is exactly why former TV producer and Nixon operative Roger Ailes created a nationwide “conservative” news network. This is why right-wing “think tanks” spend millions creating and disseminating talking points. This is how Republicans won a massive landslide in 2010, as America was in the midst of a Great Recession, two wars and record deficits—all things a Republican president had led us into."

Cancer survivor: Obamacare Got Me Covered (Lori Greenstein Bremner) from CNN
"I was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia as a college student. After nearly five years of aggressive chemotherapy, immunotherapy, bone marrow harvests and more, I was cancer-free. My cancer has never returned, but since then I have waged a battle of a different kind -- a three-decade struggle to obtain quality, affordable coverage."

KENNEDY ASSASSINATION NUGGET!!
'FLASH PRESIDENT DEAD': How News Of The JFK Assassination Broke In Real Time from the Huffington Post
"To watch the coverage of the Kennedy assassination 50 years later is to see just how raw and unformed so many parts of the news media that we now take for granted were, and to marvel at the ways in which our technology has utterly transformed our relationship to current events."

C.S. LEWIS NUGGET!!
C.S. Lewis, our Guide to the Good Life (Michael Gerson) from the Washington Post
"Any writer finds reading Lewis a joy. He wrote so lucidly on such a range of topics, from medieval literature to modern education to church music to nuclear war. But for some of us, Lewis’s arguments also involve a sudden, jarring reorientation of perspective."