DAYLEE PICTURE: A Minke Whale in the Ross Sea southeast of New Zealand. From the Daily Mail of the UK.
President Obama Seeks to Leave Mark on the Bench from Politico
"The White House is eager to talk about its record of success, despite its complaints about long waits on confirmations that led Democrats to the nuclear option in the Senate. Obama has nominated, and the Senate has confirmed, more women, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and openly gay judges than any other president."
GOP’s Enron-esque Higher Ed Plan: Fire Tenured Faculty to Fund Student Dorms (James Cersonsky) from Salon
"In Gov. Tom Corbett's Pennsylvania, if it’s public and it’s education, burn it down!"
No Appetite for Another Obamacare Fiscal Battle from Politico
"Hill Republicans are starting to whip up their wish lists for the debt limit battle later this year. Missing from many of those lists: Obamacare."
New Obamacare Data: Just Enough Young People Are Signing Up from Talking Points Memo
"Obamacare has thus far done a decidedly mediocre job in getting young people signed up for health coverage -- though it's likely doing well enough that the law's finances should continue to work. For the first time Monday, the Obama administration released demographic data about the 2.2 million who have enrolled in private coverage through HealthCare.gov and its state counterparts. The top finding: 24 percent of them are between ages 18 and 34."
There has been a certain amount of hand-wringing around the number of young people registering into Obamacare. People need to chill out! These numbers really don't matter right now because their potential negative impact will not make any difference until 5 to 10 years from now. Check in with these numbers in three to four years. Don't obsess about them now.
Criminal Charges Not Expected in IRS Probe from the Wall Street Journal
"The officials said investigators didn't find the kind of political bias or "enemy hunting" that would amount to a violation of criminal law. Instead, what emerged during the probe was evidence of a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules about tax-exemption applications it didn't understand, according to the law-enforcement officials.""
Changing the Subject Won't Work (Jamelle Bouie) from the Daily Beast
"The conservative line on Bridgegate is to invoke Benghazi or the IRS scandal, but that doesn't make any sense. Here’s why."
Bridgegate Is a Disaster for the Republican Party, Too (Peter Beinart) from the Atlantic
"For the GOP to win in 2016, its candidate will have to win over people who dislike the party. Right now, Chris Christie is the only likely contender capable of doing that."
A Lesson for Chris Christie from Richard Nixon (David Frum) from CNN
"Can this combative politician recruit and run a team that understands better what is acceptable in political combat -- and what is not? ... Christie has a style and sensibility that has brought him far as a politician. He's just received a sharp warning that this style and sensibility will take him no further. Conflict is intrinsic to politics -- but conflict governed by rules, written and unwritten."
Chris Christie Presidential Campaign Now Even Deader (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"I did not suggest that the bridge scandal by itself killed an otherwise flourishing candidacy. My point was that the apparently healthy Christie proto-campaign is teeming beneath the surface with deadly flaws, all of which are worsened by the bridge scandal."
Who Does the GOP Really Have To Run Against Hillary in 2016? (Myra Adams) from the Daily Beast
"Even without Bridgegate, Chris Christie wouldn’t get the Republican nomination. That leaves a pack of conservatives vulnerable to Clinton."
OUR PUNDIT-OF-THE-DAY!!
Fox News Creating its Own Political Cult (James Bookman) from the Atlanta Journal Constitution
Bookman is so spot-on here. The most interesting aspect of what he describes here is how, over the long term, the Fox News cultists, many of them lawmakers and big name analysts and pundits, end up gutting their own political effectiveness and judgment. So long as FOX continues to lead large numbers of powerful people down this rat hole, their errors in the political arena will become bigger and bigger. As I have repeated here quite often, the party wins who is most in touch with reality -- and the GOP is running in the other direction right now.
"Fox viewers feel oppressed and victimized because they've been told they are being oppressed and victimized, and if facts have to be twisted and even fabricated to justify those sentiments, they and the network are clearly willing to live inside that warped reality. ... In effect, they're insisting that 2+2=46, then whining that they're being discriminated against when the outside world points out that no, it really doesn't, because 2+2=4. And if you go even further and build a cultish political movement around the idea that 2+2=46, using various contrived "facts" as evidence, you pretty much ensure that outsiders will begin to look upon you as the political equivalent to Scientology."
ROBOTS NUGGET!!
Real-Life Robot Wars! Meet the Invincible Cyborg Soldiers that can Fly, Run and Even Drive - and are Ready to Fight our Battles NOW from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
The videos here are very creepy.
"The droid future imagined in new film RoboCop is already taking shape. 'Throwbots' are small drones that can be propelled into skirmishes. Google's Schaft - which won the recent Robo-Olympics - can climb ladders Alpha Dog can walk for 20 miles without a break and carry up to 400lbs."
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