News Nuggets 1378

DAYLEE PICTURE: A Sea Star at Pomene Estuary, Mozambique.  From National Geographic.

REACTIONS TO OBAMA'S SOTU!!
Live-Blogging The SOTU 2014 (Andrew Sullivan) from The Dish
"If he persists on healthcare and persists on Iran and persists on grappling, as best we can, with the forces creating such large disparities in wealth, he will look far, far more impressive from the vantage point of history than the news cycle of the Twitterverse sometimes conveys. This was True Grit Obama. And it was oddly energizing."

SOTU 2014: Relaxed, Good-Natured, and Pretty Effective (Kevin Drum) from Mother Jones Magazine
"Before the speech, the big buzz was about how Obama was going to focus on executive powers. ... But in reality, there was very little of that in the speech itself. Obama repeatedly used phrases like "if Congress wants to help me, they can _____" but very few of them sounded to me like
ultimatums. They sounded like pretty sincere desires to work with Congress, and I'm pretty sure that's how they came across to viewers who listened to the speech..."

Obama’s Toughest Job (Jeff Madrick) from the New York Review of Books 
"By making jobs the centerpiece of the speech, President Obama gave one of his best, most politically adroit State of the Union addresses."

GOP Ready to Surrender on Debt Ceiling from Politico
"The reason for the shift in dynamics in this fight is clear. Congress has raised the debt limit twice in a row without drastic policy concessions from President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats, essentially ceding ground to Democrats."

Principles? What Principles? (Bill Keller) from the New York Times 
"To help appreciate the president’s speech, let’s take a preliminary visit to that citadel of reason, the Republican Party."

Obama and the One Percent (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"... there’s a danger, especially for progressives, of confusing the proposition that Obama’s billionaire haters are stark raving mad — which is true — with the proposition that Obama has done nothing that hurts the plutocrats’ interests, which is false. Actually, Obama has been tougher on the one percent than most progressives give him credit for. ... So the one percent does have reason to be upset. No, Obama isn’t Hitler; but he is turning out to be a little bit of FDR, after all."

Snow Job: It's Time to Blow the Whistle on Edward Snowden (Edward Lucas) from Politico
"In judging the action of whistle-blowers, three criteria apply. They must have clear and convincing evidence of abuse. Publishing the information must not pose a disproportionate threat to public safety. And the leak must be as limited in scope and scale as possible. Snowden failed all three of these tests."

The GOP is Ignoring its Right-Wing Base (Dana Milbank) from the Washington Post
"Conservative activists who brought Republican lawmakers to power are feeling betrayed."

Colleges Are Failing Their Biggest Group of Students (Lila Selim) from the Atlantic
"Adults who are juggling school, kids, and jobs aren't getting the support they need."

The New Nullification Movement (Ari Berman) from the Nation
"Some states are reviving disenfranchisement schemes that date back to the antebellum South."

Two Attacks on Hillary Clinton That Won't Work (Marc Ambinder) from The Week
"Both attacks have superficial plausibility. But if they're the best that Republicans have, then Clinton is an even stronger presidential candidate than she appears to be."

We Need a New Supply-Side Economics. Here Are 8 Things We Can Do (Josh Barro) from Slate
"These are policies that would would encourage more investment and job creation while supporting rises in standards of living for people with low and moderate incomes. In most cases, these policies don't have to wait: They could be implemented today, alongside demand-side policies that are still needed for now, such as emergency extended unemployment insurance."

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH NUGGET!!
Gallup Poll Finds Democrats More Compassionate; Republicans More Psychopathic from the Huffington Post
"Clearly, selfish fears swept concerns on the Republican side, whereas concerns for others (and especially the weak) swept concerns on the Democratic side."

HOUSING NUGGET!!
Could YOU build a flatpack house? Home in a box costs just £6,500. But is it really as easy to build as an IKEA bookcase? We gave one brave dad a week to try from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"So when I heard that a British company has begun selling a flat-pack mini-house, which is said to be as easy to assemble as an Ikea bookcase, I couldn’t resist the challenge."