China has Not Replaced America — and it Never Will (Zack Beauchamp) from The Week
"China faces too many internal problems and regional rivals to ever make a real play for global leadership. And even if Beijing could take the global leadership mantle soon, it wouldn't. China wants to play inside the existing global order's rules, not change them."
While this may be true for the Chinese leadership, the problem is that, for decades, the Chinese leadership has created the expectation among the Chinese people that China WILL be a global player. The gap between the reality (as outlined in this article) and the expectation has the
potential of being a serious problem both for the US and for China's neighbors.
'Saudis, Israelis Developing New ‘Super Stuxnet’ Against Iran Nuclear Program' from rt.com
"Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Mossad intelligence division are co-conspiring to produce a computer worm “more destructive” than the Stuxnet malware to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, according to a report from the semi-official Iranian Fars news agency."
Virginia is for Lovers, Finally (Jamelle Bouie) from the Daily Beast
"A federal judge in Virginia strikes down the state's same-sex marriage ban. America's come a long way in eight years."
The Obama 8: Stories from the Prisoners whose Sentences Obama Commuted from Time Magazine
"TIME talks to five of the federal crack-cocaine offenders whose sentences were commuted by President Obama."
This is How Citizens United Dies from Daily Kos
"In the wake of the Citizens United case, critics of the ruling, which lifted prohibitions on direct campaign spending by corporations, raised the prospect of this allowing foreign nationals to influence US elections. Very serious people dismissed this trusting the our "robust" election laws would be up to the task of keeping foreign influence out of US elections. They were dead wrong."
The GOP’s Health Crisis (Eugene Robinson) from the Washington Post
"Oh dear. The Republican Party’s worst nightmare is coming true. Obamacare is working. ... Wednesday’s status report on the health-insurance reforms was by far the best news for Democrats and the Obama administration since the program’s incompetent launch."
GOP Wrong about Obamacare Again: How the Law’s Changed Life with Epilepsy (Elizabeth Stoker) from Salon
"I'll never love having epilepsy. But here's the story of how those who do can get treated -- thanks to the new law."
Obamacare: Economic Boon? (Joe Klein) from Time Magazine
"Duncan Black makes an argument that liberals haven’t emphasized nearly enough about the Affordable Care Act: that it could well be a shot in the arm for the economy. It is, in truth, a conservative argument–a freedom argument."
Snow Falls on Sunny Obamacare News Reports from Politico
"Obamacare got its first sunny headlines in months. But they were buried in snow. The news that the pace of enrollment in the health insurance exchanges had picked up after its lousy start earned the health law some of its most favorable coverage."
The GOP is Moving Backward on Gay Rights: So Much for that Big Rebranding Effort (Jon Terbush) from The Week
"Less than a year after the GOP launched a major rebranding effort, which was followed months later by the Supreme Court issuing two landmark rulings in favor of gay marriage, the Republican Party remains stuck at a crossroads on marriage equality. Though party leaders have indicated they want to move forward on the issue, some members are pulling the party back to a less tolerant time.
John Boehner’s Sunshine Band (E.J. Dionne Jr.) from the Washington Post
"Feb. 11, 2014, was , in fact, a wonderful day. It marked the end of a dismal experiment that saw the right wing of the conservative movement do all it could to make the United States look like a country incapable of governing itself rationally."
Biden: ‘There Isn’t a Republican Party’ from the Washington Post
""There isn’t a Republican party. I wish there were, I wish there was a Republican party. I wish there was one person we could sit across the table from and make a deal and make the compromise and know when you got up from the table that the deal was done," Biden said in remarks at the House Democratic policy conference being held here."
Cruz Senate Stunt Goes Unpunished as Old Tools Don’t Work from Bloomberg
"A growing group of Ted Cruz’s Republican Senate colleagues are infuriated with his tactics."
Monica Lewinsky, Reconsidered (Liza Mundy) from Politico Magazine
"Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul and the new politics of an old sex scandal. ... dropped into a modern context, the seemingly ancient episode maybe says more about the eternal mystery of what makes for a long-running marriage, especially the singularly fascinating—and impenetrable—Clinton union."
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