News Nuggets 1396

DAYLEE PICTURE: Mining operations near Berezniki, Russia.  From the Huffington Post.

Crimea, Credibility, and Intervention (Paul R. Pillar) from the National Interest
"... this conventional wisdom is one manifestation of a longstanding American tendency to view international politics as a single global game that pits the United States against sundry bad guys. ... One of the major flaws in this perspective is that much of import that happens in the world, including much that is violent or disturbing, is not the work of the United States and is not within the power of the United States to prevent."

America Plays its Role in a Changing World Right (Fareed Zakaria) from the Washington Post
"... he reflects the views of most commentators who believe that U.S. leadership consists of muscular rhetoric and military action; if only Obama would bomb someone somewhere, the world would settle down and stop changing."

Putin’s War (Fred Kaplan) from Slate
"Obama had no good options to stop the invasion. In fact, the only mistake the president made was ever suggesting there would be “consequences.”"

Putin’s Crimea Propaganda Machine (Oleg Shynkarenko) from the Daily Beast
"To justify its invasion of Crimea, the Kremlin and state-run media went into full fabrication mode this weekend. Here are the lies that Russia is telling its viewers back home."

A History Lesson That Needs Relearning (Sam Tanenhaus) from the New York Times
"The Cold War was less a carefully structured game between masters than a frightening high-wire act. ... Many decisions remembered today for their farsighted, tactical brilliance were denounced in their day as weak-willed. And big, public gestures often made less difference than the small, hidden ones."

From the Pyramid to the Square (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times 
"No palace will remain hidden by high walls, not even the giant one reportedly being built for Putin on the Black Sea. But people now can’t just see in, they can see far — how everybody else is living. And as Tahrir and Kiev demonstrate, young people will no longer tolerate leaders who deprive them of the tools and space to realize their full potential."

Putin’s Reckless Ukraine Gambit from Politico
"If Putin follows through on his threat to invade Ukraine, he will signal yet again that the post-Cold War era that began with the “Velvet Revolutions” of 1989 has ended. The damage to Russia’s relations with the West will be deep and lasting, far worse than after the Russian-Georgian war. Think 1968, not 2008."

How Far Will Putin Go? (Alexander Motyl) from Foreign Policy Magazine 
"Russia's leader is acting impulsively -- and full-scale war may be next."

The Collateral Damage of a Teenager (Jennifer Senior) from New York Magazine
"What adolescence does to adolescents is nowhere near as brutal as what it does to their parents."

Federal Budget Deficit Falls to Smallest Level Since 2008 from the New York Times
"Closing the books on a fiscal year in which the federal budget deficit fell more sharply than in any year since the end of World War II, the Treasury Department reported on Thursday that the deficit for 2013 dropped to $680 billion, from about $1.1 trillion the previous year."

Bridgegate Bombshell: 'I Feel Bad About the Kids... I Guess' (Pema Levy) from Newsweek
"Emergency tapes reveal how Chris Christie’s allies smiled as school children were trapped in George Washington Bridge traffic. ... "I feel badly about the kids," Kelly said. "I guess." (In the previously released exchange, it was not clear who made this comment.) "They are children of Buono voters," Wildstein said. A few days after the Fort Lee jam, Wildstein and Kelly exchanged more texts, joking about orchestrating a traffic jam.  "We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?" Kelly wrote."

A Tea Party Hangover (Michael Gerson) from the Washington Post
"The tone of some rhetoric on the far right — no mercy to enemies, no enemies to the right — was pressed to an abhorrent extreme by Ted Nugent, who called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel.” And almost all of the right (save Sarah Palin, who finally lost her long, sad struggle with ideological delirium) recoiled at such viciousness and bigotry."

The Dying Right: Why Christian Fundamentalists are in Panic Mode (C.J. Werleman) from Salon
"While they may believe the earth is a mere few thousand years old, they’re not complete idiots. They can read polls, and the data tells them this: millennials are abandoning religious belief. According to a recent Pew survey, one in four Americans born after 1981 hold no religious belief, which is nearly double the national rate of atheism."

How Conservatives Lost the Culture War (Damon Linker) from The Week 
"The triumph of gay marriage is rooted in the country's founding."

Welcome to the Country’s New Normal (Leonard Pitts Jr.) from the Miami Herald
"... if Democrats run her and if she wins, it would provide a useful lesson for a portion of the electorate badly in need of same. This temper tantrum, this screaming and crying and stamping of feet that now passes for dialogue on the political right, springs from nothing more or less than a denial of change, a refusal to accept the fact that you cannot squeeze the paste back into the tube, and that those who were once stuck in the closet, relegated to the back of the bus or kept in the kitchen have freed themselves from those constraints and will not go back again."

Why Jan Brewer Vetoed Arizona's 'Anti-Gay' Bill (Peter Beinart) from the Atlantic
"Just like the Democrats in 1984, today's Republicans are shifting power toward party leaders and away from grassroots activists. It didn't work then, and it won't work now."