News Nuggets 1253

DAYEE PICTURE: A chilled-out kangaroo.  From National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest.  See the last nugget in today's posting for more spectacular images!!

UP-FRONT FOOD & POLITICS NUGGET!!
GOP Aide Goes on Popsicle-fueled Right-wing Publicity Stunt in Favor of Cutting Food Stamps (Laura Clawson) from Daily Kos
All in one, this is hilarious, deeply disturbing, and quite revealing! 
"Where two dozen Democratic members of the House did a SNAP challenge themselves, eating on the average food stamp budget for a week, Stockman had an aide do the challenge and then announce that it's a breeze, no problem, we can totally cut the program. ... Well, let's take a look at what Stockman communications director and master of the universe Donny Ferguson bought as his entire food supply for a week:..."

The Dilemmas of Cold Fish Diplomacy (Daniel W. Drezner) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"In practice, of course, it's worth remembering that Tony Blair was both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush's closest friend on the global stage.  Those friendships produced... mixed results.  So maybe, in the end, this is a big bunch of nothing."

IRS Scandal’s Origins Become Clearer Amid Other Questions (Richard Rubin) from Bloomberg News
"The origin of the U.S. tax agency’s scrutiny of small-government groups is becoming clearer as lawmakers release transcribed interviews with IRS workers."

On Glenn Greenwald and His Fans (Rick Perlstein) from the Nation
"Here’s the thing: I suspect Perlstein, Charles Pierce, Dave Niewert and I—to mention the commenters here I’ve actually met—could have a spirited exchange about these issues, maybe even change each others’ minds somewhat. That can’t happen with Greenwald, whom I’ve never met, becuase the FIRST thing he does out of the box is accuse anyody who disagrees with him of bad faith. That not only makes him a poor advocate, it weakens one’s trust in his reporting.” He’s losing friends. Soon, his friends, and his luck, may run out."
I think Perlstein is WAY too harsh on Obama in this piece, (Ah, it is so easy being president!) -- but he's on the money when it comes to Greenwald.

Silver vs Politico (Andrew Sullivan) from The Dish
"The distortive effect of Politico actually corrodes democracy, in my view, because it constantly prioritizes the 6-hour news cycle and the higher inside-bullshit to tell us allegedly what is happening in
Washington. We can mistake that for what matters in Washington for the 300 million people it’s supposed to represent."
Politico is not alone in this -- I see all the news cable networks as the worst offenders in this area.

Autopsy On GOP Social Issues Is ‘Grossly Overstated’ Say GOP Lawmakers from Talking Points Memo
"Republican lawmakers have a message for those who want the party to soften its emphasis on social conservatism in hopes of reaching a wider national audience: Not so fast. ...  The actions reflect a roiling debate among Republicans over why they lost two elections to President Barack Obama, and how best to rebuild a winning formula."

The GOP's Clueless Caucus from Politico
"No matter what the party leadership is up to in a given month, there’s almost invariably a back-bencher in the House of Representatives or a C-list player out in the states who’s only too eager to take the wind out of a conservative comeback with some incendiary comment that seizes national attention."

Today’s GOP vs. Tomorrow’s GOP on Immigration (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"As the immigration vote nears, writes Michael Tomasky, Republicans face a stark choice: between the present-day wishes of GOP legislators and the party’s future national hopes."

Phil Gingrey, In DOMA Speech, Says Children Should Take Classes On Traditional Gender Roles from the Huffington Post
"Gingrey is also the latest of several prominent Republicans to suggest that children suffer when their mothers don't fit traditional gender roles. Fox News pundit Erick Erickson recently lamented the fact that many women are the primary breadwinners in their households and said that "kids most likely will do best in households where they have a mom at home nurturing them while dad is out bringing home the bacon.""
Believe it or not, I actually do agree with at least element of what Gingrey is arguing here: that boys and young men need to get the message to take their "father" roles very seriously and with a long-term, deep commitment. Erikson's sputtering is just the latest form of Eisenhower-era mis-rememberance.  

CRIMINAL JUSTICE NUGGET!!
The Guilty Man (Pamela Colloff) from Texas Monthly
"The jury regarded him with what appeared to be both sympathy and
fascination. One of the many strange aspects of The State of Texas v. Mark Alan Norwood was that at no point during the eight-day trial would the jurors hear that Michael himself had previously been found guilty of the crime, or that he had spent nearly 25 years behind bars."

DOMESTIC ABUSE NUGGET!!
My Mom was an Underground Railroad for Abused Women: What She Taught Me About Feminism and Fear (Haley Elkins) from XOJane
Once, my mom spotted a bruised woman with three children holding a cardboard sign in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It was pouring down rain. I was seven. “Stay in the car,” she said, locking me in."

URBAN DECLINE NUGGET!!
The Indiana Town that May be Cut in HALF to Save it From Destitution from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Ghost town of Gary plans to demolish neighborhoods and sell decaying homes for $1 to combat crippling depression.  Gary was once the centre of the country's booming steel industry .  Mayor is now trying to come up with a drastic solution to save the city.  Economic competition from abroad forced a 90 percent job cut."

NATURE PHOTO NUGGET!!
The Most Spectacular Wildlife Photos From The National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest from Buzz Feed Animals
"The world is amazing. You can see all the entries over at National Geographic."

The Galactic Squid

News Nuggets 1252

DAYEE PICTURE: Jökulsárlón Beach in Iceland.  From National Geographic.

Iran President-Elect Wants to Ease Strains With U.S., but Sees No Direct Talks from the New York Times
"In his first news conference after winning Friday’s presidential election promising more freedoms and better relations with the outside world, Mr. Rowhani called the issue of nonexistent relations between Iran and the United States “an old wound, which must be healed.”"

The U.S.-Russian Information Gap (Paul J. Saunders) from the National Interest
"Spats on Syria at the G-8 highlighted how the Western and Russian media have different interpretations of the same world."

After Slow Start, Obama Administration Finds its Voice on Surveillance (Michael Crowley) from Time Magazine
"After a stunned, fumbling response to Edward Snowden’s leaks, a clearer defense of NSA and FBI programs."

Snowden’s Questionable New Turn (David Firestone) from the New York Times 
"In the last few days, however, Mr. Snowden’s leaks have taken a questionable turn. He told the South China Morning Post that the United States had hacked into many Chinese computer systems, including those at universities and businesses. And yesterday he showed documents to the Guardian revealing that the N.S.A. and its British counterpart had spied on politicians from around the world who attended the 2009 G-20 summit in London.  These documents are of a different and more dubious order than the first ones."
Another Julian Assange.

As I said...
Echoes of Julian Assange in Edward Snowden’s Latest Comments (Zeke J Miller) from Time Magazine
"Both men suggest that much, if not all, American spying abroad is wrong, including the spying on allies and foreign leaders that perhaps every government has practiced for decades, if not centuries."

Cummings Releases Full Transcript of IRS Screening Manager Interview (Jed Lewison) from Daily Kos
"So now we know why Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa didn't want to to release the full transcripts—they show everything he's been saying is bunk."

IRS Official: White House Was Not Involved In Targeting Of Conservative Groups from the Huffington Post
"Interviewers also asked Shafer if he told his screeners to specifically pull Tea Party cases. "Again, I was not asking them for those kind of cases," he said. "[I]f I would have directed them to pull our Tea Party cases, little Susie's Tea Party would have been pulled and it wasn't.""

Immigration Reform Seen Cutting Billions From Deficit from the New York Times
"A long-awaited analysis by the Congressional Budget Office found that the benefits of an increase in legal residents would outweigh the costs."

The Need to Feed The Crazy will Cost the GOP (Jonathan Bernstein) from the Washington Post
"Could the Republican need to obsessively oppose Obamacare, even if the alternative is something that they themselves would regard as improving it, run smack into the priorities of their allies — and leave clergy, of all groups, paying the price?"

Mitch McConnell’s Not-Very-Threatening Filibuster Threat (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"McConnell’s counter-threat is notable for a couple reasons. First, he is not promising to respond in kind to Reid, but to escalate. ... Second the frightening specifics of McConnell’s threat turn out to be … not very frightening:"

Why Democrats Are Already Jumping Aboard the Hillary Clinton Bandwagon (Josh Kraushaar) from National Journal
"Claire McCaskill's endorsement was a bow to reality: Democrats don't want to challenge Clinton in 2016."

ACADEMIA NUGGET!!
Is There a “Liberal Bias” in Academia? from Salon
Sociologist Neil Gross dispels the myth that college campuses are overrun with lefty East Coast intellectuals."

News Nuggets 1251

DAYLEE PICTURE: An Eastern Screech Owl in Georgia.  From National Geographic.

Heavy Pressure Led to Decision by Obama on Syrian Arms from the New York Times
"...when Mr. Obama agreed this week for the first time to send small arms and ammunition to Syrian rebel forces, he had to be almost dragged into the decision at a time when critics, some advisers and even Bill Clinton were pressing for more action. Coming so late into the conflict, Mr. Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome, but privately expressed hope it might buy time to bring about a negotiated settlement."

The Security-Industrial Complex: The Culture of Secrecy in Washington has Become Absurd (David Rohde) from the Atlantic
"An odd thing is happening in the world's self-declared pinnacle of democracy. No one -- except a handful of elected officials and an army of contractors -- is allowed to know how America's surveillance leviathan works."

The U.S. Should Help Mideast Moderates (David Ignatius) from the Washington Post
"What is America’s strategy in the Middle East? That question is more urgent as the Obama administration finally moves to arm the Syrian opposition. The United States needs a framework that connects its policy in Syria with what’s happening in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and elsewhere in the region."

The Martyr’s Cause (Anne Applebaum) from Slate
"Edward Snowden wants to be seen as a martyr. But is he?"

What Sweden Can Tell Us About Obamacare (Robert Frank) from the New York Times
"They have spent their lives under a system in which most health care providers work directly for the government. Like economists in most other countries, they tend to be skeptical of large bureaucracies. So if extensive government involvement in health care is indeed a recipe for doom, they should have clear evidence of that by now. Yet none of them voiced the kinds of complaints about recalcitrant bureaucrats and runaway health costs that invariably surface in similar conversations with American colleagues."

When Work Disappears (Megan McArdle) from the Daily Beast
"It's impossible to look at what's happening to the bottom half of American society and not worry.  ...  Some of it is economic, the disappearance of steady employment that allows people to do the bourgeois work of planning for the future.  ... A community cannot insist that its members work hard and plan for the future if there are no jobs available; the resulting erosion of work and education ethics makes unemployment worse. "

On Civil Liberties, Comparing Obama With Bush Is Easy — And Mostly Wrong (Joe Conason) from National Memo
"... anyone paying attention has known about this program since 2006, when USA Today first disclosed its existence. The most important difference today is that Americans are no longer too frightened by the constant “terror alerts” of the Bush administration to consider the boundaries of surveillance and security.  Rather than hyping the terrorist threat, like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, President Obama has repeatedly framed a calmer — if equally resolute — attitude toward Islamist extremism."

Evangelicals to GOP: Don't Betray Us on Abortion from Politico
"...social conservatives in town this weekend for the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference said the GOP would be making a grave mistake to ignore the hot-button culture-war issue. To the contrary, they believe it’s key to the party’s fortunes in the 2014 midterms and beyond."

GOP’s John McCain Problem (Jonathan Bernstein) from Salon
"The reason he still speaks for them on foreign policy: They hate substance and literally have no other "experts""

Poll: America’s Confidence in Congress Falls to Record Low from Time Magazine
"A new Gallup poll shows that just 10% of Americans have confidence in Congress, the lowest among any institution since 1973."

From Fox News to Rush: Secrets of the Right’s Lie Machine from Salon  
"Conservative media plays by its rules, and bends truth to back whatever argument they’ve decided to make that day."

House GOP Revolt Against Immigration Reform Begins (George Zornick) from the Nation
"... lurking in the background is an even more difficult fight in the House, where the Republican caucus is much more hostile to reform. House members are beholden to smaller, more conservative districts, and there are no leaders calling for reform analogous to Republicans Marco Rubio and John McCain in the Senate."

The Fringe Factor: Rape Still Won't Get You Pregnant (Caitlin Dickson) from the Daily Beast
"Rape still won't get you pregnant, Obama owes Oklahoma an apology for spending on climate change research, and other bold statements from our fearless political leaders this week."

The Grand Old Party is Stuck on Stupid (Crystal Wright) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"After losing the 2012 presidential election the "GOP establishment" from former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich and every white man in between acknowledged that the party must make "the tent" more welcoming to minorities and women – where the votes increasingly are. So what does the GOP do? It keeps headlining white men behaving badly."

Speaking of "stuck on stupid" -- case in point:
W.Va. Backlash Emerging Over Education Standards from the Associated Press via the Intelligencer Wheeling News Register
"West Virginia is sticking with new standards for math, reading and writing in public schools, but faces opposition fueled by the tea party movement, which believes the benchmarks are part of an attempted federal takeover of local education authority."
This is nutty ON SO MANY LEVELS!!  God forbid that your kids should read at a certain level by the time they reach fourth grade!!  What do you mean trying to force my child to develop subversive skills like ... critical thinking!?

The Not-So-Good Old Days (stephanie Coontz) from the New York Times 
"The idyllic 1950s and ’60s? Wages went further, but rights and opportunities for many were severely limited."

SUCCESSFUL LIFE NUGGET!!
A Call for a Movement to Redefine the Successful Life from the New York Times
I was intrigued when I was told that a conference was being held on the very issue of redefining success. And, separately, that American Express had recently released a study showing that Americans were thinking of success in different ways than in the past. “The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money & Power” was the conference presented last week ..."

News Nuggets 1250

DAYLEE PICTURE: A Grey Squirrel in Saint James Park in London.  From the Atlantic.

As will sometimes be the case this summer, the Nuggetsman will be on the road Friday -- so the next posting will be on Monday.

UP-FRONT FOREIGN POLICY NUGGET!!
China is Not the World’s Other Superpower (Fareed Zakaria) from the Washington Post
"China is the world’s second-largest economy and, because of its size, will one day become the largest. (On a per-capita basis, it is a middle-income country, and it might never surpass the United States in that regard.) But power is defined along many dimensions, and by most political, military, strategic and cultural measures, China is a great but not global power. For now, it lacks the intellectual ambition to set the global agenda."

U.S., Citing Use of Chemical Weapons by Syria, to Provide Direct Military Support to Rebels from the Washington Post
"The United States has concluded that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in its fight against opposition forces, and President Obama has authorized direct U.S. military support to the rebels, the White House said Thursday."

My “Faith” In Obama (Andrew Sullivan) from The Dish
"... judging political events in real times does require some grip on the character of those in office, and the inevitable compromises that requires, and I remain an admirer of Obama’s temperament, pragmatism and small-c conservatism. And I don’t think that abstract ideological issues can ignore the role of human beings and their prudential judgments over time. A conservative will always recognize that there is no substitute for character in political leaders and that representative government requires some basic form of – sorry – minimal trust if it is to function at all."

The Tragic Fall of the White Race in America (Josh Marshall) from Talking Points Memo
"Let’s not mince words. It’s hard being a white person in America. I hadn’t noticed this but that’s what everyone seems to say. So I was struck when a group of stories came together today in what seemed like a serendipitous way. ... There are now enough non-white people in America and just as critically enough whites who are either at least comfortable or even welcome being in a multiracial party and country, that the electoral calculus has changed. And that’s a really good thing."

Some on the Right Going Too Far in NSA Criticism (Michael Gerson) from the Washington Post
"It is one thing to oppose the policies of the administration; it is another to call for resistance against a “regime” and a “police state.” It is the difference between skepticism about government and hatred for government. And it raises the question: How is it even possible to love such an Amerika?"
It is almost too late for any kind of rational conversation between sane GOP types like Gerson and the main Tea Party currents that represent the base opinion of the Republican Party.  Given the firestorms of partisan rhetoric that are blowing through the right-wing alternative universe right now, Gerson's admonitions will fall on deaf ears.  I have very little concern that either the Benghazi breakdowns, the IRS scandal, the AP press story, or now the NSA surveillance story will substantively impact the course Obama has set.  This is NOT because there aren' things to criticize or to find major fault with.  No -- it's because Obama's critics are more connected with their dark anti-gov't fantasies than they are with reality -- even at the highest levels of gov't.  It's like asking clowns in brightly-colored diapers to teach advanced calculus.  There's just way too much distraction in the space to take what they say seriously. See the following as a case in point.

Darrell Issa's IRS Investigation Is Falling Apart (Joshua Green) from Businessweek
"...after a burst of attention, Issa’s investigation appears to have stalled. ... The news this week that he won’t release the full transcripts of his interviews with IRS officials—interviews he selectively quoted from to imply White House complicity—suggests that what they contain may in fact exonerate the administration of the very charge Issa is laboring so hard to prosecute."

Edward Snowden’s Misplaced Idealism (David Ignatius) from the Washington Post
"... maybe he would argue that he’s answering to a higher moral code, or that Congress and the courts are wrongly interpreting the Constitution. These claims will be tested in the coming debate, but we should be wary about endorsing any contention that it’s okay to violate laws because you’re acting on higher authority."

Unpaid Internships on ‘Black Swan’ Violated the Law. So Are They Dead? (David Freedlander) from the Daily Beast
"A judge for the Southern District of New York ruled Wednesday that Fox Searchlight violated the law by not paying interns on ‘Black Swan.’ David Freedlander on whether unpaid internships are on their way out."

North Carolina Is the New Wisconsin (Ari Berman) from the Nation
"Like in Wisconsin, a homegrown grassroots resistance movement has emerged—and grown rapidly—to challenge the drastic right-wing agenda unveiled by Republicans in the state. Just like the Koch brothers backed Scott Walker, the Koch’s billionaire ally and close associate Art Pope funded North Carolina’s Republican takeover in 2010 and 2012."

Three Signs Republicans Haven't Learned Any Lessons From 2012 (Josh Kraushaar) from National Journal
"After last year's drubbing, Republicans vowed to change their ways. But as 2013 wears on, they’re sticking to the script that got them in trouble."

CLASSIC MOVIE NUGGET!!
Cruising Through Town He Put on the Map from the New York Times
"For the past hour, Mr. Lucas had served as the grand marshal of a classic-car parade, the highlight of this city’s annual three-day American Graffiti Car Show festival, which took place last weekend."

News Nuggets 1249

DAYLEE PICTURE: A newly discovered species of Tree Frog in Mozambique.  From National Geographic.

Obama and Xi at Sunnylands: A Good Start from the Brooking Institution 
"... the two leaders appear to have genuinely connected in a positive way during their eight hours together. ... On specific issues, Obama and Xi appear to have had the most agreement on North Korea: on the strategic dangers posed by Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, and on the need to fully enforce the resolutions of the UN Security Council to create pressure on the North ..."

Analyst Overstated Claims on NSA Leaks, Experts Say from the Los Angeles Times
"... analysts said that Snowden seems to have greatly exaggerated the amount of information available to him and people like him. Any NSA analyst "at any time can target anyone, any selector, anywhere," Snowden told the Guardian. "I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email." Robert Deitz, a former top lawyer at the NSA and CIA, called the claim a "complete and utter" falsehood.."

On the NSA, “This Is Bullshit” (Andrew Sullivan) from The Dish
"If you read one commentary on the meta-data gathering by the US government, do yourself a favor and read David Simon’s. The creator of “The Wire,” he is not exactly unversed in the intricacies of government power, police work and, er, surveillance. And he, even more than I, is baffled by the tsunami of self-righteous indignation."

The Civil-Liberties Freak-Out (Joe Klein) from Time Magazine
"Unaccustomed as I am to agreeing with Marc Thiessen, hell has frozen over and he’s on the right track about the National Security Agency–leaks nonscandal. First of all, we pretty much knew everything that has “broken” in the past week. The NSA has been involved in a legal data-mining operation for almost a decade."

Snowden is No Hero (Jeffrey Toobin) from the New Yorker
"These were legally authorized programs; in the case of Verizon Business’s phone records, Snowden certainly knew this, because he leaked the very court order that approved the continuation of the project. So he wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety. The question, of course, is whether the government can function when all of its employees (and contractors) can take it upon themselves to sabotage the programs they don’t like. That’s what Snowden has done."

Edward Snowden’s Grandiosity (Matt Miller) from the Washington Post 
"... has the history of abuse of power, and the special danger from such abuses in an age in which privacy seems to be vanishing, leave you hailing any exposure of secret government methods as grounds for sainthood? There are people I respect who say Snowden is a hero. I think they’re dead wrong."

Russia Says It Would Consider Asylum For Edward Snowden from the Huffington Post
Another great civil liberties bastion heard from!
"Russia would consider granting asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday. ... Snowden has not made any requests for asylum yet, but Peskov told Russian newspaper Kommersant, "If such an appeal is given, it will be
considered.""

Obama's Immigration Dilemma: Leading While Following (Frank James) from NPR's It's All Politics
"His challenge is to show just enough presidential leadership on an issue he campaigned on but not so much that he fires up those opposed to him on general principle, the Senate immigration legislation or both."

Making History: President Obama’s Female Judicial Nominees from the Alliance for Justice
"President Obama has the best record of any President in appointing women to the federal judiciary.
His historic firsts include: * President Obama is the first President to appoint two women to the Supreme Court. Because of those appointments, three women sit on  the Supreme Court for the first time in its history. * Forty-two percent of his appointees have been women – a rate almost double that of President George W. Bush (22%) and almost fifty percent greater than that of President Clinton (29%).  * President Obama already has appointed more female federal judges that President George W. Bush did in his entire presidency (80 to 71)."

North Carolina Punishes Owners of Gas Efficient Cars (Daniel Gross) from the Daily Beast
"It’s hard to see why else the state would propose a measure to lay a special tax on owners of hybrid and electric cars, writes Daniel Gross."
Breath-taking.   It is this kind of in-your-face irrational nihilism that almost guarantees that young people (who as a group are deeply concerned about global warming) will continue to turn away from the GOP.

Michelle Obama Is Reveling in Her Lame-Duck Status as First Lady (Michelle Cottle) from the Daily Beast
"She’s out confronting hecklers, showing off new moves with Jimmy Fallon, skipping Chinese summits—Michelle Obama, ambivalent and buttoned up in her first term, is finally free, says Michelle Cottle."

SAD PUNDIT NUGGET!!
All Good Things... (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"Unfortunately, family and personal matters must claim my attention for some time to come. ... Yet as I dim the lights here at the FrumBlog, I note that the intellectual project of conservative reform remains still at very early days. Here are five essential tasks to commence before conservative reform truly rolls forward."
Just what the world doesn't need right now -- one less highly intelligent, pragmatic THINKING conservative.  I will miss his voice for as long as he is away.

MOVIE NUGGET!!
Hannah Arendt On The Big Screen from NPR's On Point program
"Hannah Arendt’s political theory rocked the 20th century with “the banality of evil.” A new movie looks at the life and mind of Hannah Arendt."

News Nuggets 1248

DAYLEE PICTURE: The Sanduki region in the Khakassia Republic in Russia.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

Inside the NSA's Ultra-Secret China Hacking Group (Matthew Aid) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Deep within the National Security Agency, an elite, rarely discussed team of hackers and spies is targeting America's enemies abroad."

PRISM Program: Obama Administration Held 22 Briefings For Congress On Key FISA Law from the Huffington Post
"Obama administration officials held 22 separate briefings or meetings for members of Congress on the law that has been used to justify the National Security Agency's controversial email monitoring program, according to data provided by a senior administration official."

Snowden and the Right (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Conservatives may lionize Edward Snowden now, says Michael Tomasky, but ultimately his actions are going to tear apart the GOP."
Concerning the NSA leaker, rarely have I seen so much misguided media hype!!  So many now seem to be hailing Snowden as one of the great "whistle-blowers" of all time!  He says he became "disenchanted" with the scale and depth of NSA data-gathering.  Am I missing something?  The man just did a massive data dump and fled to ... Hong Kong!?  Not Switzerland.  Not Paris or some other established haven for civil libertarians.  Why Hong Kong?  You have to ask yourself: why would the Chinese grant protection to an intelligence leaking martyr?  Answer: they wouldn't.  The LAST thing Chinese authorities would want is for anyone on their side to do what Snowden has done.  However, they WOULD grant protection to one of their own spies.  I do not know if Snowden is a spy -- but I find it interesting that virtually no one seems to be bringing more skepticism to Snowden's story!

I am in error.  There are a few looking deeper:
NSA Bombshell Story Falling Apart Under Scrutiny; Key Facts Turning Out to Be Inaccurate (Bob Cesca) from the Daily Banter
"It turns out, the NSA PRISM story isn’t quite the bombshell that everyone said it was. Yes, there continues to be a serious cause for concern when it comes to government spying and overreach with its counter-terrorism efforts. But the reporting from Glenn Greenwald and the Washington Post has been shoddy and misleading."

Inside the ‘Q Group,’ the Directorate Hunting Down Edward Snowden (Eli Lake) from the Daily Beast
"The top-secret ‘Q Group’ has been chasing Edward Snowden since he disappeared in May. Eli Lake on the intel community’s internal police—and why the agency is in ‘complete freakout mode.’"

Edward Snowden’s Employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, Has a Huge PR Problem (Daniel Gross) from the Daily Beast
"The NSA leaker might have been a rogue Booz Allen Hamilton employee. But he made the company’s biggest client, the U.S. government, look terrible—and that can’t be good for business, says Daniel Gross."

The Big Shrug (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"while insiders no longer seem determined to worry about the wrong things, that’s not enough; they also need to start worrying about the right things — namely, the plight of the jobless and the immense continuing waste from a depressed economy. And that’s not happening."

Once Strident, College Republicans Now Seek Moderate Tone For the GOP (Alex Rogers) from Time Magazine 
"The once-activist arm of the Republican party, a breeding ground for the next generation of conservative consultants and politicians, has joined the long-term effort to distance itself from the grassroots’ occasionally controversial rhetoric. TIME spoke this week with Alex Smith, the National Chair of the CRNC, to discuss the study’s findings."

Elijah Cummings Outplays Darrell Issa (Joan Walsh) from Salon
"The unidentified man told investigators that workers in that office instigated the reviews on their own, that he was unaware of a political motivation behind the extra scrutiny to conservative groups’ applying for tax-exempt status, and that there was no evidence of any White House involvement."

Christie, Paul Offer Models for How GOP Can Compete in Blue States (Dan Balz) from the Washington Post 
"In the six elections beginning with 1992, the Republicans’ Electoral College base has shrunk by nearly half, while Democrats have built an even bigger bulwark than the GOP enjoyed in its presidential heyday."

GRATITUDE NUGGET!!

News Nuggets 1247

DAYLEE PICTURE: A Crinoidia Sea Feather at the Loyalty Island of Ouvea in New Caledonia.  From National Geographic.

Europe’s Social Contract, Lying in Pieces (David Unger) from the New York Times

"As fringe parties gain power, liberal democracy is in jeopardy on the Continent."

McManus: Obama's Foreign Policy Reset (Doyle McManus) from the Los Angeles Times

"The appointment of Susan Rice as national security advisor suggests a shift from defense to offense."

Fixing the Digital Economy (Jaron Lanier) from the New York Times

"A decentralization of power coincides with an intense concentration of power. This apparent contradiction makes perfect sense once one understands the nature of modern power."

Birth of the Surveillance State (Michael Hirsch) from the Atlantic 

"Since 9/11, Congress and the executive branch have collaborated on the creation of a new national security apparatus."

Comparing Two Secret Surveillance Programs from the New York Times 

"New details about two government programs used by the National Security Agency to gather telephone and Internet data provide insight into how surveillance programs that began under George W. Bush have been used under President Obama."

Why Americans Don’t Fear the NSA (John Dickerson) from Slate

"When it comes to protecting us from terrorists, we trust our government will do the right thing. ... the president supported the NSA activities as soon as the news broke. Since polls show the public trusts him on the issue of fighting terrorism above all other issues, his fast and forceful defense may cause people to give him the benefit of the doubt."

Stop Freaking Out About the NSA (William Saletan) from Slate

"The government’s phone surveillance isn’t Orwellian. It’s limited and supervised."

Obamacare Is Killing the GOP: Republicans' Obsession with the Law Will be the Party's Undoing (Noam Scheiber) from the New Republic

"To put the problem in Marxian terms, Obamacare has become the opiate of the GOP. By its own admission, the party must broaden its appeal to Latinos, gays, and young voters. It needs an economic agenda that encompasses more than tax cuts for the rich and brutal spending cuts. ... And yet, when party leaders so much as broach these liabilities, conservatives revolt and the leadership caves, appeasing them with an issue whose political utility peaked two-and-a-half years ago."

The GOP’s Huge, Growing Modernity Gap (Lloyd Green) from the Daily Beast 

"Republicans’ problem with young voters isn’t about stray stupid comments, writes Lloyd Green, but its retrograde approach to technology, culture and modernity."

Senate Republicans Divided On Moving Obama's D.C. Circuit Nominees from the Huffington Post

"None of the Republican senators said flat-out that they were prepared to block any of the D.C. Circuit nominees, but some stayed vague when asked about the prospect of doing so."

A Reform Conservative Manifesto (Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry) from Forbes Magazine

"Reform conservatives are people who agree to and tell various stories about the American scene over the past few decades, and what those stories mean for the future of the Republican Party and America. What are these stories? There are two big stories: one about politics, and a more important one, about America."

Andrew Sullivan responds to Gobry's column.

Southern Conservatives Revive Calhounism—Tyranny of the Minority (Jamelle Bouie) from the Daily Beast

"A bill in South Carolina that would effectively nullify the Affordable Care Act is the latest sign of the modern Republican Party’s drift from the ideas that animated its creation, writes Jamelle Bouie."

GIRL IN AFRICA NUGGET!!

The REAL Mowgli: Incredible Images of the Little Girl who Spent the First Ten Years of her Life Growing Up in the African Bush from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 

The full French documentary can be found HERE.

WORLD WAR I HISTORY NUGGET!!

Before the Fall: What Did the World Look Like in 1913? (Jacob Heilbrunn) from the Daily Beast

"In 1913 the great royals of Europe gathered for a wedding, a year later they were at war. What happened? Jacob Heilbrunn on Charles Emmerson’s new history of the world tottering on the brink of madness."

News Nuggets 1246

DAYLEE PICTURE: A new species of preying mantis found on 

the Cheringoma Plateau in Mozambique.  From National Geographic.

At the U.S.-China Summit, Friendship Isn’t What Matters (Gordon G. Chang) from the Daily Beast
"China’s diplomats, officials, and rulers do not share general American notions of foreign policy. They are ruthlessly pragmatic. They respect strength and scorn weakness. ... The problem for the White House is that Beijing’s external policies now appear to be more driven by troubling internal trends than reactions to signals from Washington and other capitals."
An interesting and perceptive overview of US-China relations under Obama.

The Combative Consigliere: Will Susan Rice Bring Out a More Muscular Side of Barack Obama? (James Traub) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"More than four years in, Barack Obama has figured out what kind of foreign-policy president he wants to be -- less the visionary of the 2008 campaign than the faithful steward of national interests who closes out the ruinous misadventures of the post-9/11 era and husbands, rather than recklessly spends, America's limited resources."

Hats Off to Tom Donilon (Leslie H. Gelb) from the Daily Beast
"Stop for a moment and thank Tom Donilon for his terrific public service and for being a good American. ... Most important, as national-security adviser, he has prevented terribly costly stupidities and has lived up to the finest tradition of someone in his office: first, do no harm."

Forget the Charm, Keep the Offensive: Obama's Aggressive New Strategy (David Graham) from the Atlantic
"Appointing Susan Rice as a top aide, attacking Darrell Issa, and fighting for judicial nominees show Obama and his allies don't want to make nice."

Obama Unbound (Peter Beinart) from the Daily Beast
"In choosing Susan Rice and Samantha Power, the president made clear that he no longer cares what the GOP thinks about his foreign policy. Peter Beinart on the huge implications of this shift."

The End Of Austerity-Mania On Capitol Hill? from Talking Points Memo 
"The economy has slowly but steadily improved over the past two years — enough that the country re-elected Obama. With that victory under his belt he was able to pocket a decent chunk of the revenue he’d hoped to raise by allowing the Bush tax cuts for top earners to expire. These developments combined to send the deficit into a rapid tumble. But that’s when the real wrangling in Congress over dollars spent and dollars collected stopped dead in its tracks."

The Spite Club (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"When you look closer at why some Republican-led states are choosing to opt out of a piece of ObamaCare, it seems the only explanation for it is sheer spite."

GOP Filibuster Gives Democrats The Fight They Want On Student Loans from Talking Points Memo
"Senate Republicans on Thursday filibustered a Democratic bill to avoid a student loan interest rate spike, escalating a fight less than one month before rates are set to double for some 7 million students. But it’s a fight that Democrats are happy — if not eager — to have."

'War on Women' Returns from Politico
"Not every Republican learned Todd Akin’s lesson from 2012 – and Democrats noticed. This week alone: Sen. Saxby Chambliss blamed sexual assaults in the military on hormones, conservative pundit Erick Erickson credited biology for male dominance in society and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said working moms are making kids fail in school."

Why Republicans Can't Catch a Break (Alex Roarty) from National Journal  
"For every opportunity, Senate GOP has suffered setbacks in the last week."

GOP to Darrell Issa: Cool it from Politico
"GOP leaders are concerned that the sometimes unpredictable chairman could jeopardize the biggest gift handed to them in months — public outrage over the IRS scandal, combined with questions over Benghazi. They think Issa should stop personalizing the scandals by insulting Obama and his aides and focus on the facts."
Partisan warriors like Issa CAN'T help themselves but to personalize these issues.  Since the time of Gingrich in the 1990s, it is virtually always their first response, and it is now deeply ingrained.

ANCIENT EGYPT NUGGET!!
Sunken City Gives Up its Treasure: Ancient Egyptian Metropolis Lost for 1,200 Years Below Mediterranean Sea Set to Go on Display from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Heracleion was submerged by the sea and sands 1,200 years ago.  It was discovered during a survey at the beginning of the last decade. Archaeologists are now preparing to show some of the objects found.

HISTORY OF CRIME NUGGET!!
From Dillinger's Pistol to Ma Barker's Arsenal: Fascinating Pictures Give a Rare Insight into the FBI's 80-year-old Weapons Collection Featuring More than 7,000 Guns from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"From notorious bank robber John Dillinger's prohibition-era revolver to an arsenal of weapons owned by Ma Barker and her gang, the FBI's cache of firearms holds almost every gun ever made. These fascinating photos give a rare insight into the Bureau's 80-year-old collection which is kept at the FBI laboratory in Virginia."

KITTY CAT SOME-PEOPLE-HAVE-WAY-TOO-MUCH-TIME-ON-THEIR-HANDS PHOTO NUGGET!! 
Cats in Wooly Hats: Artist Creates Colourful Collection that You Just Can’t Help but Smile At from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Inspired by knitting hats for children, Meredith decided that there was no reason why her feline friends should not have the same sartorial choices as humans."
Talk about a long-suffering cat!

News Nuggets 1245

DAYLEE PICTURE:  A Jaguar in a rain forest in Ecuador.  From National Geographic.

The Nuggetsman will be in transit Wednesday and Thursday -- so expect nuggets to resume on Friday.

China’s Elite Molded in Part by Turmoil of Tiananmen Square from the New York Times
"The role of today’s leaders of China in the political experimenting that preceded the crackdown in 1989 raises the question of whether they will be open to new ideas and discussion."

Obama’s Economic Triumph (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"It’s increasingly clear that the president has steered the country back from the brink—and, in the process, exposed (yet again) the central lie of conservative economics."

Obama Nominates Three to Key Appeals Court. Get Ready for GOP Howls (Joan McCarter) from Daily Kos
"Obama said "What I'm doing today is my job. I need the Senate to do its job." He pointed out that his nominees "have taken three times longer to receive confirmation votes than my Republican predecessor" and said that these delays are "not about principled objections, but about obstruction" for political purposes."

Democrats' 2014 Strategy: Own Obamacare from Politico
"Scarred by years of Republican attacks over Obamacare, with more in store next year, Democrats have settled on an unlikely strategy for the 2014 midterms: Bring it on. Party strategists believe that embracing the polarizing law — especially its more popular elements — is smarter politics than fleeing from it in the House elections."
It's ABOUT TIME!!

GOP Governors’ Endorsements of Medicaid Expansion Deepen Rifts Within Party from the Washington Post
"Republican fissures over the expansion of Medicaid, a critical piece of the 2010 health-care law designed to provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, continue to deepen, with battles in Arizona and elsewhere showing just how bitter the divisions have become."

Is GOP Hyping of Scandals Prompting a Media Backlash? (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"The Washington Post has done great work detailing, contextualizing, and demythologizing what those emails concerning the Benghazi talking points really told us. The New York Times has done deeply reported, nuanced work on what really drove the IRS targeting of conservatives. Meanwhile, some D.C. journos are now openly reacting badly to GOP scandal hyping."

House Republicans Broken into Fighting Factions from the Washington Post 
"Democrats helped Boehner pass the measure over the opposition of more than 60 percent of GOP lawmakers. That vote, to avert the “fiscal cliff,” marked a breaking point for House Republicans, who had disintegrated into squabbling factions, no longer able to agree on — much less execute — some of the most basic government functions."
Make no mistake: doing exactly this to the House GOP was one of Obama's TOP priorities.  Can he now exploit these divisions?  Stay tuned.

No, Trayvon Martin Didn't Film His Friends Beating Up a Homeless Man (Josh Voorhees) from Slate
"Sunday's admission will provide the latest fuel to the ongoing public debate that has been raging for months about Zimmerman's innocence or guilt, and is yet another example of how both sides have been trying their case in the court of public opinion."

Why Young People Don’t Vote Republican (Andrew Rosenthal) from the New York Times
"... the report is far more candid than other post-mortems. It could also be far more helpful if it pushes the G.O.P. to examine the actual policies, rather than the slogans, that turn off young voters."

To Win Millennials, the GOP Needs to Embrace Its Inner Libertarian (Nick Gillespie) from the Daily Beast
"The under-30 crowd doesn’t think much of most Democrats, but it’s got an easily lower opinion of Republicans. Nick Gillespie on how the GOP can revive its brand."

The Farce that is Darrell Issa (Joan Walsh) from Salon
"He's a buffoon who even some in his own party attack. But make no mistake: He is a symbol of today's GOP."

Erick Erickson Shows Everything That’s Wrong With The GOP (Josh Barro) from the Business Insider
"... for two decades, the Republican party’s strategy to overcome its disadvantage on economic issues has been a cultural appeal to people like Erickson: non-urban whites who feel threatened by social change. That is, the kind of people who think it’s an alarming trend that women are financially independent, or who think the most salient fact about a writer they dislike might be his sexual orientation. This is a strategic problem for Republicans for several reasons."

HOLOCAUST LITERATURE NUGGET!!
The Importance of Being Hannah Arendt from the Daily Beast
A brilliant new film presents Hannah Arendt in the midst of the Eichmann trial and the controversy around her reporting. Daphne Merkin on that unlikeliest of films, one about thinking—and revisiting the “banality of evil.”

EXOTIC INDOOR PET NUGGET!!
'It Would be Like Losing a Child': Michigan Couple Fight to Keep the Pet Deer They Saved from Near Death from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Five years ago, a female deer was hit outside of a Michigan couple's home in Genesee County.  The deer suddenly went into labor and gave birth to twins.  One of the twins died, but the other survived. Not knowing what to do with the near-dead baby, the couple, who would like to remain anonymous, asked the responding police officer if they could try and nurse it back to health."

News Nuggets 1244

DAYLEE PICTURE: A Madagascar Day Gecko on Maui.  From National Geographic.

The Geezers Are All Right (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"The truth is that the long-term outlook for Social Security and Medicare, while not great, actually isn’t all that bad. It’s time to stop obsessing about how we’ll pay benefits to retirees in 2035 and focus instead on how we’re going to provide jobs to unemployed Americans in the here and now."

Blind to the Past -- and the Future (Charles Blow) from the New York Times 
"As a new effort at comprehensive immigration reform inches its way forward in the Senate, dissent from many conservatives is revealing their true contempt for, and fear of, the possibility that demographic groups who look different from their base will accrue power."
My suspicion is that in the hearts of a large segment of the GOP base is the view that any immigration bill is unacceptable that (a) allows ANY pathway to citizenship for undocumented/illegal aliens and (b) doesn't send "those people" back where they came from.  (Note: "those people" includes virtually all Latino voters whether they're here legally, illegally, or even if they are already naturalized citizens.  I do not think Tea Party types make any real distinction).  Moreover, in their hearts I think most GOPers link this illegal immigrant issue with the GOP's dire demographic problem.  Solve one (using a & b above) and you'll solve the other.  Indirectly, I think this counter-productive thinking will ultimately kill any chances for immigration reform.

The Grand Old Party Needs A Reboot (Cynthia Tucker) from National Memo 
"The political party of Abraham Lincoln is in trouble, threatened with irrelevance, even extinction. Its weaknesses are legion. ...  In a larger sense, the GOP is at war with reality — a reality of fewer white voters, myriad family structures and challenges that demand scientific solutions. Until it makes peace with reality, it cannot recreate itself as a winning party."

Americans Oppose Affirmative Action for Race, If You Only Ask White Americans from the Atlantic
"What do polls show about racial preferences in college admissions? Don't take the overall number at face value."

Colonoscopies Explain Why U.S. Leads World in Health Expenditures from the New York Times
"While the American medical system is famous for expensive drugs and heroic care at the end of life, a more significant factor in the nation’s annual health care bill may be the high price tag of ordinary services."

Report: How GOP Lost Young Voters from Politico
"The College Republican National Committee on Monday will make public a detailed report — the result of extensive polling and focus groups — dissecting what went wrong for Republicans with young voters in the 2012 elections and how the party can improve its showing with that key
demographic in the future. It’s not a pretty picture. In fact, it’s a “dismal present situation,” the report says."

Ted Cruz’s Personality Problem (Jonathan Bernstein) from Salon
"Ted Cruz has sharp elbows. He’s already managed to annoy several senators, including Republicans, and sparked what appears to be a full-on feud with Sen. John McCain. He also wants to be president of the United States. Do those things go together? The political scientist John Sides thinks it’s going to be a problem:"

Obama's Data Team Totally Schooled Gallup (Joshua Green) from Businessweek 
"As David Plouffe, then a senior White House adviser, explained in my story, the data team’s models proved to be much steadier and more accurate than even the traditional tracking polls the campaign was also conducting. A number of Obama vets repeated this claim to me, so I asked them to provide some evidence to back it up, and they did."

Wisconsin Unemployment Bill Would Let State Into Unemployed People's Bank Accounts from the Huffington Post
"Under the legislation, at least once every three months the state's Department of Workforce Development would send financial institutions information on people who improperly received unemployment insurance. The information on such "unemployment debtors" would include "names,
addresses, and social security numbers," according to the bill text. If the debtor has an account with the bank, then the institution would tell the state the account type, number, and balance."

Inside The Meltdown At America’s Most Conservative, Most Christian Political Consulting Firm (McKay Coppins) from Buzz Feed
"Rex Elsass built a Republican empire on his faith, but he found himself battling his closest allies over his immortal soul."

EMPLOYEE REVIEW NUGGET!!
Al Qaeda Leaders Lash Out at Lazy Terrorist in 10-page Letter over Insubordination, Failure to File Expense Reports from the New York Daily News
"The bizarre document accused Moktar Belmoktar, who broke off from the group, of not stepping up to buy weapons or to pull off spectacular attacks."

JILTED LOVER NUGGET!!
Woman Dumps Cheating Boyfriend by Leading Him on Hunt for All his Belongings She's Hidden from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 
"Breaking up is so very hard to do goes the old Burt Bacharach song, yet the writer of this letter seems to have done rather a good job of compartmentalizing her emotions as she writes to her lover to inform him that it’s all over."

PREHISTORIC GEOGRAPHY NUGGET!!
The Age Where You Could WALK from New York to Morocco! How Countries of Today Would Look 300 MILLION Years Ago from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 
"A new map of Pangaea, the supercontinent from 300 million years ago, shows where modern day countries would have been located in the ancient land mass.  The East Coast of the United States would have bordered North Africa while America's Gulf Coast was nestled against Cuba, according to the graphic representation that outlines the political borders of nation states."

WORLD WAR I NUGGET!!
Remains Found at the Site of the Village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, which was Destroyed During the Battle of Verdun from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 
"It is believed that the location where the men were found was a first-aid station blown apart by a German artillery shell"

OBITUARY NUGGET!!
Jean Stapleton, TV’s Beloved Edith Bunker from ‘All in the Family’ Dies at 90 in NYC from the Washington Post
"Jean Stapleton, the stage-trained character actress who played Archie Bunker’s far better half, the sweetly naive Edith, in TV’s groundbreaking 1970s comedy “All in the Family,” has died. She was 90. Stapleton died Friday of natural causes at her New York City home surrounded by friends and family, her children said Saturday."

MEDIEVAL HISTORY NUGGET!!
The Director of the Theater of Horror: What was It Like to be an Executioner in the 16th Century? (Joel F. Harrington) from Slate
"This is an excerpt from The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century, written by Joel F. Harrington and out now from Farrar, Straus and Giroux."

DOG PHOTO NUGGET!!
Porch Dogs from Slate
"Exactly what it sounds like."

HOPE-FOR-PAWS DOG RESCUE NUGGET!!
Rescuing Bethany - a Sick, Homeless Dog's Inspiring Transformation from Hope-for-Paws