memeorandum: Newt Gingrich sees major Mideast mistakes, rethinks his neocon views on intervention (Ralph Z. Hallow/Washington Times)

3:40 PM ET, August 5, 2013

Top Items:

Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans — (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across …

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Republicans Against Reality — Last week House Republicans voted for the 40th time to repeal Obamacare. Like the previous 39 votes, this action will have no effect whatsoever. But it was a stand-in for what Republicans really want to do: repeal reality, and the laws of arithmetic in particular.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Business Insider, The PJ Tatler, Balloon Juice, The Mahablog, Politico, Daily Kos, Paul Krugman and Post Politics

Stan Collender / Stan Collender's Capital Gains …:

Budget Bedlam This Fall — August actually is a pretty good time to be in Washington. — Yes, the weather usually is awful. But with Congress gone, getting to work isn't as stressful because there's less demand on roads and public transit. You can get up later and still get to work on time.

Discussion: CNNMoney.com and Washington Monthly

Associated Press:
House GOP plans anti-Washington push in August

Discussion: PoliticusUSA

Jillian Rogers / GOP.com:

RNC Chairman Calls on NBC and CNN to Stop Promoting Hillary Clinton — RNC will not partner with networks in 2016 primary debates — WASHINGTON - Today Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus sent a letter to Robert Greenblatt, Chairman of NBC Entertainment …

Discussion: The Plum Line, Little Green Footballs, Washington Wire, Guardian, LifeNews.com, Hot Air and The Gateway Pundit

Mike Flynn / BREITBART.COM:
EXCLUSIVE-RNC TO NBC, CNN: DUMP HILLARY DOCS OR WE WILL DUMP DEBATES

Discussion: Andrew Kaczynski, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Mediaite and Joe. My. God.

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
RNC warns networks: Drop Clinton movies or lose 2016 GOP debates

Discussion: Politico and The Lonely Conservative

Lynn Sweet / Voices:
GOP threatens to ban debates on CNN, NBC if networks produce Hillary Clinton shows

Discussion: The New Civil Rights Movement

Hilary Andersson / BBC:

Boston bomber ‘had far-right papers’ — What was behind Boston bombing? Hilary Andersson reports — One of the brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings was in possession of right-wing American literature in the run-up to the attack, BBC Panorama has learnt.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Jihad Watch, neo-neocon, The PJ Tatler, The Daily Caller, Jammie Wearing Fools, The Jawa Report and Business Insider

Jeffrey Goldberg / Bloomberg:

Warning to Americans: Be Afraid, Very Afraid — It seems as if al-Qaeda, or its Arabian Peninsula branch, has succeeded in terrorizing the United States of America again, but this time without - as of this writing - detonating an ounce of C4. It doesn't strike me as a wise idea …

Discussion: CBS News, New York Times, Guardian, Washington Times and Hot Air

CBS News:
U.S. still on edge in face of uncovered terror plot

Discussion: CBS DC, Hot Air and The PJ Tatler

Judson Berger / Fox News:
Army won't suspend contracts with Al Qaeda-tied companies, citing ‘due process rights’

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, rubber hose and Jammie Wearing Fools

Associated Press:

Dead people gave nearly $600K to campaigns since 2009 — WASHINGTON — The dead can't vote, but they can give money to politicians. — Thirty-two people listed on federal campaign records as “deceased” have contributed more than $586,000 to congressional and presidential candidates …

Discussion: The Week, Ballot Box, The Raw Story, Reuters, CBS DC, Taegan Goddard's …, Real Clear Politics and Jammie Wearing Fools

Wall Street Journal:

Congress's ObamaCare Exemption — The President intervenes to give Members and staff a break. — To adapt H.L. Mencken, nobody ever went broke underestimating the cynicism and self-dealing of the American political class. Witness their ad-libbed decision, at the 11th hour and on the basis …

Discussion: Weekly Standard, NewsBusters, Real Clear Politics, Patterico's Pontifications, americanthinker.com, Betsy's Page and American Power

Kate Taylor / New York Times:
Health Care Law Raises Pressure on Public Unions

Discussion: msnbc.com, Wonkblog and Right Wing News

Kevin Poulsen / Wired:

Feds are Suspects in New Malware That Attacks Tor Anonymity — Security researchers tonight are poring over a piece of malicious software that takes advantage of a Firefox security vulnerability to identify some users of the privacy-protecting Tor anonymity network.

Discussion: The Switch

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Firefox Zero-Day Used in Child Porn Hunt?

Discussion: Guardian, GigaOM and The Verge

blog.torproject.org:
Hidden Services, Current Events, and Freedom Hosting

Discussion: Firedoglake and Gizmodo

Prof Mark Post / BBC:

World's first lab-grown burger is eaten in London — The world's first lab-grown burger was cooked and eaten at a news conference in London on Monday. — Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle that they combined to make a patty.

Discussion: Althouse

Alok Jha / Guardian:
Google's Sergey Brin bankrolled world's first synthetic beef hamburger

Discussion: Mashable, Hot Air, The Week, Death and Taxes and The Daily Caller

New York Times:

The Last Temptation of Tina Brown — On Nov. 12, 2010, Tina Brown gathered the staff of her Web site The Daily Beast in the third-floor conference room at its Chelsea offices with its commanding views of the Hudson. Brimming with the fervor she has brought to all her endeavors …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Politico, Capital New York, Gawker, TheBlaze.com, Taylor Marsh, Outside the Beltway, Business Insider, The Huffington Post and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »

Ralph Z. Hallow / Washington Times:

Newt Gingrich sees major Mideast mistakes, rethinks his neocon views on intervention — Welcomes libertarian debate on U.S. military involvement — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a leading neoconservative hawk and staunch supporter of Israel, says the U.S. military interventions …

Discussion: The Daily Banter, ThinkProgress and CBS DC

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:

G.O.P. Governors Warn Party Members in Congress Not to Shut Government — MILWAUKEE — Worried about the potential impact on the fragile economies in their states, Republican governors this weekend warned their counterparts in Congress not to shut down the federal government as part of an effort …

Discussion: National Review, msnbc.com, The Plum Line, ThinkProgress, Daily Kos, Mediaite, Prairie Weather and Booman Tribune

Katie Glueck / Politico:

Texas governor race 2014: Wendy Davis: I will run for reelection or governor — Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator who skyrocketed to national fame after mounting a lengthy filibuster earlier this summer, on Monday said the only statewide office for which she's considering a run is governor.

Discussion: CNN

Christine McCarthy / KUTV-TV:

Beauty Queen Arrested For Throwing Homemade Bombs — (KUTV) Miss Riverton, crowned in June and set to compete in the Miss Utah pageant, was arrested early Saturday morning along with her three friends after allegedly throwing homemade bombs at people and homes.

Discussion: The Raw Story, Gawker, The Daily Caller, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Mediaite and Death and Taxes

Benjamin Wallace-Wells / New York Magazine:

What Is Chris Christie Doing Right? — He's hugely popular in a state way to his left. He's unafraid to take on a national party considerably to his right. And he's most adored when he's acting reprehensibly. — In New Jersey, charisma is a blunt instrument.

Discussion: Daily Kos and The Reaction

Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:

Olivia Nuzzi won't defend herself against the latest lies, so allow me — I'm no stranger to receiving hate and abuse on the Internet, and beyond. I'm not going to link to any of it in this post. But if you've been following my career or PandoDaily for a while, you've probably seen it.

Discussion: Mediaite, FishbowlDC and The Daily Caller

Philip Rucker / Washington Post:

New study finds vast online marketplace for guns without background checks — The marketplace for firearms on the Internet, where buyers are not required to undergo background checks, is so vast that advocates for stricter regulations now consider online sales a greater threat than the gun show loophole.