Mother: "I don't know why this is going on so long. I'm late for everything I guess."
— @nprscottsimon
My mother: "Believe me, those great death bed speeches are written ahead of time. "
— @nprscottsimon
I know end might be near as this is only day of my adulthood I've seen my mother and she hasn't asked, "Why that shirt?"
— @nprscottsimon
We covered Scott Simon's twitterfeed on yesterday's
Kagro in the Morning as he sat with his dying mother in the ICU. It's been
storified if you missed the poignant good-byes.
Poynter:
Scott Simon’s tweets about his mom’s final days in the ICU were well-written and deeply personal. They gave us a glimpse into Simon’s past and showed a grown man’s struggle to part with his dying mom.
Simon also broke a taboo about discussing death and dying. Think about what Simon brought up in the context of Obamacare and health coverage. But assign dying a permanent blind spot and suddenly the conversation seems out of context. What should be covered at end of life? Why? How much at home? How much in hospital? It's a place we all have to travel sooner or later.
WaPo on Alison Lundergan Grimes' campaign, as she takes on Mitch McConnell:
Grimes’s campaign also played a campaign video featuring Grimes’s grandmother in which her grandmother says, “What rhymes with Mitch? It’s time to switch.” Grimes then christened her campaign “Team Switch” — in contrast to McConnell’s campaign, which is known as “Team Mitch.”
“I invite you, in the words of my grandmother, to join Team Switch,” Grimes said.
Follow this campaign. Win or lose, there's something genuine and authentic about Grimes. Here's her launch:
More politics and policy below the fold.
We covered this on Kagro as well, from NBC news:
Three Inca children found mummified atop a 20,000-foot volcano in South America consumed increasing amounts of coca leaf and corn beer for up to a year before they were sacrificed, according to a new study.
Sedation by the plant and alcohol combined with the frigid, high-altitude setting may explain how the children were killed. There is no evidence for direct violence, the researchers noted.
The coca leaf and corn beer consumption rises about six months before death and then skyrockets in the final weeks, especially for the eldest, a 13-year-old girl known as the "Ice Maiden."
"She was probably heavily sedated by the point at which she succumbs to death," Andrew Wilson, an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom and the study's lead author, told NBC News.
All part of the bread and circus of staying in power.
Eugene Robinson on Edward Snowden:
Edward Snowden’s renegade decision to reveal the jaw-dropping scope of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance is being vindicated — even as Snowden himself is being vilified.
Intelligence officials in the Obama administration and their allies on Capitol Hill paint the fugitive analyst as nothing but a traitor who wants to harm the United States. Many of those same officials grudgingly acknowledge, however, that public debate about the NSA’s domestic snooping is now unavoidable.
And then there's this from
WaPo:
The conviction of Army private Bradley Manning on espionage charges Tuesday makes it increasingly likely that the United States will prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a co-conspirator, according to his attorney and civil liberties groups.
Isn't that comforting.
Sarah Binder/Monkey Cage:
In many ways, the debate between Yellen and Summers captures an historic Democratic divide between its Wall Street and more liberal, Main Street wings. Summers’ defenders emphasize his personal relationship with Obama (including tennis and golf) and his economic brilliance, but also his experience in the world of finance (implying an inner hawk). The Yellen camp points to her distinguished career as a central banker and her leadership within the Fed. Senate liberals also clearly prefer Yellen for her dovish macroeconomic stance in a period they believe still demands a dovish central bank. (Breaking the Fed’s glass ceiling? Icing on the cake for Yellen’s boosters.) The divide between the Wall Street and Main Street wings of the Democratic party is an old one for the party, recurring most recently in contests over Dodd-Frank and in reactions to Bernanke’s leadership of the Fed. (Senators on the far left were clearly more suspicious than their Democratic colleagues of the Fed’s largesse in bailing out failing financial institutions at the height of the financial crisis.) It is tempting to portray the horse race as a contest of personalities (which, of course, it is), but the contest also taps an enduring Democratic divide unlikely to be patched over the course of a campaign to lead the Fed.
The above is a short, great example of why you should read poli sci blogs.
Charlie Cook:
Although it is far too soon to make any conclusions about what kind of election we will see in 2014, with just over 15 months to go before the midterm balloting, today’s environment seems to suggest that both of the overarching dynamics described before could take place. Republicans have made no progress in improving their party’s standing with the electorate overall, or for that matter with minorities, women, young voters, and those self-described moderates. Social and cultural issues continue to plague their party among many young and some women voters. Intransigence among conservatives in the party seems to be preventing the GOP congressional leadership from trying to lance the immigration boil. Even deeper cuts in discretionary domestic spending are providing considerable cannon fodder for Democratic media consultants, who are preparing ads for next year. Not to mention that a government shutdown would be considerably more likely to damage Republicans than Democrats.
On the other hand, voters increasingly seem to have hit the mute button on President Obama. They are no longer listening to him, and his approval numbers seem to be dropping by about a point every three weeks. This does not seem to be because of any of the so-called scandals that got Republicans so worked up during the winter and spring, but more because voters have a perception of Obama as a not particularly effective leader. They tend to give him points for having good intentions on most issues, but they see him as ineffectual. Add to that growing concern over the Affordable Care Act, with only a third of Americans telling pollsters that it will help the nation’s health care situation, and less than a quarter who believe that it will help their own family’s health care. While retiring Sen. Max Baucus referred to the implementation of the ACA as a “train wreck,” other Democratic members are remaining silent. From what we can tell, members of the president’s party are experiencing growing anxiety as they go back to their states and districts and are confronted with constituents who are considerably less than enthusiastic about the new law.
Mush all these factors together, and there is a chance they just might cancel each other out. The combination could also simply create a turbulent situation that does not uniformly benefit either party but creates pitfalls for both Democrats and Republicans alike.