memeorandum: The time for climate action is now — New York Mayor Michael … (The/Los Angeles Times)

9:55 AM ET, June 21, 2013

Top Items:

Emma Dumain / Goppers:

Farm Bill's Failure Poisons Well in House — Updated 6:23 p.m. | The House's stunning defeat of the farm bill Thursday dealt another blow to Speaker John A. Boehner's leadership and set off a poisonous round of partisan finger-pointing that raised questions about the ability of the chamber …

Discussion: msnbc.com, The Week, Hawkings Here, BuzzFeed, PoliticusUSA, The Fix, Yahoo! News and The Daily Caller

Pete Kasperowicz / The Hill:

House rejects farm bill, 195-234 — In a blow to House GOP leaders, the House on Thursday rejected a five-year farm bill. — Members voted down the $940 billion bill in a 195-234 vote that only won 24 Democratic votes. Most Democrats voted against the bill because it cut food stamp programs by more than $20 billion.

Discussion: Politico, Reuters, The Huffington Post, The Moderate Voice, CNN, Hot Air, Washington Monthly, National Review, The Impolitic, The Reaction and Booman Tribune

Ron Nixon / New York Times:
House Rejects Farm Bill as Food Stamp Cuts Prove Divisive

Discussion: Balloon Juice, Plunderbund, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Philly.com and National Review

Jonathan Strong / National Review:
The Tuesday Group Still Lives

Discussion: Daily Kos and A plain blog about politics

Guardian:

Revealed: the top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant — Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA's surveillance of Americans' communication — • Document one: procedures used by NSA to target non-US persons

Discussion: Techdirt, Gawker, TechCrunch, Government Accountability …, The Week, New York Times, Firedoglake, The Gateway Pundit, Boing Boing, The Verge, Weasel Zippers, Wonkblog, Politico, Mediaite and GigaOM

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

New documents reveal parameters of NSA's secret surveillance programs — The National Security Agency may keep the e-mails and telephone calls of citizens and legal residents if the communications contain “significant foreign intelligence” or evidence of a crime, according to classified documents …

Discussion: The Hill, Post Politics and Prairie Weather

Simon Akam / Slate:

George W. Bush's Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Was a Slave Trader — A surprising new discovery about the notorious Thomas “Beau” Walker. — BUNCE ISLAND, Sierra Leone—Twelve American presidents owned slaves, eight while serving in office, and at least 25 presidents count slave owners among their ancestors.

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and UrbanGrounds

Stephen C. Webster / The Raw Story: Revealed: Bush ancestor was heavily invested in kidnapping Africans into slavery

Peter Hamby / CNN:

On the left, Howard Dean open to presidential bid — San Jose, California (CNN) - Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who electrified anti-war liberals during the 2004 presidential race, said Thursday he would consider another run for the White House - a statement that will surely be met …

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, LifeNews.com and The Hill

Orlando Sentinel:

George Zimmerman trial: Jury selected, opening statements begin Monday — SANFORD - A jury has been seated and sworn for the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, after more than a week of intensive jury selection in the high-profile case.

Discussion: Scared Monkeys, Colorlines, Outside the Beltway, Mediaite, The Moderate Voice, The Hinterland Gazette and AL.com

William A. Jacobson / Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion: Zimmerman jury seated after Judge rejects State serial striking of white women

Andy Pasztor / Wall Street Journal:

FAA to Relax Rules for Gadgets in Flight — Airline passengers irritated at having to turn off their devices could soon see some reprieve, with regulators set to allow wider use of gadgets in flight. — The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to relax the ban on using some types …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and The Verge

Telegraph:

WikiLeaks says Michael Hastings contacted it just before his death. Are they implying he was murdered? — WikiLeaks just threw some gasoline onto the conspiracy fire. On Wednesday night, they Tweeted: “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died …

Discussion: Gawker, Mediaite, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Informer, The Hinterland Gazette, The Huffington Post, ViralRead and CBS Los Angeles, more at Mediagazer »

Andrew Blankstein / Los Angeles Times:
No foul play suspected in Michael Hastings' death, LAPD says

Discussion: American Spectator, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Vox Popoli, The Huffington Post, RT, The Informer and BuzzFeed

George F. Will / Washington Post:

Obama hits a wall in Berlin — The question of whether Barack Obama's second term will be a failure was answered in the affirmative before his Berlin debacle, which has recast the question, which now is: Will this term be silly, even scary in its detachment from reality?

Discussion: Power Line

Yahoo! News:

The top 9,486 ways Jay Carney won't answer your questions (interactive) — Jay Carney doesn't have an answer for that. He hasn't discussed that subject with the president. He will refer you to the Department of [insert agency here]. He refuses to speculate on that. He'll have to get back to you.

Kenneth Lovett / NY Daily News:

Gov. Cuomo was death ray target of Ku Klux Klansman — Nutty Glen Crawford, an industrial mechanic at General Electric, and Hudson man Eric Feight have been accused of building a deadly radiation-emitting device, which Crawford planned to use it on Gov. Cuomo, sources say.

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's … and Politicker

Michael Hastings / Rolling Stone:

The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis — It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it — By — W — hat about the ratings agencies?

Discussion: Crooks and Liars

Washington Post:

In Syrian chemical weapons claim, criticism about lack of transparency — UNITED NATIONS — Despite months of laboratory testing and scrutiny by top U.S. scientists, the Obama administration's case for arming Syria's rebels rests on unverifiable claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons …

Discussion: The Dish

Politico:

Inside the border deal that almost failed — Sen. Chuck Schumer spent Tuesday privately urging President Barack Obama and the entire Democratic caucus to just be patient — a border security deal they could accept was still within reach. — But after a testy, 45-minute call that night …

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Right Wing News, msnbc.com and The Hill

Michael D. Shear / New York Times:

White House Offers Stealth Campaign to Support Immigration Bill — WASHINGTON — The hide-out has no sign on the door, but inside Dirksen 201 is a spare suite of offices the White House has transformed into its covert immigration war room on Capitol Hill. — Strategically located down the hall …

Reuters:

Icelandic Businessman Has Jet Ready For Snowden — REYKJAVIK, June 20 (Reuters) - An Icelandic businessman linked to WikiLeaks said he has readied a private plane to take Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who exposed secret U.S. surveillance programmes, to Iceland if the government grants him asylum.

Discussion: TechCrunch

Richard Gunderman / The Atlantic Online:

The Incarceration Epidemic — About one-fourth of all incarcerated people on Earth is in the U.S. That constitutes a public health problem. — The U.S. incarceration rate has more than quadrupled since 1980. It's now the highest in the world, just ahead of Russia and Rwanda.

Discussion: Daily Kos

Adam Bryant / New York Times:

In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal — This interview with Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. — Q. How is Big Data being used more in the leadership and management field?

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, The Daily Caller and The Verge

United States Department of Health and Human Services:

Consumers saved $3.9 billion on premiums in 2012 — Health care law will provide families an average of $100 back in premium rebates — Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announces that nationwide, 77.8 million consumers saved $3.4 billion up front on their premiums …

Discussion: msnbc.com, Weasel Zippers and Weekly Standard

Steven Rattner / Opinionator:

The New Economic Risk: Complacency — With each month of steady employment growth — in May, 175,000 jobs were created — the feeling of lassitude around the issues facing the American economy takes hold a little bit more. — Amid the gathering drumbeat of pronouncements of economic optimism …

Discussion: The Huffington Post

WMUR:

Controversial GOP NH Rep. Tremblay resigns — Tremblay alleges Marathon bombing may have been faked — Controversial state Rep. Stella Tremblay, R-Auburn, resigned from the New Hampshire House of Representatives Thursday, moments before lawmakers were poised to pass a two-year …

Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. / LifeNews.com:

Chelsea Clinton Laments: My Great Grandmother Did Not Have Access to Planned Parenthood — New York, NY (CFAM) — From the stage at the recent Women Deliver conference, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's daughter Chelsea revealed that her much-admired maternal grandmother …

Discussion: The Lonely Conservative and Weasel Zippers