memeorandum: U.S. Embassy official in Guyana removed in alleged sex-for-visas scandal (Charles C. Johnson/The Daily Caller)

12:50 AM ET, July 9, 2013

Top Items:

Perry Says He Won't Seek Governorship Again in Texas — SAN ANTONIO — Rick Perry, the longest-serving governor of Texas and an unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate last year, announced on Monday that he would not seek another term but would instead “pray and reflect and work to determine my own future path.”

Discussion: UrbanGrounds, Christian Science Monitor, A plain blog about politics, The Moderate Voice, News Desk, New Republic and CANNONFIRE

Jay Root / The Texas Tribune:

Rick Perry Won't Run for Re-election … SAN ANTONIO — Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday that he will not run for re-election next year, creating the first open race for Texas governor since 1990 and making Attorney General Greg Abbott the instant favorite to replace him.

Discussion: Trail Blazers Blog, Sky Dancing, American Spectator, Politico, Right Turn, Texas on the Potomac, Grits for Breakfast and Towleroad News #gay

Aaron Blake / Post Politics:
Rick Perry won't seek reelection

Discussion: Hot Air, addictinginfo.org, The Fix and Joe. My. God.

Catalina Camia / Associated Press:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry to declare political plans

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Taylor Marsh, Jezebel, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Austin American-Statesman, Daily Kos and Outside the Beltway

Guardian:

Edward Snowden: ‘The US government will say I aided our enemies’ - video interview — In the second part of an exclusive interview with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden contemplates the reaction from the US government to his revelations …

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, Business Insider, Washington Post, American Spectator, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Hit & Run, Firedoglake, The Hinterland Gazette, Mediaite, Wake up America, The Huffington Post, Esquire, The Spectacle Blog and Alan Colmes' Liberaland, more at Mediagazer »

Tal Kopan / Reuters:

Edward Snowden: I believed in U.S. ‘nobility’ — In a new video released by The Guardian, Edward Snowden says he once believed in the “nobility” of the U.S. government's causes but grew disillusioned. — The video contains more excerpts from a June 6 interview with Snowden in Hong Kong that The Guardian had previously not released.

Discussion: Guardian, The Hinterland Gazette and Business Insider

Carl Malamud / Bulk.Resource.Org:

Statement of Public.Resource.Org — Why We Asked the I.R.S. to Temporarily Turn the Lights Off on Section 527 Data — Public.Resource.Org has discovered that the Internal Revenue Service has posted the Social Security Numbers of tens of thousands of Americans on government web sites.

Discussion: Gizmodo, “The Lid”, The Hill and Boing Boing

Brian Fung / NationalJournal.com:

The IRS Mistakenly Exposed Thousands of Social Security Numbers — Another day, another slipup by the Internal Revenue Service. — The incident involves the unwitting exposure of “tens of thousands” of Social Security numbers, according to a recent audit by the independent transparency and public-domain group Public.Resource.org.

Discussion: The Lonely Conservative

New York Times:

The Perils of a 'People's Coup' — LOS ANGELES — THE Egyptian Army claims that it had no choice but to overthrow the country's first legitimately elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and that last week's coup reflected the will of the Egyptian people. It's true that most Egyptians hated …

Discussion: Guardian, United States Senator …, Yahoo! News, normblog, Taylor Marsh, Commentary Magazine and Washington Monthly

New York Times:
At Least 43 Die as Soldiers Said to Open Fire on Morsi Backers

Peter Baker / The Caucus:
Obama Administration Rules Out Suspension of Aid to Egypt in Near Term

Discussion: msnbc.com

New York Times:

U.S. Considers Faster Pullout In Afghanistan — WASHINGTON — Increasingly frustrated by his dealings with President Hamid Karzai, President Obama is giving serious consideration to speeding up the withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan and to a “zero option” …

Discussion: Telegraph, The Dish and Booman Tribune

Steven Yaccino / New York Times:

Schools Seeking to Arm Employees Hit Hurdle on Insurance — As more schools consider arming their employees, some districts are encountering a daunting economic hurdle: insurance carriers threatening to raise their premiums or revoke coverage entirely. — During legislative sessions this year …

Discussion: Daily Kos, The Moderate Voice, Mediaite, msnbc.com, The Raw Story, Yahoo! News and Hullabaloo

Victor Epstein / USA Today:
Kansas law thrusts Iowa insurer into gun debate

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, ThinkProgress, Balloon Juice and Taegan Goddard's …

Ginger Gibson / Politico:

John Boehner: No House vote on Senate immigration bill — House Speaker John Boehner is sticking to his position: The House will not vote on the Senate-passed immigration bill. — “I've made it clear and I'll make it clear again, the House does not intend to take up the Senate bill,” Boehner said Monday.

Discussion: The Hill

Erik Wasson / The Hill:
Farm bill decision looms for Boehner

Discussion: Daily Kos, Hot Air, Reuters, The Plum Line and Right Turn

Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:

Challenge to global phone taps (UPDATED) — (UPDATED 4:55 pm: The petition discussed in this case has now been filed at the Supreme Court. It does not yet have a docket number assigned. New material has been added at the end of this post. — A digital-age privacy advocacy group …

Discussion: emptywheel, Outside the Beltway and Hit & Run

James Risen / New York Times:
Privacy Group to Ask Supreme Court to Stop N.S.A.'s Phone Spying Program

Discussion: The Raw Story, The Verge, Yahoo! News and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Wbastone / The Smoking Gun:

In Reversal, Florida Judge Okays Testimony About Trayvon Martin's Marijuana Usage — Jurors in the George Zimmerman murder trial will be able to hear defense testimony that Trayvon Martin had small amounts of marijuana in his system at the time he was shot to death in February 2012.

Discussion: Taylor Marsh and The Raw Story

Lizette Alvarez / New York Times:
Zimmerman Case Has Race as a Backdrop, but You Won't Hear It in Court

Discussion: Althouse, JustOneMinute and ABC News

Asad Hashim / Al Jazeera English:

Leaked report shows Bin Laden's ‘hidden life’ — Government report obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera reveals results of investigation into AQ chief's life on the run. — Former al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was able to hide in Pakistan for nine years due to the “collective failure” …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Business Insider, The Jawa Report, Via Meadia, The Week and The PJ Tatler

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Criticizing CNN: Goodbye to that — I used to say: I criticize because I care. But I no longer do. … As of today, I have retired from criticism of CNN for falling short of some sort of journalistic standard that news providers should maintain. That activity no longer makes sense.

Discussion: Booman Tribune and Mediaite

Ashe Schow / Washington Examiner:

Recovery woes: America's second-largest employer is a temp agency — Behind Wal-Mart, the second-largest employer in America is Kelly Services, a temporary work provider. — Friday's disappointing jobs report showed that part-time jobs are at an all-time high, with 28 million Americans now working part-time.

Discussion: Wake up America, Weasel Zippers, The Lonely Conservative, BizzyBlog and The Gateway Pundit

Jeff Cohen / The Huffington Post:

How Do You Know When President Obama Is Lying? MSNBC Won't Tell You — I was a young person when I first heard the quip: “How do you know when the President is lying? His lips are moving.” At the time, President Nixon was expanding the war in Vietnam to other countries and deploying the White House …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Daily Caller, NewsBusters and National Review

Breanna Edwards / Politico:

Rand Paul slams ‘military junta’ support — Sen. Rand Paul lashed out Monday against neoconservatives on Twitter for supporting the “military junta” in Egypt and arguing for continued monetary aid to the country, whose armed forces recently ousted the sitting president, Mohamed Morsi.

Discussion: TheBlaze.com, Right Turn and Washington Monthly

Jon Terbush / The Week:

The Koch brothers' $1 million campaign to kill ObamaCare — A massive ad campaign aims to heighten uncertainty about the law before it goes into full effect — More than three years after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the heated debate over whether the health-care reforms …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, ThinkProgress, msnbc.com, Taegan Goddard's …, skippy the bush kangaroo and First Read

Radley Balko / Salon:

“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”: The new warrior cop is out of control — Overwhelming paramilitary force is on the rise — Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn't a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him …

Discussion: Business Insider and protein wisdom

Fred Burton / Vanity Fair:

40 Minutes In Benghazi — When U.S. ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed in a flash of hatred in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, the political finger-pointing began. But few knew exactly what had happened that night. With the ticktock narrative of the desperate fight to save Stevens …

New from the Guttmacher Institute:

State-level assault on abortion rights continues in first half of 2013 — In the first six months of 2013, states enacted 106 provisions related to reproductive health and rights; issues related to abortion, family planning funding and sex education were significant flashpoints in several legislatures.

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, Daily Kos, ThinkProgress and Hullabaloo

Agoldberg / The Smoking Gun:

Woman Who Hid Gun In Vagina Gets 25 Years — Loaded weapon was found during suspect's post-arrest strip search — The Oklahoma woman who had a loaded handgun concealed in her vagina when she was arrested earlier this year on a drug charge has been sentenced to 25 years in state prison, according to court records.

Lydia Saad / Gallup:

TV Is Americans' Main Source of News — Preferred news source varies by age, education, and politics, among other factors — PRINCETON, NJ — Television is the main place Americans say they turn to for news about current events (55%), leading the Internet, at 21%.