memeorandum: Preparing to be ‘empty nesters,’ the Obamas turn to Sunny (Kevin Liptak/CNN)

9:40 AM ET, August 23, 2013

Top Items:

Kevin Liptak / CNN:

Preparing to be ‘empty nesters,’ the Obamas turn to Sunny — (CNN) - Even the leader of the free world can't make time stop. And just like every other parent, President Barack Obama is being forced to watch his children grow up. His two daughters, Sasha and Malia, are still years away …

Discussion: Politico

Alan Silverleib / CNN:

Obama tells CNN key decisions nearing on Syria, Egypt — (CNN) — The time is nearing for a potentially definitive U.S. response to alleged Syrian government atrocities and an increasingly violent military crackdown in Egypt, President Barack Obama said in an exclusive interview broadcast Friday on CNN's “New Day.”

Discussion: Hoover Institution, Washington Wire, NBCNews, Connecting.the.Dots, Voice of America, NPR, Hot Air and The Week

CNN:

Transcript of President Obama's interview on “New Day” — (CNN) — OBAMA: All right. We're ready? OK. — CUOMO: All right. Let's begin with why you're here in Syracuse, why you're doing this particular bus tour what do you believe you can do to help lower the cost of college …

Discussion: Washington Wire, Yahoo! News, Business Insider and NPR

Kyle Balluck / The Hill:
Obama phones Georgia school employee in hostage ordeal

Discussion: CNN and Politico

Paul Mirengoff / Power Line:

Obama's higher ed plan — a power grab, not a shake-up — President Obama has announced a plan that he claims will make “college more affordable, tackle rising costs, and improve value for students and their families.” The key elements of his plan are (1) a federal college-rating system …

Discussion: The Heritage Foundation, National Review and Hot Air

New York Times:
A Federal Prod to Lower College Costs

Discussion: The White House, Connecting.the.Dots, White House.gov Blog, Mediaite and Economix

Richard Vedder / Bloomberg: College Costs Will Keep Rising Under Obama Plan

Associated Press:
What Does Obama Want to Do With College Costs?

Discussion: CNN

Rob Kauder / KXLY-TV:

WWII vet, beaten by teens outside Eagles Lodge, dies — Author: Ian Cull, KXLY4 Multimedia Journalist, ianc@kxly.com — WWII veteran Delbert Belton survived being wounded in action during the Battle of Okinawa only to be beaten and left for dead by two teens at the Eagles Lodge in Spokane on Wednesday evening.

Discussion: Gawker, BizPac Review, Vox Popoli, The Jawa Report, CNN, Fox News, Twitchy, Bearing Arms and Weasel Zippers

Bernie Becker / The Hill:

Boehner ups the ante for a budget showdown in September — Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told House Republicans on Thursday that he wants to push through a temporary spending measure that incorporates automatic cuts, upping the ante for a September budget showdown.

Discussion: CNN and Politico

Kimberley A. Strassel / Wall Street Journal:

A New Strategy to Take on ObamaCare — A coalition of conservatives believes that ‘delay’ is more likely to succeed than ‘defund.’ — The Republicans determined to defund ObamaCare are getting a little competition in the ideas department. Maybe there's hope for progress against the president's health-care law after all.

TMZ.com:

George Zimmerman Shops For Tactical Shotgun — SHOPS FOR TACTICAL SHOTGUN — EXCLUSIVE — George Zimmerman was on the hunt today — for a shotgun ... TMZ has learned. — Zimmerman went to Kel-Tec in Cocoa, Florida ... a gun manufacturing company. We're told he was asking questions …

Discussion: Global Grind, The Raw Story, Gawker, Mediaite and Colorlines

Julie Pace / ABC News:

Obama: Syria Attack a ‘Big Event of Grave Concern’ — President Barack Obama is calling a possible chemical weapons attack in Syria “big event of grave concern.” — Obama says the U.S. is still seeking confirmation that toxic gases were used in Syria. But he says such actions are …

Discussion: CNN and Associated Press

Fox News:
Newly confirmed UN ambassador absent from Syria emergency meeting

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Business Insider, Hot Air, Agence France Presse and Washington Free Beacon

David Koenig / Associated Press:

UPS to End Health Coverage for Some Spouses — United Parcel Service Inc. is ending health-insurance benefits for U.S. nonunion employees' spouses who can get coverage elsewhere. It blames the change on the new health-care law. — UPS estimates that 15,000 of the 33,000 spouses it covers …

Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal:
Republicans Do Have Ideas for Health Care

Discussion: Forbes, The Incidental Economist, Washington Monthly and Paul Krugman

Tamara Lush / Associated Press:
Meetings, rallies over health care law in Tampa

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Political Carnival, Hullabaloo and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:

Al Gore isn't even honest about his own movie. — In case you've forgotten, “Al Gore was vice president of the United States from 1993-2001.” The Washington Post's Ezra Klein delivers that news in setting up an interview with Gore, who is known these days mostly as an alarmist advocate of global warmism.

Discussion: The Equation, Betsy's Page, National Review, Joe. My. God. and The Huffington Post

Andrew Kaczynski:

Tom Coburn: Obama “Getting Perilously Close” To The Standard For Impeachment — “If it continues, I think we're going to have another constitutional crisis in our country in terms of the presidency.” — View Video › — Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said Wednesday …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Mediaite, Taegan Goddard's … and The Impolitic

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
Sen. Coburn: Obama ‘perilously close’ to impeachment

Discussion: CNN

Alex Seitz-Wald / Salon:

No, Chris Lane is not Trayvon Martin! — The white conservative media thinks it's found its “Trayvon Martin in reverse, only worse.” Are you kidding me? — The white conservative media believes it has its own Trayvon Martin in the case of Chris Lane, an Australian baseball player …

Discussion: theGrio, Gawker, msnbc.com, NewsBusters, Mediaite, Washington Monthly, Right Wing Watch and The Huffington Post

Wall Street Journal:
For ‘the Fun of It’ — The debate we aren't having about a murder in Oklahoma.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Los Angeles Times, Betsy's Page, New Orleans Times-Picayune and TheBlaze.com

Amber Coulter / TheNewsEnterprise.com:

Theater owner won't show ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler' — Boutwell has policy against showing Fonda movies — Last weekend's top movie for ticket sales isn't coming to Hardin County. — Lee Daniels' The Butler" brought in an estimated $25 million on its opening weekend with its portrayal of Cecil Gaines …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Raw Story, BizPac Review and theGrio

Maggie Haberman / Politico:

Dems watch as Christie rolls — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has made little secret that he wants a resounding win in his reelection this year as a show of strength for his all-but-assumed 2016 presidential candidacy. — And Democrats appear perfectly willing to comply.

Discussion: CNN and msnbc.com

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

This Age of Bubbles — So, another BRIC hits the wall. Actually, I've never much liked the whole “BRIC” — Brazil, Russia, India, and China — concept: Russia, which is basically a petro-economy, doesn't belong there at all, and there are large differences among the other three.

Discussion: Business Insider, Prairie Weather, Paul Krugman and Free exchange

The Independent:

Exclusive: UK's secret Middle East internet surveillance base revealed in Edward Snowden leaks — Data-gathering operation is part of a £1bn web project still being assembled by GCHQ — Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities …

Discussion: Guardian, Joshua Foust, BBC and Telegraph, more at Mediagazer »

Jeff Jarvis / Guardian:

As a Democrat, I am disgusted with President Obama — I voted for Obama reluctantly, but never did I imagine he would become another Richard Nixon — What are you thinking, Mr President? — Is this really the legacy you want for yourself: the chief executive who trampled rights …

Discussion: Hit & Run, alicublog, VodkaPundit and Ed Driscoll

Bloomberg:

Amazon Is Said to Have Tested a Wireless Network — Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) has tested a new wireless network that would allow customers to connect its devices to the Internet, according to people with knowledge of the matter. — The wireless network, which was tested in Cupertino …

Discussion: Mashable and The Verge

Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:

U.S. sues Texas over voter ID (FURTHER UPDATED) — FURTHER UPDATE 4:35 p.m. The text of the motion to intervene in the San Antonio redistricting case is here. The legal complaint of the United States as intervenor is here. — UPDATE 4:05 p.m. The text of the new lawsuit against the Texas voter ID law is here.