memeorandum: US FORCES MOVE CLOSER TO SYRIA AS OPTIONS WEIGHED (Associated Press)

7:55 PM ET, August 24, 2013

Top Items:

US FORCES MOVE CLOSER TO SYRIA AS OPTIONS WEIGHED — WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. naval forces are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers military options for responding to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. The president emphasized that a quick intervention …

Discussion: Associated Press, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, Taylor Marsh, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, National Review and Fox News

Doctors Without Borders:

[Press Release] Syria: Thousands Suffering Neurotoxic Symptoms Treated in Hospitals Supported by MSF — Brussels/New York, August 24, 2013 — Three hospitals in Syria's Damascus governorate that are supported by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders …

Discussion: Business Insider, NPR, New York Times, The Gateway Pundit and BizPac Review

RT:
Materials implicating Syrian govt in chemical attack prepared before incident - Russia

Discussion: NO QUARTER USA NET and Sic Semper Tyrannis

Erica Goode / New York Times:

In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon — MINNEAPOLIS — One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing. — “It must be a mistake,” he said, when the loan officer told him that someone …

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and Vox Popoli

Jennifer Steinhauer / New York Times:

Ignoring Qualms, Some Republicans Nurture Dreams of Impeaching Obama — WASHINGTON — Representative Kerry Bentivolio, a freshman Republican from Michigan, has a legislative dream. It is not to balance the federal budget, or find a way to help his ailing state or even take away money …

Discussion: Little Green Footballs

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:

New Jersey Senate Candidate To Single Mothers: Stop Relying On Food Stamps And Go To Work! — New Jersey Senate candidate Steve Lonegan (R) told MSNBC's Steve Kornacki on Saturday that single mothers don't need to rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps …

Discussion: Booman Tribune

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:

John Lewis At March On Washington: 'I'm Not Going To Stand By And Let The Supreme Court Take The Right To Vote Away' — Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) — who was the youngest speaker during the March on Washington in 1963 — delivered a passionate address about the importance of protecting voting rights …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, New York Times, The PJ Tatler, The Hinterland Gazette and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Siobhan Gorman / Washington Wire:

NSA Officers Spy on Love Interests — WASHINGTON—National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency's enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said. — The practice isn't frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases …

Discussion: Hot Air, CNET, Crooked Timber, Associated Press, The PJ Tatler, The Switch, Crooks and Liars, Firedoglake, Business Insider, Boing Boing, msnbc.com, Techdirt and Bloomberg

Juan Cole / Informed Comment:

NSA abuses include Stalking ex-Girlfriends — We have HUMINT, or human intelligence gathered from agents. We have SIGINT or signals intelligence. And now we have LOVEINT or NSA analysts occasionally reading the emails of ex-lovers. It doesn't happen a lot, the NSA told the WSJ, but often enough that there is a word for it.

Discussion: Techdirt, Hullabaloo and Discourse.net

Allan Fallow / blog.aarp.org:

Linda Ronstadt Discloses Her Battle With Parkinson's Disease — Legendary singer Linda Ronstadt, 67, told AARP today that she “can't sing a note” because she suffers from Parkinson's disease. Diagnosed eight months ago, Ronstadt began to show symptoms as long as eight years ago.

Discussion: Telegraph, Power Line, Scared Monkeys, KTLA 5 and EW.com

Henry Samuel / Telegraph:

France cannot take any more taxes, government admits — France's Socialist government has admitted that the country cannot cope with any further tax rises and promised no more hikes just days ahead of the country's largest ever tax bill. — President François Hollande has enacted …

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, Vox Popoli and Hot Air

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

Why Steve Ballmer Failed — The resignation of Microsoft's CEO is also an acknowledgement: The computer world changed, and Microsoft hasn't. — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, a thunderous leader who presided over a deadly quiet decade for the tech giant, announced he will retire within the next year.

Discussion: VodkaPundit, NBCNews and Mashable

Harold Meyerson / American Prospect:

The Socialists Who Made the March on Washington — The Team Assembles — “In 1956, when I was a student at Brooklyn College, Mike Harrington told Tom [Kahn, another Brooklyn College student] and me to go up to this office in Manhattan, on 57th Street, to work with Bayard Rustin,” Rachelle Horowitz remembers.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Reality-Based Community and Hullabaloo