NSA Doubts, Peace Talks, Hall of Shame

National: The House yesterday came within seven votes of defunding the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone and Internet records. Some lawmakers who want to restrain the NSA say they are reflecting the concern of constituents who say post 9/11 security measures have gone too far.

World: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are scheduled to resume peace talks late today in Washington. They have not held direct talks since 2010. The two sides have been perpetually stuck over who owns and controls Jerusalem, and what should happen to Palestinian refugees. The meeting is partly a result of a push by Secretary of State John Kerry. Palestinians agreed to sit down after Israel said it would release 104 prisoners, many of whom have spent 20 years in prison for attacks on Israel.

>At least 38 people were killed East of Naples when a bus plunged off a road in the Campania region of Italy. The driver is among the dead.

The Pastime: Yesterday, for the first time since 1965, the Baseball Hall of Fame had no living inductees to draw a crowd to its annual ceremony. In the age of performance-enhancing drugs, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens all were rejected by the baseball writers in their first year of eligibility. If they had done it without drugs, they’d be in.  

The Obit Page: Col. Bud Day, an Air Force fighter pilot in Vietnam who earned the Medal of Honor for resisting five years of brutality in the Hanoi Hilton, died at age 88. He never gave up information. Day was shot down in August 1967, captured and escaped for two weeks in the jungle before he was caught again. Sen. John McCain, who was Day’s cellmate, wrote in his memoir that Colonel Day’s encouragement helped him survive and that Day “had an indomitable will to survive with his reputation intact.”

Weekend Box: “Fruitvale Station”, never a contender for number #1, finished a respectable 10th for the weekend. It’s the dramatization of the notorious 2009 shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer on an Oakland train platform. In movies for teenagers, “The Wolverine” comic book sequel was #1 at $55 million, “The Conjuring”, #2 with $22.13 million and “Despicable Me 2”, #3 at $16 million.

Binge Thinking: Dartmouth College, where students claim to have invented Beer Pong, is proud that efforts to reduce heavy drinking among students have dropped the number of drunks sent to the hospital in the last academic year from 80 to 31. Dartmouth students average 2100 on the SATS but their BACs slipping.

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The “Great” President

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It's Been Said

"Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote."

  • Donald Trump courting the vote of the Christian right

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