Wiretap: Nigeria is not Charlie; a Keystone climate change amendment

It’s not only Paris. In Nigeria, a suicide bomber, believed to be around 10 years old, approached a crowded market in the city of Maiduguri and detonated explosives that were strapped to her body. She killed herself and at least 19 others. Why isn’t this front-page news? In the New York Times, it made page A8. Via the Atlantic.

John Cassidy wonders in the New Yorker if France can fight radical Islam and, at the same time, not pander to Islamophobia.

As anti-Semitism grows in France, an increasing number of French Jews are considering moving to Israel. Via the New York Times.

South Dakota joins the growing list of conservative states where bans on gay marriage have been struck down by the courts. So where is gay marriage legal and where do bans still apply? Vox posted a map at the link above.

Even if Obama caves on his commitment to veto the tar sands KeystoneXL pipeline, Politico reports that the fight over the pipeline and the awareness it has kicked up may make Keystone the last major pipeline project in the U.S.

TPM: Sen. Bernie Sanders , the progressive independent from Vermont, “plans to introduce an amendment to the Keystone XL pipeline bill that would force Republican senators to go on record about whether they think climate change is real and manmade… The resolution’s language states that ‘climate change is real; climate change is caused by human activities; climate change has already caused devastating problems in the United States and around the world.’ The resolution concludes by saying that ‘it is imperative that the United States transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.’”

American policymaking is a twisted broken machine. Tom Engelhardt:

“If you are an American, you are statistically in less danger of dying from a terrorist attack in this country than from a toddler shooting you. And by the way, you’re 2,059 times more likely to die by your own hand with a weapon of your choosing than in a terrorist attack anywhere on Earth.  You’re also more than nine times as likely to be killed by a police officer as by a terrorist. And remind me, how many American taxpayer dollars have gone into ‘security’ from terrorism and how many into security from weaponry?  You know the answer to that. “

Not included in Engelhardt’s list of credible threats to Americans? That’s right midterm voters: Ebola. Americans are roughly a gazillion times less likely to contract the frightening disease spreading through West Africa and talked about incessantly by Republican politicians this election season than we are likely to be killed or injured in an American home where there lives a loaded gun, a fact about which politicians of all stripes said nothing this election season.

Also this from the same Engelhardt post: “One mistake you shouldn’t make is to imagine that Americans consider the right to bear arms universal. Just consider, for example, the CIA’s ‘signature drone strikes’ in Pakistan and elsewhere. Over the last two presidencies, the Agency has gained the ‘right’ to drone-kill young men of military age bearing arms — in societies where arms-bearing, as here, is the norm — about whom nothing specific is known except that they seem to be in the wrong place at the right time. The NRA, curiously enough, has chosen not to defend them.”

Finally, Obamacare may be working for Obama and the Democrats. The question is, Juan Williams writes in the Hill, is whether anyone has figured it out.

Mitt Romney is getting ready to the be the establishment conservative in the 2016 race. Via the National Journal.

Romney may be getting in the race, writes Nate Cohn, but Scott Walker might be best positioned to take on Jeb Bush. Via the New York Times.

If you want a close-up look at the fight over Common Core, go to Louisiana where you can watch sparring between Bobby Jindal and the man they used to call Jindal’s boy. Via Politico.

Why Tom Steyer shouldn’t run for the U.S. Senate. Via Salon.

The case for the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler Cosby joke at the Golden Globes. Via the Atlantic.

Why did John Fox lose his job with the Broncos? Jeff Legwolds writes in ESPN that it’s very simple math.

 [Photo: London embassy protest by Pete Riches.]