As the news out of Egypt ebbed quite a bit today, we shifted focus to Syria to track reports of what could be the deadliest chemical attack in 25 years. The biggest domestic story on this slow news day was the sentencing of Bradley Manning, but behind the scenes on Capitol Hill, the nails started to go in the coffin of immigration reform.

Before another big NSA story broke this evening, Ambinder analyzed both sides of the agency’s surveillance scandal. Kirchick, with signature flair, hijacked RT to assail the Russian TV network over Putin’s anti-gay laws (see above). Julia Ioffe joins the applause:

This segment brought me pure, unalloyed joy for several reasons. One, Russia Today is a ridiculous sham of an organization where “whataboutism” reigns supreme. It unintentionally produces segments—like this one on America’s colonization of Sweden (“The United States of Swedamerica”)—that seem like they were picked up off the cutting room floor at “The Colbert Report.” … But the main reason Kirchick’s performance is spectacular is because this is exactly what people should be doing to protest Moscow’s anti-gay laws: Don’t boycott Russia, troll it. Boycotting them gives them a sense of wounded pride and artificial importance; trolling, they don’t know what to do with. As Mr. Kirchick so aptly demonstrated today.

Elsewhere on the Dish, readers told stories of forcibly committing a sibling and of getting saved from black guys in hoodies by another black guy in a hoodie. Go get some writing advice from Chuck Palahniuk and Cormac McCarthy, as well as some insight from Ta-Nehisi on learning a second language. And head here for your daily fix of Breaking Bad.