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Friday, February 27, 2015

How an Adverse Supreme Court Ruling Would Send Obamacare Into a Tailspin - NYTimes.com

"Even if you don’t receive Obamacare subsidies, you could still be harmed by the Supreme Court case that could take them away.

A court ruling for the plaintiffs in the case, King v. Burwell, would have wide-reaching effects for the individual insurance markets in around three dozen states. The approximately six million people currently receiving subsidies in those states would be hit hard, of course. But so could the millions who now buy their own insurance without subsidies. The results could be surging prices and reduced choice for health insurance shoppers across the income spectrum.

It’s a phenomenon some health policy experts call the “death spiral,” the result of an insurance pool getting smaller and sicker as more healthy people leave an increasingly expensive health insurance market."

Monday, February 23, 2015

Progressives Split On Whether To Push For Warren 2016

"I don’t think the groups involved in the Draft Warren movement are necessarily thinking out all the consequences of everything they are doing today," said Tad Devine, a longtime strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is poised to run for the White House but not necessarily as a Democrat.

"I’m not trying to be too harsh on them," he added. "I’m trying to be honest about it. They have their agenda. We probably share a lot of the agenda. But you have to recognize that they have their own imperatives as an organization. And organizing around a candidate who happens to be enormously popular brings more people to your cause."

Devine's comments are a more diplomatic version of a criticism that often bubbles below the surface of talk of the Draft Warren effort; mainly that DFA and MoveOn are doing it out of organizational self-interest -- a win-win ploy to promote progressive politics while fattening their email lists.

Former CBS Colleague: Bill O'Reilly Is 'Completely Nutty'

"Former CBS News correspondent Eric Engberg fired back at Bill O'Reilly on Monday, telling HuffPost Live the Fox News host was "dishonest" and "irresponsible" in recounting his story that he reported in a "war zone" during the Falklands War in 1982."

BIBI'S BOMB BOMBSHELL BUSTED

"JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Mossad spy agency in October 2012 had a less alarmist view of Iran's nuclear program than an assessment delivered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations just a few weeks earlier, according to a purported secret cable published Monday by two media outlets."

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Is Jeb Bush really his 'own man'? As Jeb Bush tries to distance himself from the foreign policy decisions of his family, Melissa Harris-Perry questions why his inner-circle consists of one adviser who served in the administrations of his brother and father.







Melissa Harris-Perry on msnbc

The political battle over the American story America’s complicated and conflicting history was in the spotlight this week in Oklahoma, where a House committee approved a bill that would ban AP History from being taught in the state. Pedro Noguera and high school student Moin Nadeem join to discuss.





Melissa Harris-Perry on msnbc

George Washington, Slave Catcher - NYTimes.com

George Washington died on Dec. 14, 1799. At the time of his death, 318 enslaved people lived at Mount Vernon and fewer than half of them belonged to the former president. Washington’s will called for the emancipation of his slaves following the death of his wife. He completed in death what he had been unwilling to do while living, an act made easier because he had no biological children expecting an inheritance. Martha Washington lived until 1802 and upon her death all of her human property went to her inheritors. She emancipated none of her slaves.



George Washington, Slave Catcher - NYTimes.com

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Please Don’t Thank Me for My Service - NYTimes.com

"To these vets, thanking soldiers for their service symbolizes the ease of sending a volunteer army to wage war at great distance — physically, spiritually, economically. It raises questions of the meaning of patriotism, shared purpose and, pointedly, what you’re supposed to say to those who put their lives on the line and are uncomfortable about being thanked for it.
Mr. Garth, 26, said that when he gets thanked it can feel self-serving for the thankers, suggesting that he did it for them, and that they somehow understand the sacrifice, night terrors, feelings of loss and bewilderment. Or don’t think about it at all.
“I pulled the trigger,” he said. “You didn’t. Don’t take that away from me.”


Please Don’t Thank Me for My Service - NYTimes.com

Malcolm X’s daughter on how he would see the world today | MSNBC



Malcolm X’s daughter on how he would see the world today | MSNBC

Story of President Obama's mother gives insight into who he is | MSNBC



Story of President Obama's mother gives insight into who he is | MSNBC

Rudy Giuliani stands by President Obama criticism | MSNBC



Rudy Giuliani stands by President Obama criticism | MSNBC

Rudy Giuliani just keeps on digging | Rudy has always been a racist piece of equestrian turd whose attitude represents the worst of NYC.



Rudy Giuliani just keeps on digging | MSNBC

Chris Hayes Crushes Bill O'Reilly's 'Holy War': That Is 'Exactly What ISIS Wants'

"MSNBC's Chris Hayes called out Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly Wednesday night for giving in to "exactly what ISIS wants."

O'Reilly declared Tuesday night that there is a "Holy War" against ISIS and lambasted President Obama for denying the idea that the U.S. is at war with Islam.

"The Holy War is here," O'Reilly said. "And unfortunately, it seems the president will be the last one to acknowledge it."

But Hayes disagreed: "I'll probably be after him, if he ever acknowledges it," the MSNBC host quipped.

Journalists and critics were quick to target O'Reilly for his comments. Vox's Max Fisher called the Fox News host's announcement "silly," "dangerous" and "alarmingly short-sighted," and accused him of granting ISIS its wish. Wednesday night, MSNBC's Hayes joined in on the counter attack.

"That sort of rhetoric is, of course, exactly what ISIS wants," he said of O'Reilly's war declaration. "For if this is a Holy War, they aren’t some murderous cult or some fringe Sunni militia. No, if it’s a Holy War, then they are the representatives of Islam, which is why the president at today's summit on countering violent extremism was so careful not to cast the fight on those terms.”

Saturday, February 07, 2015

Friday, February 06, 2015

You Won't Believe What Scientists Found On NYC Subways

"Mozzarella. Bubonic plague. Kimchi. Staph. What could these things possibly have in common?

They're all among the strange set of substances DNA-hunting scientists identified in New York City's subway cars and stations as part of a comprehensive new study.

The researchers behind the so-called "PathoMap" project found DNA from more than 500 species of bacteria, including some from foods as well as 67 known to cause illness."

Dems Lining Up To Skip Netanyahu Speech

"A growing number of top Democrats plan to skip next month's Capitol Hill speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Reps. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, and Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), are just the latest lawmakers to indicate they won't attend the March 3 address before a rare joint session of Congress.

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The Democrats join other leading Capitol Hill liberals – including Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights hero, and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), head of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) – in protesting the speech by vowing to steer clear of it.
And the White House re-entered the fray on Friday, announcing that Vice President Biden will also miss the speech as a result of travel abroad.

The uproar surrounding the address has taken on a life its own; the speech is scheduled to come near the end of delicate negotiations between the Obama administration and Iran over the future of the Iranian nuclear program.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Evangelicals’ racist “purity” culture: What’s really behind Huckabee’s Beyoncé slur - Salon.com

"But Evangelicalism actually dates back to well before Roe v. Wade – indeed, about a decade before, right around the time Martin Luther King, Jr., was becoming a national figure. The historical white religious fear of the black man is a well-documented phenomenon. After all, Emmett Till was murdered for the supposed crime of whistling at a white woman. Social hygienists in the early 1920s created sexual health education not out of a public health concern, but because upper-class white women were beginning to mirror the supposed sexual habits of lower-class people of color. The pearl-clutching fear over miscegenation was still in the minds of evangelicals as they began to stand up as a political identity in the early 1960s."