The New York Times provides us with one of the worst-ever examples of punditoids scolding Democrats for going too far left. But maybe it's good news, in a way -- apparently, at this moment, the Times can't find anyone willing to perform this scolding but a veteran of three Republican administrations (one who's clearly angling for a fourth, or he would have mentioned that skepticism of tough-on-crime laws comes from both parties these days). Still, hearing Democrats are going "too far left" when they won't fight "free" trade, won't bring back the 91% tax bracket, won't expand Medicare to include everyone, and won't pass even modest labor reforms is profoundly insulting to actual liberals.
PR Watch notes that Gov. Scott Walker (E-WI) has been removed from his position as the chair of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. But I wouldn't get too caught up in the did-he-jump-or-was-he-pushed argument (as both the "liberal" media and Mr. Walker would want, I'm sure), because if you get caught up in that, you might not notice just how corrupt the WEDC got once Mr. Walker privatized it. When a man contributes to the Walker campaign and then his corporation gets buku bucks from the WEDC even though some days his corporation's credit cards worked and some days they didn't, that should be a lot more interesting than whether Mr. Walker resigned from the WEDC or got fired.
U.S. District Court of New York judge throws out lawsuit filed by for-profit colleges against impending Department of Education rules aimed at reining in their abuses. For-profit colleges maintain, somehow, that limiting the size of student loans "hurts students." Why? Because if they told the truth -- that such rules actually limit the amount of vacation homes in which for-profit college CEOs can gild their plumbing -- no one would go along with it. Well, except maybe Marco Rubio, since these are his "constituents."
Report says that private health insurance corporations' overhead costs have "exploded" under the Affordable Care Act. But the report's authors employ scare numbers: the $273 billion figure is over 10 years, and $1,375 per newly-insured person per year works out to less than $115 per month; think very many insurance plans are that cheap? Still, I take their point that Medicare's overhead is less than one-tenth that of private health insurance corporations on the exchange; indeed, it's just one reason I've long supported Medicare-for-All.
Finally, former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn said this to the Associated Press: "I don’t see that I’m any less religious by the fact that I can appreciate the fact that science just records that we change with evolution and time, and that’s a fact. It doesn’t mean it’s less wondrous and it doesn’t mean that there can’t be some power greater than any of us that has been behind and is behind whatever is going on." No truth to the rumor that he then dropped his mike and walked away.
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