Good news, everyone: U.S. House of Representatives passes two amendments to its defense authorization bill that would prevent American involvement in the Saudi-led war against Yemen. Yes, these amendments could well get conferenced out in reconciliation, particularly if President Trump demands it (and what an "independent" he'll be if he does!), but it's still a good first step -- particularly since it should be hard for Mr. Trump to use the 2001 AUMF (specifically aimed at those who attacked us, or harbored our attackers, on 9.11) to justify continuing to participate in a war on the same side as al-Qaeda and against Houthi rebels who fight ISIS well.
Ed Dolan at Vox explains "What a Good Conservative Health Care Plan Would Look Like." How do I know that these are actually conservative ideas? Because I'd actually be willing to implement some of them (definitely greater price transparency and drug reimportation from Canada) in an honest negotiation about health care reform -- though the other side would at least have to give up a public option, of course. I mean, negotiations have to be win-win. And I hasten to point out that a Medicare-for-All, single-payer system would wipe away any complaints about employer-sponsored insurance tax deductibility.
Glen Frieden at FAIR notes the relative absence of actual liberal populists from NPR's "varied mix" of on-air perspectives, while giving yuge airtime to right-wing commentator Jonah Goldberg, often without identifying his political bent. NPR professes to like Mr. Goldberg because he's not as "predictable" as the others, but the only thing "unpredictable" about him is exactly which tortured road he will use to arrive at the same place all the other right-wingers go. Also, he's really bad at punditry -- I can't tell you how many columns of his I've read where he accidentally destroys his own argument, and not even by trying to be hip.
Ho hum, Trump lawyer threatens unnamed individual in a string of profane late-night emails. The lawyer later apologized, and I suppose we could argue whether Mr. Kasowitz's threats rise to the level of criminality ("I already know where you live" and "You will see me. I promise. Bro." sure weren't his two best ideas that day), but certainly responding with four profane, rage-addled emails to someone best ignored describes a man who may not be the best person for whatever job he's got. I can already hear Mr. Trump saying I hire only the best people, the classiest people! The best!
Finally, researchers find ravens able to plan for the future. Ravens already save food for later, but scientists suspect that ability may be hard-wired, so they trained them to a) choose a rock from among a series of items, and then drop that rock into a tube to release a treat from a box, and b) exchange a token for a food reward. And ravens show more long-term planning than a lot of politicians do, by actually doing better on experiment a) when waiting 17 hours for a reward than they did after waiting 15 minutes, and by preferring to hold on to their tokens for the promise of a better reward later in experiment b). So think about all that next time you watch The Birds.
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