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26 May 2011 12:32

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U.S.: Two ways Obama’s health care plan is actually working

  • Who’s getting insured? A greater number of people under 26 now get to stay on their parents’ insurance. It helps because they’re paying for it — meaning that they’re helping lower costs for the elderly. When they get older, they’ll be helped by younger generations in the same way.
  • Who’s insuring people? As small businesses are getting incentives for providing health care, insurance-providing businesses with fewer than 10 employees have grown by 46%. That’s huge; it helps people who need health care most. And the IRS has approved more incentives, too. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 May 2011 11:40

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World: Ratko Mladic arrest: The most wanted man in Europe

  • A pariah of the Yugoslavian War: Missing from view since his 1995 indictment on war crimes, Mladic’s capture allows for the closure of a dark era of Europe’s post-World War II history. In leading a war that killed as many as 100,000, the Bosnian Serb saw it as a form of historic revenge against hundreds of years of Turkish-Ottoman rule. And he was something else, too. He used phrases like this one when talking to soldiers: “When I give you guarantees, it’s as if they are given by God.” Hours before leading a masacre of the town of Srebrenica, he went into the town and gave the children there candy, while reassuring them everything would be OK. Could you imagine? Mladic’s arrest finally offers the end of a dark chapter of modern history that needs closure. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 May 2011 11:18

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U.S.: Supreme Court sides with Arizona on immigrant worker law

  • 5-3 states can take away business licenses, the SCOTUS says source
  • » Obama and the Chamber of Commerce, together at last: In a decision in a case that put two longtime adversaries on the same side of a losing battle, the Supreme Court backed an Arizona immigration law that encourages employers to verify their workers — or they could lose their business license if they knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. We don’t know if we agree with the Supreme Court’s decision on this case — especially because it could lead to a number of copycat laws as a result of this. (By the way, in case you were wondering: Justice Elena Kagan didn’t vote in the case, as it came up while she was still Solicitor General.)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 May 2011 10:31

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Politics: Paul Ryan doesn’t care if Medicare leads to his political downfall

  • I don’t care about that. Now is not that time to be worried about political careers. Sincerely, I will be fine if I lose my House seat because you know what? I will know I did what I thought was right to save this country from fiscal ruin.
  • Rep. Paul Ryan • Saying he’s more concerned about the future of the country than his own political career. Dude … cut with the theatrics. You’re a rising star in your own party. And your district is in a conservative part of Wisconsin. The odds you’ll get voted out of office for this mess — even after it dive-bombed in the Senate for going too far/not far enough (if you’re Rand Paul)? Slim to none. So, we’re glad that you’re at least owning the consequences of your Medicare plan, even if it is controversial. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 May 2011 02:08

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Politics: Scott Walker is becoming very unpopular

  • Watch out, Walker: If a recall election were held today, you’d get booted faster than you can say “Gray Davis.” source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 May 2011 00:15

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Politics: Sharron Angle isn’t running for Congress after all

  • NO you won’t have Sharron Angle to kick around anymore source
  • » She’s sitting this one out: After declaring a run for the recently-vacated House seat in Nevada, former Senate candidate Sharron Angle is withdrawing her candidacy. Why, you ask? Well, Nevada’s special election laws are vague, and there was some dispute as to how the election would unfold. Angle was hoping for a jungle-style free-for-all, as that would allow her to bypass a primary, but a recent court decision puts the state GOP in charge of nominating a candidate. Because of her embarrassing loss to Harry Reid last November, Angle isn’t very well-liked by the Republican establishment, and there’s no way they were going to nominate her. She hasn’t ruled out a run in 2012, though, so we may not have heard the last of Sharron “Some of you look a little more Asian to me” Angle.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 23:25

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Politics: Yes, MSNBC was right to suspend Ed Schultz

  • Un-ED-cceptable: MSNBC is giving Ed Schultz a one-week, unpaid timeout for calling Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” And good for them. Obviously, Laura Ingraham’s sex life is completely irrelevant to her political views, but more importantly, the use of the word “slut” as an insult implies that having many sexual partners is something bad, something to be ashamed of. This is exactly the kind of antiquated, 1950’s-era thinking that progressives have been trying to move past for the last fifty years, and for Schultz to resort to that kind of base rhetoric is not only offensive and inappropriate, it’s counterproductive to the cause he claims to champion. If anything, we say he got off easy. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

25 May 2011 23:24

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U.S.: Study: Whites feel left behind by shifting racial dynamics

  • These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality — at their expense.
  • Tufts University psychologist Samuel Sommers • Describing his study, published in the peer-reviewed Perspectives on Psychological Science, which shows that some white people feel that, as blacks gain ground in society, they’re falling behind. Which is to say that, due to societal changes, many whites feel they receive detrimental treatment compared to blacks. It’s a perception which, while felt by some whites, isn’t necessarily true, according to Sommers. On top of flying in the face of ample evidence to the contrary, he notes that it’s felt worst in the job market. “Economists have documented over and over again that it takes twice as many resumes to get a call back from an employer if you have a black-sounding name,” he says. This is a study we wish didn’t exist. We still have a way to go. (thanks reallyfoxnews) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 17:37

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World: Obama and Cameron stay firm on NATO in Libya

  • Obama wants patience on Libya: In a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron. President Obama sought to erase any doubt that the NATO action against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi would let up while Gaddafi clings to power through his military. “Gaddafi and his regime need to understand that there will not be a let-up in the pressure that we are applying.” Obama refused to give a timetable for the military action, saying it would be resolved “in a timely fashion,” and stressed the need for “patience.” source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2011 16:54

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Politics: Sen. Max Baucus calls for quicker Afghanistan withdrawal

  • The President has announced that this July will mark the beginning of a transition of security responsibility to Afghan forces. However, in my view the transition plan is too slow. We need to begin handing responsibility of security to Afghan forces immediately and aim to have most US combat troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next year. We should leave behind only a small force to hunt down and kill terrorists in Afghanistan, and to help the Afghan military perform their duties.
  • Senator Max Baucus • Calling for both a quicker withdrawal of troops, and a quicker transfer of responsibility from the U.S. military to Afghan security forces. That these conversations are starting to crop up is unsurprising; the death of Osama bin Laden, the ostensible reason the U.S. entered Afghanistan to begin with, makes this the most politically opportune time to voice such sentiments. And while the concerns in leaving quicker are by no means negligible, with a government as steeped in corruption as the Afghanistan’s is, and under a leader like Hamid Karzai (famously volatile, takes bags of money from Iran, once threatened that he might join the Taliban), what is the ultimate definition of success for the U.S. involvement there? source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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