Happy Birthday to Michelle Phillips, 69. Going with the imdb link instead of allmusic; I do like the Mamas and the Papas, but I like her Star Trek episode more.
And on to the good stuff:
1. David Frum's blog will be missed as he takes the summer off, or more. His sign-off, an honest report on the state of conservative reformers, is excellent.
2. Jared Bernstein is keeping up the sequestration watch.
3. Jonathan Cohn gets upset with conservatives. With one conservative. It's about ACA, natch.
4. Brendan Nyhan on scandalmania and Obama's approval ratings.
5. The death of the "gay recruiting myth," from E.J. Graff.
6. And Peter Gammons on tired baseball.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
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Can we nominate Ta-Nehisi Coates for a Pulitzer for this analysis?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/a-religion-of-colorblind-policy/276379/
Wow. To think I was looking at Mamas and Papas videos on her birthday without knowing it was her birthday. There's one on youtube at some awards show of the surviving original members at the time (less Mama Cass) singing California Dreamin, and it demonstrates what a strong voice Michelle actually had. She was overpowered by Cass in the 60s.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree: her Star Trek TNG performance is the way I think of her. She was so very young with the M&Ps, and with such a damaged biography.
Cohn is not a very careful writer:
ReplyDeleteWe also noted—as we had noted before—that some young and healthy people would have to pay more. Again, a health insurance system that no longer discriminates against the old and sick can no longer discriminate in favor of the young and healthy.
Because young men use less medical care than do women, Obamacare is forcing men to subsidize womens' care, a fact that he doesn't bother to mention in his article.
And Obamacare still allows for price discrimination "against" the elderly, but changes the ratios insurers are allowed to charge between young and old so that they have no connection to market rates.
Jared Bernstein bemoans even small cuts to federal programs, hyping those cuts as having dire consequences. No mention of how cuts to taxpayer budgets (higher taxes) can lead to real hardship at the margin.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that having more stuff taken from taxpayers can lower living standards sounds so gauche and unscientific to his ilk.