I got enough rest yesterday, so I actually have two more articles for you today, although one is just a short Memorial Day greeting. If you are returning home today, please take extra care to keep yourselves safe on the road.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:39 (average 5:09). To do it, click here. How did you do?
From NY Times: The Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare, goes fully into effect at the beginning of next year, and predictions of disaster are being heard far and wide. There will be an administrative “train wreck,” we’re told; consumers will face a terrible shock. Republicans, one hears, are already counting on the law’s troubles to give them a big electoral advantage.
No doubt there will be problems, as there are with any large new government initiative, and in this case, we have the added complication that many Republican governors and legislators are doing all they can to sabotage reform. Yet important new evidence — especially from California, the law’s most important test case — suggests that the real Obamacare shock will be one of unexpected success…
Click through for the rest of this excellent Krugman editorial. I agree that ObamaCare will be a big success, except in those areas where RepubliCare, with its built-in death benefit, takes precedence.
From TruthDig: Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, the Harvard economists whose influential pro-austerity study was recently exposed as being seriously flawed, have penned a scathing open letter to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a major critic of their work and one of the leading voices in the anti-austerity movement. In the long-winded letter posted to Reinhart’s website Saturday, the pair accuse the Nobel Prize-winning economist of “uncivil behavior” and criticize him for being “selective and shallow” in his characterization of their research.
This is a common Republican tactic, an ad hominem argument. Unable to mount a credible attack against Krugman’s position, they attack the person.
From Think Progress: Okay, it’s not the White House, but rather Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the smart one, the one that doesn’t push climate silence.
Here’s an amazing Whitehouse speech from earlier this month, “Time to Wake Up: Magical Thinking on Climate Change“:
Now, we need the White House to catch up to Whitehouse. I particularly liked his use of the Bible, because it shows the extent to which Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians ignore it unless they can twist it to support their goose-stepping to our destruction. Many of you do not believe his religious perspective, but if it helps those that do to support responsible environmental legislation, then please coexist without criticism.
Cartoon:
15 Responses to “Open Thread–5/27/2013”
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I have never heard of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) – I like his reasoning (and his courage and his tenacity) and hope to God that it gets through to some of those on the Right whose heads are maybe less full of concrete than others there! He is quite right – the Far Right expect God to come in like some kind of over indulgent Nanny/servant to clear up after them – well it doesn't work that way! We are here to do God's work and to increase the amount of real love and caring in the world and to grow closer to God (if you are in love with someone you want to be like them – its the same with religion, we want to be like God, we don't demand that He be like us!). Hooray for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse!
Thanks Pat. Very well said!
The thing is, Obamacare is already saving the lives of chronically and critically ill children whose families cannot afford the usual health insurance or who have been cancelled for using too much health insurance. Obamacare is ensuring that these children continue to get life saving medical care – not that republicans give a damn.
I once worked with a family whose 3 sons had a syndrome that caused heart defects. The father had a good job, but his insurance was cancelled when the 3 year old needed a heart transplant. Because dad's insurance was cancelled, the company he worked for fired him because he didn't have health insurance and they considered that a liability on the job. It was a vicious spiral downwards for this family. Fortunately, the children's hospital in our area turns no one away. That is not always the case – or even usually the case.
Indeed that boy was very fortunate. I have written about far too many who died, because,. after paying for years, their insurance companies dumped them.
This ten-day Memorial Holiday break for Congress will really take the hot air out of the Repubicans "Scandal Sails".
Doesn't mean they won't try to revive them when they return – or that the "Liberal Media" won't be complicit in helping them at it – but poll after poll after poll shows the public is pretty much fed up with their shenanigans. (Although the IRS one may have some legs – but nothing serious unless they can tie it Obama.)
Nameless, I agree. I guess they will just have to vote to repeal ObamaCare for the 38th time.
Those do nothings get 10 days off for Memorial Day? That is obscene, isn't it?
3:52 Jeep-ers!
3:46 My Jeep kept creeping right by yours.
3:18 My jeep did not give me the Willys.
Crunched and last.
Glad you got enough rest! Did you read the comments on Krugman's page? I was astonished at the meanness of some of them. I keep hearing that under Obamacare anyone 75 or older will be refused life saving treatments, from dialysis to chemotherapy. I haven't been able to find a shred of truth to this, but it keeps being repeated.
Sen. Whitehouse would get my vote if I lived in Rhode Island. Still stuck with Mitch and Rand, sadly.
I didn't, but nothing they said would surprise me.
I have a couple good ones. I think I'd move!
Puzzle — 3:52 Jeep-ers!
NY Times — "…it does look as if there’s an Obamacare shock coming: the shock of learning that a public program designed to help a lot of people can, strange to say, end up helping a lot of people — especially when government officials actually try to make it work."
I love it when a plan comes together. Will be interesting to see what happens in Republican/Teabagger states when some people realise that they are not covered, or not covered as well because their state governments decided not to participate. 2014 might see some changes in state governments.
Truth Dig — Any time that anybody, no matter their political stripe, attacks another with vague generalities at best, you can be sure that they do noy understand their own argument sufficiently to counter criticism, or there is no basis on which to lay bare the criticism. I am not an economist, but I have sufficient knowledge to know that Krugman is right more often than not. I certainly couldn't say that about R&R — "Ridiculous & Republican".
Think Progress — I think it is time to clear the temple of the money changers! I think it is time to clear the temple of GREED!
Cartoon — The Bismarck harried allied merchant shipping between Halifax and the UK. Down to the bottom of the sea she went west of Brest, France — almost 16,000 feet (almost 3 miles) down in the Atlantic.
Crunched!
That could indeed prove interesting. We will be busy debunking Republican lies anout problemd that will not really exixt.
Amen.
Jesus did it.
Had the Bismark broken out into the Atlantic, the effect on Alliued shipping would have been severe.