Surely you remember, a couple of years ago, when President Obama’s blithe promise, “If you like your insurance, you can keep it”, was given four Pinocchios, or three enchiladas, or whatever, and labeled and ridiculed as the “Lie of the Year”. Well, I’ve been reading Steven Brill’s book, America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals,…
That’s because they’re REPUBLICANS, Mona
Mona Charen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributor to the National Review, has a problem, almost an ethical problem, one might say. Writing in the Review regarding Lyin’ Paulie Ryan’s House Speaker Paul Ryan’s plans to repeal and replace Obamacare, Mona says “… compared to the current law [i.e.,…
Obamacare: The Democrats won by losing, lost by winning, and now may have won by losing. Will the Republicans duplicate their “success”?
Donald Trump was right. Health care is complicated. How complicated, even I didn’t know until, by some coincidence, I started reading Steven Brill’s extensively titled though well worth reading America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System just as House Speaker Paul “Lyin’ Paulie Ryan” Ryan began…
A Limo at Risk, Part I: A skeptical view of American education reform, 1983-2017
(Author’s note: In the spring of 1996 I began to work as an editor/writer for a newly created non-profit called the “Education Statistics Services Institute,” whose sole function was to support the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education. I was assigned work on the National Assessment of Educational Progress,…
Oh, and another thing: David Gelernter is an idiot
David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale and a major contributor to development of the software used in parallel processing and, I am sure, many other remarkable achievements, not to mention his scruffy beard and hair, looks like what he hates: a damn hippie. So Dave isn’t really an idiot. He’s what happens…
I think you just answered your own question, Avik
Over at Forbes, conservative health care policy maven Avik Roy is confused: “Remarkably, House GOP leadership plans to move forward with marking up the bill [to replace ObamaCare] on Wednesday without even having the CBO score available. It’s not clear why they’re proceeding without a score, but it means that members of the House Energy…
Why Did Hillary “Lose”?
The most important, and the ugliest, thing to happen in 2016 was the decision of 46 percent of the American electorate to vote for the worst major party presidential candidate in American history. The second most important was the decision of 48 percent to vote for Hillary Clinton. So why did Hillary “lose”? It is…
Shelf life of Trump Bump: 1 day
Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? One whole day of “Papa Trump” before that nasty “Russian Connection” began to rear its ugly head once more, its rancid scent rising to the point that even FBI Director James Comey—“No Nose Jim”, as I like to call him—might be moved to say, “Now, what the heck is…
TheSynchroNerds—Art Blakey’s 1957 solo for “Well, You Needn’t”
TheSynchroNerds, identified at the end of the clip, recreate Art Blakey’s solo on “Well, You Needn’t”, from the 1957 Riverside album “Monk’s Music”. Posted by TheSynchroNerds Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers—“A Night in Tunisia” The man himself, in 1958, with trumpeter Lee Morgan, sax Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt. Posted…
When Republicans collide: Trump versus Congress
Remember back during the primaries when we Democrats felt all we needed to do was stand back and watch while the Republican Party destroyed itself? That didn’t work out so well, did it? Now we’re at Round 2. President Trump’s “budget”, such that it is—a 9.2% increase in defense coupled with a 9.2% cut for…