If you’re a TPMPrime subscriber, don’t miss our latest Prime Longform on the global battle for ‘rare earths’, the critical metals that run your iPhone, your Android, your hybrid car and most things we associate with the high tech and post-fossil fuel world. They’re pricey, incredibly messy to get out of the ground, and almost all the global supply is mined in China. It’s a fascinating story that brings together tech, environmental threat and a new 21st ‘Great Game’ among the global powers to secure reliable supplies of the metals. It’s a great read. I hope you enjoy it.
Not much coverage of it today. But today’s bipartisan Senate report debunked virtually all of the right-wing conspiracy theories about the attack on the Benghazi compound back in September of 2012.
I posted a reader email yesterday from a 30something Brooklynite, TC, who is supportive of Obamacare but still can’t afford the premiums for health insurance on the exchange.
It prompted several emails from other readers with a range of reactions that basically fell into three categories: readers who could relate; older readers who, in almost a parental way, urged TC to reassess the financial risk of going without insurance; and readers who, if I can freely summarize, had little patience for underemployed hipster financial predicaments.
Here’s a sampling:
Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act almost four years ago, there’ve been two continuing battles over the law. One was narrowly political: win the 2010 and 2012 elections and repeal the law. The other was less visible but no less important: sabotage the law at the state level to engineer failure and force repeal or a combo of policy and political catastrophe for the Democrats. The first failed in November 2012. Now we know they whiffed on the second one too.
It’s simply too late to undo what happened in March 2010.
This is a what a Republican running for Congress in Virginia said in 2002: It’s just too hard to prosecute marital rape “when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie, there’s no injury and so forth or anything.”
Have you heard of Neodymium? How about Rare Earth Elements? If you haven’t, you should. They’re incredibly messy to mine out of the ground – conveniently co-located in most cases with radioactive metals like thorium and uranium. The iPhone in your pocket won’t work without them. Neither will the hybrid car you’re driving to help stop global warming. And about 90% of the supply for these critical elements comes from China. In our latest TPMPrime Long Form (sub.req.), inside the environmentally messy global race for the metals that run your iPhone. And Andoid. And Prius. And everything else.
As we continue to monitor the on-going implementation of Obamacare, I wanted to call your attention to our newly updated Obamacare enrollment interactive map. You likely know the total numbers of enrollees – 2.2 million private insurance through exchanges, over 4 million on Medicaid, etc. But this is the state by state breakdown, which is more consequential than you might think since there is no national health insurance market. Risk pools, prices and the rest are all state by state. (See our methodology here.)
In wake of scandal, New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) disavowing 2013 fist bump with Christie.
It’s that time of year, when members of Congress announce they just can’t muster another election season. We’re keeping track of who’s retiring here, and we’ll keep it updated.