Boston Marathon bombing victim sues Glenn Beck for defamation. Amazing to reread what he said about this guy at the time. Horrific level of slander.
Expect an epic battle today between a cheered White House and the budding Obamacare Numbers Truth Movement (ONTM) with news that despite all predictions yesterday Obamacare signups hit the original predicted goal of 7 million sign ups.
Today Conor P. Williams argues that in D.C., the debate over education reform is largely settled, with the four major candidates at the polls today all defending the policies of former Mayor Adrian Fenty and his Chancellor Michelle Rhee. And, he argues, this may not have happened if Fenty had won.
Let me just say it: No, no, no, no!
We’re hearing this morning – intentionally hearing, since these reports are clearly trial balloons of some sort – that the US is again considering releasing convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. To review, if you don’t know the backstory: Pollard was a civilian working for US Navy intelligence who was arrested and convicted for passing copious classified information to Israel. The fact that Pollard was a Jew spying for Israel made the case extremely charged, for good reasons and bad. Not surprisingly, the Israeli government has been lobbying for decades to get him released. No big surprise there. We try to get our spies released too. But if the White House is seriously considering using Pollard as a bargaining chip at this stage of the negotiations they’ve totally lost their minds.
About 15 years ago I wrote a controversial article in The New Republic arguing, on very hard evidence, that it simply wasn’t true that Americans were more supportive of the death penalty than nations in Europe. Mainly the issue was that European political systems were less responsive to populist support. It’s probably a mix of structural (parliamentary) and cultural differences (less populist). But the decline of violent crime, not surprisingly, has rapidly reduced Americans’ support for the death penalty. Look at this chart.
Sahil Kapur points out the hypocrisy of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) revised budget, released today, that includes the very Medicare cuts the GOP has been campaigning against.
Republicans rage against the dying of their favorite anti-Obamacare memes.
Michele Bachman has said she’s not running for re-election. Someone should tell that to the PAC that’s still raising money for her “campaign.”
It’s not often that we get someone like Jonathan Gruber — the intellectual powerhouse behind what became the Affordable Care Act — to write for TPM, but here we are. Gruber writes with Vanderbilt School of Medicine Assistant Professor John Graves on how enrollment is far from over, and how Obamacare offers a key piece of the social safety net.
Daniel Strauss has a great piece on Sen. Elizabeth Warren, senior senator from Massachusetts, as a fundraising powerhouse for Democrats in trouble.