Due to the holiday, the News Nuggets will be on hiatus until next Monday, December 2. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!
The Obamacare Success Stories You Haven't Been Hearing About from the Los Angeles Times
"Holzman and Vezina are exactly the type of people Obamacare is designed to help--indeed, rescue from the cold, hard world of individual health insurance of the past. That was a world where even an undiagnosed condition might render you uninsurable. Where your insurance could be canceled after you got sick or had an accident. Where your financial health was at risk as much as your physical well-being. These are the stories you're not hearing amid the pumped-up panic over canceled individual policies and premium shocks--many of which stories are certainly true, but the noise being made about them leads people to think they're more common than they are."
Can Obama Recover? He Did Already (By Alex Seitz-Wald) from National Journal
"The problems with HealthCare.gov are real, but the media has declared Obama and his health law dead before— yet they're both still here. ... "If you're feeling some déjà vu, there's a reason," Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist and media critic wrote in his column in the Columbia Journalism Review last week. "Journalists are falling victim to the same extrapolation fallacy that pervades so much political coverage. In these sorts of stories, reporters identify a current trend and spin out a story in which it continues to implausible extremes.""
State Successes Show Health Law Can Work from Politico
"There are states that are running their own websites and enrolling a lot of people, way more than the amateur-hour federal website that serves most of the states. Medicaid enrollment, another part of the law, is going significantly better than the signups for private insurance — nearly 400,000 people were determined to be eligible in October."
Obama Goes On Offensive Over Health Care Law from Reuters
"Almost two weeks ago, President Barack Obama, looking down, walked into the White House briefing room and apologized for the flawed rollout of his healthcare reform law. That picture of a chastened leader now appears to be gone. During a three-day Western swing through Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Obama touted the accomplishments of his signature law, popularly known as Obamacare, and promised the glitches were going away."
A Plea to Avoid Crush of Users at Health Site from the New York Times
"With a self-imposed deadline for repairs to the website approaching on Saturday, the administration is trying to strike a delicate balance. It is encouraging people to go or return to the website but does not want to create too much demand. It boasts that the website is vastly improved, but does not want to raise expectations that it will work for everyone."
Is Another Republican Wave Building? (Reid Wilson) from the Washington Post
"President Obama’s poll numbers are at record lows. The health care law that serves as the cornerstone of his domestic policy legacy is even more unpopular. And there are few chances to change the conversation among a skeptical public that isn’t happy with Washington. Sound familiar? It should: The national political climate today is starting to resemble 2010, when Republicans won control of the House of Representatives by riding a wave of voter anger."
Now HERE is a very representative slice of beltway bullshit wisdom as distributed by the MSM these days!! Wilson says "there are few chances to change the conversation among a skeptical public ..." Nonsense!! If Obamacare starts working as it is intended in January, the narrative should change substantially. And it is quite predictable that it will, given how board the media should be by then of the website/old policies story lines. This analysis so showcases for me how out of touch most people in the press corps are these days! Not only are they ignoring how the landscape for this program might change once it's working, reporters' income levels (particularly in television and at the big national papers) are routinely so high that they make the practical impact of Obamacare an abstraction to which they have no personal connection whatsoever. Now -- having said all that, the Dems are in trouble right now over Obamacare -- and they have been WAY too passive in their responses. Obama and the Dems need to bring their game to a whole new level, given how the GOP has reacted. Obama did very little to sell this program back when it was passed. Now that it is being implemented, he and the Dems will need to devote WAY more time in January and beyond to selling its successes -- and to continue to do so over and over and over! Obama will need to bring his many oratorical skills to the forefront again -- whether it is at town hall meetings or in the State of the Union address. Otherwise, as Wilson suggests here, the Dems (especially in the Senate) could get hurt pretty bad next November.
CNN/ORC Poll: Are Obamacare's Flaws Fixable? from CNN
"Despite the flawed rollout of HealthCare.gov, a majority of Americans still seem to have an open mind about whether Obamacare will work, and more than half of those surveyed in a new national poll believe the current problems can be solved."
The Birth of Obamacare McCarthyism (Josh Marshall) from Talking Points Memo
"... over the last few days I've noticed a new trend, or at least the frequency of it seems to be increasing. Let's call it Obamacare McCarthyism, a new intra-Republican political cudgel cued up for the 2014 political season, in which different anti-Obamacare Republicans attack each other for either being crypto-supporters of Obamacare, being Obamacare-curious or even just having earlier periods of Obamacare confusion."
The Vatican's Journey From Anti-Communism to Anti-Capitalism (Emma Green) from the Atlantic
"The pope's strong condemnation of income inequality and free markets shows how much has changed in the Catholic Church since the Cold War."
New Rules Would Rein In Nonprofits’ Political Role from the New York Times
"The Obama administration’s proposals would curtail political activity by tax-exempt nonprofit groups, a significant change for one of the fastest-growing sources of campaign spending."
Nuclear Accord With Iran Opens Diplomatic Doors in the Mideast from the New York Times
"It is also a seminal moment — one that thrusts foreign policy to the forefront in a White House preoccupied by domestic woes, and one that presents Mr. Obama with the chance to chart a new American course in the Middle East for the first time in more than three decades."
Americans Back Iran Deal by 2-to-1 Margin: Reuters/Ipsos Poll from Reuters
"Americans back a newly brokered nuclear deal with Iran by a 2-to-1 margin and are very wary of the United States resorting to military action against Tehran even if the historic diplomatic effort falls through, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday."
Israel's Iran Dilemma (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
"The six-month interim deal between major powers and Iran, renewable for a further six months pending a full accord (for a period to be defined), freezes Iran’s nuclear program about where it is — at a technologically advanced point short of militarization. But it fast-forwards American-Iranian relations and may thereby redraw the strategic map of the Middle East."
RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013 (Edward McClelland) from Salon
"When I was growing up, it was assumed that America’s shared prosperity was the natural endpoint of our economy’s development, that capitalism had produced the workers paradise to which Communism unsuccessfully aspired. Now, with the perspective of 40 years, it’s obvious that the nonstop economic expansion that lasted from the end of World War II to the Arab oil embargo of 1973 was a historical fluke, made possible by the fact that the United States was the only country to emerge from that war with its industrial capacity intact. Unfortunately, the middle class – especially the blue-collar middle class – is also starting to look like a fluke ..."
Right-Wing Extremists Face New Moral Conundrum (Brian Beutler) from Salon
"When Healthcare.gov actually starts working, GOP will have to choose between politics or their constituents' health."
A 31-Year-Old Is Tearing Apart the Heritage Foundation (Julia Ioffe) from the New Republic
"Think Republicans have been making fools of themselves? Blame Michael Needham."
Teenager Constructs Rollercoaster from 25,000 K'Nex Pieces in his Bedroom from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Nick Cottreau, from Nova Scotia, Canada, spent more than six months to create one giant rollercoaster model that fills his entire bedroom. He said the fascination and obsession to build mammoth models started when Nick received his first K'Nex set at the age of five."
The Ohio State University Marching Band: Gettysburg Address from Youtube
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