News Nuggets 1363

DAYLEE PICTURE:A tree canopy in a park in Berlin, Germany.  From National Geographic.

There They Go Again (Kathleen Parker) from the Washington Post
"This year presents a rare — undeserved, some would say — opportunity for Republicans. It is a make-or-break moment in the crucial debate about where this country is heading and who is going to lead it. Let’s just say, the fat lady is tuning up."
I largely agree with Parker's basic premise here.

Why Snowden Won’t (and Shouldn’t) Get Clemency (Fred Kaplan) from Slate  
"He went too far to be considered just a whistleblower."

GOP'S Blinded by Benghazi Rage (Joan Walsh) from Salon
"No amount of facts can convince the right of reality. Here's how politics, racism and sexism guide their lunacy."

Hope and Change in the Vatican (Jon Favreau) from the Daily Beast
"Pope Francis, the first Pope from a developing nation, sees the world through the eyes of the poor and dispossessed."

Rich Catholic Republicans Threaten Pope Francis — Because He Frightens Them (Joe Conason) from National Memo
"Sounding both aggressive and whiny, the billionaire investor warned that he and his overprivileged friends might withhold their millions from church and charity unless the pontiff stops preaching against the excesses and cruelty of unleashed capitalism."

Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For from Rolling Stone Magazine
Most of the items are wildly pie-in-the-sky old-school socialist stuff - but it is interesting nonetheless that there is even a conversation about these items.
"The whole point of a finance sector is supposed to be collecting the surplus that the whole economy has worked to produce, and channeling that surplus wealth toward its most socially valuable uses. It is difficult to overstate how completely awful our finance sector has been at accomplishing that basic goal. Let's try to change that by allowing state governments into the banking game."

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reader from the New York Times 
"... the profits of publishers have remained largely intact; in the same period only one of what were then still the “big six” trade houses reported a decline on its bottom line. This is partly because of the higher margins on e-books. But it has also been achieved by publishers cutting costs, especially for mid-list titles.  The “mid-list” in trade publishing parlance is a bit like the middle class in American
politics..."
Translation: The market is great for already big-time successful authors and bad and growing worse for untested, new authors.  

Even When Test Scores Go Up, Some Cognitive Abilities Don’t (Anne Trafton) from MIT News
MIT neuroscientists find even high-performing schools don’t influence their students’ abstract reasoning. ... "Such tests are designed to measure the knowledge and skills that students have acquired in school — what psychologists call “crystallized intelligence.” However, schools whose students have the highest gains on test scores do not produce similar gains in “fluid intelligence” — the ability to analyze abstract problems and think logically..."

Degrees of Value: Making College Pay Off from the Wall Street Journal 
"The credit-driven higher education bubble of the past several decades has left legions of students deep in debt without improving their job prospects. To make college a good value again, today's parents and students need to be skeptical, frugal and demanding. There is no single solution to what ails higher education in the U.S., but changes are beginning to emerge, from outsourcing to online education, and they could transform the system. ... Today's average student debt of $29,400 may not sound overwhelming, but many students, especially at private and out-of-state colleges, end up owing much more, often more than $100,000. At the same time, four in 10 college graduates, according to a recent Gallup study, wind up in jobs that don't require a college degree. Students and parents have started to reject this unsustainable arrangement, and colleges and universities have felt the impact."

Why the U.S. Should Treat Health Care Like a Utility, Not a Market (Jon Perr) from Daily Kos
"They have it exactly backward. As a quick tour of the American model and successful systems in place in other modern economies worldwide shows, health care should be treated less like a free market and more like a government regulated utility."

New Research Shows Medicaid Increases ER trips. Oregon has a Plan to Stop That (Sarah Kliff) from the Washington Post
"The Science study looks at a 2008 expansion. A lot has changed in the past five years. In fact, over the past two years, Oregon has actually seen a decline in Medicaid emergency department visits this past year -- and attributes that to big changes the state has made to how it delivers care to Medicaid patients."

Early Days of Obamacare Bring Trickle, Not Flood, of Patients from Reuters 
"U.S. medical providers are seeing only a trickle of patients newly insured under President Barack Obama's healthcare law, as insurers, hospitals and doctors try to work out any hitches in coverage."
This is good news.  There are still many kinks (and perhaps some really BIG ones) to be worked out and a flood of new patients would have given the GOP one more thing to bitch about.  What this creates is the possibility that Obama will have an opportunity to begin to SERIOUSLY showcase real people getting real care.

Looking To 2014: The Emerging Movement For The Next New Deal (Richard Kirsch) from the National Memo
"Edsall’s bleak prognosis raises the biggest question facing not only progressives, but the future of our democracy: Is the political system in the United States capable of responding to the escalating crisis of stagnant wages, shrinking benefits, dissolving economic opportunity, and disappearing hopes of living anything that resembles the American Dream?"

The President's Hump Year (Doyle McManus) from the Los Angeles Times 
"Still, there are reasons to believe Obama's Year 6 won't be the disaster his critics predict."

A Year to Test Liberalism's Fighting Faith (George Packer) from the New Yorker
"This spirit has almost nothing to do with the perpetual battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, or the Center for American Progress against the Third Way, or Clinton vs. Warren in 2016. It is the political articulation of a wide and deep sense of outrage and disenchantment, which is why it has legs. It has to do with a sense that the deck is stacked in favor of the few, that ordinary people’s aspirations hardly stand a chance. Americans are loath to feel that way, which is why the moment has been such a long time coming."

Democrats Breaking GOP's Long Lock on Cuban Vote in Florida from the Associated Press
"Not long ago, any gesture of comity toward Cuba's communist government would have been greeted in Florida with a closed fist — or a car bomb. But three generations on from the revolution, Garcia represents a new breed of Cuban-American, more interested in pragmatism and reconciliation than regime change and isolation. That generational shift is at the heart of a realignment that could help change U.S. policy toward Cuba and reshape the political landscape in the country's largest swing-voting state. The implications are particularly troubling for the GOP."

Social Conservatives Make Big Money Plans from Politico
"Plans in the works range from aggressive super PAC spending in primaries against Republicans deemed squishy on social issues, to holding a donor conference in Normandy, France, tied to the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. It’s all geared toward elevating the place of social issues like abortion and gay marriage in conservative politics."

Tangled Role in G.O.P. War Over Tea Party (Eric Lipton) from the New York Times
"The activities of Steven C. LaTourette, an ex-congressman who defends centrist Republicans from Tea Party challengers, have raised questions about whether he is profiting from his role and violating lobbying rules."
Ah, it doesn't seem to matter what type of war is going on, Republicans will find a way to make money at it.

Indoctrinating Religious Warriors (Charles Blow) from the New York Times 
"Convince people that they’re fighting a religious war for religious freedom, a war in which passion and devotion are one’s weapons against doubt and confusion, and you make loyal soldiers. There has been anti-science propagandizing running unchecked on the right for years, from anti-gay-equality misinformation to climate change denials."

OBAMA HAWAII NUGGET!!
Visits With School Pals Are a Touchstone on President’s Trips to Hawaii from the New York Times
"As is usual when on the island, the president has been far from political advisers and hangers-on, and has instead spent time with the high school friends who have come to be known collectively, if inaccurately, as the Choom Gang."

MEDICAL NUGGET!!
Bringing Dementia Patients to Life from the Atlantic
"... perhaps the biggest misconceptions Theresa encounters regards a dementia diagnosis as the end. Naturally, being diagnosed with dementia represents an important change in life, but it is certainly not a death sentence."

HOPE-FOR-PAWS ANIMAL RESCUE NUGGET!!
The Mensch List: Eldad Hagar: Dogged Devotion (Naomi Pfefferman) from the Jewish Journal [of California]
"Miley and Frankie are just two of thousands of dogs that Hagar, along with his wife, Audrey, have rescued and found homes for since 2001: “I always save the most miserable, saddest, sickest dogs,” said Hagar, who prefers to handle the rescue missions solo. “They’re matted, starving, filthy, shot with BB guns. One pit bull mix had been shot, hit by a car and he was so hungry that he had eaten rocks to fill his stomach.”"

HOPE-FOR-PAWS/BILL FOUNDATION ANIMAL RESCUE NUGGET!!
This was posted at Hope-for-Paws associated organization, the Bill Foundation's website, and then reposted to the Paws site.  In my view, it completely captures Eldad Hagar's approach to dog rescue!
I believe in what I call "the rescue promise": The promise to do whatever is necessary to provide those I have rescued with a happy, healthy life... forever. To never cut corners, never give up on them and never stop fighting for them.
I do not have a job, but rather a mission in life and I owe it to all the animals I save and all those who support my rescue efforts to honor that mission.