Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Clio Chang: Trumpcare Will Kill People. Why Is That So Hard to Accept? (New Republic)
Despite what the GOP's allies have suggested, talking about preventable deaths is not a partisan cheap shot.
Josh Marshall: Good Journalism Requires Clarity, Accuracy (TPM)
When you try three times to 'repeal and replace' and each time you come up with something that takes away coverage from almost everyone who got it under Obamacare, that's not an accident or a goof. That is what you're trying to do. 'Repeal and replace' was a slogan that made up for simple 'repeal' not being acceptable to a lot of people. But in reality, it's still repeal. Claw back the taxes, claw back the coverage.
Josh Marshall: The Ratchet of Medicaid Expansion (TPM)
One premise or hope of ACA supporters has been the belief that once new access to health care had been extended it would be politically difficult or even impossible to claw it back. This is the political logic which has guarded Medicare and Social Security for decades.
Tierney Sneed: Let The Caving Begin! Senate GOP Health Care Surrender Watch (TPM)
The dynamics for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to corral 50 out of his 52 Republican senators into supporting his health care bill don't get much easier, now that he's delayed a vote on it for at least a week for another round of tweaks. The only difference in the competing demands McConnell is facing from his conference between the days before he announced he was delaying the vote and the days after is they're going more public with their negotiating requests.
Jason Cherkis: "Life Under Trumpcare 'Would Be Terrifying': Stories From The Front Lines Of Health Care" (Huffington Post)
Five people in rural America, from a midwife to an executive, talk about the damage they fear from the Senate bill.
Madeleine Sheehan Perkins: "A group representing $6.2 trillion of the US economy says they're 'still in' the Paris climate agreement" (Business Insider)
A coalition of US economic, education, and local government leaders announced on Monday they will continue to abide by the Paris agreement regardless of America's withdrawal, forming the We Are Still In movement.
Natalie Vail: 5 Extremely Stupid Things We Believe About Rich People (Cracked)
Myth: Extra money in your bank account means less stress. You don't have to worry about making rent or paying bills. If you're really rich, you never have to worry about working at all. Your leisure time extends 24 hours a day for the next 80 years. While all the rest of us humps are working for the weekend, you're letting your dividends pay for a weekend partying with The Weeknd. Must be nice.
Jamie Grierson, Mark Sweney and Danuta Kean: Paddington Bear author Michael Bond dies aged 91 (The Guardian)
Creator of marmalade-loving bear from Peru, whose last story was published in April, has died after a short illness.
Tom Waits For No One - Animated 1979 … John Lamb (YouTube)
Produced by Lyon Lamb Video Animation Systems and directed by John Lamb, the film bore some cool new technology and talent ..and was created specifically for a burgeoning video music market that didn't yet exist and arguably may be the first music video created for the MTV market. However, a series of unfortunate events prohibited the film from ever being released or sold commercially, consequently catapulting it into obscurity.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
TRUMP IS CHINA'S CHUMP!
'THE STRANGE DEATH OF EUROPE'.
THE SEA ROBIN.
LITTLE HANDS!
TWEET, TWEET, TWEET...
"SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME."
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Five months in and every time I see Lumpy on TV still can't help but mutter 'fuck you'.
'This Is Not Okay'
Congresswomen
A growing list of congresswomen sharply criticized Donald Trump (R-Corrupt) on Thursday after he attacked "Morning Joe" co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on Twitter.
Trump lashed out about the looks of Brzezinski in particular.
The stunning tweets provoked the ire of several female leaders from both sides of the aisle, who were quick to call Trump out for behavior that was "not presidential."
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., reportedly called Trump's tweets "distasteful."
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called for an end to Trump's rhetoric. Both Collins and Capito are key votes on the controversial Republican health care legislation Trump is hoping to get through the Senate.
"This has to stop - we all have a job - 3 branches of gov't and media. We don't have to get along, but we must show respect and civility," Collins tweeted.
Congresswomen
Finds A Family
Macrauchenia patachonica
Charles Darwin, Mr. Evolution himself, didn't know what to make of the fossils he saw in Patagonia so he sent them to his friend, the renowned paleontologist Richard Owen.
Owen was stumped too. Little wonder.
"The bones looked different from anything he knew," said Michael Hofreiter, senior author of a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications that finally situates in the tree of life what Darwin called the "strangest animal ever discovered".
Macrauchenia patachonica -- literally, "long-necked llama" -- also had a long rubbery snout and with its nostrils high on the skull just above its eyes.
For nearly two centuries, biologists and taxonomists argued over the pedigree of this bizarre beast, which weighed 400 to 500 kilos (850 to 1100 pounds), lived in open landscapes, and snacked on grass and leaves.
Macrauchenia patachonica
Rare Siamese Crocodile Eggs Found
Cambodia
Conservationists in Cambodia have found a nest with 19 eggs from one of the world's most endangered crocodiles, boosting hopes for a rare species threatened by poachers and habitat loss.
The clutch of fist-sized eggs was discovered this week by environmental officers and local villagers near a pond in southwestern Koh Kong province, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which assisted with the discovery.
The group had been searching for tracks, dung and other signs of wild Siamese Crocodiles, a species whose population has plummeted at an alarming rate in recent years.
Researchers believe only 400 adults still exist in the wild, mostly in Cambodia.
Their survival is threatened by poachers who supply eggs and adult reptiles to crocodile farms around the region, where their skins are turned into luxury belts, shoes and handbags.
Cambodia
Exiting MSNBC
Greta Van Susteren
A shocker: Greta Van Susteren is leaving MSNBC.
The former Fox News host, who was hired in January, said in a post on Twitter Thursday afternoon that she's "out at MSNBC." The anchor had hosted For the Record With Greta during the 6 p.m. time slot, which will now be filled by MSNBC chief legal correspondent and weekend host Ari Melber. Melber will debut in his new time slot starting in July, and for the time being rotating NBC News talent will pinch hit.
Though 2017 is pacing to be another record-breaker for the cable news networks, with MSNBC seeing its ratings climb the most, Van Susteren's hour has been one of the few MSNBC shows to get little attention.
During the second quarter, her 6 p.m. show averaged a ho-hum 980,000 viewers, including a mediocre 207,000 adults in the 25-54 demo. Those kind of numbers would have been great for MSNBC a couple years ago, but now they're pacing well below originals of most of the MSNBC weekday lineup - even trailing repeats of Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell.
She does not leave the network without a conservative voice. In addition to less-than-leftist Morning Joe, MSNBC recently hired conservative columnist Bret Stephens and, last week, gave a show to fellow right-winger Hugh Hewitt.
Greta Van Susteren
Pope's Aide Charged
Cardinal George Pell
Pope Francis suffered a major blow when his top financial adviser, Cardinal George Pell, was charged in his native Australia with multiple counts of sexual assault from years ago, bringing a criminal case in the long-running abuse scandal inside the frescoed walls of the Vatican for the first time.
The 76-year-old Pell - the highest-ranking Vatican official ever implicated in the scandal - forcefully denied the accusations and took an immediate leave of absence as Vatican finance czar to return to Australia to defend himself.
The pope thanked him for his "honest" work and collaboration, and set about trying to ensure that the financial reforms he had entrusted to Pell would continue in his absence.
But the case creates a thorny image problem for the pope, who has already suffered several credibility setbacks in his promised "zero tolerance" policy about sex abuse in the worldwide scandal.
Cardinal George Pell
2020 Deadline
Climate Catastrophe
Humanity must put carbon dioxide emissions on a downward slope by 2020 to have a realistic shot at capping global warming at well under two degrees Celsius, the bedrock goal of the Paris climate accord, experts said Wednesday.
A world that heats up beyond that threshold will face a crescendo of devastating impacts ranging from deadly heatwaves to mass migration caused by rising seas, the experts warned in a commentary published in the science journal Nature.
With 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming so far, ice sheets that could lift oceans by a dozen metres are melting more quickly, coral reefs are dying from heat stress, and ever more damaging storm surges are hammering coastal communities.
The transition to cleaner energy sources is well underway and is backed by broad consensus on the need to beat back the threat of climate change -- with the notable exception of the United States under Donald Trump (R-Crooked).
Climate Catastrophe
Administration Moves To Withdraw Clean-Water Rule
T-rump
The Trump administration moved Tuesday to roll back an Obama administration policy that protected more than half the nation's streams from pollution but drew attacks from farmers, fossil fuel companies and property-rights groups as federal overreach.
The 2015 regulation sought to settle a debate over which waterways are covered under the Clean Water Act, which has dragged on for years and remained murky despite two Supreme Court rulings. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February instructing the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rescind or revise the Obama rule, which environmentalists say is essential to protecting water for human consumption and wildlife.
In a statement, the agencies announced plans to begin the withdrawal process, describing it as an interim step. When it is completed, the agencies said, they will undergo a broader review of which waters should fall under federal jurisdiction.
Environmental groups denounced the move, saying it would remove drinking water safeguards for one in three Americans while jeopardizing thousands of streams that flow into larger rivers and lakes, plus wetlands that filter pollutants and soak up floodwaters.
T-rump
Sues New York Times
Mrs. Palin
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (R-Has Been) has sued the New York Times for defamation because of an editorial that linked her rhetoric to a 2011 shooting that killed six people and seriously wounded a U.S. congresswoman.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday said the Times deliberately "acted with actual malice" toward Palin and that the editorial was "false and defamatory." It claims the Times violated its policies and procedures.
Palin, the former half-term Alaska governor was Republican presidential candidate John McCain's (R-Get Off My Lawn) running mate in an unsuccessful 2008 campaign, is seeking in excess of $75,000 for compensatory, special and punitive damages.
On June 14 the Times published an editorial commenting on the mass shooting at a Virginia baseball field that injured four people, including Republican Representative Steve Scalise (R-100% NRA), saying the attack was probably evidence of how vicious American politics has become too goddam many guns.
The editorial board then recalled a shooting in Arizona in 2011 that targeted U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killed six people.
Mrs. Palin
Mull Cutting Tax Break For Wealthy
GOP Senators
Republican senators seeking to retool their troubled health care bill are considering dropping a tax break on investments for higher-income families in order to expand access to subsidies for health care coverage.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told the Washington Examiner that Republican leadership will explore his idea of cutting the 3.8 percent tax break on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year. The extra money could be used to expand access to subsidies for the health insurance exchanges to spouses of people who receive health insurance through their job but are ineligible for coverage.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax break would cost about $172 billion over 10 years. Eliminating it would give Senate Majority Leader Bitch McConnell breathing room to appeal to the moderates in his caucus by ensuring more people will receive coverage under the plan. The CBO estimated 22 million fewer Americans would be insured under McConnell's bill than under current law, which helped torpedo his plan for a vote on the legislation ahead of the July 4 recess.
The move would also help fend off Democratic criticisms that the Republican alternative to Obamacare amounts to a Robin Hood effort in reverse. "The details have changed a bit around the edges, but the core has remained the same in each and every version [of the bill]: slash Medicaid to the bone in order to give a massive tax break to a very small number of wealthy Americans," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the Republicans' plan on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Two other GOP senators, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., have also sounded open to the idea. "I do not see a justification for doing away with the 3.8 percent tax on investment income, because that is not something that increases the cost of health care," Collins told Bloomberg News. "So I distinguish between those tax increases that were part of Obamacare that increase premiums and the cost of health care versus those that do not."
GOP Senators
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