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Arabic Social Media Goes Gaga Over Sisi’s Red Carpet

by Beau47Tgqggfj Posted on February 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Nothing says “I care about poor people” like driving to a new housing project on a red carpet 2.5 miles long. Amirite? But this has a secret subtext: When Egyptian president Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi motored his way to a grand opening ceremony Saturday on a carpet this size, it was apparently a sign that the military is pleased with him. I guess the more they like you, the longer the carpet:

Brig Gen Ehab el-Ahwagy explained on several talk shows on Sunday night that the carpet was not purchased by Sisi’s administration and the same one had been used for more than three years for similar occasions.

“It gives a kind of joy and assurance to the Egyptian citizen that our people and our land and our armed forces are always capable of organising anything in a proper manner,” Ahwagy told the TV talk show host Amr Adeeb. “It is laid out in a way to beautify the general area, so it gives a good impression of the celebration that is being broadcast to the whole world.”

See? No big deal. And certainly no reason to postpone a speech warning that Egypt is in dire financial trouble and will soon have to stop subsidizing water and electricity bills for low-income families.

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Arabic Social Media Goes Gaga Over Sisi’s Red Carpet

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A Nice Paragraph About Why Humans Are So Damn Paranoid

by LatiaChumleigh Posted on February 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’m reading Sapiens right now, a history of early mankind published last year by historian Yuval Noah Harari. I haven’t gotten very far into it, so I don’t know if his idiosyncratic theories will end up being persuasive. Still, it’s the kind of learned but big-think book I tend to like regardless of how well it holds up. I wish more deeply accomplished people were willing to write stuff like this.

That said, here’s a nice excerpt about the dangers of moving to the top of the food chain too fast:

It was only in the last 100,000 years—with the rise of Homo sapiens—that man jumped to the top of the food chain….Other animals at the top of the pyramid, such as lions and sharks, evolved into the position very gradually, over millions of years. This enabled the ecosystem to develop checks and balances that prevent lions and sharks from wreaking too much havoc.

….In contrast, humankind ascended to the top so quickly that the ecosystem was not given time to adjust. Moreover, humans themselves failed to adjust. Most top predators of the planet are majestic creatures. Millions of years of dominion have filled them with self-confidence. Sapiens by contrast is more like a banana republic dictator. Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of fears and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous. Many historical calamities, from deadly wars to ecological catastrophes, have resulted from this over-hasty jump.

This is just another way of saying that human intelligence evolved too fast for human emotions and morals to keep up. Either way, though, it sure rings true. Just take a look at the current presidential race. If any country should feel self-confident and safe, it’s the United States. But boy howdy, we sure don’t, do we?

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A Nice Paragraph About Why Humans Are So Damn Paranoid

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Obamacare Enrollment Up About 15 Percent This Year

by Dorcas8538 Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Open enrollment for Obamacare is over, and HHS announced yesterday that 12.7 million people signed up via the exchanges plus another 400,000 via New York’s Basic Health Program. So that gives us 13.1 million—up from 11.4 million last year. And since HHS is getting better at purging nonpayers, this number should hold up better throughout the year than it did in 2015. Charles Gaba has more details here.

Add to that about 15 million people enrolled in Medicaid thanks to the Obamacare expansion, and the total number of people covered this year comes to 28 million or so. This means Obamacare has reduced the ranks of the uninsured from 19 percent to about 10 percent. Not bad.

Obamacare’s raw enrollment numbers remain lower than CBO projected a few years ago, but that’s partly because employer health care has held up better than expected—which is a good thing. The fewer the people eligible for Obamacare the better. More on that here. Generally speaking, despite the best efforts of conservatives to insist that Obamacare is a disastrous failure, the truth is that it’s doing pretty well. More people are getting covered; costs are in line with projections; and there’s been essentially no effect on employment or hours worked. The only real problem with Obamacare is that it’s too stingy: deductibles are too high and out-of-pocket expenses are still substantial. Needless to say, though, that can be easily fixed anytime Republicans decide to stop rooting for failure and agree to make Obamacare an even better program. But I guess we shouldn’t hold our collective breath for that.

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Obamacare Enrollment Up About 15 Percent This Year

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And Now For a Short Dental Interlude

by CareyHorsley66 Posted on February 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’m off to the dentist. My teeth are actually in fine shape, but when you hit your 50s all the fillings you got in your 20s and 30s apparently start to go south, so they have to be removed and refilled. Or so my dentist says, anyway. Today I get two or three of them replaced. I don’t remember exactly. Hopefully she does.

UPDATE: It was three. Two of them were old silver fillings, which she hates because of the mercury. So out they came.

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And Now For a Short Dental Interlude

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Donald Trump Lost the Iowa Caucus. Now He’s Whining on Twitter.

by KenLaurantus851 Posted on February 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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This is such an awesome bit of whining from Donald Trump that I felt I had to share it. I think we need a new word for this. Trump+whining = Twining. Or Trump + griping = Triping. Or something. Maybe figure out a way to add the concept that he’s actually a winner even when he’s objectively a failure. That might take some kind of German construction, though.

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Donald Trump Lost the Iowa Caucus. Now He’s Whining on Twitter.

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Trump Is Going to Raise Taxes on the Rich!

by RoseMyres0634 Posted on January 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’m not a fan of New York magazine’s “conversations” with 100 Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. I suspect that its sample is skewed; its conversations are skewed; and that pulling out just the juicy quotes from longer interviews makes it even more skewed. And all of these skew in the same direction: to make Republican voters look angry, dumb, and ignorant. I very much doubt that it provides a remotely accurate picture of how the average conservative in Iowa and New Hampshire really feels about life.

That said, I can be just as suckered by an eccentric quote as the next guy. Here is Nicole Martin of Manchester, New Hampshire:

Trump is bold, and he says what’s on his mind, but I feel like he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has in business if he wasn’t a good negotiator. At our office, we plugged his tax plan into our software, to see, and it’s genius. We couldn’t believe it. It’s still a little higher taxes for people that are wealthy, but it’s not going to hurt them. And it’s going to save a lot of the smaller people a lot of money. They need it. He’s just not going to tax them. It makes sense.

I really want to know more about this. They “plugged” Trump’s tax plan into their “software”? What software is that? And how does it tell them that Trump’s plan means “a little higher” taxes on the rich? On average, Trump’s plan would cut taxes on the rich by more than a million dollars.

Oh well. He’s going to make America great again. What else do you need to know?

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Trump Is Going to Raise Taxes on the Rich!

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No Debate Live-Blogging Tonight

by Ariel33876755 Posted on January 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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For those of you who have just returned from a vacation on the moon, there’s a Republican debate tonight. It’s on Fox News at 9 pm Eastern, and Donald Trump will not be participating.

Nor will I. Instead, I have important birthday celebrations to attend to. This mostly involves trying out a new Italian place nearby, which sounds a whole lot more pleasant than yet another two hours of rehearsed talking points about the appeaser-in-chief and the death of America as we know it. You’re on your own for that. I’ll try to catch up when I get home.

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No Debate Live-Blogging Tonight

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Poll: Most People Expect a Democratic Victory This November

by DonnieHagen2063 Posted on January 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest projection of the general election from ABC News and the Washington Post:

This is not a poll of who people say they’ll vote for. It’s a poll of who they expect to win. I’m surprised that the public is apparently so sure of a Democratic victory, but I suppose that has a lot to do with the obvious turmoil in the Republican race.

In an interesting aside, the poll finds that voters are least comfortable at the prospect of a Trump presidency and most comfortable at the prospect of a Sanders presidency. Is that because they know the least about Sanders? Or because this whole business of being scared of a “socialist” in the White House is bunk? Hard to say.

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Poll: Most People Expect a Democratic Victory This November

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Americans Not Really That Angry After All

by ElliottKahle Posted on January 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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Aaron Blake makes an interesting point today about the notion that Donald Trump and other presidential candidates are uniquely appealing this year because voters are so angry:

They’re simply not — or at least, not abnormally angry. Despite the rise of two candidates who have embraced the idea of anger, our country simply isn’t unusually angry about how things are going in Washington.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows just 24 percent of Americans describe themselves as “angry” about the way the federal government works. I say “just,” because that’s actually on the low end of where that number has been in recent years. (An additional 47 percent describe themselves as “dissatisfied but not angry.”)

It seems as though I’ve heard about the seething anger of the electorate before nearly every election in my life. Joe Klein takes a drive through the heartland every few years and reports back about this. But all sorts of polling evidence suggests that Americans aren’t really all that unhappy in general and not really all that angry about the government. No more than usual, anyway. Now, maybe this year really is different. Maybe voters are more responsive to angry appeals even if they aren’t especially angry in general. But for all the talk, Blake is right: the polling data doesn’t really show anything unusual.

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Americans Not Really That Angry After All

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Only a Week to Go Before the Republican Race Starts for Real

by DomenicList Posted on January 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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With only a week to go, here’s the latest poll aggregate for the Republican caucuses in Iowa. No surprise: it’s a two-man race between Trump and Cruz, with Trump still holding the lead. But it’s close enough that turnout is probably going to be the deciding factor. Can Trump get his supporters to the caucus sites? Or will they turn out to be just a bunch of grumblers who’d rather yell at the TV than brave the rain and snow to vote for their guy? Monday will tell the story.

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Only a Week to Go Before the Republican Race Starts for Real

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