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Will Republicans Finally Find a Tax Cut They Hate?

by KieranMetcalfe Posted on July 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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Charles Gaba makes an interesting point about today’s Halbig decision: if upheld, it would amount to a tax increase. Everyone who buys insurance through a federal exchange would lose the tax credits they’re currently entitled to, and losing tax credits is the same as a tax increase. This in turn means that if Democrats introduce a bill to fix the language in Obamacare to keep the tax credits in place, it will basically be a tax cut.

This leaves Republicans in a tough spot, doesn’t it? Taken as a whole, Obamacare represents a tax increase, which makes it easy for Republicans to oppose it. But if the Halbig challenge is upheld, all the major Obamacare taxes are unaffected. They stay in force no matter what. The only thing that’s affected is the tax credits. Thus, an amendment to reinstate the credits is a net tax cut by the rules that Grover Norquist laid out long ago. And no Republican is allowed to vote against a net tax cut.

I’m curious what Norquist has to say about this. Not because I think he’d agree that Republicans have to vote to restore the tax credits. He wouldn’t. He’s a smart guy, and he’d invent some kind of loophole for everyone to shimmy through. Mainly, I just want to know what loophole he’d come up with. I’m always impressed with the kind of sophistries guys like him are able to spin. It’s usually very educational.

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Will Republicans Finally Find a Tax Cut They Hate?

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Seven Hours of Sleep Is Just About Optimal

by LRTJoeldnli Posted on July 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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How much sleep does a normal, healthy adult need? The Wall Street Journal reports:

Several sleep studies have found that seven hours is the optimal amount of sleep—not eight, as was long believed—when it comes to certain cognitive and health markers, although many doctors question that conclusion.

Other recent research has shown that skimping on a full night’s sleep, even by 20 minutes, impairs performance and memory the next day. And getting too much sleep—not just too little of it—is associated with health problems including diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease and with higher rates of death, studies show.

That’s sort of interesting. In the past, I would have had no idea how to guess at this. I always slept exactly the same every night, so I always felt about the same every morning. Over the past couple of years, however, my sleeping habits have become far more erratic, spanning anywhere from six to eight hours fairly randomly. And sure enough, I’ve vaguely come to the conclusion that six hours makes me feel tired throughout the day, and so does eight hours. Seven hours really does seem to be pretty close to the sweet spot.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have much control over this. I wake up whenever I wake up, and that’s that. Today I got up at 6, tried to get back to sleep, and finally gave up. There was nothing to be done about it. And right about now I’m paying the price for that.

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Seven Hours of Sleep Is Just About Optimal

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Do We Need More Business Folks In Congress?

by Arthur Crown Posted on July 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore points to a new Gallup poll that asks what kind of people you’d like to see in Congress:

So is this a vote for more business experience? Or even—shudder—a retroactive yearning for Mitt Romney? Like Kilgore, I’m skeptical. At a guess, people who answered the question about business experience were implicitly contrasting it with lawyers or career politicians, and that’s a rigged deck. Of course business leaders will come out ahead compared to those two despised professions.

Which makes it too bad that Gallup screwed up this question. Instead of throwing out a kitchen sink of qualities (occupation, religion, ideology, etc.) they should have asked specifically about a list of occupations. Do you think the country would be better governed if our legislatures had more:

Business folks
Teachers
Lawyers
Doctors
Retired people
Military leaders
Scientists
Etc.

That would be kind of an interesting poll. Personally, I’d vote for more kindergarten teachers. I suspect that’s a pretty appropriate background for serving a few years in Congress.

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Do We Need More Business Folks In Congress?

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 July 2014

by GabriellaGunder Posted on July 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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In an awesome display of athleticism, Domino hopped into the laundry hamper this week. I was shocked. I didn’t think she could do it. But I guess when you’re motivated by the sweet, sweet prospect of snoozing among the delicate aromas of worn human clothing, you can accomplish anything. As for what she’s looking at in this picture, I have no idea. Probably something in the cat dimension.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 July 2014

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Iran’s Oil Exports Have Fallen By Half Since Sanctions Were Imposed

by CarrollMadewell Posted on July 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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If you’re curious about the impact of economic sanctions on Iran, OPEC’s newly-released 2014 statistical bulletin provides a pretty concrete look. As the tables below show, in just the past two years Iran’s oil exports have fallen by nearly half and the rial has lost a third of its value. If you want to know why Iran is negotiating over its nuclear program, that’s the story in a nutshell.

The whole report is here. Plenty of interesting little tidbits there for inquiring minds.

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Iran’s Oil Exports Have Fallen By Half Since Sanctions Were Imposed

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Why Can’t We Teach Shakespeare Better?

by Harvey50Gffjqmb Posted on July 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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After writing about a common misconception regarding a particular scene in Julius Caesar, Mark Kleiman offers a footnote:

Like many Boomers, I had to read Julius Caesar in the 10th grade; not really one of the Bard’s better efforts, but full of quotable passages and reasonably easy to follow. (As You Like It, by contrast, if read rather than watched, makes absolutely no sense to a sixt Shakespeare wrote great musicals.) This would have been a perfect scene to use as an example of dramatic irony. But I doubt my teacher had any actual idea what the passage was about, and the lit-crit we read as “secondary sources” disdained anything as straightforward as explaining what the play was supposed to mean or how the poet used dramatic techniques to express that meaning.

This was my experience too, but in college. I remember enrolling in a Shakespeare class and looking forward to it. In my case, I actually had a fairly good high school English teacher, but still, Shakespeare is tough for high schoolers. This would be my chance to really learn and appreciate what Shakespeare was doing.

Alas, no. I got an A in the class, but learned barely anything. It was a huge disappointment. To this day, I don’t understand why Shakespeare seems to be so difficult to teach. Was I just unlucky?

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Why Can’t We Teach Shakespeare Better?

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