Tag: hit&run

Last week I
noted that President Obama was trying to retroactively revise
his promise that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
would allow people who were happy with their health plans to keep
them. That guarantee, he explained, applies only to policies that
have not changed in any way since the law took effect. The problem,
of course, is that Obama never mentioned that caveat until now. I
wondered whether reporters would nevertheless treat this
explanation as something other than a
bald-faced lie. Judging from a new
ProPublica story, the answer appears to be yes. In an article
that otherwise admirably seeks to explain the actual consequences
of Obamacare, including the costs it imposes on some for the
benefit of others, Charles Ornstein says this:

First, President Obama’s now-infamous pledge that those who
liked their health plan could keep it applied only to people
enrolled in those plans as of the day the Affordable Care Act was
signed into law, March 23, 2010. That became known as the
“grandfather” clause.

That phrasing makes it seem like Ornstein accepts Obama’s
revisionism—which is odd, because Ornstein later notes that
“Politifact has labeled the pledge ‘pants
on fire.'” Actually, the analysis to which Ornstein links deals
not with Obama’s promise itself but with his attempt to amend it
after the fact. Here is PolitiFact’s conclusion:

According to Obama, “What we said was you can keep [your plan]
if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.”

But we found at least 37
times since Obama’s inauguration where he or a top
administration official made a variation of the pledge that if you
like your plan, you can keep it, and we never found an instance in
which he offered the caveat that it only applies to plans that
hadn’t changed after the law’s passage. And seven of those 37 cases
came after the release of the HHS regulations that defined the
“grandfathering” process, when the impact would be clear.

So yes, it’s true: Obama is a liar. Reporters should not let a
lingering attachment to “false
balance” blind them (or their readers) to that fact.

Common Core, the controversial
set of new national education standards touted by the by the
National Governors Association and the Chief Council of State
School Officers, with
significant federal encouragement, is in the news again. This
time, it’s being called out for promoting politicized lessons
spoon-fed to the captive audience of kiddies in the public schools.
But this is an unfair charge. Common Core
has a lot wrong with it, high-pressure included, but it doesn’t
specify lesson-plans or politicized content. The real problem is
the much older one of schools controlled by government
officials.

The specific complaint this time is about fifth-grade English
worksheets which ask students to edit sentences including:
“Government officials’ commands must be obeyed by all” and “An
individual’s wants are less important than the nation’s
well-being.” The sentences are a small part of a
larger worksheet (PDF) called “Hold the Flag High” linked to
the Civil War.

But what a part. Way to go, oh bait-the-critics educators! You
walked into it with those loaded sentences. Even teachers are
debating
the propriety of this stuff now.

But Pearson
Education tells Fox
News that this worksheet was copyrighted in 2007 and has been
in use ever since—predating Common Core. And Pearson is far from
the only curriculum vendor out there. Besides, controversy over
politicized education started far before Common Core came along to
cause a fuss.

In 1996, New York State mandated the teaching of the Irish
potato famine as an
act of genocide by the British government against the Irish, no
other interpretations allowed. The Tucson Unified School District
in Arizona has managed a
heated, years-long battle over race-infused “culturally relevant”
classes without any input from Common Core. Control over
textbooks has long been a political prize in Texas, with
conservatives in recent years sculpting the lessons delivered
to students there and, given the size of the market and the cost of
printing multiple editions, elsewhere. And the use of liberal
pundit Paul Krugman’s
Keynes-centric economics texts in high schools has raised a few
hackles, too.

The problem isn’t Common Core, it’s that government officials
control so many schools, even in the age of expanding choice, and
schools are a handy delivery system for pet ideas to (presumably)
receptive young minds.

There’s plenty to object to about Common Core. But dumping the
new standards won’t solve the problem of politicized curriculum so
long as government officials control schools and get to force-feed
their messages to the children of people with very different
ideas.

Common Core, the controversial
set of new national education standards touted by the by the
National Governors Association and the Chief Council of State
School Officers, with
significant federal encouragement, is in the news again. This
time, it’s being called out for promoting politicized lessons
spoon-fed to the captive audience of kiddies in the public schools.
But this is an unfair charge. Common Core
has a lot wrong with it, high-pressure included, but it doesn’t
specify lesson-plans or politicized content. The real problem is
the much older one of schools controlled by government
officials.

The specific complaint this time is about fifth-grade English
worksheets which ask students to edit sentences including:
“Government officials’ commands must be obeyed by all” and “An
individual’s wants are less important than the nation’s
well-being.” The sentences are a small part of a
larger worksheet (PDF) called “Hold the Flag High” linked to
the Civil War.

But what a part. Way to go, oh bait-the-critics educators! You
walked into it with those loaded sentences. Even teachers are
debating
the propriety of this stuff now.

But Pearson
Education tells Fox
News that this worksheet was copyrighted in 2007 and has been
in use ever since—predating Common Core. And Pearson is far from
the only curriculum vendor out there. Besides, controversy over
politicized education started far before Common Core came along to
cause a fuss.

In 1996, New York State mandated the teaching of the Irish
potato famine as an
act of genocide by the British government against the Irish, no
other interpretations allowed. The Tucson Unified School District
in Arizona has managed a
heated, years-long battle over race-infused “culturally relevant”
classes without any input from Common Core. Control over
textbooks has long been a political prize in Texas, with
conservatives in recent years sculpting the lessons delivered
to students there and, given the size of the market and the cost of
printing multiple editions, elsewhere. And the use of liberal
pundit Paul Krugman’s
Keynes-centric economics texts in high schools has raised a few
hackles, too.

The problem isn’t Common Core, it’s that government officials
control so many schools, even in the age of expanding choice, and
schools are a handy delivery system for pet ideas to (presumably)
receptive young minds.

There’s plenty to object to about Common Core. But dumping the
new standards won’t solve the problem of politicized curriculum so
long as government officials control schools and get to force-feed
their messages to the children of people with very different
ideas.

Pakistan’s
interior minister warned
last week that the killing of the leader of the Pakistani
Taliban in a US strike would be the “death of all peace talks”, and
it looks like that’s started.

From Reuters:

The Pakistani Taliban rejected the idea of peace talks
with the government on Thursday after electing hardline commander
Mullah Fazlullah, whose men shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai last
year, as their new leader on Thursday.

The rise of Fazlullah, known for his fierce Islamist views, by the
Taliban Shura council follows the Killing of Hakimullah Mehsud, the
previous leader or ameer, in a U.S. drone strike on November
1.

Lessons from the failure of the drug war’s “kingpin strategy”
apply here. A criminal organization’s leader removed by authorities
tends to be replaced by a more ruthless one.

Follow these stories and more at Reason 24/7 and don’t forget you
can e-mail stories to us at 24_7@reason.com and tweet us
at @reason247. 

In congressional testimony yesterday,
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

said that when the federal government releases its first set of
enrollment totals for Obamacare’s insurance exchanges next week,
the numbers will likely be “very low.” How low is very low?

An report on insurance enrollment in Delaware offers some idea.
Delaware is one of the 36 states in which the exchanges are being
administered by the federal government through the troubled online
portal HealthCare.gov.

And
according to the Associated Press, just four people have
enrolled in private coverage in the state. Only 31 people in the
state have submitted applications—and just 218 have created
accounts in the system. That’s…not a lot. 

Now, Delaware is a small state, with less than a million
residents. But the single-digit enrollment total is still just a
tiny fraction of the state’s uninsured, which, according to
HHS, is about 71,000 people. For all practical purposes,
Obamacare has resulted in no meaningful impact on the state’s
enrollment totals so far. And that doesn’t even take into account
the potential effects of insurance cancellations in the state
(provided there were any). That’s a pretty miserable result given
that the state got $4 million in federal funding to pay community
organizations to assist with enrollment.

But, one might say, how much can Delaware really tell us? It’s
only one state—and it’s part of the deeply troubled federal
system.

Yes, but it’s not the only one struggling to enroll people. Even
some states running their own exchanges are still having trouble as
well. Hawaii, which is running its own exchange, has had
serious trouble with its web system as well and
does not appear to have enrolled anyone. Oregon, which delayed
key functions of its state-run insurance exchange before the Oct. 1
national launch,
still hasn’t managed to enroll a single person in private
coverage either.

Meanwhile, one big insurer is cutting back expectations for
enrollment all over. Humana, which is offering plans in 12 state
exchanges,
said yesterday that it was cutting its enrollment projections
in half, from 500,000 people down to 250,000. Given that the law’s
supporters say the law will require both a certain amount of
enrollment (about 7 million total) as well as a particular
demographic mix (about 40 percent of enrollees need to be young,
healthy adults) in order to function as intended, this isn’t
terribly promising news. 

Last week, a
man with a rifle shot three Transportation Security Administration
agents at Los Angeles International Airport, killing one. This
episode evoked the same response as every other aviation attack:
the impulse to devise a quick solution. The union representing TSA
employees urged that at least some security screeners be armed—a
request administrator John Pistole promised to consider. The
driving assumption is that you can never be too careful. But you
can, of course. Training TSA agents to carry firearms would cost
money, invite terrorists to locate their massacres elsewhere in the
terminal, and not necessarily save a single life. Besides, points
out Steve Chapman, equipping screeners with deadly weapons would
also heighten the sense of coercion and intrusion that makes air
travel resemble admission to a medium-security prison.

View this article.

“Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender & the End of Normal: A
Conversation with Jack Halberstam and Thaddeus Russell” is the
latest offering from Reason TV. 

Watch above or click on the link below for video, full text,
supporting links, downloadable versions and, and more Reason TV
clips.

View this article.

“Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender & the End of Normal: A
Conversation with Jack Halberstam and Thaddeus Russell” is the
latest offering from Reason TV. 

Watch above or click on the link below for video, full text,
supporting links, downloadable versions and, and more Reason TV
clips.

View this article.

We probably should have seen it coming. After
places like New York and California instituted trans fat bans, it
was only a matter of time until it went national. The Food and Drug
Administration is going to force food manufacturers to dump
artificial trans fats. Via the
Associated Press:

The FDA planned to announce Thursday it will require the food
industry to gradually phase out all trans fats, saying they are a
threat to people’s health. Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the
move could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths each
year.

Hamburg said that while the amount of trans fats in the
country’s diet has declined dramatically in the last decade, they
“remain an area of significant public health concern.” The trans
fats have long been criticized by nutritionists, and New York and
other local governments have banned them.

The agency isn’t yet setting a timeline for the phase-out, but
it will collect comments for two months before officials determine
how long it will take. Different foods may have different
timelines, depending how easy it is to find a substitute.

“We want to do it in a way that doesn’t unduly disrupt markets,”
says Michael Taylor, FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods. Still, he
says, the food “industry has demonstrated that it is by and large
feasible to do.”

If they don’t want to unduly disrupt markets they could always
just opt not to. As is typical of this sort of behavior, it’s going
to have a bigger impact on your neighborhood family-run bakery than
it will on big chains like Dunkin’ Donuts. Dunkin’ popped to mind
because they’re just now breaking into the California market, and
the local media is all over it right now.
Dunkin’ Donuts started voluntarily dumping trans fats in 2007,
which required them to reformulate more than 50 menu items. A big
chain like them can manage the transition just fine. But back when
California instituted a ban, some smaller bakeries
reported they’d have to raise prices as the ban both increased
production costs and also reduced shelf life of their goods. Back
around that same time a piece in The Atlantic explored
the challenges of replacing trans fats and noted the challenges for
certain types of baked goods.

Dunkin’ Donuts replaced their trans fats with saturated fats
(read their nutritional guide
here), which is another fat with a bad reputation. But in
October, a British medical journal argued that the
war on saturated fat was misguided, and it was being blamed for
heart problems that were likely being caused by carbs and
sugar.

The FDA acknowledges that trans fat consumption has already
dropped significantly in the past decade so mandating it is
necessary why exactly? The Associated Press notes:

Though they have been removed from many items, the fats are
still found in processed foods, including in some microwave
popcorns and frozen pizzas, refrigerated doughs, cookies and
ready-to-use frostings. They are also sometimes used by restaurants
that use the fats for frying. Many larger chains have phased them
out, but smaller restaurants may still get food containing trans
fats from suppliers.

It may end up being yet another barrier to entry for smaller
restaurants and producers to compete against established
chains.

More Reason on trans fat bans and other food police behavior
here.

If that’s not enough, Hank Hill can explain it
all for you.

We probably should have seen it coming. After
places like New York and California instituted trans fat bans, it
was only a matter of time until it went national. The Food and Drug
Administration is going to force food manufacturers to dump
artificial trans fats. Via the
Associated Press:

The FDA planned to announce Thursday it will require the food
industry to gradually phase out all trans fats, saying they are a
threat to people’s health. Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the
move could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths each
year.

Hamburg said that while the amount of trans fats in the
country’s diet has declined dramatically in the last decade, they
“remain an area of significant public health concern.” The trans
fats have long been criticized by nutritionists, and New York and
other local governments have banned them.

The agency isn’t yet setting a timeline for the phase-out, but
it will collect comments for two months before officials determine
how long it will take. Different foods may have different
timelines, depending how easy it is to find a substitute.

“We want to do it in a way that doesn’t unduly disrupt markets,”
says Michael Taylor, FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods. Still, he
says, the food “industry has demonstrated that it is by and large
feasible to do.”

If they don’t want to unduly disrupt markets they could always
just opt not to. As is typical of this sort of behavior, it’s going
to have a bigger impact on your neighborhood family-run bakery than
it will on big chains like Dunkin’ Donuts. Dunkin’ popped to mind
because they’re just now breaking into the California market, and
the local media is all over it right now.
Dunkin’ Donuts started voluntarily dumping trans fats in 2007,
which required them to reformulate more than 50 menu items. A big
chain like them can manage the transition just fine. But back when
California instituted a ban, some smaller bakeries
reported they’d have to raise prices as the ban both increased
production costs and also reduced shelf life of their goods. Back
around that same time a piece in The Atlantic explored
the challenges of replacing trans fats and noted the challenges for
certain types of baked goods.

Dunkin’ Donuts replaced their trans fats with saturated fats
(read their nutritional guide
here), which is another fat with a bad reputation. But in
October, a British medical journal argued that the
war on saturated fat was misguided, and it was being blamed for
heart problems that were likely being caused by carbs and
sugar.

The FDA acknowledges that trans fat consumption has already
dropped significantly in the past decade so mandating it is
necessary why exactly? The Associated Press notes:

Though they have been removed from many items, the fats are
still found in processed foods, including in some microwave
popcorns and frozen pizzas, refrigerated doughs, cookies and
ready-to-use frostings. They are also sometimes used by restaurants
that use the fats for frying. Many larger chains have phased them
out, but smaller restaurants may still get food containing trans
fats from suppliers.

It may end up being yet another barrier to entry for smaller
restaurants and producers to compete against established
chains.

More Reason on trans fat bans and other food police behavior
here.

If that’s not enough, Hank Hill can explain it
all for you.