Marcus Ranum has an excellent post where he suggests a 10-point plan for de-escalating the conflict between the US and North Korea. In fact, he says that a possible solution stares the US in the face but the US will not accept success.
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The Bizarro comic, as the name implies, has a somewhat off-kilter type of humor but I usually get it. But this one from a few days ago completely baffled me. Can anyone explain the joke to me?
UPDATE: Just after I posted this, I looked again at the panel and suddenly a possible explanation came to mind, but am curious if others see it the same way.
Adam Conover of Adam Ruins Everything explains why it is that health care costs per capita in the US are the highest in the world and so uneven. It is because of a bizarre pricing system (encoded in a book called the Chargemaster) that has been cooked up between medical care providers and the for-profit health insurance companies system that negatively impacts everyone but is most devastating on those who are the least capable of dealing with it – the uninsured.
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One of the cardinal rules of American politics is that if you want to gain high office, you have to express religious beliefs. If you are not a believer or are lukewarm, then you have to fake it. Some fakers are better than others at conveying sincerity but it does not really seem to matter even if you are a pretty obvious phony. All that the religious base cares about is that you pay lip service to the Christian god. If you also push for the policies that the religious right favors (anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-LGBT, and anti-sex), then it does not matter even if you do not go to church regularly or mangle your religious references.
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The political establishment is swooning over the choice of Department of Homeland secretary John Kelly to be chief of staff to Donald Trump as a sign that finally, finally, there might be an adult near the top to whip things into shape. Trump, like many in the establishment media and political class, seems to be in awe of high-level military officers, a telling indicator of his own weakness and insecurity, and they think that thus Kelly will be able to stand up to Trump and bring order to the chaos in the administration.
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So Anthony (‘the Mooch’) Scaramucci has been fired after just ten days on the job as White House communications director, apparently before he had even been sworn in. While he has revealed himself to be a connoisseur of colorful sexual imagery, he has also shown himself to be somewhat less than a tactical genius. Consider the facts. He comes in and then immediately sets about getting the firing of the chief of staff Reince Priebus who officially should have more power than him but in reality has less. He succeeds. But Priebus is replaced by someone who actually has more clout than the Mooch, and that person promptly gets him fired because his boss Donald Trump does not show loyalty to anyone. If the Mooch had let a weak Priebus keep his job, he could have kept his own job plus have more influnce. Bad-mouthing Trump’s close confidante Steve Bannon was also not a smart move since it left him without any powerful allies.
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There is a new documentary The Problem with Apu by comedian Hari Kondabolu that looks at the role that the iconic character on The Simpsons has played in creating Indian stereotypes.
Her correspondent Michael Rubens tries to understand why Republicans are so infatuated with tax cuts for the rich and with economist Arthur Laffer’s theory that such cuts will lead to massive economic growth.
We see that the new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has claimed his first high-profile victim. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has been fired and replaced by the head of Homeland Security John Kelly. If you are keeping score at home, others who have departed within six months include the national security adviser Michael Flynn, deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh, press secretary Sean Spicer, and press aide Michael Short. The scale of this kind of turnover does not happen by chance. It happens because of rot at the very top.
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She looks at the efforts of Trump’s new communications director and Trump’s speech to the Boy Scouts.