Now the Service wants to conduct its own fund raising, which would compete for and detract from the only funding, apart from the state and other grants, upon which individual libraries rely.
Japan’s Abe calls early election in effort to save his grand economic plan
FORTUNE: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called early elections and delayed by 18 months a second big hike in value-added tax, in an effort to rescue his floundering plan to revive the economy. Abe told a press conference that he would dissolve parliament and call the elections for December 14, just 26 days from now. […]
Will the Affordable Care Act lead to similar good results as Medicare for Everyone?
Yesterday evening the wife and I attended a lecture by Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the progentures of the Affordable Care Act, at the Harvard Club in New York City. (No, the publisher is not a Harvard graduate. He married up!)
Health Care Law Recasts Insurers as Obama Allies
NEW YORK TIMES: …“Insurers and the government have developed a symbiotic relationship, nurtured by tens of billions of dollars that flow from the federal Treasury to insurers each year,” said Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. So much so, in fact, that insurers may soon be on a […]
Day of Hungarian Public Outrage: Tens of thousands protest official corruption
BUDAPEST BEACON: Tens of thousands of Hungarians participated in “Day of Public Outrage” demonstrations across Hungary Monday evening. In Budapest over ten thousand demonstrators packed parliament’s Kossuth square.
Two state bills would allow terminally ill patients in Pennsylvania to end their own lives
That’s the stance of two Pennsylvanian legislators who recently entered bills into the state House and Senate proposing a law similar to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, which permits terminally ill adult Oregonians to obtain from their doctor and self-administer a lethal dose of medication…
Pa. AG Kathleen Kane confirms secret investigation into her office
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane confirmed Monday that she was testifying before a grand jury overseen by a special prosecutor exploring whether her office disclosed secret investigative information, and said she is fighting to do her job without interference.
Hong Kong Clears an Area of Pro-Democracy Protesters
NEW YORK TIMES: The Hong Kong government moved to clear pro-democracy protesters from a small area in front of an office building on Tuesday morning in the first move against the demonstrators in weeks. The authorities met no resistance, with student protesters saying they would not oppose the court order.
State releases Atlantic City revitalization report
ATLANTIC CITY PRESS: A governor’s advisory report for revitalizing Atlantic City’s battered economy calls for the immediate appointment of an emergency manager who would have “extraordinary supervisory powers” to oversee the entire municipal government, including the mayor and City Council. Other major recommendations include an overhaul of the property-tax structure, school reform, a pension freeze, […]
Rein in asset forfeitures
The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment holds that no one may be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Yet asset forfeiture laws have allowed police to seize assets of people who are not even charged with crimes, much less convicted. Mere suspicion is not due process.
Three years after Jerry Sandusky scandal, fallout for Penn State, NCAA is hotter than ever
From the PSU-commissioned Freeh Report that some now see as a hatchet job on legendary coach Joe Paterno’s once-pristine legacy, the university’s hasty removal of the Paterno statue, which now appears to be MIA, to the willingness – some would say, eagerness – with which Penn State accepted the unprecedented slate of NCAA sanctions in consent decree, the board remains as much under a microscope as ever…
In ‘Whiplash,’ a Young Jazz Drummer vs. His Teacher
This story of an ambitious young striver and his difficult mentor could easily have been a sports movie, and structurally, it resembles one. There are montages of grueling practice scattered among scenes of tense competition, all of it building toward a hugely suspenseful (but also, to some extent, never in doubt) championship game moment of reckoning.
What is wrong with this picture?
Bottom Line: During those three weeks, think privatizing state stores. Think changing the electoral vote system for presidential campaigns from winner-take-all to one vote for each senatorial district. Think additional voter suppression techniques, business tax cuts, etc.
Report: Child homelessness surges in the US
ALJAZEERA / AP: The number of homeless children in the US has surged in recent years to an all-time high, amounting to one child out of every 30, according to a comprehensive state-by-state report. The report, issued on Monday by the National Center on Family Homelessness [NCFH], says that nearly 2.5 million American children were […]