Year: 2013

Michael Hirsh highlights Joe Biden's integral role in the Obama administration, wondering if he is the most influential VP in history:

Over the past four years Biden has insinuated himself into the White House, while seeming hardly to try, in a way that no other vice president in memory has done. He and Obama, both consummate pragmatists though they tend to be liberal in outlook, have achieved something close to a mind meld across a whole range of issues, including foreign policy, the economy, and political strategy. Biden said it outright in his speech during the presidential campaign: "I literally get to be the last guy in the room with the president. That's our arrangement." That's no small thing in a town where power is often measured in minutes of presidential face time. 

But by far the biggest achievement is wielding all this influence while being widely viewed as a joke. And the breadth of his portfolio is pretty amazing:

Fiscal issues and guns are only a small sampling of this vice president's portfolio. Back in 2010 it was Biden's office that, in the main, orchestrated the handover to the Iraqis. It is Biden's view of Afghanistan that has, bit by bit, come to dominate thinking inside the 2014 withdrawal plan. On financial reform it was Biden who prodded an indecisive Obama to embrace, at long last, Paul Volcker's idea of barring banks from risky trading, according to Austan Goolsbee, formerly the head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. The VP also tilted the discussion in favor of a bailout of the Big Three auto companies, according to Jared Bernstein, Biden's former economic adviser. "I think he made a difference in president's thinking," Bernstein said. "He understood the importance of the auto companies to their communities, and throughout the country."

(Image from this instant classic from the Onion)

Ada Calhoun reports on them:

[W]hile obtaining an abortion at a clinic is becoming harder, home abortion has never been easier or safer. In 2012, women have two resources that previous generations did not: abortion pills and the Internet. The combination of two drugs—Cytotec (Misoprostol) and Mifeprex (Mifepristone, known as RU-486 in trials) is 95 to 99 percent effective at ending a pregnancy in the first nine weeks, according to Ibis Reproductive Health’s Daniel Grossman, an expert on medical abortion. (Cytotec is 85 to 90 percent effective on its own.) "Essentially they induce an abortion similar to a spontaneous miscarriage," says Grossman of the drug combination. …

Determining how many American women have had home abortions is exceedingly difficult: 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not track illegal abortions. There is no blood test for drugs like Cytotec, and so such an abortion is indistinguishable from a natural miscarriage, even to a doctor. However, the proliferation of online dispensers suggests a rising demand. There are thousands of websites selling Cytotec for as little as $45 to $75 (compared with $300 to $800 for a legal medicated abortion in a clinic). Some claim to offer the harder-to-come-by Mifeprex, but may in fact be peddling Cytotec, or aspirin, or nothing at all. (Possible sources for the drugs include Mexico, where Cytotec is available over the counter, or even the United States, since it’s also prescribed here as an ulcer medication.)

A reader writes:

The continuing discussion on the weed gender gap compelled me to email the Dish for the first time. I am a daily smoker (when I can afford it) and enjoy getting high much more than getting drunk. Especially the after effects. When living with my girlfriend (also a regular smoker) in England during our studies, I always picked up for us. Now that I am living back in the States and she is still in England, I get a little nervous when she goes to pick up. I am sure she is fine but I can't help my feelings.

Another:

I don't know any women my age (40) who are daily pot smokers.  First of all, the munchies; we actually try to avoid hunger and getting fat.  Secondly, responsible people don't smoke pot when they're pregnant and nursing. Finally, it's not really attractive to be a daily pot-smoking woman. Unfair or not, it's just socially less acceptable for women to smoke pot regularly.

Conor Friedersdorf has a great rant against it:

I believe in an individual right to bear arms, and I have no problem with Americans who advocate on behalf of that right. If the feds start rounding up innocents to slaughter I have no problem with an armed citizenry fighting back. But folks who want to guard against a tyrannical government are foolish to focus on the 2nd Amendment while abandoning numerous others for fear of terrorism. The right to bear arms is the costliest liberty we have, in terms of innocent lives lost as an unintended byproduct; it is very unlikely to be exercised against the U.S. government in the foreseeable future; and its benefits are less important to securing liberty than habeas corpus and due process, as the experience of other free peoples demonstrates. I understand why people advocate on behalf of the right to bear arms, despite its costs; I don't understand why so many behave as if it is the most important safeguard against tyranny to maintain.

A reader writes:

I think it's a bit premature to go around claiming that cannabis changes the teenage brain. Further, even if it does, how can we be certain that such changes are always bad? See this article, "Teen Marijuana Use May Show No Effect On Brain Tissue, Unlike Alcohol, Study Finds." 

By the way, I recall reading years ago of a psychologist who claimed that her adolescent patients who'd smoked had better personalities – more and better humor, greater compassion, sense of sharing and community, etc. This is little more than an anecdote, but it resonated with me. 

Another proposes we legalize pot for some teenagers:

As a 16-year-old student in Portland, Maine approximately the correct age range for that study, I want to contribute my two cents. The first thing that popped into my head while reading your post was the problem we have with teenage drinking in the US. Teenagers are not supposed to drink, because it is dangerous to their health. We are told over and over again that it stunts brain development, that it's illegal for teenagers, that it's something designed for only adults to do in moderation. As you said, that we should wait.

The problem with this approach is that is not working, in any way, shape or form.

If you were to conduct a poll of my classmates (I go to a small school where everyone knows each others business, otherwise I wouldn't make such assumptions), I would guess that 50 out of 65 have drunk alcohol with peers at least twice in the last six months. 25 out of 65 drink on a regular basis (such as every weekend), and a few even probably have driven while intoxicated (although they would never admit it). As for marijuana usage, my school is probably a skewed sample, as we are predominately white, rich and hipster, which together creates one of the biggest regular marijuana-smoking bases. I'd say that my school is probably twice what the survey reported. There are at least 10 or so kids in my 250 student high school who smoke consistently every day. 

While your point about anti-cigarette campaigns is valid, the huge problem with alcohol consumption (and current pot usage, as well) shows that prohibiting teens from doing an activity that makes them popular and happy (most of the time) does little to stop them doing it. I believe the solution would be to encourage us to make safe choices, but let us actually make the choice legally. In Europe, where the drinking age is 16-18, teens don't think it's cool to get shit-faced; they social drink, like adults. I have a friend from England recently came to an American boarding school, and thought that the alcohol usage by teens was hilarious, the stigma ridiculous. They all know that we're doing it, so why do they get so mad? 

This technique is a parenting style that my parents have always criticized. Parents who are strict with internet usage, with cell-phones, with sleepovers and "friend time," end up driving their kids to rebellion and reckless behavior. We don't want to create an even worse problem with marijuana than we have, and we REALLY need to do something about teenage drinking.

For me personally, I drink occasionally and have never smoked, but I see what happens to my classmates and to other teenagers. Pot can destroy the academic life of a student. There is one boy in my class who got some of the best grades and now barely hands in his homework. I'm not saying weed makes you dumb, because he's still really smart, but his future will be affected because he longer has any kind of motivation or drive. Alcohol is destroying the lives of thousands of teens, and more than that, people dig out the booze whenever anyone wants to have a good time. It's stupid, and frankly kind of annoying. 

It's more than than just legalizing weed; it's about letting us make our own educated choices. We have to make our own mistakes, and we ARE going to make them, but the less it's an act of rebellion, the safer we will be.

Obama's reaction to the House passing the Senate's bill:

Sarah Binder puts the deal in perspective:

This week’s drama is a good reminder of the difficulty Congress faces in legislating solutions to long-term problems. Imposing costs today to secure benefits tomorrow puts legislators at risk for voter backlash. Myopic policies for myopic voters, Ed Tufte once wrote. The result is that Congress more often plays a new round of kick the can than tackles solutions to its fiscal mess. This time, Republicans think they will have the upper hand, as the parties go to battle over what it will take to raise the government’s debt ceiling. I suspect any solution will involve a new set of future deadlines intended to force Congress to legislate. Deja vu all over again.

Dave Weigel notes that most House Republicans voted against the Senate's bill. Daniel McCarthy adds:

The Tea Party is meant to ensure that the next go round will be different, but the Tea Party is part of the problem. In the absence of a real opportunity to shrink government, many of its activists would settle for wrecking government — which is what failing to raise the debt ceiling and let Uncle Sam to pay (or at least charge off) his bills amounts to. A wreck was also what some were hoping the fiscal cliff would produce. But there’s nothing conservative about that, and policy-by-catastrophe is detrimental to the cause of small government in the long run.

Paul Waldman's related thoughts:

[M]any of today's most conservative Republicans don't care all that much about the fortunes of the GOP. They didn't get where they are by toiling away on the lower rungs of the party ladder, patiently working their way up. They see themselves as brave mavericks, bucking the party establishment to promote their ideological agenda. I'm sure that for more than a few of them, a bipartisan chorus of voices screaming, "Are you f-ing crazy???" does nothing but convince them that they're right.

Yglesias weighs in:

Noam Scheiber worries about future legislative fights:

[The fiscal cliff negotiations] affirmed to Republicans that Obama will do pretty much anything he can to avoid a debt default, regardless of what he says. It affirmed the White House anxiety that the GOP might not blink before we default. To put it mildly, that's quite an asymmetry. I want to believe the president can get through the next stage in this endless budget stalemate without accepting some of the more dangerous spending cuts conservatives are demanding. But at this point I’m having a hard time seeing it.

Ezra Klein also sizes up future negotiations:

[T]he Republicans aren’t quite as crazy as they’d like the Democrats to believe. They were scared to take the country over the fiscal cliff. They’re going to be terrified to force the country into default, as the economic consequences would be calamitous. They know they need to offer the White House a deal that the White House can actually take — or at least a deal that, if the White House doesn’t take it, doesn’t lead to Republicans shouldering the blame for crashing the global economy. That deal will have to include taxes, though the tax increases could come through reform rather than higher rates.

Earlier reaction here.

Jordan Fischer critiques the trajectory of Judd Apatow's career:

This Is 40 seems to be almost the definition of a screenwriting non-challenge — it's so thoroughly The Judd Apatow Story that for the third movie in a row, he's cast his actual wife and actual kids as thinly veiled caricatures of his actual wife and actual kids. (The always-appealing Paul Rudd returns as a somewhat handsomer Apatow.)

Now, don't get me wrong; I actually find Leslie Mann — Mrs. Judd Apatow — funny and talented. And yes, his kids, like many kids, are cute. But his path-of-least resistance casting and thin plotting seem to point to an increasing solipsism in his work; a diminishing curiosity about anything in the world that's not right in front of his nose. 

Megan Daum also finds the film wanting:

[I]n “This is 40,” Apatow seems to be really trying to say something profound about marriage and the difficulties of getting older. The problem is it’s almost as if he’s a fourteen-year-old imagining what it’s like to be forty (“that’s like, really old—but at least you can have nice cars!”) and the result is that the movie is a stunning misrepresentation of life at any stage.

Wayne Curtis reviews recent research:

A study published in 2010 rigged up 1,136 Americans with pedometers, and concluded that we walk an average of 5,117 steps every day. (No surprise: that was significantly less than in other countries studied — both Australians and the Swiss walked around 9,600 steps daily, and the Japanese 7,100.)

It wasn't always this way:

Undertaking a 10- or 15-mile mile walk was once something Americans might do routinely in an afternoon. No special note was made of it. In 1906, just as cars were coming into vogue, the nation was afflicted by a small outbreak of long-distance walking — multi-day walking races and long-distance walkers seemed to be tromping everywhere. A splenetic editorial in American Gymnasia magazine took a dim view of the attention being lavished on the long-distance walks. "It is simply another mark of the degree of physical degeneracy (is that too strong a term?) of the present day that long walks are uncommon enough to excite special attention — not 1,200 mile walks but even 50-mile trips. And for most of us ten miles is a distance to cover which we must use much effort, and having made it are quite sure to indulge in self-praise."