The Dish

How Morrissey understands Rick Perry mellowing his stance:

The issue here isn’t moral signals, but political signals. Marijuana is about the only issue left that will energize college-age and graduate voters, especially now that they’re getting a good look at the costs associated with ObamaCare. Perry’s approach is a good model for Republicans — defuse the issue with both a not-total-legalization policy married to federalism that gets Washington out of the mix on the issue. That’s enough to dilute the impact of the inevitable “evolution” that will come later this year when Democrats get desperate for campaign energy.

Chuck Schumer, like the president, also sounds more and more like a federalist on the issue. Sullum wants this federalism written into law:

[I]f Obama truly believes “it’s important” that states have the leeway to try different approaches to marijuana, why not codify that policy? The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, introduced last spring by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), would do just that by declaring that the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act dealing with cannabis “shall not apply to any person acting in compliance with state laws.” By supporting this bill, Obama could show he is serious about letting states go their own way on marijuana without abandoning his broad view of the federal government’s powers. Republicans could appeal to younger voters—two-thirds of whom support legalization, according to a 2013 Gallup poll—while remaining faithful to a principle they claim to uphold.

Plumer outlines what’s in the $956 billion farm bill that the House passed today. It’s mostly food stamps and other nutrition programs:

$756 billion over 10 years ($8 billion less than existing law). This is by far the biggest part of farm policy, with the bulk taken up by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps low-income families pay for food. House Republicans and Senate Democrats have long wrangled over how to modify this program. The Senate wanted to slightly tweak some of the rules governing eligibility and cut just $4 billion from existing law. The House wanted to put in place much stronger restrictions on who could get food stamps and cut $40 billion from current law. The Senate mostly won this fight. The compromise bill will cut $8 billion over 10 years.

Chris Edwards urges reporters not to call it a “cut”:

[T]he 2014 farm bill is not a cut at all when compared to the 2008 farm bill, which was projected to cost $640 billion over 10 years. That is a 49 percent spending increase. Sure, the new bill shuffles the farm subsidy deck chairs, but the bill’s main budget attribute is that it ratifies the huge recent increase in food stamp spending. The House bill had proposed trimming a modest $39 billion (5 percent) from food stamps, but Republican leaders caved in and agreed to just a token 1 percent trim in the final bill.

Daren Bakst is disappointed that the GOP caved on food stamp reform:

One loophole, known as broad-based categorical eligibility, allows people to receive food stamps even if they have a million dollars in the bank.  There’s no asset test, so in theory, an individual could have unlimited assets and still receive food stamps.  This absurd loophole should be closed.  To its credit, the House did close the loophole in its bill.  Then, the House negotiators folded when it came to the conference bill.  If this loophole were closed, taxpayers would have saved about $12 billion.

Erika Eichelberger, however, says the Republicans won the food stamp battle:

Here’s why the compromise level of cuts is a Republican win: In addition to the $9 billion in food stamp cuts in this five-year farm bill, another $11 billion will be slashed over three years as stimulus funding for the program expires. The first $5 billion of that stimulus money expired in October; the rest will disappear by 2016. In the months since the first $5 billion in stimulus funding was cut, food pantries have been struggling to provide enough food for the hungry. Poverty remains at record high levels, and three job applicants compete for every job opening.

And yet, despite the $5 billion in cuts that already happened and the guarantee of $6 billion more, Republicans succeeded in getting their Democratic peers to cut food stamps further. This is the first time in history that a Democratic Senate has even proposed cutting the program. Now the upper chamber is expected to pass cuts twice the level it approved last year.

Robert Greenstein downplays the impact of the SNAP cuts:

The SNAP cut that remains is a provision to tighten an element of the SNAP benefit calculation that some states have converted into what most people would view as a loophole.  Specifically, some states are stretching the benefit formula in a way that enables them not only to simplify paperwork for many SNAP households, but also to boost SNAP benefits for some SNAP households by assuming those households pay several hundred dollars a month in utility costs that they do not actually incur.  Congress did not intend for states to stretch the benefit rules this way, and longstanding SNAP supporters like myself find it difficult to defend.  Moreover, a future Administration could close off this use of the rules administratively, without any congressional action.

Two-thirds of states do not use the current rules this way, and no SNAP beneficiaries in these states are expected to lose any benefits under this provision.  Across the other one-third of states, CBO estimates that 88 to 89 percent of beneficiaries would remain untouched, while 11 to 12 percent would remain eligible for SNAP but face a benefit reduction because their state has used this practice to boost their benefits above what they would otherwise be.

Pierce is characteristically apoplectic:

How, precisely, does this particular bill help “businesses create jobs”? Almost a million people will have less money to spend on luxuries like heat and food. That doesn’t help you if you’re creating jobs in grocery stores or selling heating oil. Teachers will have to cope with dozing, hungry children while their unemployed parents try very hard not to yawn their way through job interviews. But the Republicans didn’t get absolutely everything they wanted, and the Democrats agreed to cut twice what they’d proposed, and the deal was struck among people who never will feel its real effects, and that’s the way things are supposed to work in this great Republic of ours.

Kilgore’s take:

The bill will probably get through the Senate next week with solid Democratic support; most of the food stamp cuts, it appears, will mainly be taken from the hide of beneficiaries that the states qualified via the “heat and eat” maneuver (giving them token heating assistance that automatically made them SNAP-eligible). A WaPo editorial recently called “heat and eat” a “political gift to SNAP’s perennial opponents,” and I tend to agree. But Lord knows we are living at a time when in case of doubt, you might want to just feed people.

Michael D. Tanner homes in on the agricultural subsidies, which he calls “pure corporate welfare”:

After all, while no one would deny that farming can be a difficult and sometimes precarious way of life, farmers generally are not suffering. In 2013 the average farm household had an income of $104,525. In 2011, the most recent year a direct comparison is available, farm-household incomes were 25 percent higher than the average for all U.S. households, and this gap has only increased since. Moreover, much farm aid goes not to small family farms but to giant agri-business. Among the biggest recipients of farm subsidies are Tysons Food, Pilgrim’s Pride, and Riceland Foods, none of which are likely to be the subject of a Lifetime TV movie anytime soon. In fact, roughly a third of subsidies in the last farm bill went to the wealthiest 4 percent of farmers.

Update from a reader, who adds his four cents:

As a person whose job it is to help eligible individuals sign up for SNAP (Food Stamps) in Pennsylvania, I am decidedly not elated about the apparent cuts coming down the line to the program. I was further displeased when I read some of the reactions to the proposed bill that demonstrated just how little some of the commentators seemed to know about the program. However, there are two things that I’d like to focus on, asset testing and categorical eligibility, that were brought up by Darren Bakst.

Categorical eligibility is a small provision of the SNAP program that allows states to designate that people who meet certain requirements can qualify for the program at higher incomes than others. Because this feature has absolutely no effect on the underlying formula used to determine how much a given applicant will receive in benefits, what this means is that elderly and disabled individuals with low incomes that are nonetheless significantly above the poverty level can qualify for the minimum benefit. In PA, this minimum benefit is $15/month, hardly a windfall to vulnerable seniors. Further, in some rare cases where seniors and the disabled are paying exorbitant out-of-pocket medical costs, they may find a much needed lifeline in SNAP and may qualify for significantly more than the minimum.

As to asset testing, this is the most useless and inane aspect of SNAP I’ve ever seen. SNAP currently doesn’t require asset testing because my state originally convinced the government of how dumb an idea it was, but Governor “gay marriage = incest” Corbett re-instituted the test to try and reduce imagined fraud (there’s a higher percentage of PA legislators convicted of corruption charges in the past 3 years than fraud rates). So now, in PA, if you have more than $5,500 in “assets”, or $9,000 if you’re a senior, you don’t qualify for benefits. “Assets” include: checking and savings account balances, stocks and bonds (though not retirement accounts), burial plots, funeral agreements, and any owned vehicles after the first, among others.

While this doesn’t matter for the overwhelming majority of applicants except as needless extra paperwork, in practical terms asset testing means kicking seniors and formerly-middle class families in need of assistance off the program when they need it most. Were you a middle class family that had bought a second car before the breadwinners lost their jobs? Too bad, moocher, go get in the pantry line that will give you 5-days (best case) worth of food for your family. Are you a senior that has a bank account with $10,000 in it to cover your burial and final expenses when you die? Better spend yourself into destitution before you even think about applying, you “taker”.

Asset testing is cruel, and stupid, and useless, and does nothing to combat the actual fraud people complain about – mainly those who sell their benefits to others for cash. One way to fix this problem might be to get rid of EBT cards and instead use state drivers’ licenses and photo IDs (hear that voter ID fans?) as the benefit cards, since applicants already have to submit that information to apply, they probably won’t give their ID to others, and it removes some of the stigma attached to EBT cards. Too bad all of this stuff is just about scaring people away from applying.

Michael Brendan Dougherty dismisses Santorum’s plans to seek the presidency again:

Rick Santorum is a political stiff whose entire 2016 campaign is premised on a historical accident: He was the last clown out of the anti-Romney clown car in 2012. His last statewide election in Pennsylvania was a 59–41 percent disaster for him, a politician swallowed up whole by the anti-Bush, anti–Iraq War wave of discontent.

On the campaign trail, Santorum’s true conviction is often his most unappealing feature. He believes so much in the power of his reasoning and in the truth of his conclusions, that he often attempts to argue his hecklers into agreeing with him. In town-hall environments he becomes the caffeinated leader of your college’s Henry Newman Center, debating theology with you until you fall asleep. He gives people the uncomfortable impression that he doesn’t possess ideas, but that his ideas possess him.

Larison sees little room for moralists like Santorum in today’s GOP:

I don’t know why Santorum would want to run again, but if he does he will find a party that is increasingly uninterested in or openly opposed to many of the things he has to say.

I’m not referring to his views on social issues, but to his blatant hostility to anything remotely libertarian on virtually every other kind of issue. Santorum remains a holdover from a time when some Republicans were proud to identify as supporters of an activist and growing government, he seems to have a visceral loathing for libertarians in the party, and he is arguably the most hawkish politician likely to run in 2016. In the next election, he would be running for the nomination of a party that has become considerably more libertarian, more skeptical of government, and less inclined to intervene militarily overseas. Santorum is the embodiment of all the things that many on the right have disliked about the GOP over the last fifteen years, and he is personally abrasive enough that he manages to make all of his favorite causes less appealing than they might otherwise be.

Savage laughs, but he isn’t letting down his guard:

Rick Santorum is a joke, I realize. My readers helped to make him one. But Ronald Reagan was a joke in 1965 when Tom Leher recorded “George Murphy.” If we don’t want the joke to be on us, we had better pay attention to—and continue to heap mockery upon—the joke that is Rick Santorum.

A reader veers from the dissenters:

I’m a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Lawyers’ Assistance Committee. Our job is to help attorneys and law students with alcoholism, drug addiction (prescription and otherwise), mental health issue and gambling addictions. We get some pretty fucked-up cases: lawyers who shown up in court drunk or high, lawyers who’ve tampered with escrow accounts – pretty much anything you can think of, we’ve seen it. We get lawyers who have been suspended, disbarred, who’ve done state and federal time. And, whenever we can, we try to help them turn their lives around and help them become honorable members of the Pennsylvania Bar again. And, pretty frequently, we do. We see lawyers capable of great, profound changes.

The situation that Glass presents isn’t an easy one. I’ll grant you it’s a close case. And yes, the NY State Bar application discrepancies are troubling. But recovery and change isn’t a straight, unyielding line. People don’t just enter therapy or rehab and come out all sparkly and new. It’s tough work. But people do it. My colleagues all throughout Pennsylvania have done it. The lawyers who have watched him and supervised him for over a decade, and the doctors that have treated him, reached the conclusion that he could be trusted. I’ve seen people earn the shot at redemption. Stephen Glass has earned his. I’d give him the shot.

Another:

So, the California Bar won’t let Stephen Glass in, but they’re happy to keep Orly Taitz.  Right.

Another has “mixed feelings”:

On the one hand, I do believe in redemption, second chances, and the idea that a person shouldn’t pay forever for what they’ve done wrong. On the other hand, unless we are prepared to jettison the “character and fitness” component of the bar, why doesn’t this make sense? This is a person who has demonstrated, time and time again, that he is morally and ethically challenged – much more so than a person who has committed petty offenses or who has a drug conviction, in my opinion, but someone who literally cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

I think it’s important to understand just how committed to ethics the legal profession is. Despite the nasty jokes about lying, scumbag lawyers (and sure, every profession has their share of jerks), the law is one of the few professions with seriously high ethical and moral standards that all practitioners are required to meet.

Did you know that, at least in my state, it is considered a violation of legal ethics rules to not report a colleague who themselves has committed a violation? Did you know that an honest accounting mistake that results in loss to no clients and that is immediately corrected can result in the attorney losing his or her license to practice? This shit is no joke. So that quote from the NYT is not about “the pecking order”; it’s simply about the seriousness of ethics to the legal profession. I think it’s completely reasonable to pose the question: if we do not trust this individual to tell us the truth when he relays information, we do not trust him to be a lawyer!

And your comment about whether or not the inverse would be true? Well, I quite likely think it would be, if the nature of the ethical offense was relevant to journalism, as it is relevant here to law. An editor might not care if an applicant for a job at her news site had accidentally commingled funds in the past or failed to properly maintain contact with a client, but she would probably care if she learned that the applicant had, as a lawyer, wholesale fabricated evidence and repeatedly lied under oath.

Another lawyer:

This story does shed some light on the way you apply for the bar and how it can seem somewhat arbitrary. One state delayed a friend’s bar admission because she had listed on her background check that she took an antidepressant. The state bar wanted her to get a doctor to write that she was not a risk for her clients. None of her doctors knew what that meant, so they did not want to sign off on it. After much haggling and negotiation and letter-writing, they eventually admitted her.

Meanwhile, all the untreated depressed lawyers you know out there sailed through the process because they did not have to disclose the medications they should be taking. Another friend had to justify his debt load because he had been in a bad real-estate deal a while back, but unlike the Bob McDonnells of the world, he didn’t take bribes to cover it up. This kind of thing is not unheard of in the bar admissions process, and while Glass may have a high profile case, he is not the only one to be unjustly denied bar admission for something that people outside the profession may find silly. This case just gets added to the list of reasons for why the bar admission process needs adjustments.

Another goes deep into the debate:

I’m a law school graduate myself, so my opinions on this matter will obviously be colored by my own educational and life experiences. And it’s not that I don’t think that Glass deserves a second chance. I’m still ambivalent on that question, and I can empathize with both sides. What I really can’t STAND, though, is the smug condescension dripping from David Plotz’s post, which can be summarized as thus: more so than journalists, lawyers are dishonest and immoral and have an undeservedly high opinion of themselves, so it’s hypocritical that they won’t let Glass be one of them. In fact, Glass will probably make an even better lawyer than most because everyone, knowing his work history, is going to be watching him more closely anyway!

I don’t find these sorts of arguments to be helpful. First of all, yes, many lawyers are in fact dishonest and unethical pricks. Many escape the discipline and the disbarment they deserve (hello, Jay Bybee). None of that, however, means that the profession as a whole ought to drop the standards for entry, and Plotz makes no convincing argument for why this should be the case. Even if we accept his snide comments about the general superciliousness and immorality of lawyers, the obvious solution to that is to tighten the standards. Admit more honest attorneys; work even harder to keep out the ones who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy people.

And I’m not saying that an attorney’s work is any more “important” to society than a journalist’s, but Plotz is seriously underplaying the consequences of admitting bad apples here. You can argue that a dishonest lawyer who deceives his client is going to fuck up that individual client’s life on a far deeper and more profound level than a negative “lingering impact” on public perceptions of politics and race would.

Furthermore, Plotz fails to address the court’s finding that Glass’ deceptions and lack of remorse extended far beyond that mid-’90s period when he was churning out fabricated pieces. A huge part of the court’s decision was based on the fact that he continued to obfuscate his editors’ efforts to uncover all his deceptions well after the fraud had been discovered, misrepresented the extent of his cooperation on his New York bar application in 2002, failed to “full identif[y] his fabrications until the California bar proceedings” in 2007, and, even then, mischaracterized “the defects in his New York bar application.”

Pro-tip: As much as the bar frowns upon your lying to your employers and the general public, the bar hates it even more when you lie to it. To put this in legal terms, the “statute of limitations” on his misdeeds didn’t just start running once “nearly 20 years ago,” as Plotz says. Rather, the deception and lack of remorse California is so concerned about renewed itself each time that he failed to be completely forthcoming about his lies. Given that Glass had multiple chances to come fully clean and set the record straight – and did not do so – the court’s conclusion isn’t nearly as “bizarre and backward” as Plotz makes it sound.

Finally, I’ll end by responding to Bmaz’s post: Shon Hopwood’s story is indeed a touching one about second chances, but the analogy is imperfect. Hopwood does not need to be a member of a state bar in order to clerk, since clerks do not actually represent a client or argue in a court of law. (Glass himself clerked after law school, and if he wanted to do it again and a judge in California wanted to hire him, there is absolutely nothing that would stop him from doing so.) Now, I imagine that when the time does come for Hopwood to actually apply for admission to a bar, he will face much less opposition than Glass has, and this will be because (1) Hopwood served out his sentence in prison, so there is a perception that he has “paid his dues” to society, and (2) Hopwood did not spend years after the crime obfuscating and misrepresenting what had happened. Bmaz’s focus on the severity of the underlying offense (armed robbery vs. internet lies) as a barometer for deserved redemption seems misguided when you consider, again, that the California Supreme Court’s main concern was remorse.

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry chides the media for buying that paper predicting the death of Facebook. Why “any journalist with, not a science degree, but with a lick of common sense, could have figured out that the study wasn’t reliable”:

The study uses an epidemiology model. Many stories pointed this out, so they read this part! This tells you two things: 1) this study is based on a model, i.e. an abstract and formal representation of the world, not experimentation, which is the evidentiary gold standard in science. When you have a model, you have an idea and a spreadsheet. You don’t have evidence.  2) An epidemic is when lots of people get a disease. Facebook is a website that people sign up for. Those two things are not the same thing! At all! (Insert your own joke here.) You can apply an epidemiology model to Facebook. You can apply a macroeconomic model (what’s Facebook’s demand curve?). You can apply a financial model. You can really apply any model–a “model” is just a fancy word for playing lego with numbers. You can use all sorts of lego to do all sorts of things, but it doesn’t mean your lego “plane” looks anything like a plane, much less will fly.

Dish readers got there first. Nonetheless, Facebook does have legitimate reasons to be concerned about its declining popularity:

Kidding aside, there are other studies citing a decreasing interest in Facebook among young users. In 2013 approximately 45 percent of seniors aged 65 and older used Facebook, up from 35 percent in 2012, according to a survey published in December by the Pew Center for Internet and American Life. Approximately 71 percent of adults older than age 30 use Facebook, up from 67 percent in 2012, the survey added, while users on the site between the ages of 18 and 29 dropped by 2 percent between 2013 and 2012. The rise of older users on Facebook is leading teenagers in the U.K. to abandon the site now that their parents and relatives can see what they post, said Daniel Miller, a professor of material culture at University College London. Contenders poised to become more cool among younger users in the U.K. are Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, Miller said.

But these studies, Jon Russell points out, ignore the social network’s vast global market:

Facebook is far from in crisis. It has 1.1 billion active users. Yes, that’s people who use it every month. In fact, 728 million people use the site or its mobile apps every day, 507 million of whom do so from a mobile device.

That is huge and unprecedented. It dwarfs almost any other company on the Internet in terms of reach, perhaps only Google aside. But, more than just big figures, Facebook is still growing in many parts of the world where it is a key platform — even among competition from messaging apps and others. In parts of Asia, Africa and other emerging markets, Facebook is the Internet for the minority of people who have access (stats compiled by We Are Social show there is plenty of room for growth.)

(Image: xkcd)

James Capretta praises the Burr-Coburn-Hatch plan’s approach to pre-existing conditions:

The plan would solve the pre-existing problem, which is real but not nearly as widespread as the president would like Americans to believe it is, in a manner that is something like the opposite of the Obamacare approach.  The irony of Obamacare is that it makes insurance less desirable as a product by requiring insurers to sell it to anyone who comes in the door, regardless of their health status.  This means consumers have far less incentive to get coverage when they are healthy because they know they can sign up when they are sick without penalty.  The Obamacare solution is to try to compel enrollment through the individual mandate tax.

The Burr-Coburn-Hatch approach makes insurance attractive by attaching a new and unambiguous right to continuous insurance enrollment: anyone who stays insured will be allowed to move between insurance platforms without facing higher premiums based on their health status.

Scott Lemieux calls that proposal “horrible” and yet another Republican kick at the working poor, noting that not everyone who faces a lapse in their health insurance does so voluntarily:

The plan would protect people who have been continuously insured for 18 months. But if you’ve never had health insurance? You’re out of luck. If you’ve lost health insurance at some point in the last year and a half or haven’t had it at all because you’ve lost your job?  You’re out of luck.

The plan would offer a narrow one-time only enrollment period for those with pre-existing conditions, but anyone who missed that narrow window would not be guaranteed the ability to purchase insurance that contained the continuous coverage protections. This change is a classic illustration of Republican priorities: more protection for corporate interests, much less protection for consumers.

Olga Khazan points out that this provision serves the same purpose as the Obamacare mandate:

People might be more amenable to this setup, though, than they are to Obamacare’s tax penalty. Unlike under Obamacare, there would be no penalty for people who go without health insurance by choice—as long as they stick with that choice forever. But since few people are likely to want to make that bargain with their brittle, 62-year-old future selves, getting coverage and keeping it going would likely be a popular option, just like it has been under Obamacare. So what does the GOP proposal tell us about mandates? Whether you go about it the Obamacare way, or the GOP “CARE” way, there has to be some strategy for getting people to sign up for health insurance before they get sick.

Ramesh considers how the proposal shifts the focus slightly from employer-based to individual coverage:

The tax code has for decades favored employer coverage over individual coverage, which has had all sorts of negative effects on health markets. The plan partly remedies the problem by giving people without access to employer plans a tax credit to buy coverage on the individual market. This credit is means-tested, though, phasing out rapidly as people’s incomes rise. [Yuval] Levin thinks that’s a mistake:

“I also think a flat, universal tax benefit for coverage would be better in many respects, as noted here. And that means I think the phasing out of the credit at 300 percent of poverty is not ideal, as it does not extend the tax benefit to much of the middle class.”

Avik Roy, also writing in favor of the plan, thinks the plan’s means-testing is appropriate: It limits the budget impact of the tax credit, targets its help at those who most need it, and may not lead to as much political pressure for expansion. If the case for flatness were purely a matter of simplicity and political appeal, then I think that Roy’s counter-arguments would make it a close question. But the other problem with the phase-out of benefits is that it raises implicit marginal tax rates: The more you work, or the more raises and promotions you get, the fewer benefits you get, and thus your incentive to make the extra income goes down. For me, that consideration leads to Levin’s side of the argument.

But this change could disrupt the insurance market just as much as Obamacare has:

The great unknown of the GOP’s plan … is what it would do to the employer-based insurance market, which is how the vast majority of Americans receive coverage. To pay for its reforms, the GOP proposal would cap the currently unlimited tax exclusion for employer-provided health coverage at 65 percent of the average insurance plan’s cost.

Nobody knows exactly what that would do to the employer-based insurance universe, and the Congressional Budget Office hasn’t yet analyzed the new proposal. But analysts seem to agree that it would force some Americans to pay higher taxes by capping the tax benefits of employer-based insurance. If your plan is average, you’d pay taxes on 35 percent of its cost. [health law professor Tim] Jost said it could lead to “the biggest tax increase on the middle class” in decades.

It could also encourage employers to cut health benefits for millions of their workers, now that the tax upside of providing it is gone.

Edwin Park is against the plan’s block-granting of Medicaid. He says it wouldn’t cover the states’ needs and would likely lead to higher premiums:

In place of the Medicaid expansion and premium credits, the plan would establish a new tax credit that would be the same dollar amount for everyone below 200 percent of the poverty line (and would phase out between 200 and 300 percent of the poverty line).  That means that people with incomes between 300 percent and 400 percent of the poverty line, who are eligible for the ACA’s premium credits, would receive no help. Legal immigrants would be ineligible for the plan’s tax credit.  (In contrast, legal immigrants are eligible for the ACA’s premium tax credits.)

In addition, the tax credit wouldn’t be based on the actual cost of decent-quality coverage or fully account for differences in people’s premiums based on their age.  Nor would the plan offer any help with plan deductibles, co-payments, and co-insurance to replace the ACA’s cost-sharing reductions. The plan would also repeal the ACA’s requirement that insurers spend at least 80 percent of their premiums on health services rather than overhead and profit.  Individuals would likely pay higher premiums for less coverage.

Earlier Dish on the GOP plan here.

Gillispie hated how Obama “drew attention to a wounded warrior while eliding any responsibility for placing the young man in harm’s way”:

Obama’s gesture in the State of the Union will only accelerate the cynicism that already understandably dominates public opinion. There is no more serious decision that a government makes than to send its citizens a war. And there is nothing more disturbing than a president using soldiers’ sacrifices as a way of selling a grab-bag of domestic policy agenda items.

Cassidy agrees that on “one level, of course, it was a political ploy.” But he thinks highlighting Remsburg’s sacrifice served a larger purpose:

Ever since he ran for President, in 2008, Obama’s underlying message has been that too much of what happens in Washington is an insiders’ game that ignores, and often tramples upon, the wishes and interests of ordinary Americans. By inviting Remsburg—and DeMars and Shelley, too—Obama was taking part in what’s now a traditional ritual for speech-givers. But he was also trying to bridge the gaping chasm between politics and political decision-making as experienced by its practitioners in the nation’s capital and by the grunts out there in the factories, offices, and Army battalions.

He was also invoking the concept of public service, which, in Washington these days, is routinely subjugated to partisan advantage. And, finally, he was saying that we can do better, and we know we can—just look at this young man.

The detail that stood out for Charles Pierce:

When all the cheering for Cory Remsburg, the grievously wounded Army Ranger, died down didn’t you stop for a moment and think, “Damn, 10 deployments.” What the hell have we been doing there?

Sometimes, it’s the small things often below the radar that tell you the most. Three years ago, a constitutional amendment to ban civil marriages and civil unions for gay couples swept the Indiana legislature. This time: not so much. After a revolt by some Republicans in the Indiana House of Representatives, the wording of the amendment was stripped of its ban on civil unions and workplace benefits for same-sex spouses. And the vote to pass that diluted measure passed by a modest majority in the hyper-conservative state. The Senate will now consider the proposal.

The likely upshot? The ban is now unlikely to be on the ballot this year – and will be there, at the earliest, in 2016. By that time, I wonder, how many more Republicans will be queasy about it?

Update from a reader:

Not so fast. I wish I could be as sanguine about the Indiana constitutional amendment. Several factors are at play here:

1.  When it appeared that the amendment might not even make it out of committee, the Indiana Speaker of the House (who had, prior to the legislative session, led everyone to believe that the amendment was “not a priority” for the Republican caucus) moved the bill to a committee that was more favorable.  This despite the fact that every major employer in the state (e.g., Eli Lilly, Cummins) and every major state university (except Notre Dame, because, well you know, and Purdue, because Purdue’s president is Mitch Daniels, who is trying to preserve his future political viability with the crazies) has publicly opposed the amendment.

2.  Although the House stripped out the anti-civil union language, there is a very good chance the Senate will put it right back in.  And the House will likely pass it next time, with some rhetoric about “the will of the people” and the hope that no one notices.

3.  Indiana’s governor, the empty suit Mike Pence, has staked his credibility with his base of right-wing evangelicals on the passage of this amendment.  This is, politically, a mistake, since the governor has no role in amending the state constitution and he could have sat this one out.  But Pence, who has done virtually nothing substantive – good or bad – since taking office, is a true believer on this one.  (As a side note, he makes Mitch Daniels time in office look good, and I can’t stand Daniels.)

4.  The proponents of the amendment are couching the entire issue as “let the people vote” (i.e., put this on the ballot and let the people decide).  They refuse to respond to the argument that maybe it’s not a good idea to let people vote on whether minorities should have rights.

I grew up in the South in the ’60s and ’70s, so it’s not like I haven’t seen bigotry before.  But Indiana does it better – they wrap it up in Midwestern “niceness” and “Hoosier values.”   Here in Indiana, they don’t care if you’re gay – just don’t talk about it or let anyone else know.

Another:

Now hold the phone. Indiana has a strong red streak, but it went for Obama in 2008, too. Your reader’s comment about “niceness” was accurate. But look, Indiana is a complicated place like anywhere else, and I won’t stand for a DC/NYC-livin’ lovable elite like yourself broadstroking it as “hyper-conservative”.

I grew up in Indiana – Indianapolis, specifically. Indy is a word of difference from, say, Martinsville or Evansville, and Chicagoland Hoosiers would disown both in a heartbeat. Indianapolis is pretty blue, substantially more gay friendly than most the country, and has a a terrific liberal arts tradition. Indiana, though often still embarrassing to me, is in no way “hyper-conservative” in the same sense as the Western or Southern deep red states.