Good morning, and a happy Plush Animal Lovers’ Day to you and your furry little friends! Here’s a look at some of the stuff we’re reading as we get ready for the new week…
Enjoying that Obamacare rollout? –> At Salon, Michael Lind reminds us that this is based on the same public/private model that Paul Ryan is pushing for Medicare and Medicaid.
Kentucky of all places –> TPM’s Dylan Scott on how the deep-red state managed to build one of the best Obamacare exhanges.
“One chord is fine” –> The great Jon Dolan on Lou Reed’s passing, in Rolling Stone.
Civil war –> In The New Yorker, Steven Coll writes about the tea party monster coming back to take revenge on its Republican creator. ALSO: TNR’s John Judis says that while the tea party may lose the war, right-populism will continue to be a problem for this country for a long time.
¡Un escándalo! –> It’s Spain’s turn to be outraged as it’s revealed that NSA monitored 60 million Spanish phone calls in a single month, according to the BBC. ALSO: Buzzfeed’s Rosie Gray on this weekend’s ‘Stop Watching Us’ protests. ALSO, TOO: A great back and forth about the nature of journalism between Glenn Greenwald and his arch-nemesis, the NYT’s Bill Keller.
It’s a fair question –> Rafiq ur Rehman would like to know why his mother — who was a midwife, not a terrorist — was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan.
Dead Bin Laden still winning? –> And at The Atlantic, David Rohde argues that our fear of al Qaeda hurts us more than al Qaeda ever did.
Perfectly legal… so far –> Apple makes billions of dollars, but pays no taxes in any country. One nerdy bureaucrat figured out how they do it — and now he wants to stop them, according to Steven Pearlstein in the WaPo.
Unmasked –> At MoJo, Andy Kroll and Jeremy Schulman reveal the secret, big business funding behind a pro-industry science “watchdog.”
Politics of grievance –> WaPo’s Karen Tumulty has a good long-read about how West Virginia — one of the states that relies most on federal dollars — hates the federal government and flipped from blue to red.
On track –> Syria meets deadline for the next stage in its chemical weapons disarmament. Nick Cumming-Bruce and Michael Gordon report for The New York Times.
Science confirms what you already knew! –> Study finds that awful bosses lead to workplace depression.
What else is happening? Let us know in the comments!
