Good morning! Here are some of the stories we’re reading as we get caught up for a new week…
Spineless –> Robert Reich tears into Democrats for panicking over substandard insurance policies being cancelled. ALSO: Three Democratic governors of states that decided to run their own exchanges write in the WaPo about how they made the ACA work. ALSO, TOO: A heart-wrenching piece in the Texas Observer about how we just allow the poor and uninsured to die from serious illnesses.
Unemployment trap –> In the NYT, Annie Lowery on the huge barriers to re-entering the workforce the long-term unemployed face.
Getting gusty –> MoJo’s Chris Mooney reports that hurricane records are being broken all around the planet.
Snake oil –> Jason Schwartz reports for TNR that fly-by-night doctors are offering all sorts of untested “cures” for ex-NFL players suffering from concussion syndrome.
How very 19th century –> An investigation by The Nation‘s Gabriel Thompson finds children as young as 12 working in America’s tobacco fields.
Angry white men –> Salon has an excerpt from Michael Kimmel’s new book, Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era.
Pope’s poll –> Pope Francis is polling Catholics worldwide to see what they think about contraception, divorce and LGBT rights.
Public schools are socialism? –> Paul Buchheit goes after the school privatizers for AlterNet.
Arctic 30 –> At The Guardian, Frank Zelko puts the continued detention of the Greenpeace activists detained by Russia on piracy charges into a broader historic context.
Life of Letters –> Doris Lessing died at the age of 94 yesterday. Bill Moyers recorded an essay about Lessing when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. He also interviewed her in 2003.
Is Fido European? –> New DNA studies suggest that dogs are descended from an extinct species of European wolves and were first domesticated by hunter-gatherers, casting doubt on earlier theories that modern canines were first domesticated in conjunction with the rise of agriculture in Asia and the Middle East. National Geographic has the story.
What else is going on? Tell us in the comments!
