Marcy Wheeler: The Bush administration's Torture 13. They authorized it, they decided how to implement it, and they crafted the legal fig leaf to justify it.
Glenn Greenwald: Distorting public opinion on torture investigations
Paul Krugman:
There will be a lot of soul-searching later this year for advocates of health care reform. (For me the make-or-break issue is whether the legislation includes a public plan.) But right now it’s the environmental community that has to decide how much it’s willing to bend.
Charles Franklin: As a follow-up to Gallup's pro-life/pro-choice poll, Gallup party ID? An outlier.
It is easier to be confident about the outlier status of this poll than to account for why it is so clearly out of line with previous Gallup results. At least we can address the outlier status empirically and with some statistical confidence. They "why" of that status must remain the always true maxim: "Outliers Happen."
Ed Kilgore has a lovely round-up of 538.com posts and others, same topic.
In particular, GSS [General Social Survey] shows an exceptionally durable 80%-plus level of support for a "health exception," which happens to be the actual flash-point separating pro-life activists from the rest of the population. In other words, lots of "pro-life" Americans consistently, and over decades, favor an exception that pro-life activists adamantly consider a complete repudiation of the pro-life point of view.
Clive Crook:
Sooner rather than later, the White House will have to start talking about serious spending cuts, serious tax increases, or both.
Nick Gillespie: legalize and tax our vices, from drugs to prostitution.
Roger Cohen:
A story is doing the rounds in Washington about an Arab ambassador whose view of Barack Obama’s overtures to Iran is: "We don’t mind you seeking engagement, but please, no marriage!"
Three flu stories: Japan's cases and WHO's decision on phase 6, NYC's 1st death coupled with new school closures, and the possibility of a summer wave. Stay tuned.