We begin today's roundup with
Sam Brodey's piece over at Mother Jones on Rand Paul's announcement today that he's running for president:
Paul's preannouncement video brands him as a "different kind of Republican." That, he is. The ophthalmologist-senator's libertarian streak and popularity with young people certainly set him apart from his likely GOP rivals. But his past conspiracy-theorizing—and the controversial pronouncements of his father, Ron Paul—separate him from the pack for less positive reasons.
Josh Rogin at Bloomberg:
In the first salvo of the 2016 Republican ad wars, a conservative group is about to unleash a seven-figure ad campaign targeting Senator Rand Paul for being out of step with the party on Iran, just as he launches his presidential campaign.
[...] Paul has been avoiding any comment on the Obama administration’s announcement last week that Iran and the P5+1 powers agreed to a political framework in which Iran would receive sanctions relief in exchange for scaling back its nuclear program. All the other Republican contenders have come out against the deal, and former Texas Governor Rick Perry promised Monday to trash it if he is elected.
On Monday, after several days of silence, a Paul spokesman told Bloomberg: "Senator Paul will be watching closely and believes any deal must make clear Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon, allows for full verification and is approved by Congress.”
Head below the fold for more on the day's top stories.
Libertarian Justin Raimondo, writing in The Los Angeles Times, documents many of Paul's contradictions:
"Stand With Rand." That's Sen. Rand Paul's main slogan as he launches his campaign for the White House. He's holding a "Stand With Rand" rally in his home state of Kentucky on Tuesday and is holding another "Stand With Rand" rally in New Hampshire, the traditional first primary state, on Wednesday. It's an unfortunate choice of words, because it underscores the chief problem with his candidacy. For the life of me, I can't figure out what he really believes — where he really stands, especially when it comes to foreign policy.
Dave Weigel:
The early coverage of Paul's launch keeps returning to two themes–that Paul has slid away from his old libertarian views, and that doing so has risked the support from the "liberty movement" his father serendipitously built. Paul's hesitant approach to the Iran deal did not represent a real evolution in thought. What it represented was the carefulness Paul now brings to issues he used to barrel right into. This is a quick guide to how he's evolved.
At The Week,
Ryan Cooper explains that the Affordable Healthcare Act is working and that it can be strengthened and improved in the future:
Assuming the Supreme Court doesn't shank ObamaCare to death this summer, it's time to start thinking about the future of American health care after the Affordable Care Act. The law has been up and running for about a year and a half now, and while it has clearly been a large success, there is still a long ways to go.
By examining the parts of ObamaCare that work best, the parts that need attention, and the shortcomings that have yet to be addressed at all, we can outline some rough principles for reform. First, simple government-run programs like Medicaid are best. Second, reform should be national, not left to the states. And third, the government should not hesitate to use its pricing power to keep costs down.
Jay Bookman takes on critics of the Iran nuke deal:
[I]f Iran is caught cheating, we and our allies would enjoy considerable international support for doing whatever is deemed necessary as a response.
The opposite is not true. If we are the ones who walk away from a deal, or if we take military action against Iran without fully exploring every other option, any hope of a negotiated resolution would vanish. And that’s just fine with certain folks.
Switching topics,
Stephanie Coontz says there's a new moral majority:
The public outrage over the "religious freedom" bills recently passed in Arkansas and Indiana caught the governors of those states completely off-guard, judging by their confused and contradictory responses.
As poll watchers, they surely knew that most Americans now oppose the discriminatory laws and practices they accepted as normal only a dozen years ago. But the politicians underestimated the pushback organized by local and national businesses, including companies with no previous record of public support for social equality.
They had better adjust to a new reality.
The Washington Post's
Dana Milbank takes on climate change deniers:
There is no denying it: Climate-change deniers are in retreat.
What began as a subtle shift away from the claim that man-made global warming is not a threat to the planet has lately turned into a stampede. The latest attempt to deny denial comes from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful group that pushes for states to pass laws that are often drafted by industry. As my Post colleagues Tom Hamburger, Joby Warrick and Chris Mooney report, ALEC is not only insisting that it doesn’t deny climate change — it’s threatening to sue those who suggest otherwise. [...] To be sure, this is a tactical retreat, and you shouldn’t expect conservative groups to start lining up in favor of a carbon tax. Rather, they’re resorting to more defensible arguments that don’t make them sound like flat-earthers. My Post colleagues quoted energy lobbyist Scott Segal saying that “the science issue just isn’t as salient as it once was.” Instead, Segal talks about the cost and viability of proposed regulations.
It’s likely no coincidence that the shift is occurring as the Obama administration approaches a June target to finalize rules on power-plant emissions. Those who oppose regulation are wise to abandon a position that holds little public appeal; a healthy majority of Americans accept that global warming is real, and a New York Times poll earlier this year found that even half of Republicans support government action to address it.
On a final note,
Catherine Rampell at The Washington Post looks at wage growth:
The crucial missing component of good news today, of course, is wages. Wage and salary growth have been pitifully slow in an economic expansion almost at its sixth birthday, and compensation still has not recovered the ground lost during the “Great Recession.” The most recent data available show that the median U.S. household still earns less than its counterpart did at the turn of the century, after adjusting for inflation.
But there are signs we may finally be turning a corner. You may have to squint to see them, but they’re there: in the otherwise mediocre March jobs report, in surveys about compensation expectations, and in tangible wage gains at the bottom of the income distribution. [...] In surveys, consumers and employers have become increasingly likely to say they expect compensation to rise in the coming months.