Medicaid enrollment increases, the number with private coverage decreases

“The danger is that the previously insured are now at risk of becoming the new uninsured,” reports Jarrett Stepman for The Daily Signal.

Hm, California has 11 counties with more registered voters than voting age adults

Reported here.

Hiroshima survivor admits school girls were being trained as decoders for the Japanese army

So they were legitimate targets.

From the story here:

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Setsuko Nakamura sat with her Grade 8 classmates on the floor of her private girls school, listening to a lecture about duty to the emperor. Setsuko and some of her classmates had been training as decoding assistants for the Japanese army, in preparation for the final invasion by Allied forces.

Like most libertarians, Ben Domenech is a progressive who imagines America began as a tabula rasa on which we wrote "manifest destiny"

I'll bet he's memorized Emma Lazarus' poem, too. Ben is deeply confused about the American founding.

Here, where you might be forgiven for thinking he's talking about Australia:

Once there was a country born without an inheritance. It was a civilization carved by the rejected refuse of the old world, by the religious freaks, criminals, bastards, and orphans. They were the type of men and women willing to risk all to cross the wine-dark sea in search of their fortune. They came from all the corners of the world, and in this land they worked the good earth and made their way. In time they built marketplaces and cities and governments, and threw off the shackles of their far-off, old-world rulers to make their own law. Where other revolutions had been crushed, they prevailed. They risked it all, and won.

The individual insurance market has shrunk by 13% in one year, led by those unsubsidized

From the story here:

As of March 2017, the individual insurance market totaled 17.6 [million-doh!] people. That is down from 20.2 million one year prior. This is a decrease of 2.6 million people, a 13 percent drop in the size of the overall individual-health-insurance market. 12.2 million bought their health insurance on the state- and federally run Obamacare exchanges [vs. 12.7 million the previous year]. 5.4 million people bought their insurance off of the Obamacare exchanges [vs. 7.5 million the previous year]. ... In other words, enrollment is steady among those who receive subsidies but declining dramatically among those who do not. ... In fact, in 2015, 7.5 million people paid the fine, while 6.5 million paid the fine in 2016, according to the IRS. ... After four years of attempts by the Obama administration, no more than 40 percent of those eligible for subsidies availed themselves of the program.

Liberalism has become illiberalism, insisting that bombing is the only way forward

Usefully discussed here.

"We have to destroy the village in order to save it."

Three easy steps to joining the middle class

1. Get a job

2. Marry someone who also has a job

3. Pool your resources and buy a house

Three salvos this morning in the libertarian war against homeownership: Fortunately human nature is stronger

There's something you don't see everyday: Grossly UNDERESTIMATING "not in the labor force"

It's actually 94.6 million in July 2017, not 50 million.

Among all those millions, just 5.4 million "want a job now". The rest are old and retired, young and in school, unable to work because of disability, homemakers, etc.

You people out there just don't get it.

If employers could fire 30 million of your asses in 2009 and get along just fine without you, they still can.

If anyone's lying about GDP, it's Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh just said Obama's never had real GDP above 1.5%, which is just silly. The man doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Full-time job growth under Trump so far beats Obama and Bush, but that's about it

Note that employers panicked under Obama and fired people like crazy after his election, so there was a steep decline in full-time.

So far the growth of full-time shows a tentative thumbs-up to Trump, but still nothing like the vote of confidence typical after previous changes at the helm of state.

The puny 2.5% growth under George W. Bush, keep in mind, was still all pre-911 and post-Reagan bull market, which ended in August 2000. Trump is doing better than Bush, but not by much.

Robert Mueller contributed money to anti-marriage, pro-Obama crackpot William Weld in 1996

Reported here:

Mr. Mueller made two contributions in 1996 to Republican William Weld, then a candidate for a U.S. senate seat in Massachusetts, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics.

From my lips to God's ears: Death Wish is back, starring Bruce Willis

Trailer here.

White House renovations August 4-21, so Trump's headed to New Jersey

Not Martha's Vineyard.

Insane libertarian fixation on mortgage interest deduction, edition 4716

You would think a libertarian would acknowledge that shielding YOUR money from taxation is a good thing, but you would be wrong. There are at least seven tax loss expenditures more costly to the tax man than the mortgage interest deduction, but their crazy war on it continues nonetheless. What it masks is the underlying hatred of conservatism homeownership represents. Homeowners settle down and raise kids instead of sacrificing themselves to the needs of global capitalists. That's their real problem with it.

Mark Krikorian must be spending too much time in the sun this summer

Laugh of the Day: Mickey Kaus does the math CBS-DFW cannot

That's right Mickey. 92.22% to be exact.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate update for July 2017

Mean average temperature was 72.5 degrees F in July 2017 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The mean is 72.2. The average to date is 50.0. The mean to date is 46.7.

The lowest minimum temperature was 53. The mean is 49.

The highest maximum temperature was 90. The mean is 94. July is the warmest month of the year by average temperature (above), so it's not going to be a very hot summer since it's all downhill from here.

Precipitation was 1.12 inches. The mean is 3.13.

Cooling degree days came to 240, which is the mean. The total to date is 432. The mean to date is 422.

I have corrected my climate update for June 2017. Either I or NWS reported incorrect figures for lowest minimum temperatures and for cooling degree days, not sure which. I noticed the discrepancy today and fixed it. May 2017 checks out OK.

The three month Oceanic Nino Index value has averaged -0.32 over the last eleven months, climbing to +0.5 in the last measurement period in April-May-June after a weak cooling event in the Pacific lasting five months.  

America is a country full of addictive drug users: 92 million opioid users in 2015, 2 million abusers

From the story here:

"A very large proportion and large number of adults use these medications in a given year," said study author Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Maryland. "I was still a bit surprised that 38 percent or about 92 million people used prescription opioids in 2015."

Stupid Donald Trump decides to own the stock market, and when it crashes he will