Favorites June 17 2021

mcmillen @mcmillen

I love the chaos of making a federal holiday with 1 day notice. (Also, do Election Day next.)

U.S. Office of Personnel Management @USOPM

Today @POTUS will sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, establishing June 19th as a federal holiday. As the 19th falls on a Saturday, most federal employees will observe the holiday tomorrow, June 18th.

I think we're just getting a no meeting day.

Ezra Klein @ezraklein

This is encouraging, and also I always find the Medicare age policies weird. If 60, why not 57? If 57, why not 55? If 55, why not 52? Which is all to say -- why not a Medicare-based public option available to all!

Jeff Stein @JStein_WaPo

New: Schumer-Sanders reconciliation package being prepped by Dems expected to INCLUDE Medicare to 60, expansion of Medicare to cover dental/vision/hearing, sources say. Confirm $6T/10 number reported by @marianne_levine & @burgessev. Story tk w/ @TonyRomm

Ezra Klein @ezraklein

One thing I love about Medicare age-lowering, though: It's an incredibly clear policy, it's fast to implement, and people who benefit from it know that government just helped them. I don't think I'll ever get over Lieberman killing it in the ACA.

Joe Lieberman's actions on medicare seem pretty bad.

Will Saletan @saletan

"In two polls taken this week — one by Morning Consult for Politico, the other by YouGov for the Economist — Putin has a better net favorable rating among Republicans than Biden does, by margins of 16 and 22 points."

bit.lyTrump Made the GOP More Friendly to Putin. It’s Sabotaging Biden.The Russian leader’s best weapon is the Republican Party.

Opinion polls of Republicans just keep getting more wild, in this case it pretty much lines up with what I would have guessed.

Michael Wara @MichaelWWara

The federal government will sell (USFS + BLM) about $250 million worth of timber this year. Compare that to 2018 losses of $29 billion in real estate and $31 billion in air pollution related sickness and death - just in CA. Primarily caused by fires that burned USFS lands.

I had not realized quite how little the timber is worth compared to the damage.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Chart by @gregmorrow … housing crisis by local government officials

If it's not clear, the black line is how much housing the zoning allows, the red is the actual amount. Downzoning is bad

Niko Bowie @nikobowie

This is a great statement by the White House on exclusionary zoning, one that desperately needs to be read by the people in my community currently protesting city hall to keep our awful zoning ordinance. #CambMA whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/2021/….

whitehouse.govExclusionary Zoning: Its Effect on Racial Discrimination in the Housing Market | The White HouseBy Chair Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein, Helen Knudsen, and Jeffery Zhang This Saturday, the nation recognizes Juneteenth, which marks the day a Major General of the Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, and free the last enslaved Black people in Texas from…

I had to be stopped from calling exclusionary zoning racist in front of a city councilmember once. Nice to see the White House has my back now.

Rocky Mountains March 2018