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Who is still here? Is this thing on?

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The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.
John Maynard Keynes (1936)
(The Moral Trigger) Here is episode four of my new podcast, which I co-host with Mike Skinner. We dig through the news of the week in âThe Lede,â discuss big ideas in âBeyond the Lede,â and in âThe Backpagesâ recommend classic short stories. Â
Like Platoâs republic ruled by philosophers, the market parable is dangerously alluring. It demands policies that strive for a utopian futureâa future we can never approach because it lacks any realityâand meanwhile delivers disaster. Economies are so complex that we do not know much about them, but we know at least one thing. From the late-nineteenth to the late-twentieth centuries, the best economic minds tried to make the market parable work and failed by their own criteria. It does not work. Without quite knowing why, populists on left and right, sometimes reactionary, sometimes quixotic, demand that society step in to create a fairer economy. Until serious politicians accept that responsibility, we are in for a long, dark night.
Jonathan Schlefer, âMarket Parables and the Economics of Populism,â Foreign Affairs (July 24).
I co-host a new podcast: Beyond the Lede
Hey everyone, long time no tumblr. Iâll be back on here posting - more or less - in the same fashion as I used to. Book excerpts, opinions, quotes, links to articles, music, and so on. Check out my podcast at this feed (for a few more weeks, then we will have our own feed): The Moral Trigger

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Kelsi Answers Your Questions
Iâm turning 26 â what are my options for coverage if Iâm not employed full time!
Insurance through your job / trade group
Some trade associations will offer members health insurance similar to how employer-sponsored health insurance works. Not sure if you belong to any, but it may be worth investigating. This stems from the historical role of unions.
Insurance through a spouse
Purchase insurance on the marketplace / exchange
Created by the ACA, the marketplace is a sort of host where insurance companies can offer different plans for consumers. There are 4 different levels of plans on the marketplace: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Better coverage = more money; they vary by cost and coverage. Depending on income, you may be eligible for a premium tax credit and/or additional savings on out-of-pocket costs.
Prior to the ACA, consumers largely got insurance through their employer and/or spouse; if they didnât have those options, then they had to turn to the individual market. The individual market operated like auto insurance does today: companies offer plans. The individual market was often extraordinarily expensive and consequently, only people who really needed insurance bought individual plans (i.e., the chronically ill or people with chronic conditions), which drove up the price even more.
The underlying theory of insurance rests in the idea of shared risk â the individual market stunk because everyone in that âshared marketâ was high risk. The ACA sought to correct this by broadening the âshared marketâ to include more health people, driving down risk and costs.
For arguments sake letâs say youâre a 26 y/o female making $20k a year living in Webster Groves, under the ACA youâd be eligible for $166/month (1,992/year) in tax credits which would bring down your premium cost for a silver plan to $83/month. Whenever you sought care, for certain services there might be cost-sharing so thatâs an added charge on top of the monthly premium (e.g., I go to my doc for a cold and pay a $20 co-pay and my insurance picks up the tab for the rest of the cost of the appointment).
Right now, it looks like there are 13 different silver options for our hypothetical scenario. Take a look here to run through more hypotheticals. Note: for many individuals, there will be fewer options among types of plans as some health insurers have pulled back from or dropped out of the marketplace.Â
If the AHCA (American Health Care Act) passes, you can kiss the ACA tax credits good-bye. The feds had also arranged to lower cost-sharing for the public by providing $$$s to the insurance companies so your copays / coinsurance / deductibles will also go up.
Now, good news the marketplace appears to stay open. You would be eligible for a $2,000 one-time tax credit to go towards the cost of your health insurance premiums (the credits are determined by age under the AHCA and youâre in the 25-29).
This is great, itâs more than what you wouldâve gotten on âObamacareâ. Right? Wrong! Yes, youâre getting more tax credit value but the question is what will you be able to buy with that tax credit? Insurance under the AHCA is guaranteed to offer poorer coverage at higher prices (CBO analysis). That same plan $83/month plan you wouldâve bought under the ACA, well the premium is now more expensive, your plan doesnât cover certain procedures/prescriptions/treatments that it used to, and the cost-sharing is higher.
Is it still worthwhile to buy insurance? Hmm. My initial answer was yes, but after weighing this, if youâre relatively healthy you may be able to forego it and just pay for whatever you need in cash. The AHCA rescinds the ACAâs mandate that everyone must have insurance and instead places a one-time 30% premium penalty on individuals who donât maintain continuous coverage. This means for the year which you DO buy insurance after a certain period without it, you would pay insurance premium prices 30% higher than you would have otherwise (i.e., $1,300 instead of $1,000). Itâs really not that much and when you consider what you could have been saving in those years where you didnât buy insurance, it really doesnât make sense.
Now all of this is hypothetical because the AHCA hasnât (and may not) pass.
Purchase insurance on the individual market
You can still go to any health insurance companyâs website and buy insurance directly through the companyâs brokers. Theyâre subject to a bunch of consumer protections again thanks to the ACA but this will likely cost you some cash moneyz since you have to go to the marketplaces to get the subsidies.
DISCLAIMER: This information is accurate to the best of my knowledge / there may be mistakes / differences of opinion. You should do your own research before acting on any information above.Â
Iâm happy to answer questions / hear other thoughts.Â
Whitney Cummings is one of the best stand up comedians around. I put her up with their with contemporary greats such as Bill Burr, Joe Rogan, Joey Diaz, Dave Chappelle, Bryan Callen, Stanhope, and Chris Rock.
This isn't a country in transition but some sort of postmodern dictatorship that uses the language and institutions of democratic capitalism for authoritarian ends.
Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2014), Peter Pomerantsev Better read-up on Russia; the future of the liberal international order predicated on spreading democracy and individual rights is being jeopardized by dunces who are competent, true believers, and becoming more likely due to income inequality in age where itâs easier to know what you donât have and easy to forget just how hard it was to get this far.
Spring 2017 - Independent Research - Directed Readings in U.S. Foreign Policy. I am mowing through these books. They are all must reads for students of U.S. foreign policy and national security, imo. The best so far has been Maximalist. I have 3 books left to read and then a massive comprehensive essay to compile, revise, and make perfect.
Spring 2017 - Proseminar in International Relations. This is the book list for my class in my second semester of graduate school. So far Iâve read 4 of them; and about half way through one more, and almost done with one more.

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Graduate student life: I became a political science major to avoid math. Whoops. Just kidding: I only avoid math because Iâm innumerate and challenges are daunting; and failure is horrifying and disappointing. There is no such thing as âIâm not a math person.â What we mean when we say that is our emotions arenât aligned up correctly when I sit down to do math; therefore, our flight mode kicks in and we run. Everyone can do math; it takes discipline, tenacity, and the structural necessities (only built up by reading; turns out you have to build the mind and there are correct ways of doing this) in place prior to attempting it.
HARRIET TUBMAN ESCAPED FROM SLAVERY AND THEN WENT BACK TO GET OTHERS. LIKE, I KNOW YOU KNOW WHO HARRIET TUBMAN IS AND THAT SHE DID THAT, BUT I JUST WANT YOU TO TAKE THAT IN FOR A SECOND.Â
HARRIET TUBMAN WAS HELD CAPTIVE AND BOUND TO UNPAID, BACK-BREAKING LABOR SINCE BIRTH UNDER PENALTY OF TORTURE OR DEATH. SHE MANAGED TO ESCAPE THAT LIFE, AND SHE TURNED THE FUCK AROUND AND WENT THE FUCK BACK TO GET EVERYONE ELSE WHO WAS STILL TRAPPED IN IT. AND THEN SHE DID IT AGAIN EIGHTEEN MORE TIMES.
WHEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS UNSURE WHETHER OR NOT HE WAS PREPARED TO MAKE A STAND AGAINST SLAVERY, HARRIET TUBMAN BASICALLY SAID HE SHOULD STOP BEING SUCH A DIAPER BABY AND THAT GUYS WHO ARE TOO SCARED TO END SLAVERY DONâT DESERVE TO WIN WARS.
NOT ONLY DID SHE SECRET OVER 300 SLAVES TO FREEDOM ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, BUT SHE ACTED AS A SPY FOR THE UNION ARMY DURING THE CIVIL WAR, AND BECAME THE FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD AN ARMED ASSAULT IN THE CIVIL WAR. THAT RAID BROUGHT FREEDOM TO OVER 700 SLAVES IN ONE GO.
SO I JUST WANT YOU TO STEW ON THAT FOR LIKE A MINUTE. ACTING IN THE SHADOWS, SHE WALKED INTO HELL ON EARTH 19 TIMES TO SAVE HER FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS FROM THE TORMENT SHE ENDURED, AND THE SECOND SHE WAS GIVEN EVEN A MODICUM OF POWER, SHE MANAGED TO FREE SEVEN HUNDRED SLAVES IN ONE DAY.Â
I GUARANTEE, HOWEVER IMPRESSED YOU ALREADY ARE WITH HARRIET TUBMAN, YOU ARE FALLING LIKE AT LEAST 40% SHORT OF HOW IMPRESSED YOU SHOULD BE WITH HARRIET TUBMAN. SHE IS ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF BADASSERY IN THE ENTIRETY OF AMERICAN HISTORY.Â
I just feel like it should be noted that she navigated her way across the Underground Railroad (through thicket and swamp and forest and every risk of wildlife you could imagine) with her own knowledge of the natural world. Some call her âthe first Eco-womanistâ because it was that understanding of the plant and animal life around her as well as knowledge of the stars that allowed her to bring people with her. Her prowess for dealing with immense problems and obstacles on the spot was nothing short of genius.
She didnât stop there, either. Harriet Tubman also worked with the Union army during the Civil War as a cook, nurse, scout, and spy. She organized black men in the area as scouts, and often led missions herself with the task of gathering information and to persuade slaves to leave; most of whom joined the regiments of black soldiers for the Union.Â
She also got ripped off by the government, who wasnât paying her what she deserved (and wouldnât even give her her pension after the war for her service- but instead eventually granted her pension as the widow of a veteran), so she supported herself by making and selling root beer.Â
She used her earnings to support free black women, she worked to support two schools for freed men in the south, she provided food and care to the black people that came to her home, and she fought for womenâs suffrage. When she died, she was buried with military honors.Â
Oh, and when she had brain surgery, she denied anesthesia and instead bit down on a bullet.Â
x / x / x / x / x
THESE ARE EVEN MORE AWESOME THINGS ABOUT HARRIET TUBMAN, GOOD ADDITIONS, YOU GUYS!!
Also worth noting that she did all this while living with the results of a traumatic head injury sustained in her childhood, which included pain, bouts of dizziness, and episodes of hypersomnia (sudden passing out) she was not just a badass, she was a disabled badass
That head injury was from when she was trying to save someone else, too. A boy was in trouble with their slave master and the master threw a weight at him, but she jumped in front of him and took the blow. She then suffered from narcolepsy the rest of her life. Also, a cool story about her: One time she was riding on a train, lightly disguised so as to hopefully not be recognized, and there was a âWANTEDâ poster of her on the train wall. Some guys were looking at it and she overheard them saying they thought she looked like the woman on the poster. Because the poster described that she was illiterate, she grabbed a book and pretended to read it. The men then said it couldnât be her, and she got off the train safely. She was literally such a smart, quick thinker. I canât wait to have her on American money!
'I don't think it is morally evil to own somebody,' says the Catholic university's AlWaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Civilization
The left should be outraged by this but they most likely wont be because....Islam. The narrative of slavery by the American left is way too optimistic about humanity. The more I read history, deep, real, academic history that is honest and not picking sides a horrifying picture emerges: slavery has been normal throughout history. All peoples kept slaves and this happened for thousands of years. But moral righteousness is so intoxicating: I drink it for years. The truth is darker: all of us are capable of depravity and if we were born in a different time period and in a different caste or a different ethnicity or family, we, too, would probably own slaves. Western democracies have found the best way to organize societies and this *might* be as good as it gets based on the limits of human nature. Of course we should keep moving forward and try to design and implement better ways to live. The truth, however, is that the answer regarding how to get there arenât easy and none of the progress we have made has been easy; itâs always fragile; and human nature is brutish and to be civilized does have to be taught and learned and continuously worked on. There is a veneer of civilization. We are tribal and we are parochial.
So which is it? Are we at risk of too much moral outrage, or not enough? The answer is likely both. Too much of it carries both the risk of addictionâpartisans on both sides becoming dependent on vilifying the other sideâas well as the risk of complacency, with dissenters giving up long-term campaigns in the face of repeatedly needing to protest against new and ever-changing offenses. The key likely lies in discernmentâcriticizing political leaders rather than attacking those who voted for them; focusing on concrete, tangible issues rather than expressing vague, intangible grievances; and taking tractable steps toward meaningful action rather than offering empty symbolic gestures. As the Adams and Jefferson contest of 1800 demonstrated, bitter division is nothing new, and moral outrage may well be at the core of the American psyche. But 53 presidential elections later, it is time to learn how to properly channel moral outrage, using its power in ways that can protect and heal a fractured nation through meaningful policy, rather than dividing it further.
Sarah Estes, Jesse Graham, âThe Moral Outrage Over Trump,â Foreign Affairs, November 27, 2016.
Nations & States
Iâm now a contributing editor for Nations & States. Here are my first two pieces. Check out my colleagues article, some strong thinkers putting in lots of time outside of their formal education to get a site up regarding millennial voices from around the world in the international relations community. âWill Trump Embrace the Existential Crisis That is Climate Security?,â January 18, 2017. âTrump Should Confront Russia, Accommodate China,â January 30, 2017.

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President Trump is Stoking Conspiracy Thinking Regarding the United States
Any well-documented account regarding the motivations of suicide terrorists will show that along with deep anger over Western, usually American occupation, in overwhelmingly Muslim countries is a shared epistemology of the West, the United States, and Israel. This understanding is wrong; but being wrong doesnât mean that people donât hold it honestly. Take Muhammad Atta, one of the masterminds behind the 9/11 quad-hijackings airliners, in September 2001 thoroughly believed that there was a shadowy world out there: âAccording to one of Attaâs roommates, Atta âwas very emotional about political issues âŚhe   saw a worldwide conspiracy at work, bolstered by the Americans, but ran always by the Jews,â per the 9/11 Commission Report.
Bilal Ben Aboud, one of the Moroccan suicide attackers in Iraq in 2006 was a fan of âa song deriding President Bush by the American rapper Eminem.â This song is actually a song by Immortal Technique, Mos Def, Â Jadakiss, which featured a sample from Eminem; the song was called âBin Laden.â
The New York Times reported that Aboud translated the song into Arabic. The lyrics are full of complete falsehoods, half-truths, and bromides that definitely paint George W. Bush as complicit in the terrorist attacks in 2001 which killed 2,500 people.
This shared way of knowing alluded to above is a âcrippled epistemology,â as Cass Sunstein coined it in an important article regarding conspiracy thinking called âConspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,â published in the Journal of Political Philosophy in 2009. You can think of it as if you donât believe in gravity, you can attribute objects falling to the ground on whatever strikes your fancy. For those with limited understanding of the Iraq War, the Arab-Israeli situation, and the structure of complex societies, itâs not that illogical â since logic is local and self-limited â to see things as more simple, nefarious, or controlled and planned out than it actually is.
Where does Trump come in here? President Trump gives truth to what millions and millions of people think worldwide: America and Israel is an imperial power with no regard for rules, norms, or international order. They donât care about us and they hate us. They only want our oil, and so on.
While addressing the CIA, President Trump remarked that âmaybe weâll have another chance,â of taking Iraqi oil. âThe fact is we should have kept the oil,â Trump confidently boasted. Moreover, Trump announced his ambassador to Israel as David M. Friedman, who is a â hard-linerâ when it comes to Israel-Palestine. Friedman supports moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and considers Jews who support a two-state solution as akin to complicit Jews during the Third Reich.
U.S. President Trump, issued an Executive Order (EO) on Friday, January 27, 2017, that indefinitely curbed immigration from 7 countries: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya. It suspends the refugee program indefinitely under the auspices of the Immigration and Nationality Act and section 301 of title 3, United States code.
All of this adds up to crystallization of a structure of ideas, a crooked worldwide that views the U.S. as the worst of the worst; the imperial messenger who is an enemy for life. The veracity of the prior sentence is irrelevant: perception shapes reality and if one (and many are) is motivated to view the United States as the âgreat Satan,â so to speak, then there is much material to chew over and to integrate into your self-serving worldwide.
This has been a jam-packed first week or so of President Trumpâs tenure. This is going to be rough.
The world canât go back to what it was, even as hard as we try to make that so. There is â or was â a banner in the counterterrorism office at the CIA reportedly reading: âTodayâs date is September 12, 2001.â Now, all across the world the words repeating in folks heads are: âToday, Donald Trump is president, and my fears are coming true.â
All of us, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike, are responsible for the mess he will leave us, and get us into.
Donald Trump wonât always be president but he is right now; we need strategy, integrity, the rule of law, and a massive unprecedented turnout in the midterms in two years, and, of course, during the presidential elections in 4 years. Conspiracy thinking about the United States is not true, and the showing of hundreds outside airports protesting the refugee and immigration ban helps shine a light on this show. We are not our president; but we will be held accountable. Hopefully, the better angels of our country, like we are seeing right now all across the country will help show the world that more than 2.8 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton and that this president does not represent a majority of what Americans think. Â
Post 9/11, the United States has taken in 750,000 refugees; since 1975 this number is over 3 million refugees. We are the melting pot and an example for the world.
Let it be known that we contain multitudes and you are welcome to the United States. Â Â Â
EDIT: WaPo article highlighting Islamic extremists responses to Trump. Hint: they will use this as a recruitment tool.
Reblogging with an edit regarding statements made by jihadist groups.
Glenn Loury and John McWhorter, on BloggingHeads.tv - 1.25.2017