Torn Apart and Rent

Dopes
A new federal report shows that the percentage of American high school students who smoke marijuana is slowly rising, while the use of alcohol and almost every other drug is falling.

The report raises concerns that the relaxation of restrictions on marijuana, which can now be sold legally in 20 states and the District of Columbia, has been influencing use of the drug among teenagers. Health officials are concerned by the steady increase and point to what they say is a growing body of evidence that adolescent brains, which are still developing, are susceptible to subtle changes caused by marijuana. (New York Times, 12/18/2013)

And in the news today, Brattleboro becomes the fourth Vermont city to have a "medical" marijuana store. Governor Peter Shumlin must be so proud! Did he attend the opening? Was there a ribbon-cutting ceremony?


Cold
After being introduced, the president just about bounced onto the stage. A few days earlier I had heard a commentator say he seemed in the dumps these days. That afternoon he was fresh, unruffled — in other words, cool. (Maybe it was because our state’s health-insurance exchange, Covered California, demonstrates how well the Affordable Care Act works when implemented correctly: My youngest daughter got a silver plan that drastically reduces her monthly premiums within an hour of applying.) (Ishmael Reed, New York Times, 12/19/2013)

This is the kind of utter nonsense that the New York Times sees fit to print. An entire puff piece on how President Obama is President Cool. Yes, not only Cool, he is Be Bop Jazz Cool! 

And Reed is just thrilled that his daughter got a cheap new health plan. Why we wonder would a young person opt for a silver plan when cheaper options are available? Oh, that's right. You have to choose a silver plan in order to get federal subsidies. So President Cool did the Reed family a solid by giving them some freebies...courtesy of taxpayers. Got it. 


Roughly
Americans who lack medical coverage disapprove of President Obama’s health care law at roughly the same rate as the insured, even though most say they struggle to pay for basic care, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Fifty-three percent of the uninsured disapprove of the law, the poll found, compared with 51 percent of those who have health coverage. (New York Times, 12/19/2013)

Actually, the uninsured disapprove of Obamacare by a greater percentage than the insured. But that is something that the New York Times cannot bring itself to write.


Conflict Avoidance
Senator Max Baucus of Montana, soon to be nominated as President Obama’s next ambassador to China, is the powerful — and, to many fellow Democrats, infuriating — chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He is also the conflicted architect of Mr. Obama’s health care law.

Now, if he is confirmed, Mr. Baucus, who had already announced that he would not run for re-election in 2014, will join the administration whose bureaucratic ineptitude he foresaw in April when he warned of a “huge train wreck” if officials did not do a better job explaining the Affordable Care Act. (New York Times, 12/19/2013)

Obama's objective? To get Baucus out of town. As far away as possible. It's China only because the position of Ambassador to the Moon has already been filled.