When Newsom began marrying gay couples in SF, Dems freaked out about political risk.
Just 9 years later, licenses are being issued in Utah.
— @Taniel
@Taniel Newsom was right. Now Utah is too.
— @KailiJoy
Chris Geidner:
Federal Judge Rules Utah Ban On Same-Sex Couples Marrying Is Unconstitutional
“The State’s current laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry and, in so doing, demean the dignity of these same-sex couples for no rational reason.” Update: Same-sex couples are marrying Friday night in Salt Lake City, but “[t]he state is requesting an emergency stay pending the filing of an appeal,” according to a statement from the office of the acting attorney general.
Chris Geidner:
Utah Acting Attorney General Asks Appeals Court To Halt Same-Sex Marriages
“Some same-sex couples have been married.” State lawyers say the trial court judge isn’t moving quickly enough on a similar request and that same-sex couples’ marriages conducted during this time, if the decision is later reversed, “may be void.”
Daily News:
Justine Sacco, director of corporate communications for IAC, tweeted out Friday: 'Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!' The outrage piled up on social media, with someone creating the website justinesacco.com and pointing it toward links to charities that benefit sub-Saharan Africa.
Not to pile on. But there's more catching up on the 21st Century to do than Utah.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Charles M. Blow:
I must admit that I’m not a watcher of “Duck Dynasty,” but I’m very much aware of it. I, too, am from Louisiana, and the family on the show lives outside the town of Monroe, which is a little over 50 miles from my hometown. We’re all from the sticks.
So, when I became aware of the homophobic and racially insensitive comments that the patriarch on the show, Phil Robertson, made this week in an interview in GQ magazine, I thought: I know that mind-set.
Robertson’s interview reads as a commentary almost without malice, imbued with a matter-of-fact, this-is-just-the-way-I-see-it kind of Southern folksiness. To me, that is part of the problem. You don’t have to operate with a malicious spirit to do tremendous harm. Insensitivity and ignorance are sufficient. In fact, intolerance that is disarming is the most dangerous kind. It can masquerade as morality.
The Obama administration estimates 3.9 million people have qualified for Medicaid since October.
— @sarahkliff
Good summary of what catastrophic plans cover (TL;DR version: Three primary care visits before a $6350 deductible).
http://t.co/...
— @sarahkliff
@charlesornstein @sarahkliff With numbers where they are, almost certain coverage is increasing. But won't know for a while by how much.
— @larry_levitt
Those tweets alone are why you should be following Sarah Kliff. And by the way identified problems are real, but don't freak out about them. They'll get addressed. Overall:
http://t.co/... this morning: 1.35M. #BarackObama an hour ago: 1M in Dec. + 365K in Oct/Nov = 1.365M @DemFromCT @MHarrisPerry :)
— @charles_gaba
The
NY Times highlights a more intractible problem:
An analysis by The New York Times shows the cost of premiums for people who just miss qualifying for subsidies varies widely across the country and rises rapidly for people in their 50s and 60s. In some places, prices can quickly approach 20 percent of a person’s income.
Experts consider health insurance unaffordable once it exceeds 10 percent of annual income. By that measure, a 50-year-old making $50,000 a year, or just above the qualifying limit for assistance, would find the cheapest available plan to be unaffordable in more than 170 counties around the country, ranging from Anchorage to Jackson, Miss.
While it wouldn't happen under single payer, single payer didn't have the votes at the time. (Hope that observation doesn't cut off discussion.)
The next pandemic threat from Robert Woods Johnson Foundation:
Outbreaks and Pandemics: What’s Next?
For “Outbreak Week” we’ve already covered the deadliest pandemics in human history. But which outbreaks could be around the corner? Outbreaks: Protecting Americans from Infectious Diseases, 2013, the new report from Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, lays out a few possibilities on which infectious diseases may pose the more serious threats in the future. Here are the greatest threats to the United States, according to Tom Inglesby, MD, Chief Executive Officer and Director of the UPMC Center for Health Security.
If you're not paying attention to what's happening in Turkey, you should PM Erdogan threatened to expel Ambassador Ricciardone this morning
— @glogothetis
Reuters has a summary:
Ministers' sons, state bank chief charged in Turkish graft investigation