The Morning Jolt

Politics & Policy

Why the Senate’s Medicaid Reforms Are Necessary, the Chevron Lawsuit, and More

Dear Jolt Friends,

As the first half of 2017 hurtles to a finish, NRO fills the web this Humpday with beaucoup wisdom for you. Embrace it!

Today you will find two new editorials very worth your while. The first is titled “The Senate Health-Care Bill’s Needed Medicaid Reforms” and it opines “when it comes to Medicaid, Republicans should not be cowed by Democrats’ hysteria. The program is unsustainable, and must be reformed in the name of fiscal sanity.” But you should read the whole thing.

Ditto for “Prosecute Steven Donziger’s ‘Egregious Fraud,’” which looks at the latest development in the Left’s racketeering efforts to shake down Chevron, and urges the Justice Department to seek criminal prosecution of the scheme’s mastermind, one Steven Donziger.

Editorials aside, let me recommend five worthwhile articles.

1. Minimum Wage, Maximum Stupidity. This is the kind of subject you want Kevin Williamson to plunge into, and he does, and boy oh boy is “Magical Thinking about Minimum Wages” ever a delightful read boy is it a delightful read. Here’s a shred, on Seattle’s boomerang:

BL the law that was supposed to increase low-wage workers’ incomes actually reduced them — substantially, by an average of $125 a month. END

2. That Ted Cruz? Yeah, that one. Looks like the Texas Senator is becoming the point man for crafting a Senate health-care bill that might (with a heavy dollop of maybe) gain enough votes to pass. Alexandra DeSanctis has the story.

3. Jay Nordlinger’s “Impromptus” column is always a smorgasbord of wisdom, observations, fun. Today’s is typical — it launches with thoughts on the fate of Saif al-Islam, Moammar Qaddafi’s once-allegedly “good son,” proven later by events to be not so. Jay would know (after all, he is the author of Children of Monsters).

4. The Dirt on Clean Energy. Julie Kelly has a terrific report on how environmentally toxic discarded solar panels (“piling up all over the world”) are. For example, “solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear-power plants.” Wow. Question: Is it okay to have a thrill up your leg when you see tree-huggers flummoxed.

5. Big Bully. David French files a must-read analysis on how California

BL not only is increasing its resistance to the Trump administration but also is increasingly belligerent against other states and increasingly hostile to fundamental constitutional rights. In other words, it’s turning healthy federalism into a “soft secession” (to borrow Jason Willick’s excellent phrase). California is violating fundamental constitutional rights at the same time that it tries to use its economic power to coerce other states to adopt its social policies. To Golden State progressives, California should be California, and Tennessee should be California, too. END

Elsewhere amongst the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, two suggestions:

1. The good folks at Legal Insurrection report on the EPA’s move to rescind Obama’s noxious rules on the “Waters of the United States Act.”

2. Over at The Human Life Review, my dear old pal Maria McFadden Maffucci pens a lovely review of Pia Mathew’s God’s Wild Flowers: Saints with Disabilities. And yeah, you should subscribe to the Reviewget a free trial issue.

And for no particular reason, here is some unsolicited advice to Grill Meisters and Barbeque Lummoxes: As it ’tis the season, let Ike inspire you and your briquettes.

Enough of this! Now go read your NRO and report back here tomorrow. And Jim Geraghty, slather on that sunscreen lest you return overdone.

Best,

Jack Fowler

P.S.: Come on now — there is a cabin or three left. Get it at www.nrcruise.com.

P.P.S.: Say what?! You are not an NR subscriber? Why I oughta . . . You go fix that right now. You can subscribe to the print magazine here. Or you can subscribe to the digital edition here.

Jack Fowler is a contributing editor at National Review and a senior philanthropy consultant at American Philanthropic.
Exit mobile version