Somebody please show this Pew Research graph to Chris Coons: It shows that, while Democratic voters used to value compromise more than Republicans, but over the past year that’s no longer true. Perhaps if someone attaches a clue to a TV camera lens Coons will notice it.
Andy Slavitt, who served as the acting administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama, warns that some Republicans want to try again to repeal and replace Obamacare before the 2018 midterm elections. The “thinking” here is that this would fire up the Republican base. The genius behind this idea is Rick Santorum, who has no job to lose. Opposing it is Mitch McConnell, who does.
Christina Jedra of the News Journal put together a comprehensive and rather damning story about Interfaith Community Housing exploiting ex-cons in a “training” program that appears to be little more than free labor for the affordable-housing charity.
Another one bites the dust: DelCo Rep. Pat Meehan abruptly resigned from Congress yesterday, supposedly so that he wouldn’t put his staff through an ethics investigation. But given that Rep. Charlie Dent pulled the same stunt last week, this looks like an effort by Republicans to force special elections in disappearing districts.
Apparently the subject of racial differences on IQ tests is making a comeback, which should be no surprise in the age of Trump. Before you jump on that bandwagon — or even if you just want to know the scientific case against any meaningful link between the two even if both are heritable — Slate’s Will Saletan has a great explainer that’s also a mea culpa — he explains that a decade ago he fell into the same trap.
Joy Reid, who apparently has a TV show on some cable network, has been in the news for denying she wrote homophobic stuff on a blog 15 years ago. Reid also happens to be black and progressive, which makes this an intersectionality throwdown to rival the Royal Rumble, but she played it poorly by first claiming the lame old “I was hacked” card before admitting that yeah, she wrote them, and she’s sorry. Vox detailed the controversy just before Reid came clean, but if you catch up now you’ll be able to better enjoy the coming calls for defenestration and apology tour.