Adviser whose comments on Affordable Care Act touched off a furor worked more closely than previously known with White House
By
STEPHANIE ARMOUR
Updated June 21, 2015 5:56 p.m. ET
Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist whose comments about the health-care law touched off a political furor, worked more closely than previously known with the White House and top federal officials to shape the law, previously unreleased emails show.
Inter-faith community prayer gathering
June 22,2015
Boyd A. Loving
9:15 PM (6 hours ago)
Ridgewood NJ, An inter-faith community prayer gathering was held at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 21 at the Metropolitan AME Church, 259 South Broad Street, in Ridgewood to remember those killed last week in Charleston, SC.
MEAN bosses could have killed my father. I vividly recall walking into a hospital room outside of Cleveland to see my strong, athletic dad lying with electrodes strapped to his bare chest. What put him there? I believe it was work-related stress. For years he endured two uncivil bosses.
Rudeness and bad behavior have all grown over the last decades, particularly at work. For nearly 20 years I’ve been studying, consulting and collaborating with organizations around the world to learn more about thecosts of this incivility. How we treat one another at work matters. Insensitive interactions have a way of whittling away at people’s health, performance and souls.
Robert M. Sapolsky, a Stanford professor and the author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” argues that when people experience intermittent stressors like incivility for too long or too often, their immune systems pay the price. We also may experience major health problems, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and ulcers.
And so will “Republican strategists.”
by Michael Walsh
June 21, 2015 – 11:54 am
Of course they will. Even though not a single Republican voted for this monstrosity as it was shoved down the throats of the American people. Because, subsidies:
The pressing problem for the 2016 Republican field falls into the “dog catches car” category: It’s one thing to call for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed or to promise an Oval Office signing ceremony for its repeal. It’s another to endorse pulling insurance subsidies used by more than 6 million people in 34 states, including at least 1.3 million Florida residents.
A ruling that subsidies provided to consumers to help them purchase health insurance are not legal could spark chaos in the insurance marketplace and help shape the electoral landscape in several key swing states. Beyond those voters directly affected, many more could see their premiums increase if the law unravels, driving up the number of uninsured.
He helped me penetrate the mystery of fatherhood, even if it is a bit late.
Editor’s note: this article first appeared in THE AMERICAN on June 16, 2013.
Father’s Day always leaves me a bit uneasy.
It’s like a pair of really big shoes. Every year, I have to walk up and put my feet in them and look silly because I can never fill them.
And there is more than a whiff of coerced obligation to the whole thing, a sense that “Well, we have a Mother’s Day, so we probably ought to…” You know what I mean.
Fatherhood remains a mystery to me despite the fact that my wife and I have raised a son and daughter and now have five grandchildren. I lived inside that mystery for years — too close inside it to ever have perspective or fully understand it.
Adlai Stevenson — he of scholarly mien, presidential pretensions, and worn out shoes — once observed that “Paternity is a career imposed on you without any inquiry into your fitness.” Indeed, when I look back on my career as a father, it seems as if I was thrust into the middle of a wild and woolly game with only a vague idea of the rules, the boundaries, or the score. It was a game played hard and very fast, and I still don’t know whether I won or lost, or whether the game is even over.
Oh, and there’s another complication. I never saw my father. He left my mother before I was born. I never knew anything about him; never even saw a picture of him until I was nearly 60 years old.
I can’t say that I missed my father. I never really thought about him, that I can recall. I was raised in a strange sort of sitcom of a household with my two brothers, mom, grandmother, and two unmarried uncles — something now called an “extended family.” All in all, it was a happy family despite its fair share of Sturm und Drang. It was what I knew. It was “normal.”
One of my uncles, George McDonald (my mother’s brother), was probably the nearest I had to a “father figure.” I didn’t call him “Uncle.” He was always simply, “George.” He always drove when my twin brother and I went to church on Sundays with our mother and grandmother. After the movie or the dance at the youth center on Friday nights, I knew where to find him for the ride home. He would be nursing his single beer at the end of the bar in the Commercial Hotel, talking with the owner, Red Fiorina, one of his best friends.
If I have learned anything over the years it is that every father more or less writes his own manual.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tensions are building inside and outside the white marble facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the nine justices prepare to issue major rulings on gay marriage and President Barack Obama’s healthcare law by the end of the month.
Of the 11 cases left to decide, the biggest are a challenge by gay couples to state laws banning same-sex marriage and a conservative challenge to subsidies provided under the Obamacare law to help low- and middle-income people buy health insurance that could lead to millions of people losing medical coverage.
Many legal experts predict the court will legalize gay marriage nationwide by finding that the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal treatment under the law and due process prohibit states from banning same-sex nuptials.
The four liberal justices are expected to support same-sex marriage, and conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, the expected swing vote, has a history of backing gay rights.
In three key decisions since 1996, Kennedy has broadened the court’s view of equality for gays. The most recent was a 2013 case in which the court struck down a federal law denying benefits to married same-sex couples.
During oral arguments in the gay marriage case on April 28, Kennedy posed tough questions to lawyers from both sides but stressed the nobility and dignity of same-sex couples.
The healthcare decision is tougher to call. Chief Justice John Roberts, the swing vote when the court upheld Obamacare in 2012, said little during the March 4 oral argument to indicate how he will vote.
The court will issue some rulings on Monday, with more likely later in the week.
For the justices, the pressure is on to have the rulings ready. That can be difficult as the cases in which they are closely divided are generally the ones left until the end.
Outside the court, those with a stake in the outcome of the rulings are left anxiously waiting.
James Obergefell, one of the plaintiffs in the gay marriage case, said he will be at the court for all the remaining decision days.
By George F. Will Opinion writer June 19 at 9:04 PM
Now come Greeks bearing the gift of confirmation that Margaret Thatcher was right about socialist governments: “They always run out of other people’s money.” Greece, from whose ancient playwrights Western drama descends, is in an absurdist melodrama about securing yet another cash infusion from international creditors. This would add another boulder to a mountain of debt almost twice the size of Greece’s gross domestic product. This protracted dispute will result in desirable carnage if Greece defaults, thereby becoming a constructively frightening example to all democracies doling out unsustainable, growth-suppressing entitlements.
In January, Greek voters gave power to the left-wing Syriza party, one third of which, the Economist reports, consists of “Maoists, Marxists and supporters of Che Guevara.” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, 40, a retired student radical, immediately denounced a European Union declaration criticizing Russia’s dismemberment of Ukraine. He chose only one cabinet member with prior government experience — a former leader of Greece’s Stalinist Communist Party. Tsipras’s minister for culture and education says Greek education“should not be governed by the principle of excellence . . . it is a warped ambition.” Practicing what he preaches, he proposes abolishing university entrance exams.
JUNE 21, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2015, 1:20 AM
BY JENNIFER V. HUGHES
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD |
THE RECORD
Given that New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation, it’s easy to understand why a bit of privacy from your neighbors may be hard to come by.
But the right plantings, trees, fencing and other elements can give your yard a little bit of seclusion. A big key is knowing what your town does — and does not — allow.
Leesa Povinelli hired John Freitag, co-owner of Yellow Wagon Landscaping in Ridgefield, to landscape her Ridgefield home to provide a little more privacy. Several years ago he planted a row of arborvitae along the rear, and later this year he’ll put in a line of burning bushes, a deciduous shrub.
“Burning bushes are great,” Freitag said. “They grow aggressively, like 8-10 inches a year and they have super dense leaves so you can’t see through them at all and then they get a nice fire engine red in the fall.”
Povinelli has a 5-foot-tall chain link fence around her property, and her neighbors have different styles of fences, so she was looking to also make her yard look more cohesive. She loved the quick-growing nature of the arborvitae, the skinny evergreen often used to create a soft line of vegetation.
JUNE 19, 2015, 11:43 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2015, 12:18 PM
BY STEPHANIE AKIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
In the past 10 days, two teenagers were killed in traffic accidents — a 16-year-old died while trying to cross Route 46 in Lodi and a 13-year-old Cresskill boy was killed riding his bike to school. Two bodies were found along the cliffs of the Palisades, including that of an 18-year-old — also from Cresskill — who was dumped there after she died of a heroin overdose last summer. And a bridge inspector was swept to his death by high waters in Passaic, washing up in Rutherford three days later.
It’s the type of trend that has no pattern or discernable cause. But the seemingly relentless stream of bad news has dominated media coverage across North Jersey, banging a drumbeat of danger in the suburbs that has only been amplified by national stories like Wednesday night’s mass slayings at an African-American church in Charleston, S.C.
“It’s a lot for a little community,” said Cresskill Police Chief Edward Wrixon. “It’s been very trying on me and the officers and the townspeople. The one good thing I see in it is how we all work together, and I think we are doing a damn good job.”
Law enforcement officials and experts on criminology and psychology said that it is unlikely that more people are dying in North Jersey this summer than in any other year. Instead, they said, the extraordinary details of many of these incidents — the young victims and the seemingly random strikes of fate — create a sense of heightened sensitivity to similar events, leading to the impression of an uptick.
There is also a bright side to a spate of gruesome news stories, they said. It helps create a conversation about mortality in an American culture that often resists talking explicitly about death.
“There’s a macabre human interest in it,” said Keith Durkin, a professor of sociology, psychology, sociology and criminal justice at Ohio Northern University. “It mirrors our anxieties. But it alleviates them and makes us confront the realities of our fears.”
A RESIDENTIAL street in south Manchester is set to be brimming with solstice revellers today after mapping experts have found it will point exactly in the direction of the sunset on the longest day of the year.
By SELINA SYKES
PUBLISHED: 02:32, Sun, Jun 21, 2015 | UPDATED: 10:36, Sun, Jun 21, 2015
Experts say that a section of Claremont Road, Manchester, could have mystical energy after it was found it lie perfectly on an ancient solar pathway.
The street is in exact alignment with the midsummer sunset – just like the prehistoric landmark Stonehenge.
This means the road will be the perfect spot to admire the sun set on the longest day of the year.
A solstice-themed festival will be held in Alexandra Park this weekend, which borders with the road near Whalley Range to celebrate the height of summer.
The event, organised by Alexandra Wildlife Forum, will run a series of solstice-themed activities, including a crash course in mystical practise of water dousing, where sticks and rods are said to be able to detect underground water sources.
Last year mapping expert Dimi Sztanko created a guide to streets in cities around the world which align with the winter and summer solstice sunsets, which listed the south Manchester street.
JUNE 18, 2015, 11:48 AM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2015, 12:15 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Eco Ed’s final sojourn to paradise has ended.
In this file photo, Ed Schwartz poses before setting off to spend his final days in Hawaii.
Longtime Ridgewood resident Ed Schwartz, who earned his apropos nickname through his work as a sustainability expert, died early Thursday morning on the Hawaiian island of Maui. He was 47.
Eco Ed’s passing was confirmed on Thursday by Sharon Scalies, a close friend of Schwartz and his wife, Julie Tung.
Related: Ridgewood man battling cancer receives $36,000 in donations to spend final days in Maui
Scalies said that as Schwartz faded away, family and friends were here on the East Coast, “keeping vigil” for him.
Schwartz was diagnosed in late 2013 with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive form of cancer that ravages the blood-forming tissue of the bone marrow. In early May, he learned from his doctors he had just weeks to live.
By Anthony Faiola and Chris Mooney June 20 at 9:26 PM
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was about to take a major step backing the science behind human-driven global warming, and Philippe de Larminat was determined to change his mind.
A French doubter who authored a book arguing that solar activity — not greenhouse gases — was driving global warming, de Larminat sought a spot at a climate summit in April sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Nobel laureates would be there. So would U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs and others calling for dramatic steps to curb carbon emissions.
After securing a high-level meeting at the Vatican, he was told that, space permitting, he could join. He bought a plane ticket from Paris to Rome. But five days before the April 28 summit, de Larminat said, he received an e-mail saying there was no space left. It came after other scientists — as well as the powerful Vatican bureaucrat in charge of the academy — insisted he had no business being there.
“They did not want to hear an off note,” de Larminat said.
JUNE 19, 2015, 5:26 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 2015, 5:26 PM
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A state Superior Court judge has ruled that a dozen Bergen County school districts were within their rights to redact details of their school security drills before turning drill records over to a TV station probing alleged irregularities.
Superior Court Judge Robert P. Contillo wrote in the decision that the safety and security concerns voiced by the districts outweighed plaintiff WNBC-TV’s interest in receiving un-redacted records. The redactions, he wrote, which varied district-to-district but generally blacked out the date, time, and length of the drills, were “necessary to protect defendants’ interest in maintaining the safety and integrity of the school community.”
“Any other result would risk this information falling into the wrong hands and being of use in an effort to cause harm,” he wrote.
Donald Doherty, attorney for plaintiff WNBC-TV, was disappointed by the June 4 ruling, which he said didn’t make sense given that other districts freely gave the network the information.
“If it was such a security risk, you’d have thought everybody would have thought [so],” he said. “But I’m not the judge.”
Doherty said he doesn’t plan to appeal the decision, but that that “doesn’t mean we think the judge is right.”
Named in the station’s Feb. 20 suit were the boards of education in Allendale, Bergenfield, Englewood Cliffs, Hillsdale, Oakland, Old Tappan, Ramapo-Indian Hills, Ramsey, River Vale, and Tenafly, as well as the Bergen County Technical and Special Services districts. Also named were those districts’ business administrators, who serve as public records custodians.
On July 19, 1910, the governor of the U.S. state of Washington proclaimed the nation’s first “Father’s Day.” However, it was not until 1972, 58 years after President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day official, that the day became a nationwide holiday in the United States…..
ORIGINS OF FATHER’S DAY
The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm–perhaps because, as one florist explained, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.” On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday. The next year, a Spokane,Washington woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on July 19, 1910. Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C.In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day. However, many men continued to disdain the day. As one historian writes, they “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products–often paid for by the father himself.”
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18
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16
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14
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25
