By Jerome Groopman @ The New Yorker for their April 3 issue

Ruminations based on two recently published books; excerpt:

....It’s one of many cautionary tales about assessing dietary data. Everyone wants to be healthy, and most of us like eating, so we’re easily swayed by any new finding, no matter how dubious. Publishers know this all too well and continually ply us with diet and health books of varying degrees of respectability and uplift. Sylvia Tara’s “The Secret Life of Fat” (Norton) and “The Case Against Sugar,” by Gary Taubes (Knopf). Both present a range of cutting-edge dietary research, both say that fat is unfairly maligned, and both inadvertently end up revealing that the science behind their claims is complex and its findings hard to translate into usable advice. ...

When he says "run America like a business", this is the only type he & Kushner know. Why else would foreigners "invest" in "too crooked to succeed" businesses? When a 50% haircut is acceptable, these are more than Desperate Housewives.

Masha Gessen:  A student asked me the other day whether I approved of exaggerating for a good cause. The topic had apparently been discussed at an environmental forum, and the question was, essentially, “Does saving the climate justify lying?” Wouldn’t it be a good idea to use an impressive, if not necessarily factually correct, message to counteract the mind-numbing cacophony of the Trump administration, which drowns out more reasoned speech?

Current headline story @ The Hill, March 28, 8:18 pm

[....] The GOP-controlled Senate is focused on trying to get Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court and appears to have little interest in another healthcare war. [....]

Inside a closed-door GOP conference meeting, speaker after speaker told leadership they weren’t ready to abandon the fight against President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

“The consensus in the room is we need to get this done,” conservative Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said as he left the meeting in the Capitol basement.

Ryan and his leadership team got the message — and made it their own [....]

“My first priority is pro-growth tax reform,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), who helped write the healthcare bill, told The Hill. “Like the Speaker, we are open to and welcome solutions on healthcare.”

“We are turning the page and moving on toward tax reform,” Brady told reporters on Monday.

Meanwhile, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said he hopes the GOP pivots next to Trump’s trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. [.....]

By Jennifer Williams @ Vox.com, March 27

The war has already killed at least 10,000, displaced 3 million, and left millions more at risk of famine

Why *are* we doing so badly despite the expansion, and why do economists have so few answers?

Followups here.

By Max Ehrenfreund @ Wonkblog @ WashingtonPost.com, March 27

President Trump wants a tax cut across the board, according to the plan he published during the campaign. But House Speaker Paul Ryan and colleagues have put forward a plan that would not substantially reduce taxes for the middle class, and many households would pay more.

as the article, "Internal White House battles spill into Treasury" by Ben White & Nancy Cook @ Poltico.com, March 27, points out, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and his aide Craig Phillips, and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn (who is in on many White House conferences) are considered in general to be Democrats and therefore, to conservative Republicans, they are dangerous flaming liberals.

HHS Tom Price: Measuring outcomes denies, interferes with doctor patient freedoms! ..Hospitals and physician groups have been counting on support from Medicare - the federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled - to continue driving payment reform policies built into Obamacare that reward doctors and hospitals for providing high quality care at a lower cost.

@ The Guardian, March 26

Veteran newsman criticised Fox News host during interview about fake news and the polarisation of the US

Posted thinking of Richard Day, bout time someone gave him a hand with the conservative talk show host thing.

@ Radio Free Europe/Liberty, March 25

[....] He even blasted gender equality as a "Zionist plot" aimed at corrupting women's role in society.  "Making women a commodity and an object of gratification in the Western world is most likely among the Zionist plots aiming to destroy society," Khamenei was also quoted as saying. [....]

Khamenei suggested that Western views of women used to be "more decent," "more prudent," and "more suitable" with "the nature of men and women."

"When you look at the literature in European countries in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was absolutely different from the 20th century," Khamenei said. He added that "it is obvious that there has been political work from the Zionist and the colonial system."

Khamenei went on to say that Iran's overwhelmingly male, clerically dominated establishment does not aim to keep women at home. Yet he added that, in his eyes, the roles of mother and wife are the most important a woman can play.

"The role a woman can play as a family member is in my view more important than all other roles that a woman can play," the Iranian leader said. "The question is whether a woman has the right to ruin her role as a mother and a wife because of all the good, interesting, and sweet [opportunities] that could be there for her outside the family environment."

Khamenei has said in the past that the effort to establish equality between men and women was "one of the biggest intellectual mistakes" of the Western world. "Why should a job that is masculine be given to a woman? What kind of honor is it for a woman to do a man's job?" he asked in a 2014 speech. [....]