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The One-Party Ticket: Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush
By Dan Engelke
Gore Vidal once quipped that there is only one party in the United States: “The Property Party… and it has two right wings.” Thus is the state of the 2016 campaign over the last 96 hours. Hillary Clinton ‘relaunched’ her campaign on Governor’s Island over the weekend and Jeb Bush, finally, declared his candidacy.
WHO
Millionaires Control 41% of World’s Wealth, Expected to Take More
A new report indicates that the number of millionaires is growing fast. In 2014, the global engine of wealth created 2 million new millionaires for a total of 17 million worldwide. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But the problem is that they now control 41% of $164 trillion in global private wealth, which is an increase of 40% over the previous year. And the report predicts that will rise to 46% by in 2019. So, it’s not just that there are more rich people. It’s that rich people are hoarding more and more of the world’s wealth.
Pope Francis Warns of Destruction of Earth’s Ecosystem in Leaked Encyclical
On the other hand, there is Pope Francis. A draft of his much-anticipated encyclical on the environment was published by L’Espresso magazine and it looks like it is everything environmentalists hoped for… and everything GOP climate deniers feared. The question is whether or not this is a tipping point in the battle to actually do something about the Earth’s rapid slide into climate chaos. He certainly has some work to do with America’s Catholics.
Garish Tastes, Awful Hair: Donald Trump Is America
Today “The Donald” piled onto the GOP presidential scrum. Armed with bad taste and a reality star’s pedigree, Trump tried to trump yesterday’s announcement by The Next Bush In Line. But P.J. O’Rourke—perhaps America’s wittiest professional cynic—sees nothing more than yet another “pygmy” in a crowded field of “jacklegs, highbinders, wirepullers, mountebanks, swellheads, buncombe spigots, boodle artists, four-flushers, and animated cuspidors.” And that’s just O’Rourke getting warmed up for a tour de force indictment of Trump as the embodiment of American culture.
WHAT
One Nation, Under Sedation: Medicare Paid for Nearly 40 Million Tranquilizer Prescriptions in 2013
In 2013, Medicare opened its expansive prescription drug program—and Uncle Sam’s sizable wallet—to Valium, Xanax and Ativan for the first time. One year later, Uncle Sam dropped a cool $377 million on the powerful drugs. And generic versions of the drugs skyrocketed up the list of the 32 most-prescribed medications covered by Medicare’s “Part D” plan. This is your country on drugs. Any questions?
WHY
How a Cheap Plastic Rat Could Change Biology Class
The dissection of a dead frog or pig or rat has been a rite of passage in high school science classes for decades. For some, it’s a painful one that challenges their beliefs or their empathy… or their ability to keep lunch down. But the rise of 3D printing promises to revolutionize in-class dissections with recyclable animal models that cut out the death and the smell as students cut into fully-actualized mock-ups of animals.
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