"Many people seem shocked by claims from a former New York Times reporter who says the newspaper sat on her 2004 information exposing alleged sexual misconduct by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. (The Times told Newsweek they would have only withheld information for good reason.)

"The Weinstein question aside, I can tell you that every day, in newsrooms around the country, stories are killed because powerful people know how to get them killed.

"Recently, a former managing editor of Time magazine said that the only bias reporters have is their bias to get a great story on the front page. That may be true of good journalists -- and there are many. But good journalists' intentions are impacted by managers and editors with authority to shape and censor; by managers and editors who are lobbied, enticed, pushed, pressed, cajoled and threatened by PR companies, crisis management specialists, global law firms, super PACs, advertisers, 'nonprofits,' business interests, political figures, famous people, important people, wealthy people, and their own corporate bosses.

"An entire industry has been built around companies and operatives that work to get stories placed, discredited or wiped. They obfuscate, confuse and attack. Their targets include ideas they oppose, whistleblowers and advocates who are exposing the truth, journalists uncovering the facts, and news outlets publishing the stories."

"'There must be some kind of way outta here' said the joker to the thief in Bob Dylan's song, adding, 'There's too much confusion / I can't get no relief.' Dylan could hardly have chosen better words if he'd been writing about Obamacare and Republican efforts to repeal the confusing web of regulations, taxes, and mandates.

"The Trump administration, thankfully, is poised to grant some relief through executive action later this week. The president's action should give health insurance customers at least a few ways outta the Obamacare confusion by allowing them sometimes to buy insurance across state lines, by expanding health savings accounts, and by quadrupling the upper limit on short-term health insurance plans from three months to nearly a year.

"Best of all, Trump will use 'association health plans' to sell insurance across state lines. This unconfirmed but promising modification would allow people or small groups to join association plans, which carry the privileges and benefits of an employer-sponsored plan. Those benefits include group pricing, which is cheaper, and exemption from most of Obamacare's costly mandates. These plans could be sold by providers in one state to buyers in another state, meaning they'd generally be less regulated than today's plans. ...

"So yes, Trump should sign this executive order, and it will be celebrated not just by the administration but by all those who suffer under Obamacare. But Republicans in Congress must pass reform legislation or get their just deserts at the ballot box.

"As Bob Dylan wrote, 'The hour is getting late.'"

Read entire article here.

"President Donald Trump just released his White House's immigration priorities -- and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi aren't happy.

"Good. They shouldn't be. That means the White House is doing something right.

"Trump's plan calls for a border wall, reduces the anchor baby syndrome, imposes E-verify mandates, hires more (anti-amnesty) immigration officials, and other things.

"But here's what the two Dem leaders cried about the plan in their joint statement: 'We told the president at our meeting that we were open to reasonable border security measures alongside the Dream Act, but this list goes so far beyond what is reasonable. This proposal fails to represent any attempt at compromise. The list includes the wall, which was explicitly ruled out of the negotiations.'

"Wah."

"The NFL's players and owners find themselves trapped in a collapsing pocket of their own creation -- and at risk of getting sacked by millions of fans across the country. ...

"NFL fans expect Sunday football to be an escape from the politicization of all things. There are many reasons for this -- but a not insignificant one is that taxpayers provide publicly funded stadiums to billionaire owners and millionaire players for almost every team in the league. We are all footing the bill for NFL players' workplaces. Why should they become venues for partisan protest?

"Furthermore, just as much as they value sportsmanship between competitors, fans value that moment of unity when we can put aside all of our agendas and come together simply as Americans. Any demonstration -- kneeling, sitting, arm-linking -- distracts from that unity. It steals that moment from fans, who wonder with some justification why athletes can't use their celebrity power to pick some other time for their protest rather than shove it down our throats after all the support fans already give these players and teams."

"Quite apart from violating the terms of the JCPOA and refusing to permit verifiable inspections from the start, Iran continues to be the world's No. 1 sponsor of anti-American terrorism, backing Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, a network of Iraqi cells, and the Houthis in Yemen, to cite just the best-known examples. That's not just me talking; the regime continues to be one of just three countries on the U.S. government's official terrorist list (the others are Syria, which is Iran's cat's-paw, and Sudan, which has longstanding ties to the regime in Tehran).

"Moreover, Iran maintains its aggressive program of ballistic-missile development in defiance of Security Council resolutions. In fact, less than three months ago, Trump imposed new sanctions on regime officials and abettors. Iran is exporting arms and personnel to fortify Assad's barbarism in Syria. It continues to threaten Israel's destruction -- in fact, two of the ballistic missiles it has test-fired were inscribed in Hebrew 'Israel must be wiped out.' The mullahs are substantially responsible for the massive Hezbollah build-up (including an arsenal estimated at well over 100,000 missiles) that raises the distinct possibility of a catastrophic war. And, still proud to be the 'Death to America' regime, Iran continues to abduct American hostages and menace American naval vessels.

"Now, as you take all that in, understand: The tens of billions of dollars' worth of sanctions relief Tehran has gotten under the JCPOA, including pallets stacked with billions in ransom cash that Obama threw in for good measure, are helping to pay for all of this anti-American malignity. Yet, we are told -- multiple times -- that maintaining this arrangement is somehow in the vital national-security interests of the United States.

"On what planet?"

"In the months before his deadly rampage, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock was a man 'descending into madness,' according to a person briefed on new findings in the investigation.

"More details are emerging, investigators say, that suggest Paddock's mental state was deteriorating in the weeks before he opened fire into a crowd of concertgoers in Las Vegas on Sunday -- significant weight loss, an increasingly slovenly physical appearance and an obsession with his girlfriend's ex-husband."

"The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has awarded a $7.25 million contract to Equifax (EFX) in exchange for its help preventing fraud at the government agency.

"The no-bid contract, first reported by Politico, appears to have been finalized last week -- at a time when Equifax is still reeling from a massive hack that compromised the personal information of more than 145 million Americans. According to the filing, Equifax will 'verify taxpayer identity' and assist in the 'ongoing identity verification and validations needs of the [IRS].'"

"There are generally two kinds of social media reactions to heart-wrenching events like yesterday's mass shooting in Las Vegas: one is to offer prayers and sympathy to the victims and their families, and the other is to reflexively lash out in anger at those who don't share your political agenda. Although emotionally satisfying, one of these responses makes it nearly impossible for the country to engage in any kind of useful discussion moving forward.

"No doubt, there is immense frustration after a mass shooting, and this looks to be the most deadly in American history. The unstated reality is that many of these murders probably can't be stopped. Attempting to preemptively discern which of our neighbors are ideologically driven or mentally capable of committing mass murder is no more feasible than trying to keep every one of the 350 million guns in the country away from them. Most often, even the relatives seem to be at a complete loss as to why it happens. 'We're lost. I don't understand this,' the Vegas shooter's brother told the media. They never do."

"In the first weeks of the new school year, campuses across the country are again in the thick of the war over free speech. As in recent years, a familiar pattern is emerging: Conservatives look to bring conservative speakers to campus. Some liberal faculty and students object, claiming that hateful and offensive voices cause great harm and should be prevented from speaking.

"This is a corrosive, illiberal cycle, and it must end. ...

"The stakes in all of this are enormous. This is about whether the country's longstanding commitment to freedom of speech, as expressed in the First Amendment, will continue to protect all views in the very places designed to foster a free flow of ideas."

"It's hard to admit you were wrong.

"Democrats are going to need some help with that. What's too often lost in the Sturm und Drang of recent Republican efforts to reform the insurance reforms enacted by Democrats in 2009 is this: The Affordable Care Act has not worked as advertised. That is the fundamental fact around which the debate should be organized. The ACA did not result in lower premiums but in the opposite; it did not result in more competitive insurance markets but in the opposite; it did not result in superior health-insurance plans but, at least in many cases, the opposite; it has not resulted in universal coverage. Among the major promises made on behalf of the ACA, only one of any significance has been delivered on: It is the case that more Americans have health insurance today than they did in 2009. But the ACA has underdelivered on that point, too: Only about 16.5 million people -- barely 5 percent of the population -- gained health coverage from the passage of the ACA through 2016, and the vast majority of those, 81 percent, were new Medicaid beneficiaries.

It does not work."

Read entire article here.