William O'Connor:
Take the harrumphing of plump pundits on the Sunday shows, mix in some smug in-the-know assertions from Morning Joe, and sprinkle on top whatever the taxi driver from Union Station told Tom Friedman, then spread over 400 pages and bake—and you’ll get the spoon-fed conventional wisdom found in The Stranger, the disappointing new Obama book by Meet the Press host Chuck Todd.
Politico:
The New Jersey governor sees his position within the party restored and the Bridgegate scandal as ancient history, according to several people who’ve spoken with him. As a center-right governor from next door, he’s confident New York’s conservative money set will be behind him in a 2016 presidential campaign. As for the complaints about his aggressive behavior? Meaningless whining.
Some of Wall Street’s biggest donors take a different view. Many of them believe the New Jersey governor still represents too risky an investment, at least at this stage.
I never get tired of Christie thinking he'll be the next president.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Paul Waldman:
This ongoing debate within the GOP offers a good reminder that politicians are people with feelings. One of the arguments Republicans have made many times is that if Obama goes ahead and does this, it would "poison the well," squandering all the affection congressional Republicans have for him and rendering them no longer able to work across the aisle, something they've been so eager to do up until now. What this argument really means is that Republicans would have their feelings hurt, and in that dark emotional state would be unable to do the people's business.
OK, so I'm mocking. But I don't think they're lying about that, not completely. They really would be super-mad, not least because it would highlight their own impotence. In that state, they might well do something rash—something that their more rational selves know would be a disaster, but that they just wouldn't be able to stop because their emotional selves would have taken over. And they'll be getting plenty of encouragement from the conservative media, for whom impeachment would be a ratings bonanza.
Barack Obama knows all this, of course. He obviously feels that the particular immigration steps he's contemplating are the right thing to do, and he understands that Republicans are never, ever going to pass a comprehensive reform bill that would be remotely acceptable to him. But he also knows that taking executive action will drive them batty, making some kind of emotional outburst on their part more likely. Which would end up being good for him and bad for them. So why wouldn't he go ahead and do it?
Politico:
Prominent Republican oil mogul Harold Hamm said Congress is wasting its time debating the Keystone XL pipeline.
“It’s not relevant at all in my opinion. And here we are making it relevant now? Forget it,” the CEO of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources told POLITICO in an interview Friday, just before the House passed a bill approving the pipeline.
CIDRAP:
In much of West Africa, the annual harvest ends around October, and in the following months, countless young men hit the road to look for work elsewhere, such as on cocoa and coffee plantations in Ivory Coast or in fishing ports on the coast, according to people who know the region.
That post-harvest migration is a prime example of the high mobility of the region's population. National borders are porous and don't mean a whole lot, and people cross them freely, by all accounts. And that fact worries some observers who are pondering the challenge of stopping the Ebola epidemic simmering in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Canadian Press:
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health is panning quarantines for healthy people returning from Ebola-infected countries.
Dr. James Talbot says such steps ignore scientific evidence that people with Ebola are not infectious until they show symptoms.
Earlier this week, the federal government announced a policy that forces travellers who have come into contact with a known Ebola case to isolate themselves at home or at a facility for 21 days.
It's not just the US that lets fear and politics trump science. No, it's doesn't feel good to have company.
Gallup:
Americans who obtained new health insurance policies in 2014 using the government exchanges are roughly as positive about their healthcare coverage and the quality of healthcare they receive as the average insured American, and are more satisfied with the cost of their coverage. More than two-thirds of the newly insured who purchased coverage through federal or state exchanges intend to renew their exchange policies, while another 7% plan to look for a different policy through the exchanges.
As the healthcare exchanges reopen on Nov. 15, these data suggest that the currently uninsured will mostly be pleased with the outcome if they opt to use the exchanges to obtain insurance on this second go-around.
NY Times:
Where Federal Health Exchange Rates Will Rise
In about a fifth of the counties in states using the federal insurance exchange, premiums for the lowest-priced silver plans will increase by 10 percent or more. But rates for the same plans will decrease in all of Maine, Montana and New Hampshire, and most parts of Mississippi and South Dakota.
Harvard Business Review suggests those high deductible plans are here to stay.
Don’t Bother Complaining About High-Deductible Health Plan