Short News: Sunday NYT

We read the New York Times every Sunday so you don’t have to. Here are some highlights:Beyond the HeadlinesLittle stuff you might have missed about the big stuffAlabama Senate RaceThough the bulk of the coverage is about Turd-in-Chief’s racist remarks, the reason he was even at that rally in Alabama is worth attention. If you have the stomach to muddle through the article, have at it. The short version is that ShitStain Trump is campaigning *against* the populist candidate (Roy Moore) - and the very forces that got him elected - to prove that he’s powerful enough to sway votes. If Moore defeats the party’s preferred candidate, Sen. Luther Strange, it will hurt Devilspawn Trump and force Republicans to publicly wrestle with the evangelical dictator faction they prefer to keep quietly pacified. (Steve Bannon is also a factor in this morass, because of course he is.) I never in my life thought I’d be rooting for vile Roy Moore to win anything. But here we are.ACA RepealKeep calling. Definitely keep calling. I found several interesting points in this piece:-Why do they keep beating this horse? Because some very rich bastards are demanding it. “Doug Deason, a wealthy Dallas businessman who manages money for his billionaire father, said he had formed a loose-knit coalition of donors who warned senior Republicans...that contributions would dry up if Congress did not overhaul the tax code and repeal the Affordable Care Act.”-The new bill was created by Rick Santorum (ugh), Lindsey Graham, and Bill Cassidy, who is a gastroenterologist (insert your own scatalogical joke here.)-The bill requires states to set up their own healthcare systems by 2020, a timeframe many say is impossible.**Update: I just read that Rand Paul is now negotiating concessions on the bill. KEEP CALLING. Notable Quote“Equifax’s chief executive had a simple strategy when he joined more than a decade ago: Gather as much personal data as possible and find new ways to sell it.”As Equifax Amassed Ever More Data, Safety Was a Sales Pitch Today I LearnedIn the past two decades, the United States and Portugal both faced a mounting drug problem among its citizens. The US declared war, spending billions of dollars to imprison drug users. Portugal decriminalized all drugs and launched a public health campaign, treating addiction as a mental illness. The results: in 2016, 64,000 Americans died of an overdose. Portugal has seen overdoses drop more than 85%, one-fiftieth the latest number for the US.How To Win a War on DrugsYou don’t have to be an opera connoisseur to assume that it ain’t easy to sing. This article on “the Everest of Opera,” Bellini’s ‘Norma’, was weirdly engrossing. Includes the bonus phrase, ‘pungent recitatives.’ So Very NYTIt’s not satire, but it should be“In a world where the bombproof bunker has replaced the Tesla as the hot status symbol for young Silicon Valley plutocrats, everyone, it seems, is a ‘prepper,’ even if the ‘prep’ in question just means he is stashing a well-stocked ‘bug-out bag’ alongside his Louis Vuitton luggage in a Range Rover pointed toward Litchfield County, Conn.”Essentials for the ApocalypseWe also thought it’d be fun to tally up the products they tout in A Bride’s Countdown to Glowing Skin. Grand total to make your face look like the skin of a wet albino seal? $872 Like this? Hate it? What'd we miss from the paper that you want to hear? Tell us on Facebook or @ us on Twitter.