Fool of the Week: Gwyneth Paltrow

Well, what a week. It's tough to narrow it down to one fool this week
There the Nebraska school district that wants children to be addressed as "purple penguins" so as to NOT offend  Lesbian, Gay, bisexual or transgendered students. 
Or the Harvard student body who think America is a "greater threat to world peace than ISIS."
And maybe the Seattle City Counsel who renamed Columbus Day..."Indiginous People's Day."
But by overwhelming margin, actress Gwyneth Paltrow wins for her trifecta of idiocy:
1. President Obama is so handsome you can't speak when you're around him 
2. You relate to working women.
3.And you just don't understand why President Obama isn't given all the power he wants and needs.
For these... Gwyneth. You have earned yourself the "Fool of the Week" title.

Do Obama’s low approval numbers matter? Why Paul Krugman says no

It’s become a staple of political coverage: “President Obama’s approval rating has sunk to a new low, signaling a growing lack of confidence”…you know the drill.
But what if those numbers aren’t as important as we’ve all been conditioned to believe?
What if low approval ​is the new normal for occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania?
I’m not sold on this argument, but it’s emerged as a line of defense for the embattled incumbent, whose average approval rating in recent surveys is 42 percent, according to Real Clear Politics.
The Beltway is buzzing over this hypothesis, advanced by Paul Krugman in Rolling Stone.
Now it’s hardly surprising that the liberal New York Times columnist and Nobel-winning economist would come to Obama’s defense. In fact, the bulk of his piece is about how the president has done a far better job than is generally believed.
Krugman sees three types of Obama-bashing. One is “the onslaught from the right, which has never stopped portraying him as an Islamic atheist Marxist Kenyan.”
Another comes from the left, “where you now find a significant number of critics decrying Obama as, to quote Cornel West, someone who ‘posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.’”
And finally, what gets under Krugman’s skin is “the constant belittling of Obama from mainstream pundits and talking heads. Turn on cable news (although I wouldn't advise it) and you'll hear endless talk about a rudderless, stalled administration, maybe even about a failed presidency. Such talk is often buttressed by polls showing that Obama does, indeed, have an approval rating that is very low by historical standards.”
Well, things haven’t been going real well for this president, especially over the last year. But let’s now look at the approval-rating question.
“There are a number of reasons to believe that presidential approval doesn't mean the same thing that it used to: There is much more party-sorting (in which Republicans never, ever have a good word for a Democratic president, and vice versa), the public is negative on politicians in general, and so on. Obviously the midterm election hasn't happened yet, but in a year when Republicans have a huge structural advantage – Democrats are defending a disproportionate number of Senate seats in deep-red states – most analyses suggest that control of the Senate is in doubt, with Democrats doing considerably better than they were supposed to. This isn't what you'd expect to see if a failing president were dragging his party down.”
That last part is not very persuasive. If Democrats are hanging on in the Senate shootout, it’s in spite of Obama, not because of him. Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is challenging Mitch McConnell, embarrassed herself by refusing to tell the Louisville Courier-Journal whether she even voted for Barack Obama. Krugman’s own paper, the Times, front-paged a story on how the Democratic Party has benched Obama in the midterms, with few candidates this side of Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn wanting him to come in and campaign.
But it’s not hard to believe that deep divisions in the country have made sky-high presidential popularity a relic of an earlier era.
Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza picks up the argument:
“As our tendency to see everything through which partisan glasses we wear has both increased and distanced us from people with whom we disagree, the way in which presidents are perceived has followed suit. Every year, Gallup gathers its data to compare the relative views of presidents by party.  Of the 12 most polarized years -- defined as the years with the largest gaps between how the two parties see the president -- in Gallup's history, 10 of them have come during the tenures of George W. Bush and Barack Obama…
“Sixty percent-plus approval ratings -- unless they come at the very start of a presidency or in the wake of a national disaster or tragedy -- are things of the past for as long as the current partisanship gripping the country holds on. Given how vast the gap is between how the two parties view the right next steps for the country -- not to mention how negatively they view the other side -- it's impossible to imagine a president enjoying any sort of broad (or even narrow) bipartisan support for any extended period of his or her presidency.
“Increasingly, there are two political countries in the U.S.. One, a liberal one, is governed by Barack Obama. The other lacks a clear leader but views itself as at war with Obama's America.  And, there's no reason to think that if, say, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio gets elected president in 2016, things will be any different. Rubio will be president of a conservative America. The liberal America will see itself in diametric opposition to that America.”
I’m still not convinced that a future president can’t put better numbers on the board. If the economy wasn’t still having an anemic recovery six years into Obama’s tenure, his approval would be higher. If he had moved earlier to beat back the ISIS terrorists, his approval would be higher. If he hadn’t botched the ObamaCare rollout, his approval would be higher.
But it’s also true that journalists are way too addicted to fleeting polls as a measure of presidential health—and that greatly colors the coverage. If the nation’s leader takes on difficult challenges, his approval goes down as he alienates a swath of the country. If he steers a middle course, his approval may languish because he has disappointed his most fervent supporters. Fleeting controversies that barely register in history’s verdict may cause a temporary depression in poll numbers.
By any yardstick, Obama is not terribly popular right now. But we in the press need to find some broader measures of how a president is faring.​

California's health insurance exchange awards $184 million in no-bid contracts

LOS ANGELES –  California's health insurance exchange has awarded $184 million in contracts without the competitive bidding and oversight that is standard practice across state government, including deals that sent millions of dollars to a firm whose employees have long-standing ties to the agency's executive director.
Covered California's no-bid contracts were for a variety of services, ranging from public relations to paying for ergonomic adjustments to work stations, according to an Associated Press review of contracting records obtained through the state Public Records Act.
Several of those contracts worth a total of $4.2 million went to a consulting firm, The Tori Group, whose founder has strong professional ties to agency Executive Director Peter Lee, while others were awarded to a subsidiary of a health care company he once headed.
Awarding no-bid contracts is unusual in state government, where rules promote "open and fair competition" to give taxpayers the best deal and avoid ethical conflicts. The practice is generally reserved for emergencies or when no known competition exists.
Covered California was created in 2010 and given broad authority to award no-bid contracts as a way to meet tight federal deadlines for getting the new health insurance marketplace operational by last year. The same law also exempted it from sections of the state's public records law, a loophole lawmakers closed last year after it was disclosed by the AP.
The agency confirmed some no-bid contracts were awarded to people with previous professional ties to Lee, but emphasized Covered California was under pressure to move fast and needed specialized skills.
The fledgling exchange "needed experienced individuals who could go toe-to-toe with health plans and bring to our consumers the best possible insurance value. Contractors like The Tori Group possess unique and deep health care experience to help make that happen and get the job done on a tight deadline," Lee said in a statement.
"As this organization matures," he added, "we will rely less on private contractors."
With so much taxpayer money in play, a government watchdog group said more oversight is essential.
Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, said she recognized the need to free Covered California from cumbersome contracting rules that could have hampered its ability to meet Affordable Care Act deadlines.
But with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars at issue, "some accountability and transparency is needed, whether through audits or an alternative oversight body," she said, adding, "To spend $4.2 million on anything, let alone a contract to a friend and former colleague, raises serious questions."
The no-bid contracts represent nearly $2 of every $10 awarded to outside companies by the agency and were among roughly $1 billion in agreements disclosed to AP that the exchange executed from late 2010 through July, according to the records.
Through its first year of operation, Covered California was funded almost entirely by federal grant money.
The founder of The Tori Group, Leesa Tori, worked under Lee when she was a senior executive at Pacific Health Advantage, a small business insurance exchange that failed in 2006. Lee was a longtime chief executive of Pacific Business Group on Health, which managed Pacific Health Advantage, and Tori also worked with him at the parent company.
Long before it opened its doors to the public last fall, Covered California awarded a small contract to Tori for her advice on designing a program to sell insurance to small companies. The $4,900 agreement in late 2011 was executed without rival bids.
The deal would mark the beginning of a lucrative and far-reaching partnership between the agency and the company Tori formed about two years ago, just as national health care reform took root across the U.S. An initial $150,000 contract with The Tori Group in March 2013 was executed by Lee, but later amendments that increased its value to $4.2 million were approved by Covered California's board, an agency statement indicated.
Nearly three years after her first, small contract went into effect, she and employees at her firm hold senior-level positions and work on issues ranging from enrollment to health plan design at Covered California.
At least five other people who are contracted to work at Covered California have ties to the now-defunct Pacific Health Advantage, four of them at The Tori Group, whose employees are paid through the consulting contracts. In all, nine people listed on the group's website, in addition to Tori, work at the exchange.
Yolanda Richardson, Covered California's chief deputy executive director who reports directly to Lee, was a vice president at Pacific Health Advantage. Before she was hired on staff, she received a 10-month, $176,500 no-bid consulting contract from the agency in 2011, about a month before Lee came on board, according to the records.
Tori, the former director of plan management, is now a consultant on plan management. The Tori Group's chief financial officer, Kathleen Solorio, is Covered California's operations adviser. Another principal at the firm, Corky Goodwin, the former interim director of the small-business insurance program, is a consultant on small-business insurance.
Tori said professional credentials qualified her company for the contracts -- working in an exchange gave her team experience rare in the industry.
The Pacific Business Group on Health Negotiating Alliance, a subsidiary of the company Lee previously led, received two no-bid contracts worth a total of $525,000. Spokeswoman Emma Hoo said the work covers "unique and in-depth assessment of plan operations."
John Vigna, spokesman for former Assembly Speaker John Perez, who spearheaded legislation that established the exchange, said Perez was confident that enough checks and balances remained in effect, including oversight by the federal government and a state law that outlines rules for avoiding conflicts of interest.

ISIS magazine claims group has enslaved and sold Yazidi women and kids

A magazine purportedly published by the Islamic State group says that militants have captured, enslaved and sold Yazidi women and children, confirming allegations that have been made against the group for months.
The claim came as Human Rights Watch said Sunday that hundreds of Yazidi men, women and children from Iraq are being held in makeshift detention facilities in Iraq and Syria by the group, commonly known as ISIS. 
Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled into the Sinjar Mountains, many getting stranded there for weeks, after the militant onslaught on Sinjar in August, part of the Islamic State group's lightning advance across northern and western Iraq. Hundreds were killed in the attack, and tens of thousands fled for their lives, most to the Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq.
Iraq's Human Rights Ministry said at the time that hundreds of women were abducted by the militants, who consider the Yazidis, a centuries-old religious minority, a heretical sect. Some also alleged the Islamic State group enslaved and sold Yazidi women and children, though the group itself did not comment on it.
The issue of Dabiq magazine released Sunday stated that "the enslaved Yazidi families are now sold by the Islamic State soldiers." It added that "the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations."
Most of the Yazidis are now displaced in northern Iraq, many having lost loved ones in their flight to safety. Some say that their women and girls were snatched during the militant raid.
In one section of the magazine, a statement attributed to Mohammed al-Adnani, the spokesman for the Islamic State group, read: "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women," addressing those who do not subscribe to its hard-line interpretation of Islam.
The release of the magazine came as New York-based Human Rights Watch said Yazidi men, women and children remain held by the group. Its report noted that the group "separated young women and teenage girls from their families and has forced some of them to marry its fighters."
One woman told Human Rights Watch that she saw Islamic State fighters buying girls, and a teenage girl said a fighter bought her for $1,000, the report said. The Associated Press independently has interviewed a number of Yazidi women and girls who escaped captivity and several claimed that they were sold to Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria.