• Ordering the immediate release to the public of all files of priests who sexually abused children while they were serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,;

• Relieving his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahoney (Ret.), of all public and administrative duties, effective immediately; and

• Accepting the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry as the Regional Bishop of Santa Barbara.

At least 75 priests in the L.A. archdiocese were involved in the aabuse, and the number of documented victims number well above 500 thus far.

Archbishop Gomez also did something that should have been done publicly by Cardinal Mahoney a long time ago, but for now-obvious reasons never got around to doing -- he formally apologized to the victims on behalf of the leadership of the L.A. archdiocese:

"I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages. Reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused, has been the saddest experience I've had since becoming your Archbishop in 2011. [...] To every victim of child sexual abuse by a member of our Church: I want to help you in your healing. I am profoundly sorry for these sins against you."

It's a good start -- but only a start.

The White House is willing to make bigger Medicare cuts in order to protect Medicaid, senior economic adviser Gene Sperling said Thursday.

We have come to believe that it is not the time to make even those savings," Sperling said, referring to the cuts the White House had proposed. "Not when this is the critical moment in implementing the Affordable Care Act." [...]

But the administration has decided to accept a fight over Medicare in order to protect Medicaid, Sperling said.

"It means we're going to have to look harder for Medicare savings, and those savings may be more difficult politically because of he choices we've made," Sperling said. "If you decide you are going to protect Medicaid more, it means you're going to have to make some tough choices in other places." link

"He called me, actually a week before Susan got out of the thing," Kerry told the newspaper "He called me and said, 'You're my choice. I want you to do this.' He asked me to keep it quiet. I did. I sat on it."

Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what's being called a glitch in President Barack Obama's overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president's plan had hoped.

As a result, some families that can't afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.

SNIP

Congress said affordable coverage can't cost more than 9.5 percent of family income. People with coverage the law considers affordable cannot get subsidies to go into the new insurance markets. The purpose of that restriction was to prevent a stampede away from employer coverage.

Congress went on to say that what counts as affordable is keyed to the cost of self-only coverage offered to an individual worker, not his or her family. A typical workplace plan costs about $5,600 for an individual worker. But the cost of family coverage is nearly three times higher, about $15,700, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

So if the employer isn't willing to chip in for family premiums _ as most big companies already do _ some families will be out of luck. They may not be able to afford the full premium on their own, and they'd be locked out of the subsidies in the health care overhaul law.

Conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter refused to stay on board a Miami to New York commercial airline flight today after learning the pilot was a woman of African-American descent.

According to witness reports Coulter was concerned the experienced, decorated pilot in question may have gained her position as a result of affirmative action and wasn't fully qualified to fly.

SNIP

In reality the pilot of the plane was trained by the U.S. Air Force and was a decorated veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where she flew aerial refueling missions for transport and reconnaissance aircraft.

She has been flying for American Airlines for four years, and is one of that airline's most experienced 737 pilots.

Sweden has reduced public spending as a proportion of GDP from 67% in 1993 to 49% today. It could soon have a smaller state than Britain. It has also cut the top marginal tax rate by 27 percentage points since 1983, to 57%, and scrapped a mare's nest of taxes on property, gifts, wealth and inheritance. This year it is cutting the corporate-tax rate from 26.3% to 22%.

Sweden has also donned the golden straitjacket of fiscal orthodoxy with its pledge to produce a fiscal surplus over the economic cycle. Its public debt fell from 70% of GDP in 1993 to 37% in 2010, and its budget moved from an 11% deficit to a surplus of 0.3% over the same period. This allowed a country with a small, open economy to recover quickly from the financial storm of 2007-08. Sweden has also put its pension system on a sound foundation, replacing a defined-benefit system with a defined-contribution one and making automatic adjustments for longer life expectancy.

Most daringly, it has introduced a universal system of school vouchers and invited private schools to compete with public ones. Private companies also vie with each other to provide state-funded health services and care for the elderly. Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist who lives in America, hopes that Sweden is pioneering "a new conservative model"; Brian Palmer, an American anthropologist who lives in Sweden, worries that it is turning into "the United States of Swedeamerica".

SNIP

This is not to say that the Nordics are shredding their old model. They continue to pride themselves on the generosity of their welfare states. About 30% of their labour force works in the public sector, twice the average in the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation, a rich-country think-tank. They continue to believe in combining open economies with public investment in human capital. But the new Nordic model begins with the individual rather than the state. It begins with fiscal responsibility rather than pump-priming: all four Nordic countries have AAA ratings and debt loads significantly below the euro-zone average. It begins with choice and competition rather than paternalism and planning. The economic-freedom index of the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank, shows Sweden and Finland catching up with the United States (see chart). The leftward lurch has been reversed: rather than extending the state into the market, the Nordics are extending the market into the state.

just mentioning it because it looks like I got into the Christine/Dr.Molly "chat."