Our interview with Obama

1. We talked to Obama Vox's Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias interviewed President Obama a couple weeks ago. You can see the videos here. [Vox / Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias] In it, Obama called for an end to the "routine use" of the filibuster, a marked contrast to his position as a US senator. [Vox / Ezra Klein] Obama also reiterated his call for a Constitutional amendment enabling stricter regulation of campaign spending and fundraising. [Vox / Andrew Prokop] He came very close to endorsing "all-payer rate-setting," a sweeping health care reform that is "nearly identical" to single-payer. [Vox / Sarah Kliff] He claimed that his first two years — with the passage of the stimulus, Obamacare, and Dodd-Frank — were the most productive policymaking period since LBJ. [The Guardian / Tom McCarthy] His take on the politics of race, post-Ferguson: "over the long term, I'm pretty optimistic, and the reason is because this country just becomes more and more of a hodgepodge of folks." [Vox / Ezra Klein] One of his more striking lines on foreign policy, in response to accusations he doesn't understand the world's threats: "I get a thick book full of death, destruction, strife, and chaos. That's what I take with my morning tea." [Vox / Matthew Yglesias] Generally, his comments on foreign affairs were defined more by what he wanted to avoid (war, endless occupation, economic disruption) than what he wants to achieve. And that may not be a bad thing. [Vox / Matthew Yglesias] He also emphasized that the media tends to hype terrorism into a bigger threat than it actually is. [The Hill / Justin Sink] 2. Not-so-massive resistance Same-sex marriage is now legal in Alabama. [NYT / Alan Blinder and Richard Pérez-Peña] But up to 50 of its 67 counties are refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. [Human Rights Campaign / Maureen McCarty] That said, marriage licenses are being issued in the counties where Birmingham and Montgomery, the state's two biggest cities, are located. [BuzzFeed / Chris Geidner and Tasneem Nashrulla] The issue is that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has ordered probate judges to ignore a federal court ruling enacting marriage equality. [BuzzFeed / Chris Geidner] But Moore has no authority to do that; this is a federal matter, and neither the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals nor the Supreme Court have opted to intervene. [Vox / German Lopez] You may remember Moore from his previous stint as Chief Justice, which ended in 2003 when he refused to obey a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building and was removed from office. [CNN] Moore's tactics are earning comparisons to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace's attempts to defy federal court rulings on desegregating schools in the 1960s. [Vox / German Lopez] 3. Bonkers anti-vaccine theory confirmed to be bonkers A big new study suggests that the HPV vaccine doesn't spur teenage girls to have more sex (or at least unsafe sex). [USA Today / Kim Painter] More specifically: "HPV vaccination was not associated with increases in STIs in a large cohort of females, suggesting that vaccination is unlikely to promote unsafe sexual activity." [Journal of the American Medical Association / Anupam Jena, Dana Goldman, Seth Seabury] Upon its introduction nearly a decade ago, the vaccine was widely attacked for allegedly encouraging promiscuity. [Slate / Meghan O'Rourke] The vaccine was a point of contention in the 2012 Republican presidential primary, with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attacking Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) for requiring it of Texas' sixth-grade girls; she claimed the vaccine could cause mental retardation. [NYT / Trip Gabriel and Denise Grady] There's absolutely no evidence that's true and never has been; the vaccine has an excellent safety record and the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC recommend all girls receive it. [PolitiFact / Angie Drobnic Holan and Louis Jacobson] Perry's mandate was overturned by the state legislature; currently only Virginia and DC require HPV vaccination for girls entering sixth grade. [Kaiser Family Foundation] Only 33.4 percent of girls and 13.9 percent of boys ages 13 to 17 had received the recommended three doses in 2013. [CDC ] Contrary to popular belief that it's meant for girls, the CDC recommends 11-to-12-year-old boys get the vaccine, too. [CDC ] 4. Misc. Here's an intriguing argument that the huge growth in the US prison population wasn't due to the drug war, but instead due to overzealous prosecutors in all areas of crime. [Slate / Leon Neyfakh] Jack White's rider includes remarkably specific instructions for how to make his guacamole (he's a leave-the-pit-in kind of guy). [Vocativ / Shane Dixon Kavanaugh] There's a town in Brazil called Americana that was settled by ex-Confederates after the US Civil War; slavery was still legal in Brazil. [Vice / Mimi Dwyer] Here's some psychological research suggesting that rational argumentation is futile, the Enlightment was a lie, we are merely apes desperately grasping after something that could be even possibly called "truth," etc. [BBC / Tom Stafford] King v. Burwell could wipe out health coverage for millions — which one of its plaintiffs says she didn't realize, and doesn't want to happen. [Mother Jones / Stephanie Mencimer] 5. Verbatim "We keep creating saviors whom we expect to single-handedly restore lost values. Then we lash out at them when they inevitably fall short." [New Republic / Eve Fairbanks] "All that is solid in physical attraction often melts into an air of complacency, to paraphrase Karl Marx." [The Kernel / Miles Klee] "I can say that most people who say 'I'm ready to die' really mean I'm ready to kill." [Abram de Swaan to New York / Claire McCartney] "I am always skeptical of arguments that claim that the solution is to do what we would enjoy more anyway." [Fredrik deBoer] "Insofar as there’s no such thing as innate aptitude, just hard work and grit — then by not being gritty enough, I’m a monster who’s complicit in the death of a population greater than that of Canada." [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander] Editor's note: Many thanks to Zack Beauchamp and German Lopez for filling in on Sentences while I was out of town last week. Hope you all enjoyed their installments as much as I did. Read the latest Vox Sentences here!

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