Sachelle Babbar/ZUMA

Apparently we are going to have to endure a 2020 presidential campaign in which Donald Trump, yet again, promises that Republicans will pass the awesomest health care plan the world has ever seen—just as soon as they’re returned to power. Back in the real world, here’s what’s actually happening:

There used to be a lot of health insurance horror stories like Charley Butler’s.

After the Montana truck driver was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2016, his insurer balked at paying tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills and then moved to cancel his coverage over a preexisting medical condition. These practices were largely banned by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which set new national health insurance standards to protect consumers and bar discrimination based on preexisting conditions.

But as the Trump administration has pushed to relax many of these rules, skimpier short-term health plans like the one Butler bought are roaring back, threatening to subject consumers to many of the ordeals patients endured before the healthcare law.

Short-term health plans, a creature given new life recently by Republicans, are basically a scam:

In many cases, consumers don’t even think to ask if plans cover preexisting medical conditions, said Dania Palanker of the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms. “We are at a point now where people assume that all health insurance covers preexisting conditions,” Palanker said. “In the same way, you wouldn’t think to ask if a new car you are buying has seat belts.”

Thanks to Obamacare, everyone just assumes that every health plan covers preexisting conditions. Republicans, of course, all swear on their mothers’ graves that they, too, want every plan to cover preexisting conditions. They’re practically insulted if anyone suggests otherwise. And yet, they’re hellbent on killing Obamacare. Short of that, they’re hellbent on undermining it, ensuring that crappy, short-term health plans don’t have to cover things like preexisting conditions. What a bunch of assholes.

Artist's rendering of the Bestseller Tower in Brande, Denmark, which will be the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe when it's completed in 2023. The "Eye of Sauron" joke has already been used, so don't bother.Bestseller

Behold the Bestseller Tower, currently planned for construction in the rural Danish town of Brande, about an hour west of Aarhus. Why build a skyscraper on the wide-open, windswept plains of Jutland? Because that’s the headquarters location of Bestseller, the giant Danish clothing company, and the hometown of its founder, Denmark’s richest man.

So that all makes sense. But according to The Skyscraper Center,¹ it will be 1,050 feet tall and 45 stories high. That’s a little over 23 feet per story. Doesn’t that seem like an awful lot? For comparison, the average for the hundred tallest buildings in the world is about 16 feet per story. What’s the deal here? Danes are tall people, but they aren’t that tall.

¹“The Global Tall Building Database of the CTBUH,” aka the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

Kirsty O'Connor/Getty

We had four more “indicative” votes on Brexit today, and they all failed:

• Customs union: 273-276
• Common Market 2.0: 261-282
• Public vote on any deal passed by Parliament: 280-292
• Vote between Remain and No Deal: 191-282

The customs union is getting closer! It failed by eight votes last week but only three this week. Of course, I’m not sure what it would mean if it passes. It requires that any deal include a commitment to negotiating a customs agreement with the EU, but which deal? The Theresa May deal plus a customs union commitment? Or some other deal? I don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone else knows either.

It’s now 12 days until Armageddon.

This photo was taken looking due west on Chapman Avenue. I was at this spot last weekend, a day after the vernal equinox, and watched the sun set very beautifully right over the road. But I didn’t have my camera, and the next two days the sky was too clear for a decent sunset. The rest of the week I didn’t feel like fighting traffic to get up there, but I finally went back on Friday. Unfortunately, by that time the sun was already setting several degrees north of due west (about where the palm tree is on the right). I took some pictures anyway, which I might put up eventually, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I made a note in my calendar to try again during the autumnal equinox, so we’ll see if that works out.

In the meantime, I took this picture well before the sun was down, and instead of the usual reddish color it produced this lovely, bright yellow. It’s quite entrancing.

UPDATE: Equinox, not solstice. Fixed now.

Jay Godwin/Planet Pix via ZUMA

I wish that neither Joe Biden nor Bernie Sanders were running for president. I don’t have much time for dumb takes on Baby Boomers as the generation that “ruined everything,” but still, by 2020 we boomers—a generation that spans 18 years—will have held the White House for 28 years. I don’t know that we need any more boomer presidents, let alone someone who’s too old to be a boomer. It’s time to make way for younger folks.

That said, I hope that #MeToo doesn’t become weaponized as an intra-party tool for destroying primary candidates you don’t like. That’s all too likely to do immense damage to both #MeToo and the party. Let’s keep things in perspective.

The proposed single-story design for the new LACMA building, which straddles Wilshire Boulevard.Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner/LACMA

This is a little offbeat, but I’m curious about something. The LA County Museum of Art wants to demolish its old buildings and replace them with a single large building. Progress has been slow, of course, and various things have happened to reduce the planned floor space of the new design. The easy answer to this would be to add a second story to the building, but apparently this runs afoul of LACMA director Michael Govan’s aesthetic desires:

“I’m a big believer in horizontal museums,” he said [a few years ago]. “All the great museums for me are horizontal.”

I’m not a big museum person, but I’ve visited plenty of them. The Met has multiple levels. MOMA has multiple levels. The Tate Modern has multiple levels. The Louvre has multiple levels. The Guggenheim in New York has multiple levels (sort of). The Prado has multiple levels. The Hermitage has multiple levels. The Van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum have multiple levels. The Vatican Museums have multiple levels. The National Gallery has multiple levels. The Art Institute of Chicago has multiple levels. The Getty has multiple levels.

I’m actually a little unsure I’ve ever visited a single-level museum. So I’m throwing this out to the hive mind. What is Govan talking about? Why does he think all the great museums are horizontal?

In yet another shocking development, a whistleblower has told Congress that the Trump White House routinely overruled denials of security clearances:

Tricia Newbold, a longtime White House security adviser, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that she and her colleagues issued “dozens” of denials for security clearance applications that were later approved despite their concerns about blackmail, foreign influence or other red flags, according to panel documents released Monday.

….In her interview with the committee, which was conducted over a weekend, Newbold told the panel that she began keeping a list of employees whose applications were denied but were later given clearances despite concerns about their ties to foreign influence, conflicts of interests, questionable or criminal conduct, financial problems or drug abuse. That tally now reaches 25, she said, “including two current senior White House officials, as well as contractors and individuals throughout different components of the Executive Office of the President,” the letter says.

We are all shocked that a president would condone this, right? Ha ha, of course not:

In a statement, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, accused Cummings of politicizing an issue that should be bipartisan. “Chairman Cummings’ investigation is not about restoring integrity to the security clearance process, it is an excuse to go fishing through the personal files of dedicated public servants,” Jordan said. “The process by which this matter has so far progressed has been anything but fair.”

Shocking indeed.

This is Hilbert hiding under a bench we keep near the front door. I really wish I could get a video showing how he slithers under there. He looks like a spatchcocked chicken wiggling his way in. Unfortunately, I never get any warning before he suddenly decides to dive into hiding, so no video is likely to appear soon. In the meantime, enjoy this picture showing how well concealed he is from prying eyes.

The Capital Spectator has rounded up the latest batch of forecasts for Q1 economic growth:

We’re still a month away from the official BEA estimate, but there’s a lot of agreement in these forecasts. If growth really has fallen to 1.4 percent, that will make three consecutive quarters of decline and surely raises the risk of a recession in the near term. This would be a great time for the Fed to lower rates, wouldn’t it?

Dan Drezner has a question:

Could someone have read an entire 300+ page report and drafted a four-page summary in under 48 hours? Sure.

Would it have been a good summary? Hoo boy… https://t.co/gohHKIgoQk

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) March 28, 2019

This question has come up a lot recently, and I’m pleased to help out. Here’s the answer: if the Mueller report is like every other report done in Washington DC, it includes an executive summary that’s, oh, probably ten pages long. Since this is Mueller’s summary of his own report, you can trust that it accurately portrays the main body of the report. Thus, all you have to do is read the executive summary, grab a few quotes and factlets from the body of the report, and then summarize the summary.

This is how almost everyone handles long reports. Barr surely didn’t want to read hundreds of pages of Mueller droning on about how Donald Trump might be guilty of obstruction of justice, but he also wanted to avoid embarrassing himself by missing something important because he only skimmed the report. The executive summary makes this possible, since nothing truly important will be left out. But take it from a pro: you should be careful to take your quotes from the report itself so that people don’t think that you only read the executive summary.¹

And while we’re on the subject, this is what I think Bill Barr could release right away: the executive summary of the Mueller report. These summaries usually don’t include the kinds of details that might compromise sources and methods, nor would they jeopardize ongoing trials. What’s more, even if you’re afraid that some parts might need to be redacted anyway, the whole thing is only a few pages long. It could be reviewed in hours or days, not weeks.

And yet, apparently Barr has no intention of letting us see even this. Does anyone besides me find that suspicious?

¹No, of course I don’t do this myself. I read every report carefully and thoroughly. Please.