Vox Sentences: Bombs over Yemen

1. Proxy war

Yemeni men loyal to the Houthis brandish their weapons on March 26, 2015 during a gathering in Sana. (Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images)

• Saudi Arabia has begun bombing Yemen in an effort to push back the Shia Houthi rebels who deposed the president in February and have been making major territorial gains recently.

  [Washington Post / Ali al-Mujahed]

• It's joined by nine other Sunni states, most notably Egypt, which has threatened to send ground troops into Yemen.

  [NYT / David Kirkpatrick]

• Saudi Arabia has said it's not considering a ground war for now but won't rule it out, with Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri saying, "There are no plans at this stage for ground forces operations, but if the need arises, the Saudi ground forces and those of the friends and sisterly forces are ready and will repel any aggression."

  [Reuters / Khaled Abdallah and Sami Aboudi]

• The US has confirmed that it is providing "logistical and intelligence support" to the operation.

  [NPR / Jackie Northam]

• The attacks come after Yemeni president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced by advancing Houthi rebels to flee Aden, a large city in the south where he'd been trying to establish as capital of the official government.

  [NYT / David Kirkpatrick]

• According to Saudi state TV, Hadi is currently in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

  [BuzzFeed / Gregory Johnsen]

• The Houthis are widely known to have ties to the also-Shia Hezbollah, which is closely aligned with Iran; the exact state of their relationship with Iran is unclear.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• They're definitely anti-Saudi/US, though; Yemen expert Adam Baron writes, "Akey aspect of the Houthis ideology was shoring up Zaidism [the Houthi's brand of Shiism] against the perceived threat of the influence of Saudi-influenced ideologies and a general condemnation of the Yemeni government’s alliance with the United States."

  [Politico / Adam Baron]

• The Saudis appear to view the intervention as a way of combating Iranian influence, calling the Houthis "a tool in the hands of foreign powers"; for its part, Iran condemned Saudi Arabia's intervention, adding to the perception that this is becoming a regional proxy war.

  [WSJ / Aresu Eqbali and Asa Fitch]

• The Houthis are in an alliance of convenience with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was deposed in Arab Spring in 2011 and had previously fought the Houthis during his tenure.

  [The Guardian / Simon Tisdale]

• Allied with none of these factions is al-Qaeda, whose Yemen branch is among its most powerful and could gain from the disorder of an all-out civil war.

  [WSJ / Maria Abi-Habib and Hakim Almasmari]

2. "An intention to destroy this aircraft"

Investigators carry boxes from the apartment of Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot on Germanwings flight 4U9525, on March 26, 2015 in Duesseldorf, Germany. (Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images)

• The French prosecutor investigating the crash of Germanwings Flight 4U9525 over the Alps said that the "most plausible" explanation of the crash was that German copilot Andreas Lubitz had "an intention to destroy this aircraft."

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• But German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that investigators had turned up no evidence Lubitz was tied to any terrorist groups.

  [Quartz / Mike Murphy]

• That raises the possibility that Lubitz was attempting to commit suicide; pilot suicides are very rare but do happen periodically.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• Acquaintances in his hometown told the AP that Lubitz "showed no signs of depression when they saw him last fall."

  [AP / Lori Hinnant and Dave McHugh]

• The bottom line is that it's too early to conclude the prosecutor's account is right.

• James Fallows has a great post on whether, if it was a suicide, it could have been avoided. His conclusion: "there is no foolproof way to prevent a pilot intent on crashing from carrying out that plan."

  [The Atlantic / James Fallows]

• Some airlines are responding by requiring there to be more than one person in the cockpit at all times, but as Fallows says, even that precaution can be overcome.

  [Quartz / Mike Murphy]

• It's always worth remembering in cases like this that plane crashes are exceedingly rare, and flying is orders of magnitude safer than driving.

  [Vox / Joseph Stromberg]

3. What's up, doc fix?

What's up, doctors? Prepare to get fixed. (Shutterstock)

• The House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would enact a permanent "doc fix," which would resolve one of the longest-standing budgetary problems in Washington.

  [NYT / Jennifer Steinhauer and Robert Pear]

• In 1997, Congress tried to keep Medicare spending from growing out of control by tying it to the the growth rate of the economy as a whole, using a formula known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR).

  [Washington Post / Sarah Kliff]

• If spending outpaced that rate, doctors' pay would automatically be cut. That'd be politically unpopular, so ever since Congress has periodically passed bills ("doc fixes") delaying the SGR such that it's never actually taken effect.

  [Vox / Sarah Kliff]

• Repealing the SGR costs money; mostly, the House plan just pays for it by increasing the deficit, but it also includes higher premiums for wealthy Medicare recipients and a few other pay-fors.

  [PBS NewsHour / Philip Moeller]

• Fiscal hawks opposed the move, noting that most past doc fixes have been paid for, meaning staying the course and not doing a permanent fix probably would lead to less deficit spending.

  [Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget]

• 37 members of Congress (33 Republicans, 4 Democrats) opposed the deal; most of the opposition was due to the deficit spending, though Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) expressed opposition to the legislation extending a ban on using federal funds for abortions.

  [The Hill / Cristina Marcos]

• The bill also extends the Children's Health Insurance Program for two years, which could pose a problem for Senate passage, as Senate Democrats have demanded a four-year extension.

  [Vox / Sarah Kliff]

• The merits of the bill aside, its passage would bring "current law" and "current police" budget baselines much closer together, making the lives of those of us who write about budgets significantly easier.

4. Misc.

• Three militias aligned with the Iraqi government have abandoned their efforts to retake the city of Tikrit from ISIS in protest of the US's decision to support them with airstrikes.

  [NYT / Rod Nordland and Omar al-Jawoshy]

• A conservative economist argues that GOP policymakers should use money from ending tax breaks to help the working poor, not just to slash tax rates.

  [Washington Post / Michael Strain]

• Uninsured women are paying $4,000 to $9,000 in medical bills, on average, for treatment after miscarriages.

  [Slate / Jessica Grose]

• Microsoft is requiring its contractors and vendors to give their employees 15 sick days a year, which could be a model for how big companies can set economic policy at a time of congressional gridlock.

  [NYT / Claire Cain Miller]

• A growing body of research suggests that boosting social programs like food stamps encourages entrepreneurship.

  [The Atlantic / Walter Frick]

5. Verbatim

• "The numbers matter: the difference between a war with 8,500,000 battle deaths (like the first world war) and a war with 5,000 deaths (like eastern Ukraine) is 8,495,000 human beings who get to work, play, and love rather than rot in their graves."

  [The Guardian / Steven Pinker]

• "Things were different in your 20s. You were younger, more energetic, and not yet in your closet hiding from an enraged Yo-Yo Ma."

  [Clickhole]

• "Asked what the point of the Vote-a-Rama was, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, paused, then laughed and walked away."

  [NYT / Jonathan Weisman]

• "My general view about the criminal justice debate in this country is that it’s mostly being conducted between the disciples of Michel Foucault and the disciples of the Marquis de Sade."

  [Mark Kleiman to Slate / Leon Neyfakh]