- Paul Ryan is determined to gut Medicare. This time he might succeed (LA Times) "Medicare faces fiscal problems, but it’s not going broke, and according to both the Medicare trustees and the Congressional Budget Office, the Affordable Care Act has in fact alleviated those problems rather than caused them. The trustees reported in 2010 that passage of Obamacare had postponed the projected exhaustion date of the Medicare trust fund by 12 years — to 2029 from 2017. Projections of Medicare spending growth have consistently come down, year after year, at least in part due to changes in the program imposed through Obamacare. The program’s fiscal situation would be “substantially improved,” the trustees said, because the ACA instituted new cost controls and provided new tax revenues for the program. Both those features would disappear if the GOP repeals the ACA, as is its intention."
BUSINESS:
- With SEC head’s resignation, field clears for Trump to cut back regulations (WaPo) "After the 2008 severe economic downturn, lawmakers and regulators across the government undertook the largest wave of reforms aimed at safeguarding American consumers since the Great Depression. The efforts were intended to curtail predatory lending, enhance transparency within the industry and level the playing field for ordinary households dealing with complex financial products. Consumer advocates said that rolling back regulatory safeguards enacted since the financial crisis would undermine Trump’s appeal to the working-class voters who helped sweep him into the Oval Office."
- The Next Generation of Hedge Fund Stars: Data-Crunching Computers (NYT)
- TPP’s Death Won’t Help the American Middle Class (The Atlantic)
HEALTH:
- A Cold and Flu Risk That’s a Real Eye-Opener (NYT)
NEWS:
- Donald Trump’s Far-Flung Holdings Raise Potential for Conflicts of Interest (NYT) "Mr. Trump has said he will eliminate ethical concerns by turning the management of his company over to his children, an arrangement he has referred to as a blind trust. But ethics lawyers — both Republicans and Democrats — say it is far from blind because he would have knowledge of the assets in the trust and be in contact with the people running it, making it unlike a conventional blind trust controlled entirely by an independent party. Rudolph W. Giuliani, a close adviser to Mr. Trump, said on CNN’s 'State of the Union' on Sunday that excluding Mr. Trump’s family from a role in his businesses 'would basically put his children out of work.' The public, Mr. Giuliani said, needs to trust Mr. Trump." and The ethics rules that apply — and don’t apply — to Trump’s children (WaPo) and Why Aren’t Donald Trump’s Epic Conflicts of Interest Illegal? (Fortune)
- Donald Trump's Dark Playbook (The Atlantic) "But in the days after his shocking election, those following his transition have noticed a theme: Trump’s advertisement for populism may ultimately disguise a policy of surprisingly old-fashioned elite enrichment.
- Trump’s Proposals Won’t Help The White Working Class — Or The Urban Poor (FiveThirtyEight) "Trump, if he sticks to his campaign pledges (a big “if”), will probably do little either to help the working class or to hurt the elites, at least economically. What’s more, this simple dichotomy completely leaves out the people who stand to lose the most, based on what little we know about Trump’s plans: poor and low-income families in urban and suburban areas. But there’s a reason that investors are optimistic about a Trump presidency. Taken at face value, his policies contain plenty of good news for investors: tax cuts for the wealthy, lower corporate tax rates and much less regulation of banks, energy companies and other big businesses."
- Pulling Democrats Back to ‘It’s the Economy, Stupid’ (NYT) "While the country has moved steadily to the left on such social issues as same-sex marriage and gender equity, it is increasingly apparent that Democrats cannot win in much of the country without a more coherent and overriding economic message."
- GOP Lawmakers Work Behind Closed Doors to Stop Donald Trump’s Mandate (Breitbart) "Republican Congressional leaders and members of the House Freedom Caucus are trying to distort Donald Trump’s 'America First' mandate on trade and immigration to comply with the globalist agenda demanded by the party's major donors, according to GOP staffers who are familiar with the discussions that occur in the closed-door meetings."
- Rand Paul: Bolton ‘Totally Unfit’ for Secretary of State — Giuliani ‘Very Similar’ (Breitbart)
- Trump is a disaster, but talk of a “whitelash” is misguided — and counterproductive (Vox)
- Stop protesting democracy. Saying #notmypresident is the same as saying #notmyconstitution. (WaPo)
SPORTS:
- Unanimous No. 1 Alabama Perpetuates a Standard of Excellence (NYT) "The Crimson Tide’s four national titles in the past seven seasons are matched only by Notre Dame’s run in a strikingly different climate in the 1940s. Since Coach Nick Saban took over for the 2007 season, his team is 115-18 (counting five wins earned on the field but erased from the record books because of N.C.A.A. violations); knock off that first year, and it is 108-12. This is not just about football anymore. The Alabama dynasty represents a coach and a program realizing their potential to just about the fullest degree imaginable."
Technology:
- How Facebook Is Transforming Disaster Response (Wired) "In its next move Facebook is going to open the valve a little further. Safety Check product lead Katherine Woo says the company aims to fold the service into what it’s calling a crisis hub: a live, centralized repository for information and media about any given disaster, where people can not only check on the safety of individuals but also coordinate ways of responding in the physical world, follow news and chatter, and perhaps monitor all the live video pouring in from the scene. 'All this happens on Facebook anyway,' Woo says. But soon it will be powerfully organized by the company’s algorithms into a single stream, automatically generated almost as soon as people start talking about a crisis."
- Why Mobile Data Use Is Booming (Fortune) "While video currently accounts for about half of all data traffic, it will soak up 75% of all traffic in 2022."
- WhatsApp is adding FaceTime-style video calls (Re/code)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- A hostage negotiator’s simple strategy for defusing tensions with your partisan friends and family (Quartz) "Shutting someone’s opinion down does not create the space for change. You have to control your amygdala, the control center of the brain—when it is hijacked, it makes you do and say the things you regret. Kohlrieser explains it this way: it’s when the limbic system, including emotions, take over cognitive function, i.e. reason."
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