WHAT DEFINES A NATION'S IDENTITY?

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- What defines a nation’s identity (Economist) "A new poll by the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, attempts to unravel the idea of how someone can be judged to be genuinely American, British or German. On average over the 15 countries surveyed, speaking a state’s national tongue is seen as the most important trait."

- Sorry, President Trump. I agree with you. (WaPo) "At this point, one could note that, if we are to listen to America, almost 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Trump (who received a share of the popular vote that was lower than Mitt Romney’s, in fact lower than the share received by most of the losers of recent presidential elections). And as for which of these groups makes America great, I’m not sure what criteria to use, but if it is generating wealth and contributing to gross domestic product, it’s not even close. According to the Brookings Institution, the 500 counties won by Clinton produced 64 percent of U.S. economic output, while the 2,600 counties won by Trump produced just 36 percent of GDP. Use any economic measure — employment, start-ups, innovation — and the areas that score highest voted heavily against Trump. The much-maligned urban elites may be out of touch with the rest of the country, but they still pay its bills. A few years ago, the Economist compared how much each American state contributed to the federal coffers against the funds they received from Washington. The basic pattern is simple: It is blue states, which voted against Trump in 2016, that fund the red states that voted for him. From 1990 to 2009, Clinton states collectively paid $2.4 trillion more in federal taxes than they received in federal spending, while Trump states altogether received $1.3 trillion more than they paid."

BANKING REGULATION:

- Trump Moves to Kill Off Obama’s Landmark Retirement Rule (WSJ) “The so-called fiduciary rule, six years in the making and unveiled by the Labor Department last spring, holds brokers and advisers who work with tax-advantaged retirement savings to a fiduciary standard as opposed to the previous suitability standard. That means they must work in the best interest of their clients and generally avoid conflicts, which can come about with the commission-based compensation common among brokers and insurance agents.”

- Trump is preparing to gut Wall Street oversight. This gives Democrats a huge opportunity. (WaPo) "Richard Painter, the chief ethics watchdog for President George W. Bush, noted that Friday’s news provides a hook to demand more disclosure from Trump about 'the debt he or the corporations he controls have at the corporate level,' much of which is 'not disclosed in financial disclosure reports.' 'He’s deregulating banks,' he told me. 'We’re entitled to know about his relationship with banks — the very industry he’s deregulating.'"

- From “Drain the Swamp” to Government Sachs (New Yorker) "During last year’s campaign, Trump portrayed both Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton as pawns of Goldman Sachs. And after the self-described 'Leninist' Steve Bannon took over as his campaign C.E.O., Trump broadened his critique, at one point depicting Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s C.E.O. and Cohn’s old boss, as a member of a cabal of global financiers who had 'robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.' Even when it was happening, though, it was clear that all this rabble-rousing was mainly for show. Although Trump campaigned as an economic populist, his brand of populism was simply old-school Reaganomics—giveaways to the rich and pro-corporate deregulation—rebranded with a nationalist and protectionist twist. One wonders what Trump voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and western Pennsylvania think of all this. In any case, Trump voters and everybody else will now get to watch as the Administration guts a regulatory regime that was designed to prevent another taxpayer bailout of Wall Street."

HEALTHCARE:

- Trump wants health ‘insurance for everybody.’ Here’s how the GOP can make it happen. (WaPo) "The apparent gap between what Trump appears to be proposing (universal coverage) and what Republicans have supported (universal access) isn’t nearly as wide as many analysts think. This gap is both narrow and bridgeable: There are policies that can ensure universal access to health insurance while also putting our nation on the path toward universal coverage. First, it should expand access to consumer-directed coverage arrangements such as health savings accounts coupled with high-deductible insurance plans. Second, assistance should go to those who need it but be tailored to their individual situations. Third, those with preexisting conditions should have access to mechanisms, such as properly funded high-risk pools, to help them both acquire and afford coverage. Taken together, these policies provide a powerful set of tools to both drive down health-care costs and expand coverage to every American."

- Looking for a really good Obamacare replacement? Here it is (LA Times) "Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) has introduced a bill that would expand Medicare to 'provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents.' A 2014 study by the Commonwealth Fund compared the U.S. healthcare system to those of 10 other developed countries, including Canada, Germany, France and Britain. It found that the United States had by far the most expensive system in the world but trailed its peers in delivering bang for its healthcare bucks. Meanwhile, at an average of more than $10,000 per person, the United States pays more for healthcare annually than any other developed country without any significant improvement in outcome, such as longer life expectancy. It’s widely believed that Republican replacements for the Affordable Care Act will include health savings accounts coupled with high-deductible plans from private insurers, as well as high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions that all but guarantee limited coverage and sky-high premiums."

- Two top Republicans open to repairing Obamacare ahead of repeal (WaPo)

- We Asked Young People About Losing Their Insurance Over Pre-Existing Conditions (Tonic)

LISTEN TO THIS:

- Privacy Paradox: What You Can Do About Your Data Right Now (NPR) "If we care so much about protecting our personal information and feel uncomfortable about giving it away, why do we keep doing it? Researchers call this conundrum the "privacy paradox.'"

NEWS:

- Inside the White House-Cabinet battle over Trump’s immigration order (WaPo) "Bannon paid a personal and unscheduled visit to Kelly’s Department of Homeland Security office to deliver an order: Don’t issue the waiver. Kelly, according to two administration officials familiar with the confrontation, refused to comply with Bannon’s instruction. Respectfully but firmly, the retired general and longtime Marine told Bannon that despite his high position in the White House and close relationship with Trump, the former Breitbart chief was not in Kelly’s chain of command, two administration officials said. If the president wanted Kelly to back off from issuing the waiver, Kelly would have to hear it from the president directly, he told Bannon. Trump didn’t call Kelly to tell him to hold off. Kelly issued the waiver late Saturday night, although it wasn’t officially announced until the following day. At approximately 2 a.m. Sunday morning, according to the two officials, a conference call of several top officials was convened to discuss the ongoing confusion... On the call were Bannon, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, White House Counsel Donald McGahn, national security adviser Michael Flynn, Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State designee Rex Tillerson. One White House official and one administration official told me that Kelly, Mattis and Tillerson presented a united front and complained about the process that led to the issuance of the immigration executive order..."

- Trump lashes out at ‘so-called judge’ who temporarily blocked travel ban (WaPo) "Following the Friday-night ruling, government authorities immediately began communicating with airlines and taking steps that would allow travel by those previously barred from doing so, according to a U.S. official. At the same time, though, the White House said in a statement that the Justice Department would 'at the earliest possible time' file for an emergency stay of the “outrageous” ruling from the judge. Minutes later, it issued a similar statement omitting the word 'outrageous.' The ruling is temporary, and the ultimate question of whether Trump’s executive order will pass constitutional muster will fall to higher-level courts. Legal analysts have said the ban could be difficult to permanently undo because the president has broad authority to set immigration policy." and Meet the Bush-nominated federal judge who halted Trump’s executive order (WaPo)

- President Trump’s do-it-himself approach just suffered a big — and unusual — early setback (WaPo) "While comparing what President Trump is doing with his executive power to what Barack Obama did, I noted that the ultimate judge of whether Trump has gone too far would not be politicians, but the courts. Well, just two weeks into his presidency, Trump has already had one of his executive orders halted by those courts. So how often does this kind of thing happen? The short answer is not very."

- Why Trump’s “America First” Policy Is Doomed to Fail (New Yorker) "A leader who stokes mistrust and fear at home will not be able to inspire people to high ideals abroad. Autocratic regimes will eagerly quote Trump’s proclamation that 'it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.' Trump’s dark nationalism will also complicate his ability to deliver the greater security and prosperity that he has promised Americans."

- The Deep Denialism of Donald Trump (New Yorker) "Eventually, the President’s daily policy outrages, his caustic insults, and his childish Twitter rants will fade into history. But it will take years to gauge the impact of having a habitual liar as President. When words like 'science' and 'progress' become unmoored from their meaning, the effects are incalculable. And let’s not kid ourselves: those words today are under assault with a ferocity we have not seen for hundreds of years. But we are now led, in an age of unimaginable scientific achievement, by the most narcissistic and thoughtless denialist ever to have entered public life. His denialism is not based in fear, it’s based in arrogance. Scientists have often been wrong, but nothing has propelled our world forward more successfully or rapidly than the scientific method, based as it is on independent inquiry and a reliance on data that can be observed, tested, analyzed, and repeated."

- Trump’s rallying cry: fear itself (WaPo) "'If he frightens people, it puts him in the driver’s seat. He’s in control,' said historian Robert Dallek. 'These are what I think can be described as demagogic tendencies.' Timothy Naftali, a New York University professor who specializes in presidential and national security history, said, 'We have a special word for seeing a threat everywhere. It’s called ‘paranoia.’ It’s good for mobilizing a base. It’s very bad for turning a base into a governing majority.' Julie Smith, a former national security aide in the Obama administration, said that every administration must balance the need to level with the public about actual risks and to also reassure them to avoid causing an overreaction or panic. 'There are a lot of white, under-educated men in America who see the world become less white and less under-educated and less male who have a problem with that,' Bremmer said. 'Trump speaks very clearly to them. He’s willing to brand ‘the other.’ He’s doing it with China and Mexico and he’s doing it with terrorism, and he’s doing it very effectively.'"

- Trump Needs a Strong NSC. It Doesn’t Look Like He Wants One (Foreign Policy) "Trump seems to believe that it is appropriate for him to make foreign policy on the fly. Sometimes he seems as though he does not understand that is what he is doing — that indeed, everything a president does is foreign policy. His continued attacks on the U.S. press send the message to despots everywhere that such affronts are now okay in the eyes of the world’s most powerful nation and its leading democracy. This has a chilling effect on the advance of the values that have long been central to U.S. foreign policy, and that specialists from both parties have long believed were strongly in the U.S. national interest."

- Documents confirm Trump still benefiting from his business (WaPo) "Before taking office, President Trump promised to place his assets in a trust designed to erect a wall between him and the businesses that made him wealthy. But newly released documents show that Trump himself is the sole beneficiary of the trust and that it is legally controlled by his oldest son and a longtime employee. In recent weeks, corporate filings have documented that the Trump Organization has been removing the president as an officer or director of the more than 400 entities registered across the country associated with the organization. Those resignations provide evidence the president no longer has official management responsibilities in the businesses, as he and his attorney pledged during a news conference last month." and Trust Records Show Trump Is Still Closely Tied to His Empire (NYT) "The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust has existed since at least 2014, records show. By 2016 it was the only shareholder in DJT Holdings, one of Mr. Trump’s main limited liability companies, according to documents filed by Mr. Trump as part of his bid for president and released by the Federal Election Commission. That company holds some of Mr. Trump’s largest assets, including his Old Post Office lease, golf courses and residential properties including a house in Beverly Hills, Calif. New York City property records show that in recent weeks Mr. Trump has transferred several residential condominiums he owns into the trust." and Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,830 in hotel bills (WaPo) "The Uruguayan trip shows how the government is unavoidably entangled with the Trump company as a result of the president’s refusal to divest his ownership stake. In this case, government agencies are forced to pay to support business operations that ultimately help to enrich the president himself. Though the Trumps have pledged a division of business and government, they will nevertheless depend on the publicly funded protection granted to the first family as they travel the globe promoting their brand."

- Thank God for Harry Reid (WaPo) "Reid never fully appreciated the magnitude of his crime against the Senate. As I wrote at the time, the offense was not abolishing the filibuster — you can argue that issue either way — but that he did it by simple majority. In a serious body, a serious rule change requires a serious supermajority. Otherwise you have rendered the place lawless. If in any given session you can summon up the day’s majority to change the institution’s fundamental rules, there are no rules. It’s obvious that he prefers not to. No one wants to again devalue and destabilize the Senate by changing a major norm by simple majority vote. But Reid set the precedent."

- A Return to National Greatness (NYT) "The true American myth is dynamic and universal — embracing strangers and seizing possibilities. The Russian myth that Trump and Bannon have injected into the national bloodstream is static and insular. It is about building walls, staying put. Their country is bound by its nostalgia, not its common future. We are in the midst of a great war of national identity. We thought we were in an ideological battle against radical Islam, but we are really fighting the national myths spread by Trump, Bannon, Putin, Le Pen and Farage. We can argue about immigration and trade and foreign policy, but nothing will be right until we restore and revive the meaning of America. Are we still the purpose-driven experiment Lincoln described and Emma Lazarus wrote about: assigned by providence to spread democracy and prosperity; to welcome the stranger; to be brother and sister to the whole human race; and to look after one another because we are all important in this common project? Or are we just another nation, hunkered down in a fearful world?"

- Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus’s War for the White House (New Yorker) "In conversations I had with people close to Priebus and those close to Bannon, the two sides talk about each other as leaders of a zero-sum fight for control of the West Wing. Most modern White Houses have had a strong chief of staff who could limit the influence of other senior advisers by controlling their access to the President and insisting they use a formal process to set policy. But Trump has created a top-heavy staff in which Bannon, Priebus, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and several others all seem to have easy access to a President who, especially on issues that he is unfamiliar with, is famously susceptible to persuasion. Despite the fallout over the immigration ban, the early signs are that Bannon’s influence is growing."

- What’s interesting about Conway’s ‘Bowling Green massacre’ is what came next (WaPo) “'Kellyanne plays 5D chess,'" one wrote. On @hardball @NBCNews @MSNBC I meant to say 'Bowling Green terrorists' as reported here: https://t.co/nB5SwIEoYIhttps://t.co/nB5SwIEoYI — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) February 3, 2017. So much for the five-dimensional chess."

- Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying (NYT) "Mr. Trump understands that attacking the media is the reddest of meat for his base, which has been conditioned to reject reporting from news sites outside of the conservative media ecosystem. We [conservative media] thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled. Even as he continues to attack the 'dishonest media,' Mr. Trump and his allies are empowering this alt-reality media, providing White House access to Breitbart and other post-factual outlets that are already morphing into fierce defenders of the administration. All administrations lie, but what we are seeing here is an attack on credibility itself. If we want to restore respect for facts and break through the intellectual ghettos on both the right and left, the mainstream media will have to be aggressive without being hysterical and adversarial without being unduly oppositional. Perhaps just as important, it will be incumbent on conservative media outlets to push back as well. Conservatism should be a reality-based philosophy, and the movement will be better off if it recognizes that facts really do matter." and Trump Posted A False News Report To His Facebook Page And Got Thousands Of Shares (BuzzFeed) "The original Al Bawaba story cited only 'Kuwaiti sources' who spoke to 'local media,' but it was picked up by a number of other outlets including Breitbart News, Infowars, and Sputnik. That Russian-run website has since corrected its story, noting 'the following news article proved to be untrue.'"

- Donald Trump wants a war, but not just any war (Haaretz) "Donald Trump needs a war. But not just any war. He needs just the right global non-Christian, all-powerful, all-frightening, non-white, non-negotiable enemy. He needs a Holy War."

SCOTUS NOMINEE:

- Why Liberals Should Back Neil Gorsuch (NYT) "I believe this, even though we come from different sides of the political spectrum. I was an acting solicitor general for President Barack Obama; Judge Gorsuch has strong conservative bona fides and was appointed to the 10th Circuit by President George W. Bush. But I have seen him up close and in action, both in court and on the Federal Appellate Rules Committee (where both of us serve); he brings a sense of fairness and decency to the job, and a temperament that suits the nation’s highest court."

- The left’s boogeyman vision of Gorsuch (WaPo) "Fundamental to his approach is the understanding that legislatures, and not courts, should create laws. This position also extends to administrators and bureaucrats. Liberals have sometimes preferred to fashion law through the courts, rather than navigate the legislative process, which is burdensome, stubborn and slow. It’s so much easier to create law in the courts and let people adapt. Should Gorsuch be approved, the court’s composition obviously doesn’t really change. The balance would remain the same, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, for whom Gorsuch clerked, as the swing vote. Democrats are entitled to their indignation over Republicans’ refusal to consider Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice for Scalia’s seat. But their energies will be spent for naught — and they could do far worse."

- Trump Embraces Pillars of Obama’s Foreign Policy (NYT)

READ THIS:

- Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (Eric Schlosser)

SPORTS:

- How Madden Got So Good at Predicting Super Bowl Winners (Wired) "The NFL treats us like a 33rd NFL franchise. We get all their statistics and all their injury reports and things of that nature in a real-time fashion when the teams do. Josh Rabenovets, senior brand director at Electronic Arts for Madden. Over the years, Madden has developed probably the most complex ranking system out there, with dozens of individual metrics from strength to speed to situational awareness."

TECHNOLOGY:

- AI Is About to Learn More Like Humans—with a Little Uncertainty (Wired) "‘What we’re interested in is automating the scientific method.’ You can think of this as the rise of the Bayesians, researchers that approach AI through the scientific method—beginning with a hypothesis and then updating this hypothesis based on the data—rather than hust relying on the data to drive the conclusions, as neural networks do. The Bayesians look for ways of dealing with uncertainty, of feeding new evidence into existing models, of doing the stuff that neural networks aren’t all that good at."

- China’s Intelligent Weaponry Gets Smarter (NYT) "Rapid Chinese progress has touched off a debate in the United States between military strategists and technologists over whether the Chinese are merely imitating advances or are engaged in independent innovation that will soon overtake the United States in the field. The United States’ view of China’s advance may be starting to change. Last October, a White House report on artificial intelligence included several footnotes suggesting that China is now publishing more research than scholars here. Artificial intelligence is only one part of the tech frontier where China is advancing rapidly. Last year, China also brought the world’s fastest supercomputer, the Sunway TaihuLight, online, supplanting another Chinese model that had been the world’s fastest."

WATCH THIS:

- Melissa McCarthy Plays Sean Spicer Going Nuts on the Press in Hilarious SNL Sketch: ‘APOLOGIZE TO ME!’ (Mediaite)

- SNL Mocks the Calls From Trump and Steve Bannon: ‘Australia Sucks, Your Reef Is Failing’ (Mediaite)

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Thermostat controls in hotel rooms are often placebos (Economist) "In other words, fiddling with the buttons will make no difference to the temperature—although, given how effective placebos are, some people will feel a phantom cooling or warming in the room."

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