AT THIS RATE, KID ROCK WILL BE PRESIDENT SOON. WHAT ARE HIS FOREIGN POLICY VIEWS?

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- At This Rate, Kid Rock Will Be President Soon. What Are His Foreign-Policy Views? (Foreign Policy) "Michigan Republicans are reportedly mulling a Senate run for heartland heartthrob Kid Rock... Be it North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, we can surmise that Rock is a true 'American Bad Ass' who will never back down from a fight, which could set him apart from many of his colleagues in the upper chamber. When Tommy Lee sent Rock a bunch of 'horrendous' messages using the Blackberry of his estranged wife, Pamela Anderson, Rock didn’t hesitate to clock Lee at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2007. 'The problem I got is when people are like, ‘F*ck Kid Rock, he’s a piece of sh*t, white-trash whatever.’ I’m like, ‘You wouldn’t say that to me in a f*cking bar. You’ll get your f*cking wig peeled back. So don’t sit behind your computer and type it,’ he said in a 2011 interview. Still, Rock is ready to debate the issues, but doesn’t get too bogged down in the details. He described his typical media diet to the Guardian in a 2015 interview. 'I turn on my computer and look at porn a little bit, see what’s going on in the news, but that’s about it,' he said."

BUSINESS/PERSONAL FINANCE:

- Samsung Bribery Scandal Threatens South Korea Success Story (NYT) "South Korea’s political turmoil could usher in a new group of leaders less inclined to treat its business titans with kid gloves. The public is increasingly fed up with white-collar crime. Further, South Korea’s unique blend of business, politics and top-down hierarchical management is looking increasingly untenable in a modern age of innovation, public dissatisfaction with the old order and cutthroat competition from China and the rest of the world."

- The Stock Market Has Gone So High, It’s a Problem (NYT) "The current bull run is now the second longest since 1928, according to Bespoke Investment Group, a research firm. It is surpassed in duration only by one that ran from December 1987 to March 2000."

LONG READS:

- Michael Flynn, General Chaos (New Yorker)

- Department of Justification (NYT)

MEDIA:

- Why newspaper subscriptions are on the rise (TechCrunch) "People hate ads. It says a lot about advertising that many publishers are pitching its complete absence as a way of incentivizing paid subscriptions."

NEWS:

- Republicans, Protect the Nation (NYT) "They can’t say they didn’t see the Russian interference coming. They knew all along. Early in 2015, senior Republican congressional leaders visited Ukraine and returned full of praise for its fight for independence in spite of Russia’s efforts to destabilize the country and annex some of its regions. As the presidential race wore on, some of those leaders began to see parallels between Russia’s disinformation operations in Ukraine and Europe and its activities in the United States. Some also questioned Mr. Trump’s attacks on Hispanics, Muslims, women and people with disabilities, or his positions on entitlement reform, discretionary spending and national security. Eventually, one by one, they all committed to supporting Mr. Trump... They were understandably anxious to win back the White House to advance policy priorities and appoint conservative Supreme Court justices. After their grand bargain to back Mr. Trump’s Moscow-assisted victory, congressional Republicans are now responsible for protecting the nation from its dangers."

- The Fog of Trump (Foreign Policy) "In any event, intentional or not, Trump has actually managed to avoid dealing with the consequences of his catastrophic first month in office (the worst since William Henry Harrison, who caught pneumonia at his inaugural and died a month later) to a remarkable degree. Like others who support Trump when they can clearly see the mess he is making daily, congressional leaders like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have repeatedly put party before country or, just as bad, the prospect of advancing their own long-held legislative goals ahead of things like national security, morality, American values, and the well-being of those they are supposed to be serving."

- This Stunningly Racist French Novel Is How Steve Bannon Explains The World (Huffington Post) "But the top Trump aide’s repeated references to The Camp of the Saints, an obscure 1973 novel by French author Jean Raspail, reveal even more about how he understands the world. The book is a cult favorite on the far right, yet it’s never found a wider audience. There’s a good reason for that: It’s breathtakingly racist. '[This book is] racist in the literal sense of the term. It uses race as the main characterization of characters,' said Cécile Alduy, professor of French at Stanford University and an expert on the contemporary French far right. 'It describes the takeover of Europe by waves of immigrants that wash ashore like the plague.' The Camp of the Saints — which draws its title from Revelations 20:9 — is nothing less than a call to arms for the white Christian West, to revive the spirit of the Crusades and steel itself for bloody conflict against the poor black and brown world without and the traitors within. The U.S. publishing house Scribner was the first to translate the book into English in 1975, but it failed to reach a wide audience amid withering reviews by critics. A rare favorable take appeared in National Review. And the novel’s thesis that migration is invasion in disguise is often reflected in Bannon’s public comments."

- Trump Got a Mulligan — Now He Needs to Act Fast (Ozy) "Both repealing Obamacare and tax reform must be done within the 'budget reconciliation' framework, a set of budget rules that allow legislation to pass with 51 votes in the Senate (no possibility of a filibuster) and a simple majority in the House. Not a single Democratic vote is required. Lose the House or Senate in 2018, and the door slams shut on this option and on both Trump priorities — after all, there will be no Democratic votes for radical changes to Obamacare or the federal tax code. As a result, delay on those issues will mean death. The Trump agenda and priorities have been clearly laid out. The popular and business support for both, and the power of the presidency and pull of party loyalty, make it likely that the initiatives will be law before fall 2017."

SCIENCE:

- What Are the Odds We Are Living in a Computer Simulation? (New Yorker) "The argument ends by proposing that we are, in fact, digital beings living in a vast computer simulation created by our far-future descendants. The argument is based on two premises... The first is that consciousness can be simulated in a computer... The second is that advanced civilizations will have access to truly stupendous amounts of computing power. If we achieve posthumanity within our simulated universe, we might go on to simulate people of our own, and they may go on to simulate people of their own, in a recursive loop. Meanwhile, the advent of simulation technology will force us to accept that we are likely living in a simulation ourselves." and Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? (Scientific American) "Somewhere out there could be a being whose intelligence is that much greater than our own."

SPORTS:

- An old friend and rival offers a Bird's-eye view of Magic Johnson's new Lakers gig (LA Times) "They dominated their time in college and met in the 1979 NCAA championship game in Salt Lake City, where Johnson and Michigan State defeated Bird’s Indiana State team. Then Bird went to Boston where he won three championships, one of them over Johnson, and Johnson came to Los Angeles, where he won five championships, two of them over Bird."

TECHNOLOGY:

- How to make robots pay their fair share (Economist) "Many futurists reckon that as machines replace people, governments will need to find ways to redistribute income from the machines (and the people who own them) to displaced workers, to ensure that the benefits of automation-driven growth are shared widely. In a recent interview Bill Gates proposed one method for doing this: a tax on robots... ...if the pace of automation is too rapid for society to handle, as Mr Gates supposes, then slowing automation could do more good than harm: by prolonging employment for workers who might otherwise fall into long-term unemployment, for instance."

- The Race to Sell True Quantum Computers Begins Before They Really Exist (Wired) "...after years spent developing quantum technologies, IBM is also trying to prevent Google, a relative newcomer to the field, from stealing its quantum mindshare. And it’s still unclear whether the claims made by these two companies will hold up. The future of quantum computing, like the quantum state itself, remains uncertain."

- How a Failed Experiment Could Still Be the Future of Public Transit (Wired) "Transit agencies nationwide hope to learn from it, too. Many of them think on-demand, app-driven transportation services could make public transit cheaper, more accessible, and more convenient. Research suggests Bridj faced two problems in Missouri: Marketing and geography. A survey conducted six months into the experiment found that 40 percent of the people being serviced by Bridj didn’t know about it. And among those who signed up, most didn’t use the service regularly because it didn’t go where they wanted or operate when they most needed it, like late at night. Transit officials see three takeaways here. First, marketing matters. Second, any public transportation service should probably know ahead of time where people need to go, when they want to go, and how quickly they want to get there. And third, you can pull off a quick public-private partnership working totally by the book."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Pot festival in Nevada goes forward despite fears of federal crackdown (LA Times) "Defiance wafted through the air, billowing from bowls, bongs and joints. The federal government may have said no marijuana was allowed at the Cannabis Cup, but the directive seemed to have the effect of gravel trying to stop water. Like water, pot found a way."

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