TOP OF THE NEWS:
- Trump to Nominate 10 Federal Judges (Weekly Standard) "The nominations include five appeals court seats, four district court seats, and a federal clams court seat."
- Here come Trump’s judges: President to put forward more strong judicial nominees (WaPo) "The nominees make up an impressive list of highly respected jurists, attorneys and legal thinkers. Those of us who doubted Trump would take judicial nominations seriously may have some crow to eat. Especially when one looks at the names to be announced for appellate court vacancies, this is as strong a list of nominees as one could hope for."
BUSINESS/ECONOMY:
- 35 of 37 economists said Trump was wrong. The other two misread the question (WaPo) "The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business regularly polls economists on controversial questions. In a survey the school published last week on Trump's tax plans, only two out of the 37 economists that responded said that the cuts would stimulate the economy enough to cancel out the effect on total tax revenue. Those two economists now both say they made a mistake, and that they misunderstood the question."
GIGGING THE ECONOMY:
- Is the Gig Economy Working? (New Yorker) "Gigging reflects the endlessly personalizable values of our own era, but its social effects, untried by time, remain uncertain. Revolution or disruption is easy. Spreading long-term social benefit is hard."
- How the Side Hustle Will End Capitalism As We Know It (Ozy)“'Crowd-based capitalism' will usurp the corporation now at the center of the economy. But problems arise when casual side hustles turn into full-time gigs. We have 'painstakingly' built a system of worker protections, minimum wages, regulations and pension schemes that 'transformed full-time employment from something that was pretty reprehensible 100 years ago to something that looks pretty good in many countries today,' says Sundararajan."
HEALTH:
- The psychological importance of wasting time (Quartz) "At the end of the day, all of us have the urge to while away time flicking through a magazine, walking around the block, or simply doing nothing. We should embrace these moments, and see them as what they are: time well spent."
NEWS:
- Washington Loves General McMaster. Trump Doesn't (Bloomberg) "On policy, the faction of the White House loyal to senior strategist Steve Bannon is convinced McMaster is trying to trick the president into the kind of nation building that Trump campaigned against. This professional military officer has failed to read the president -- by not giving him a chance to ask questions during briefings, at times even lecturing Trump."
- Trump’s tough talk about North Korea might actually end the crisis (WaPo) "America’s conflicting goals have...complicated Beijing’s position. Nuclear weapons in North Korea are against China’s national security interests, for obvious reasons. But the collapse of the North Korean state as a result of regime change forced upon it from the outside would be equally catastrophic in China’s eyes. So for China, denuclearization cannot be obtained by means of regime change. Today, Trump seems to be freeing the United States from the neoconservative and liberal-interventionist policies of the past. For the first time in 16 years, the American side has come out and said rather unequivocally that the foremost priority is disarmament."
- Emmanuel Macron’s extraordinary political achievement (WaPo) "Before you do anything else, spend a moment thinking about the extraordinary achievement of modern France’s youngest president-elect, Emmanuel Macron. Not since Napoleon has anybody leapt to the top of French public life with such speed. Not since World War II has anybody won the French presidency without a political party and a parliamentary base. Aside from some belated endorsements, he had little real support from the French establishment, few of whose members rated the chances of a man from an unfashionable town when he launched his candidacy last year."
- John McCain: Why We Must Support Human Rights (NYT) "To view foreign policy as simply transactional is more dangerous than its proponents realize. Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three."
- The past 100 days have been a disaster — for Democrats (WaPo) "So let’s review their record. The Democrats spent much of Trump’s first months in office pushing their unfounded narrative of Trump’s alleged collusion with Vladimir Putin. But that narrative went up in smoke when Trump launched missile strikes against Putin’s Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad. But most damaging has been the Democrats’ seemingly nonstop efforts to further alienate the millions of Americans who twice voted for Barack Obama but switched to Trump last year."
- This is not a normal president (WaPo) "President Trump remains an angry, irrational figure, someone who still must stir up hatred — against the press, against immigrants, against Democrats — to enliven his base. Rhetorically, he is still the candidate of the resentful America First crowd, not the president of the entire country. His rambling, incoherent and factually deficient remarks in Harrisburg, Pa., remind us of the pathetic emptiness of the message — I’m with you because I hate the same people you do."
READ THIS:
- The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency (Chris Whipple) "The first in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the White House Chiefs of Staff, whose actions—and inactions—have defined the course of our country."
TECHNOLOGY:
- The Quantum Computer Revolution Is Closer Than You May Think (National Review) "The race for a quantum computer is the new arms race. The danger of a quantum computer is its ability to tear through the encryption protecting most of our online data, which means it could wipe out the global financial system or locate weapons of mass destruction. Quantum computers operate much differently from today’s classical computers and could crack encryption in less time than it takes to snap one’s fingers. While quantum computers will lead to astounding breakthroughs in medicine, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, defense, and more, rogue states or actors could use quantum computers for fiercely destructive purposes."
- Justice Department opens criminal probe into Uber (WaPo) "The federal criminal probe...focuses on software developed by Uber called 'Greyball.' The program helped the company evade officials in cities where Uber was not yet approved. The software identified and blocked rides to transportation regulators who were posing as Uber customers to prove that the company was operating illegally."
TRUMPTELL:
- Obama Warned Trump About Hiring Flynn, Officials Say (NYT) "Mr. Obama, who had fired Mr. Flynn as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Mr. Trump that he would have profound concerns about Mr. Flynn becoming a top national security aide..."
- Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn as national security adviser, officials say (WaPo) "Obama delivered his warning on Nov. 10, two days after the election, when Trump visited the White House and met with his predecessor in the Oval Office for what both men described at the time as a cordial conversation."
- Flynn’s Public Offer to Testify for Immunity Suggests He May Have Nothing to Say (Just Security) "The fact that Flynn and his lawyer have made his offer publicly suggests that he has nothing good to give the prosecutors... Flynn’s lawyer may have concluded that at a minimum the public offer would help change the atmospherics around his client, which could help him at a future stage. But the ploy feels desperate, indicating that Flynn may not have much to offer. And the very fact that Flynn’s lawyer is making a play for immunity at this stage suggests that he has some fear that his client faces real criminal exposure."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Amid Putin ‘bromance,’ Steven Seagal banned from Ukraine as national security threat (WaPo) "Seagal is banned from entering the country for five years on grounds he has 'committed socially dangerous actions ... that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine's security,' according to a Ukrainian security service letter published by the news site Apostrophe and reported by the Guardian."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Lawyers, Guns & Money (Warren Zevon)
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