WELCOME TO THE PARTY OF TRUMP

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Welcome to the Party of Trump (National Review) "I emphasized that Republicans must prioritize delivering jobs and economic development to the regions of the country in the industrial Midwest — states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri. These are places that, for the most part, never felt the meager Obama recovery and where blue-collar Reagan Democrats took a leap of faith this election and came back to the Republican party for the first time since 1984. The GOP will be judged in 2018 and in 2020 on whether they deliver results for this part of the country and for the forgotten middle-class men and women (“the deplorables”) whom Democrats abandoned economically and culturally. The concerns and priorities of the American people are different today from what they were 30 years ago. The voters spoke with a thunderclap. Conservatives should go back and read Jude Wanniski’s classic, The Way the World Works. Wanniski reminds us over and over again of the lesson of history that there is great collective wisdom in the decisions made by the American voters. ‎It’s not often wise to second-guess them; it’s better to listen to what they are saying."

BUSINESS:

- Breitbart News sees advertisers exit, calls Kellogg's decision 'un-American' (LA Times) "'Kellogg's decision to blacklist one of the largest conservative media outlets in America is economic censorship of mainstream conservative political discourse. That is as un-American as it gets,' Breitbart said in a statement. Other companies that have pulled their ads from Breitbart in recent weeks include the insurance giant Allstate and the ad exchange AppNexus." and SHOCK: Amnesty International Blasts Kellogg’s for Child Labor (Breitbart) and Kellogg's Falls 2% on Child Labor Report, #DumpKelloggs Petition (Breitbart)

- Seattle Minimum Wage Experiment is Over (The Big Picture) "The unemployment rate in the city of Seattle – the tip of the spear when it comes to minimum wage experiments – has now hit a new cycle low of 3.4%, as the city continues to thrive. I’m not sure what else there is to say at this point. The doomsayers were wrong. The sky has not fallen. The restaurant business, by all accounts, is booming (in fact, probably reaching a saturation point when one looks at eateries per capita). I think it’s safe to say we’ve got enough data – over almost two years now – to declare that Seattle has not suffered adverse consequences from its increases in the minimum wage, and has certainly not experienced the dire effects foretold by the anti-min wage crowd."

CYBER SECURITY:

- Why a hacker is giving away a special code that turns cars into self-driving machines (WaPo) "The code, which is available on the open-source collaboration platform GitHub, allows anyone to build a dashcam-like device that they can set up in their car. The device plugs into a port in the car called a controller area network, or BUS (in most cars built after 2006). Users must build the device with a 3-D printer and have an Android OnePlus 3 phone to run the code and provide the camera that can scan the road."

ENTERTAINMENT:

- Meet John Knoll, the F/X Genius Behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Wired) "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. You recognize it—it’s the Opening Crawl, the setup kicking off Star Wars (OK, OK, A New Hope). Knoll wondered, who were these spies?"

HEALTH:

- Trump promised to repeal Obamacare, but it turns out Americans like most of it, a poll finds (LA Times) "This apparent paradox – in which Americans view the law unfavorably but overwhelmingly support most of its key provisions – has characterized opinion about Obamacare for years, said Robert Blendon, an authority on public attitudes about healthcare at Harvard University. Several Republican plans to replace the health law include an alternative mechanism to encourage healthy consumers to sign up for coverage that would penalize people who do not maintain continuous coverage."

- Nestlé has found a way to cut the sugar by 40% and keep chocolate just as sweet (Quartz) "The technological accomplishment has major implications for the company and consumers. It will allow Nestlé to respond to mounting pressure by public health groups and government health agencies for people to scale back the sugar in their diets."

LISTEN TO THIS:

- Jericho Remix (YouTube)

NEWS:

- Trump, a Free-Form Leader, Experiments and Invites Drama (NYT) "Even Republicans concede that it is not clear how Mr. Trump’s roller-coaster approach to the transition will carry over to governing. Mr. Gingrich predicted during the Republican primary contests that a Trump administration would function as a kind of daily adventure. 'If Trump does end up winning, you will have no idea each morning what’s going to happen,' he said in a January interview, 'because he will have no idea.' But enacting sweeping changes or passing even modest legislation requires intensive, sustained attention from presidents and their teams, of a kind Mr. Trump has never dedicated to matters of policy." and A World of Trouble for Donald Trump (NYT)

- Bernie Sanders: Carrier just showed corporations how to beat Donald Trump (WaPo) "Trump has endangered the jobs of workers who were previously safe in the United States. Why? Because he has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives. Even corporations that weren’t thinking of offshoring jobs will most probably be reevaluating their stance this morning. And who would pay for the high cost for tax cuts that go to the richest businessmen in America? The working class of America. Let’s be clear. United Technologies is not going broke. Last year, it made a profit of $7.6 billion and received more than $6 billion in defense contracts. It has also received more than $50 million from the Export-Import Bank and very generous tax breaks. In 2014, United Technologies gave its former chief executive Louis Chenevert a golden parachute worth more than $172 million. Last year, the company’s five highest-paid executives made more than $50 million. The firm also spent $12 billion to inflate its stock price instead of using that money to invest in new plants and workers."

- White House, Pentagon back requiring women to register for military draft (Fox) "The measure had roiled social conservatives, who decried it as another step toward the blurring of gender lines akin to allowing transgender people to use public lavatories and locker rooms. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, spoke for a number of Republicans when he described the provision as 'coercing America's daughters' into draft registration."

POLITICS:

- America: This Is Your Future (Politico) "It will take a long time to fully understand why this election turned out the way it did. But part of it has to do with anxiety about how America is changing. Some voters idealized a picture they grew up with, in which culture and politics were dominated by a white Christian majority. They found a voice for their disorientation in Trump’s rhetoric and his promises that he could restore an older vision of the country. Unauthorized immigration peaked in 2007, when George W. Bush was president. During President Obama’s two terms, more Mexican immigrant families left the U.S. (about 1 million) than arrived (about 870,000). Currently, three-quarters of the immigrants in the United States are here lawfully. About a third of today’s foreign-born Americans are highly educated, with college or graduate degrees. Many have created jobs, not stolen them. In setting big national policies, it’s tempting to imagine that democracy means we hash out decisions about the public good collectively. But that’s not always how it works, as this year’s election showed, in which a relative minority of voters in the middle of the country chose a president, and a set of ideas, that big cities and coastal states profoundly oppose. This is a dynamic we’ll likely be reckoning with long into the future. Social scientists call it The Big Sort, in which college-educated, affluent, and nonwhite Americans increasingly congregate in major metropolitan regions, while 80 percent of the nation’s land mass is dominated by more conservative working- and middle-class whites. This sorting means fewer of us come into sustained daily contact with those with whom we disagree."

WATCH THIS:

- Researchers programmed two robots to look out for one another's safety (Quartz) "In the video above, you can watch them give each other commands without talking. They also look out for one another: One robot will question a command that puts the other in danger."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Detroit Returns To Its Prohibition-Era Whiskeytown Roots, And Finds New Life (NPR) "Now, modern Detroit is reviving its Whiskeytown roots. A change in Michigan's distilling laws in 2008 allowed small whiskey vendors to produce up to 60,000 gallons annually, in exchange for a $100 license fee. Piggybacking on the booming craft beer industry that has once again put Michigan on the map, a renaissance of craft liquor was a logical next step."

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WHAT A 21ST-CENTURY SAFETY NET SHOULD LOOK LIKE

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- What a 21st-century safety net should look like (WaPo) "Modern American capitalism is not working for many Americans. That’s why, no matter what your political leanings, fixing an economy that can no longer be counted on to create steady, well-paying jobs for all has to be our top priority. So we should be encouraging more innovation and experimentation around portable benefits — a 21st-century safety net tied to the individual, not the job. This approach could provide greater income stability and protection for workers who hold multiple jobs — whether across a single day or an entire career. Americans want this economy to work better for more people. They want to know how their jobs will pay for the economic security they have earned by following the rules. And they’re worried about their kids and whether any young person entering today’s workforce will ever have an opportunity to catch up. If the new president and the new Congress do not find new ways to work together and demonstrate a real resolve to begin tackling these challenges, then we will have learned nothing from the election — and that will be on us."

BUSINESS:

- Trump just scored perhaps the biggest victory of his new tenure. But it comes with a huge asterisk. (WaPo) "'Our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization — moving our jobs, our wealth and our factories to Mexico and overseas,' Trump said in his June jobs speech. 'It doesn’t have to be this way. We can turn it all around — and we can turn it around fast.' Economists have pushed back on that point. Since North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994, quashing tariffs and tripling the product exchange between the United States, Canada and Mexico, about 4.5 American manufacturing jobs have disappeared — a consequence they ascribe to both globalization and automation. Though Trump argues that NAFTA shoved jobs south of the border, wiping out some of the best-paying gigs Americans can find without a college degree, proponents of the move say it brought prices down for American families, stretching their dollars while boosting the economy." and Indiana official: Carrier deal is about federal contracts (Politico) "The agreement reportedly includes $700,000 in state tax breaks offered by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-public entity that doesn't require legislative approval for its deals. But John Mutz, a former Indiana lieutenant governor who sits on the agency’s 12-member board, told POLITICO that Carrier turned down a previous offer from IEDC before the election. He said he thinks the choice is driven by concerns from Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, that it could lose a portion of its roughly $6.7 billion in federal contracts." and Trump's Already Making America Great Again -- and He's Not Even President Yet (Rush Limbaugh) "You're saying, 'My gosh, this is really happening! I mean, this is just flat-out cool. Somebody campaigned on something that nobody else has ever even tried to do and pulls it off even before he is inaugurated.'"

ENTERTAINMENT:

- Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock Donating Proceeds from Sales of Vegan Shoes to Planned Parenthood (Breitbart) "The limited edition 'Ramos Ad-Rock' sneakers feature a 'weather resistant, nylon cordura body, synthetic fleece lining and channel quilting on the ankles,' according to the shoemaker. A pair costs $97 and the company boasts that all of its shoes are 'cruelty-free' and are produced in factories audited by independent third parties that monitor for ethical working conditions."

HEALTH:

- Do These Stimulants Actually Improve Focus? (FastCompany) "For non-prescription stimulants, I found the most benefit in tea. It didn’t stimulate me as quickly as coffee did, but tea made me feel focused for longer, and without feeling like my energy dropped off a cliff as that effect wore off."

- Fooling With Fentanyl: Don't (Ozy)

NEWS:

- C.I.A. Chief Warns Donald Trump Against Tearing Up Iran Nuclear Deal (NYT) "He also said the incoming administration should be careful how it characterizes the fight against Islamic extremists, because of the risk of playing into the hands of terrorists. 'The new team needs to be disciplined in the language that they use, the messages that they send, because if they are not disciplined, their language will be exploited by the terrorists and extremist organizations as a way to portray the United States and the government as being anti-Islamic, and we are not.'"

POLITICS:

- Trump's conservative dream team (Politico) "Trump has yet to reveal his nominees for the Defense Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Agriculture Department and several other major Cabinet posts. But at this rate, with cooperation from a Republican Congress, Trump will have the support to dismantle a significant portion of President Barack Obama’s legacy and set his sights on Great Society programs that have been the linchpin of the social safety net for nearly 50 years." and Trump’s latest Cabinet picks signal he has no intention of governing as a populist outsider (Vox)

SPORTS:

- Mind Over Body: Playing in the N.F.L. at 38 (NYT) "As Newman acknowledged, his freedom to do what he wants when he wants has prolonged his career. It has enabled him to obey what he called an intuitive understanding of his body, nurturing it with as much sleep, exercise and sustenance as he feels it needs. Newman is the first corner to start at least eight games at 38 since Otis Smith in 2003, according to Elias. Newman takes an iconoclastic approach to his wellness. For one thing, he does not use a nutritionist. In maintaining his muscular 195 pounds, the 5-foot-10 Newman does not deprive himself — at the steakhouse, he ordered lamb chops and a Caesar salad with anchovies — but he rarely indulges."

TECHNOLOGY:

- While We Weren’t Looking, Snapchat Revolutionized Social Networks (NYT) "Snap, which is based far outside the Silicon Valley bubble is pushing radically new ideas about how humans should interact with computers. It is pioneering a model of social networking that feels more intimate and authentic than the Facebook-led ideas that now dominate the online world. Snap’s software and hardware designs, as well as its marketing strategies, are more daring than much of what we’ve seen from tech giants, including Apple."

- Banned from Twitter? This site promises you can say whatever you want. (WaPo)

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- City Flags Are a Hot Mess. Here Are Some Beautiful Redesigns (Wired)

- Watch this ‘gun’ take down a flying drone (WaPo)

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