HERE COMES THE JUDGE(S)!

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Trump to Announce Slate of Conservative Federal Court Nominees (NYT) "...President Trump is turning his attention to the more than 120 openings on the lower federal courts. On Monday, he will announce a slate of 10 nominees to those courts...the first in what could be near monthly waves of nominations."

- 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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THE POWER OF "YOUR" DATA

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data (Economist) " Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. Old ways of thinking about competition, devised in the era of oil, look outdated in what has come to be called the 'data economy' (see Briefing). A new approach is needed. This abundance of data changes the nature of competition. The giants’ surveillance systems span the entire economy. They have a 'God’s eye view' of activities in their own markets and beyond. The nature of data makes the antitrust remedies of the past less useful. A radical rethink is required—and as the outlines of a new approach start to become apparent, two ideas stand out. The first is that antitrust authorities need to move from the industrial era into the 21st century. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets when assessing the impact of deals. The second principle is to loosen the grip that providers of online services have over data and give more control to those who supply them."

- Giving the Behemoths a Leg Up on the Little Guy (NYT) "At the moment, the internet isn’t in a good place. The Frightful Five — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent company — control nearly everything of value in the digital world, including operating systems, app stores, browsers, cloud storage infrastructure, and oceans of data from which to spin new products. A handful of others — Comcast, AT&T, Verizon — control the wired and wireless connections through which all your data flows. People used to talk about the internet as a wonderland for innovative upstarts, but lately the upstarts keep getting clobbered. Today the internet is gigantic corporations, all the way down. The giants seem likely to keep getting bigger. If we give them a chance to buy up every fast lane online, we’ll be removing another check on their untamed power."

- How to Protect Your Privacy as More Apps Harvest Your Data (NYT) "For consumers, giving up some data has become part of the trade-off of receiving compelling, personalized services. But that doesn’t mean you have to be caught by surprise. Here are some tips from privacy experts on protecting yourself from tricky data collection. Read privacy policies. Research company business models. Audit your apps. Opt out for good."

BUSINESS/INVESTING:

- Everything you need to know about trade economics, in 70 words (WaPo) "If a country consumes more than it produces, it must import more than it exports. That’s not a rip-off; that’s arithmetic. If we manage to negotiate a reduction in the Chinese trade surplus with the United States, we will have an increased trade deficit with some other country. Federal deficit spending, a massive and continuing act of dissaving, is the culprit. Control that spending and you will control trade deficits."

- The Online Marketplace That’s a Portal to the Future of Capitalism (NYT) "These shipments were made in accordance with a bilateral trade agreement between the United States and China that originated in 2010, meant to address the rising tide of cross-border e-commerce. Items up to 4.4 pounds — more than the weight of, for example, a violin and bow — can be shipped as ePackets, at extremely low rates with tracking numbers and delivery confirmation. This obscure trade deal has become the quiet conduit for an explosion in a new and underexamined American consumer behavior: buying things directly from their countries of manufacture. This, obviously, presents a problem for the stores and retailers accustomed to serving as importers themselves. Cross-border purchases compound the issue: Because of ePacket, and the decades-old international postal agreements that serve as its foundation, lightweight product shipments from China are heavily subsidized by the U.S.P.S. Wish certainly illuminates the peculiarities of international shipping, but it casts a much brighter light on the state of globalized manufacturing and commerce. In fact, it offers a somewhat convincing vision of what they might become in the near future. Wish shoppers are hardly less alienated from the labor that makes their purchases possible than Walmart customers or iPhone owners are. But their experience at least hews closer to the global economic situation as it truly exists. Services like this offer us a preview of a maximalist capitalist future, in which the near-entirety of current-day retail — stores, humans and even storelike websites — have been identified as gatekeepers or sources of friction and accordingly obliterated."

- Index Funds Are Finally Sexy. What a Shame (Bloomberg) "In any given year, at least four out of five fund managers underperformed their benchmark. Instead of chasing hot funds or hot stocks, investors would have been better served putting their money in index funds. These funds, baskets of stocks that replicate a stock index like the S&P 500 or the Russell 2000, don’t try to beat the market, but simply aim to match it. That’s enough to beat 80 percent of actively managed funds in any given year, and better than almost all of them over a longer stretch of time. In addition, their low fees make a meaningful difference to an investor’s return. There were actually three drivers of index-fund growth: the explosion of exchange-traded funds, the rise of fee-based advisers, and the powerful bull market that began in 2009, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average, now over 20,000, stood at around 7,000."

- Why I Lost My Bet With Warren Buffett (Bloomberg) "Warren discussed the bet in this year’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders, explaining that the high fees active money managers charge create a headwind relative to low-cost passive alternatives. He is correct that hedge-fund fees are high, and his reasoning is convincing. Fees matter in investing, no doubt about it."

ENTERTAINMENT:

- The Secret Hit-Making Power of the Spotify Playlist (Wired) "Think of it as the moneyball of music, a ruthlessly data-driven approach to introducing listeners to songs. By the time a song lands on Today’s Top Hits or other equally popular sets, Spotify has so relentlessly tested it that it almost can’t fail."

- The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Is Still Alive (New Yorker) "This year, Journey, Tupac Shakur, Joan Baez, Yes, and Pearl Jam were inducted into the Hall alongside E.L.O., while the producer, guitarist, and songwriter Nile Rodgers received an award for Musical Excellence."

NEWS:

- Trump: ‘normalized’ but still scary (WaPo) "Ignore what’s behind the curtain. Deal with what comes out in front: the policy, the pronouncements, the actions. And so far they hang together enough — Neil Gorsuch, Keystone XL, NATO reassurances, Syria strike, Cabinet appointments — that one can begin to talk plausibly about the normalization of this presidency. What happens when the red phone rings at 3 in the morning? I’d say: Let it ring. Let the wizard sleep. Forward the call to Defense Secretary Mattis."

- Trump has a dangerous disability (WaPo) "It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about President Trump’s inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence. His fathomless lack of interest in America’s path to the present and his limitless gullibility leave him susceptible to being blown about by gusts of factoids that cling like lint to a disorderly mind."

READ THIS:

- Wilson (A. Scott Berg) "From the scholar-President who ushered the country through its first great world war to the man of intense passion and turbulence, from the idealist determined to make the world 'safe for democracy' to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity and the subterfuges around it were among the century’s greatest secrets, the result is an intimate portrait written with a particularly contemporary point of view – a book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson’s life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon – but Wilson the man."

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE:

- There are exactly zero women working on the Senate version of the GOP health care bill (Quartz)

- A side-by-side comparison of Obamacare and the GOP’s replacement plan (LA Times)

- ‘Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care,’ GOP lawmaker says. He got booed (WaPo) "After the town hall Friday, Labrador said on his Facebook page, 'It was my privilege to spend two hours today in Lewiston fielding questions from my constituents, many of them about our efforts to provide quality health care to all Americans to an affordable and sustainable cost.'"

SPORTS:

- NFL players fight pain with medical marijuana: ‘Managing it with pills was slowly killing me’ (WaPo) "NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said last week that he opposes players using the drug recreationally but is willing to listen to the league’s medical advisers on the potential value of medicinal marijuana. The NFL Players Association has formed a pain management committee to study the issue, and many expect marijuana to become a bigger discussion point in the near future. The union could urge the league to differentiate between recreational and medicinal use or push to lessen the penalties for a failed test."

- This former NFL player lost 84 pounds in four months — and kept it off (LA Times) "I was eating at least 7,000 calories a day. I would start eating from the minute I woke up. I would pound protein bars, drink shakes, smoothies, eat a full breakfast with eggs, sausage — you name it. I had a bag of almonds that I would eat all day. I would have protein shakes after lunch. I would eat dinner and then consume half of one of those big tubs of Greek yogurt. Then, in bed at night, I would eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Don’t wait. Losing weight is like climbing a mountain. If you look up at the mountain before you start, it’s going to be daunting. But if you just put your head down and start walking, you have a chance to accomplish the feat."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Robots don’t have to take over jobs in order to be a problem for workers (Quartz) "...humans will continue to have a competitive advantage over robots and algorithms…because they’ll be so poorly paid. This type of transition has played out multiple times in the past (which, to be fair, some argue is irrelevant). Technology creates new, skilled jobs...even as it deskills others, like taxi drivers. For those deskilled jobs, or at least some of them, wages fall. In other words: Don’t worry about machines replacing humans. Worry about machines replacing the skilled portions of human jobs, and leaving the cheap drudge work behind."

- How to Prepare for an Automated Future (NYT) "Pew Research Center and Elon University surveyed 1,408 people who work in technology and education to find out if they think new schooling will emerge in the next decade to successfully train workers for the future. Two-thirds said yes; the rest said no." and Bosses believe your work skills will soon be useless (WaPo)

THE EDGE OF HUMAN ENDURANCE:

- Nike’s Quest to Beat the Two-Hour Marathon Comes Up Oh So Short (Wired) "It was a close-run thing, but the two-hour marathon remains unbroken, for now, with Kipchoge finishing his marathon in 2 hours and 25 seconds. (Because the three elite athletes contesting Breaking2 ran with a roster of interchangeable pacemakers, which violates IAAF regulations, Kipchoge’s run will not become an official world record. The current world record for the marath:n still stands at 2.02.57, set in Berlin in 2014, by Dennis Kimetto, also of Kenya.)"

- Why You’ll Never Run a Sub 2 Hour Marathon—But the Pros Might (Wired) "...that number fails to convey the psychological and physical fortitude needed to pull it off."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Ranking All 373 Rolling Stones Songs (Vulture)

TODAY'S SONG:

- Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)

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