Daily Clips: September 16th, 2016

September 16, 2016 Nick Cassella

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The race is tightening for a painfully simple reason: A remarkably well-argued piece from Yglesias. He uses his historical knowledge to great effect. His analysis on Stein stunned me: To find a fourth-place candidate polling higher than Stein’s current results, you need to dial all the way back to the 6 percent of the vote Eugene Debs earned in the bizarre 1912 election that saw the GOP nominee (the incumbent, no less!) finish in third place behind a third-party bid spearheaded by ex-president Teddy Roosevelt. For what it’s worth, I’d highley recommend Sidney Milkis’ book on that historic 1912 race. Mayor Murray changes course, shelves North Precinct police station plan: Wow, huge victory for the #BlockTheBunker movement in Seattle. Seattle area jobless rate dips to 8-year low : I’ll give Goldy the stage. Damn you, $15 an hour minimum wage! https://t.co/wJaRAkoh72 — (((Goldy))) (@GoldyHA) September 14, 2016 Good news! We’re as rich as we were in 1998: And we’ve only lost a few major wars in between that time, too! Tweet of the day: "The good news is that my pneumonia finally got some Republicans interested in women’s health.” —Hillary — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 15th, 2016

September 15, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

5 ways the census income report misleads us about the real state of the economy: Random thought, I just realized that Vox is like the BuzzFeed for politically-minded individuals. Weak US retail sales dampen interest rate hike prospects: I wonder if this is because Americans are taking their increased wages and saving (what little they can). America’s cultural civil war: That gap between the largest places and everywhere else was nearly 50 percent bigger than it was as recently as the 2000 election. Few observers would be surprised if Trump suffers even greater repudiation in the largest metros and outpaces Romney beyond them—thus widening the electoral distance between town and country. Study says Americans blame Washington gridlock for slow economic growth: ‘Only a minority of members of either party felt that their own party was acting in a way that supported economic growth,’ said Jan Rivkin, a professor at Harvard Business School and co-author of the report. The normalization of evil in American politics: [The] mainstream media are also complicit in this normalization of hatred, allowing it to masquerade in the guise of political positions. For decades, when reporting on the Christian right, for example, media have treated it as a religious movement, barely mentioning—if at all—the roots of movement positions in the segregationist backlash of the South. Instead, media executives allowed themselves to be cowed by the right wing’s outrage machine, every time it cranked up its conveyor belt of allegations of the anti-religion bent of reporters. Tweet of the day: If your household earns less than $80,000, you're now in the minority in Seattle: https://t.co/8gzR5IeosI pic.twitter.com/fLjfsw5D78 — gene balk (@genebalk) September 15, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 14th, 2016

September 14, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

And now, a case of really bad Republican timing: Here is an excellent article on the failed economics of Paul Ryan and his #BetterWay crew. What is best about this piece, however, is how the author neatly defines the GOP’s economic agenda: [Ryan’s] “ Better Way ” agenda — [is] basically tax cuts for the rich, spending cuts for the poor and deregulation for big business… That sure sounds a lot like our definition of trickle-down economics as tax cuts for the rich, deregulation for the powerful, and wage suppression for the 99%. NRA ad against background checks in Maine completely misses the mark: Wow, this ad is bad. Not only does it depict the San Francisco skyline (while claiming it is New York), they also employ some voice actor to do a Maine accent…that doesn’t sound anything like a Mainer. Our own Paul Constant (who grew up in Maine) gave his own take on the entire kerfuffle. Economic expansion is finally benefiting the middle class: The 5.6 percent rise in median household income from 2010 to 2015 is a great deal better than in the mid-2000s expansion and somewhat worse than in the mid-1990s recovery. Using inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings for nonsupervisory workers, the mid-1990s and current expansion are about the same, compared with no gain in the mid-2000s. Both the poorest and richest Americans did better in the 1990s but worse in the mid-2000s. Tweet of the day: . @SpeakerRyan Gun violence victims NEVER get a day off. #DoYourJob Give us a #GUNVOTE ! pic.twitter.com/7nJiOXuCpv — WomenAgainstGunViol (@WAGV) September 14, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 13th, 2016

September 13, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Brooks finds fault with Clinton and Trump: Sure, one candidate is cozying up to the KKK, but why is another candidate sick?! How dare she! False equivalency aside, he also finds the time to throw a punch at millennials: The rise of distrust has corroded intimacy. When you go on social media you see people who long for friendship. People are posting and liking private photos on public places like Snapchat and Facebook. The Fed will probably not raise interest rates Harvard Medical School study finds high drug prices in US caused mainly by government granted monopolies and market exclusivity The parties on the eve of 2016 election: This is a really big report that is well worth your time. Here’s the main takeaway: “The Democratic Party is becoming less white, less religious & better-educated at a faster rate than the country.” Household income rises for the first time in eight years: Terrific news not only for the economy, but also for the Democrats’ chance of keeping the White House in 2016. Also: The poverty rate fell to 13.5 percent from 14.8 percent in 2014, the report said. Tweet of the day: Households at all income percentiles saw incomes rise; largest gains at the bottom. #thanksobama pic.twitter.com/Hxld7GdNkm — Catherine Rampell (@crampell) September 13, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 12th, 2016

September 12, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Mosque where Florida nightclub shooter worshiped set on fire Fed rate hike and Clinton concerns hit stocks h ard How sexism, like Matt Lauer’s, could imperil the nation : When one candidate is constricted to answering repeated challenges to her on one topic for a third of her time on stage (and interrupted with reminders to shorten her answers), while the other is never challenged on his troubling recent behavior regarding matters of national security, the American people are being cheated. Monopolies kill innovation: The bigness of business is a result of federal policy, which, in the past three decades, has deliberately made it easier for large companies to dominate their markets, provided that they keep prices down. After years of sluggish wage growth and low levels of entrepreneurship, some people are starting to worry that America’s biggest companies are growing at the expense of the economy, even if they offer consumers good deals. Tweet of the day: United States world wide web home-page Vox said to be written by imbeciles and nimrods, utterly ignorant of Korean peninsular affairs. — DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) September 12, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 9th, 2016

September 9, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

NYT Editorial Board warns that debate moderators must hold candidates accountable: I feel like that point should go without saying…but here we are. Police-involved injuries of civilians rises nearly 50%, says Harvard study: The rate of serious injuries caused by police and private security increased nearly 50% from 2001 to 2014, according to a new study from Harvard public health researchers that looked at emergency room visits. Marijuana legalization could help solve the heroin epidemic Review of the US stock market and economy: Eddy Elfenbein’s excellent blog, Crossing Wall Street, has a terrific post on the state of the US economy (he does these every couple of weeks, it seems). He, like most honest people, doesn’t have a great idea as to whether or not we are performing well or not. Or in his words: The big takeaway is that the economy is slowly improving. Sure, it’s certainly not great. But it’s getting better. With each jobs report, I’ve been keeping a close eye on wages. The good news is that Americans are finally getting a pay raise. It’s been years since we could say that. Tweet of the day *NFL player tries to kill wife/unborn child*Nothing. *Player exposed as serial rapist*Nothing. *Player kneels during a song* #boycottNFL — Jerry Topsider (@BostonJerry) September 9, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 8th, 2016

September 8, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Matt Lauer showed no signs of being an actual journalist: Then again, what did you expect? Lauer’s GMA brings in the start of every day with trivial and non-important items. Which reminds me: why did anyone give him this opportunity to stand toe-to-toe with Donald Trump? Having trouble hiring? Try paying more How Airbnb plans to fix its racial-bias problem Fear of a female president: A very, very sobering read. Over the past few years, political scientists have suggested that, counterintuitively, Barack Obama’s election may have led to greater acceptance by whites of racist rhetoric. Something similar is now happening with gender. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy is sparking the kind of sexist backlash that decades of research would predict. If she becomes president, that backlash could convulse American politics for years to come. Don’t blame a ‘skills gap’ for lack of hiring in manufacturing Tweet of the day: True story: "Income inequality isn't just about fairness, it's about growth." - @VP just now. #middleclassroadmap @amprog — Maggie Polachek (@maggiepolachek) September 8, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 7th, 2016

September 7, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Government cash handouts won’t help families: Noah Smith takes issue with Tyler Cowen’s policy proposal of “sending people cash” instead of government-mandated paid parental leave. Smith claims that “giving cash is a favorite solution of many economists…but in this case, I see two reasons why paid parental leave is probably better than cash.” His reasons are as follows: 1) “mandated benefits like parental leave tend to distort the economy less than giving people cash” and 2) “if the government mails parents a check instead of mandating that they get time off to spend with their children, the parents may squander the money, instead of staying at home spending quality time with those kids.” Goldman Sachs bans employees from donating to Trump: I think this headline actually helps Trump convince his supporters that he represents the 99%. So, in other words, Goldman Sachs’ policy seems counterproductive. The geography of US inequality: Beautiful graphs and analysis from The Upshot. Why are men leaving the workforce? Tweet of the day: QCEW (big lag) shows King Cnty, WA #2 of 345 in wage growth Q1 15-Q1 16. Damn you, min wage. @ritholtz @NickHanauer pic.twitter.com/mJgInFzGv3 — Invictus (@TBPInvictus) September 7, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 6th, 2016

September 6, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Construction worker shortage weighs on hot US housing market: After the 2008 financial crisis it was estimated that “30 percent of construction workers [went] into new fields.” Now, with the housing market back in business, homebuilders are having a hard time finding enough labor. David Brooks lies on health care: Today he wrote a column that attacked Obamacare, because, you know, it’s not like there is a deranged imbecile one election away from being the most powerful man in the world! Brooks also lied by saying that Obamacare’s exchanges “means less coverage.” He’s such a moderate conservative thinker. How Obama’s economic record stacks up: A nice read with strong explanations of indicators chosen. Gary Johnson isn’t a viable option for Democrats: He is no friend of the Left, no legitimate vessel for carrying forward any kind of progressive political revolution. He remains, at heart, the teenager who thinks economics can be taught in one lesson, and that freedom means protecting the liberty of the propertied. Think that’s enough of an indictment? Read this: After inaugurating New Mexico’s use of private prisons, Johnson made it his top political priority to install a school voucher system (an effort that failed because of the legislature’s opposition). He also annulled public employees’ collective-bargaining rights, slashed funding for social programs, reduced taxes for the wealthy, implemented one of the country’s strictest welfare-reform programs, and pushed for harsher sentencing laws. America’s bars and restaurants are hiring like crazy: Thanks, Obama. Tweet of the day: Clinton & her PACs received $201,119 from @GoldmanSachs in the 2016 cycle, per OpenSecrets. https://t.co/PxBk4iJCZ0 pic.twitter.com/ZxxnkUvUIt — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 6, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 2nd, 2016

September 2, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Your tax money is subsidizing Wall Street bonuses At a time when Congress claims there isn’t even the money to fund an emergency federal response to the outbreak of the Zika virus in the United states, the top 20 Wall Street firms claimed over $725 million in tax benefits since 2012—enough to fund about 70 percent of the Zika package that failed in the Senate earlier this summer. Brooks criticizes Donald Trump for running on identity politics Human beings are too complicated to be defined by skin color, income or citizenship status. Those who try to reduce politics to these identities do real violence to national life. Where was this condemnation of identity politics thirty years ago, one wonders? Presidential debate moderators announced : 1) Lester Holt 2) Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper and 3) Chris Wallace. All in all, a very milquetoast lineup for Donald Trump. U.S. employers added a modest 151,000 jobs in August; jobless rate remains the same : Not terrible, not great. Both parties can spin this data in self-serving ways. Tweet of the day:

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