Must Read

• Robert Reich, How the Peoples Party Prevailed in 2020 [See Note 1 below]
• Charlie Pierce, There Is a War on Voting in the World’s Greatest Democracy (Ours) [Related reading]
• Lance Selfa, The Same Bosses
• Mike the Mad Biologist, We Are A Chickensh-t Nation [Related reading]

Should Read

• Cathy O’Neil, Flint Water Advisory Task Force Report
• Fernanda Santos (NYT), Angry Arizona Voters Demand: Why Such Long Lines at Polling Sites?
• Charles Marohn, Understanding Growth, Part 5
• Domenico Montanaro, A Timeline Of Hillary Clinton’s Evolution On Trade
• Sen. John McCain (NYT), Salute to a Communist
• Philip Jenkins, Recognize the Islamic State [See Note 2 below]
• Alan Jacobs, Naming the Dead

Laws Are For Little People

• Asher Schechter, “The United States Has Lost the Will and Ability to Prosecute Top Corporate Executives”
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rigged Justice 2016: How Weak Enforcement Lets Corporate Offenders Off Easy
• Matt Taibbi, A Rare Look at Why the Government Won’t Fight Wall Street
• Matt Taibbi, New SEC Chief Mary Jo White Thinks the Government Should Bring Cases – ‘To A Point
• Matt Taibbi, Goldman Non-Prosecution: AG Eric Holder Has No Balls
• Matt Taibbi, Justice Department’s New Get-Tough Policy Is, Well, Not
• Matt Taibbi, Jamie Dimon’s Raise Proves U.S. Regulatory Strategy is a Joke
• Matt Taibbi, Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes in From the Cold

Economics

• Dani Rodrik interviewed by Henry Farrell, Here’s why economists should be more humble, even when they have great ideas
• Mark Buchanan, Economic growth — vastly slower than we thought (maybe)
• Jared Bernstein, Rebalancing factor shares: Another (great) source of non-inflationary wage growth
• Josh Bivens, Mission still not accomplished:  To reach full employment we need to move fiscal policy from austerity to stimulus
• Peter Dorman, The Lesson of Carrier: America Needs a Real Socialist Agenda [Ed.: Complementary to Marohn’s piece linked to above.]

Drugs

• Katharine Seelye (NYT), Heroin Epidemic Is Yielding to a Deadlier Cousin: Fentanyl
• Katie Lannan, Mass. Hospitals Seeing Surge In Heroin-Related Visits
• Deborah Becker, As Mass. Grapples With Opioid Crisis, More Babies Are Being Born Exposed To Drugs

Ted Cruz

• Jim Schutze, Letter from Texas: Listen America, Trump Is Just Embarrassing. Cruz Is Scary.
• Paul Krugman (NYT), Crazy About Money
• Daniel Larison, Cruz’s Reckless Unilateralism on Foreign Policy

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 2016

• The Last Refuge, *Updated* – The National Enquirer Runs Story of Multiple Ted Cruz Affairs…

Cuba (seriously)

[Great movie.  Watch it for Lee’s barnstorming trip to Cuba with his old timers team if for nothing else.  Oh, and a bonus video.  Spectacular.]

Foreign Policy

• Daniel Larison, Non-Interventionists Don’t Want an ‘Aggressive U.S. Posture in the World’
• Daniel Larison, The Cult of ‘Credibility’ Revisited

Politics

• Robert Reich, Paul Ryan’s 7 Terrible Ideas
• Ari Rabin-Havt, Why Is the CBO Concocting a Phony Debt Crisis?
• The Mahablog, The White Man Burden
• Clare Foran, An Impossible Choice Between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
• David Broder [Ed.: Not the dead one], The Antifascism of Fools: Supporting centrist forces is the wrong way to keep the Right out of power.
• Corey Robin, Historically, liberals and the Left have underestimated the Right. Today, they overestimate it.
• Corey Robin, We’re Still in Nixonland: The silent majority opposes Donald Trump — and nineteen other theses on American politics today.
• Amy Chozick (NYT), Bernie Sanders Seizes 3 States, Sweeping Democratic Contests
• Harold Meyerson, The Long March of Bernie’s Army: Where it came from; where it’s headed.

Science

• Kenneth Chang (NYT), What We’ve Learned About Pluto
• Rebecca Boyle, Exploring the Oceans of the Outer Solar System: A new generation of probes will look for signs of life in the liquid plumes that shoot out from Jupiter and Saturn’s moons.
• NASA Earth Observatory, Seeing Equinoxes and Solstices from Space
• Justin Gillis (NYT), Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries
• Chad Orzel, Physics Will Never Be Over

Ending on a Positive Note

• Ben Sisario (NYT), ‘Ramones’: The Story Behind a Debut Album From Punk Pioneers

Notes:

1. Reich’s scenario is my fantasy of how things play out in 2020.  Heck, I have a variation on that fantasy which results in Sanders getting elected this year.   The challenge is that while the groups Reich calls out have well-aligned economic interests their social attitudes are not.  I think that’s a tough nut to crack.
2. Unfortunately, Jenkins boots the last paragraph, where the answer to his question is “We can’t because it would be a war crime.”  Up until then though he has some very legitimate points.  Inciting violence is not free speech.  Seditious conspiracy is not free speech.   Such behavior should be dealt with swiftly and severely.  (Another problem with his last paragraph, Russia isn’t the least bit about targeting civilian populations in conflict areas.  Commenters point out some bigger picture problems too but, overall, the piece is worth reading.)