Must Read

• Corey Robin, Bile, Bullshit, and Bernie:  Sixteen notes from the presidential campaign
• Seth Ackerman, Meet the New Harry and Louise [Ed.:  See Health Care below for related material.]
• Steve Hendricks, Hillary Clinton and the Northern Strategy
• Robert Reich, The Most Pragmatic Way to Fix Democracy

Should Read

• Glenn Greenwald, The Seven Stages of Establishment Backlash: Corbyn/Sanders Edition
• Robert Reich, The Volcanic Core Fueling the 2016 Election
• John Michael Greer, Donald Trump and the Politics of Resentment
• Robert Pollin, Note to Hillary: Clintonomics Was a Disaster for Most Americans
• Daniel Larison, Clinton’s “Non-Intervention” Pandering
• Walter Benn Michaels, Let Them Eat Diversity
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (NYT), One Way to Rebuild Our Institutions

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Must Read

• Andrew Price, Unbiased Streets [See Note 1 below]
• Julie Bosman, Monica Davey and Mitch Smith (NYT), As Water Problems Grew, Officials Belittled Complaints From Flint
• Dean Baker, Paul Krugman, Bernie Sanders and Medicare for All
• Dan Kervick, The Wailing of the Wonks [Ed.: See Note 2 below]

Should Read

• Robert Reich, Six Responses to Bernie’s Skeptics
• Sally Jacobs, As Vermont official, Sanders ‘got things done’
• Chris Dillow, Capitalism vs Markets
• Nathan Proctor, GE And The Rise — And Perils — Of Too Big To Tax [Ed.: background]
• Victor Tan Chen, All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
• Dave Johnson, Government Run Like A Business Led To Lead In Flint’s Water

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Must Read

• Charlie Pierce, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and the Many Faces of Populism
• Charles Marohn, Easy Choices
• Jim Lynch, Flint [Michigan water] crisis response delayed for months [The officials who knew about the lead contamination and did nothing should spend the rest of their natural lives in prison.]

Should Read

• Eli Rabett, Questions, Bunnies Got Questions
• Rich Yeselson, The Return of the 1920s
• Dean Baker (NYT), A Progressive Way to End Corporate Taxes [I love it!]
• Emily Ann Epstein on Roger May’s Looking at Appalachia
• Rachel Quednau, A Locally-Based Life

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Must Read

• Scott Beauchamp, The Military: An Alternative to the Brutalities of the Modern Economy
• Chris Dillow, On counter-advocacy
• Johnny Sanphillippo, Enough

Should Read

• Margot Sanger-Katz (NYT), Even Insured Can Face Crushing Medical Debt, Study Finds
• Janna Malamud Smith, The Importance Of Public Spaces In A Fractured World
• Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, Here’s what’s happening in 2016
  
• Erik Cameron, Preserving Disorder: On Being Held at Gunpoint by Chicago Police
• Tim Egan (NYT), Crackpots in Cowboy Hats, and in Congress
• driftglass, Conservative Farmers Despondent Over Bumper Crop of Conservatism

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Must Read

• Patricia Cohen (NYT), Over 50, Female and Jobless Even as Others Return to Work
• Noam Scheiber and Patricia Cohen (NYT), For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions [Ed.: Related viewing at Popehat]

Should Read

• Jared Bernstein, Yes, Virginia…there is an aggressive and highly successful anti-tax lobby
• Cathy O’Neil, We could use some tools of social control to use on police
• Tamar Haspel, 10 things we should do to fix our broken food system
• Eli Rabett, Post Normal Policy

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Must Read

• Doug Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home

Should Read

• Adam Grant (NYT), The One Question You Should Ask About Every New Job
• Dean Baker, An Aging Society Is No Problem When Wages Rise
• Mike the Mad Biologist, Letting Bygones-Be-Bygones? The Iraq War Debate
• Larry Diamond, What is America Fighting For?
• NY Times Editorial Board, A Fearful Congress Sits Out the War Against ISIS

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Must Read

• Joshua Baraban et al., Spectroscopic characterization of isomerization transition states [Ed.:  Not a scientist?  Just read the Abstract and the Editor’s Comment.  See also Note 1 below.]
• Chad Orzel, ‘The Scientific Method’ Is A Myth, Long Live The Scientific Method
• Paul Krugman (NYT), ‘The Big Short,’ Housing Bubbles and Retold Lies
• Yael T. Abouhalkah, Ugly jobs report exposes recent deceit of [Kansas] Gov. Sam Brownback  [Ed.:  This is what adherence to conservative ideology buys you at the state level.]

Should Read

• Martin Longman, Conservatives: Same As They Ever Were
• Adam Serwer, The Antidote to Trump
• Libby Nelson, Flint, Michigan, tried to save money on water. Now its children have lead poisoning.
• George Ellis and Joe Silk, Scientific method: Defend the integrity of physics [Ed.:  From last year but the debate continues.  There shouldn’t need to be a debate but it continues.]
• Paul Miller and Michael Boyle, In a Counterinsurgency Far, Far Away

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Must Read

• Peter Gleick, Everything Senator Ted Cruz said about climate change in this NPR interview was wrong.
• Justin Gillis (NYT), Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change
• Coral Davenport (NYT), Nations Reach Landmark Climate Accord in Paris

Should Read

• Seth Itzkan and Karl Thidemann, Dispatch From COP21: The Convenient Truth About Soil
• Suzanne Goldenberg, Bernie Sanders Calls for a Carbon Tax
• Zahra Hirji, Massachusetts Mulls an Economy-Wide Price on Carbon [Ed.:  related reading]
• Debra Parkhurst, Selectmen Support Bedford [MA] Energy Task Force Initiative
• U.S. Dept. of Energy, Community Choice Aggregation

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All things considered this was a pretty shitty week.  I’ve collected a ton of links to things which are pretty @#$%ing depressing.  At least they get me depressed.  Rather than share though I’m going to keep most of them to myself.  So just one “must read” this week – a bunch of phenomenal pictures from the other side of the solar system.

Must Read/Look

• NASA, New Horizons Returns First of the Best Images of Pluto

Should Read (if you need a buzzkill)

• Robert Kuttner, Quiet Desperation and American Fascism
• David Neiwert, Donald Trump May Not Be a Fascist, But He is Leading Us Merrily Down That Path
• David Graham, Obama’s Resigned Anger After San Bernardino
• Jonathan Masters, U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons
• Dave Johnson, How The Clinton and Sanders Infrastructure Plans Measure Up
• Nicholas Confessore (NYT), A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois [Ed.: Noted in last week based on a quick skim.  Definitely worth reading if you haven’t already.]

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Must Read

• Matt Taibbi, America Is Too Dumb for TV News
• The Onion, This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t [Ed.:  It’s a bad day when The Onion is providing prescient policy analysis rather than satire.]
• Lewis Lapham, Bombast Bursting in Air: The story, so far, of the 2016 election [Ed.: May require a Harper’s subscription]
• Mark Thoma, An Essential Part of Job Creation Policy Is Missing

Should Read/Listen

• John Cassidy, The Pfizer–Allergan Merger Is a Disgrace
• Mark Schmitt, Tax the (upper) middle class, please
• Justin Gillis (NYT), Paris Climate Talks Avoid Scientists’ Idea of ‘Carbon Budget’
• Adele Stan, Donald Trump: Evidence of Our Degeneracy
• Conor Friedersdorf, The Corrupt System That Killed Laquan McDonald
• On Point with Tom Ashbrook, Marilynne Robinson On Hope In A Time Of Fear
• Giles Tremlett, Mondragon: Spain’s giant co-operative where times are hard but few go bust

Continue reading →