Must Read

• Jared Bernstein, Real weekly earnings are up.  Here’s why. 
• William K. Black, The Study that Foreshadowed the Three Fraud Epidemics that Drove the [Economic] Crisis [of 2008]
• Christopher Ketcham, The Great Republican Land Heist:  Cliven Bundy and the politicians who are plundering the West  [Ed.:  Harper’s subscription required.  Worth the investment if you don’t have one.]
• Wayne Barrett, What Rudy Giuliani knows about love

Should Read/Watch

• Jennifer Francis, A melting Arctic and weird weather:  The plot thickens
• FrontLine (w/ Dr. Atul Gawande), Being Mortal
• Matt Taibbi, A Whistleblower’s Horror Story  [Ed.:  MT makes a couple provocative statements in his intro paragraphs which aren’t germane to the rest of the story.  Don’t let those be a distraction.]
• Larry Mishel, Failed Theory Posed by Wall Street Dems Puts Hillary Clinton in a Bind
• Teresa Tritch (NYT), When Consumers Don’t Spend
• Amy Dean, A Bigger Tent:  Can Richard Trumka Save the Labor Movement?

Labor

• Ross Eisenbrey, An Open Letter to Sec. of Labor Tom Perez  [Ed.:  Urges investigation of H-1B visa abuse.]
• Dean Baker, Bad News In China:  Blue Collar Wages Are Soaring
• Paul Jaskunas (NYT), The Tyranny of the Forced Smile
• Robert Charette, Exposing the Roots of the Perpetual “STEM Crisis”

Environment

• Katie Valentine, Judge Halts TransCanada’s Use Of Eminent Domain On Nebraskans For Keystone Pipeline
• Jonathan Amos, ‘Next Pinatubo’ a test of geoengineering
• Eli Rabett, Black Swans, Black Cats
• Emily Atkin, Forget Vaccines: If You’re Really Concerned About Autism, Become An Environmentalist
• Joe Romm, Bill Gates Is Still Wrong On Climate Change, It Will Undo His Foundation’s Work
• Simon Romero (NYT), Taps Start to Run Dry in Brazil’s Largest City:  São Paulo Water Crisis Linked to Growth, Pollution and Deforestation

Charlie Baker and the MBTA

• Simon Waxman, Amid The T’s Crisis, Gov. Baker Is Showing His Management Style. It’s Not Pretty.
• Charlie Pierce, Charlie on the MTA:  Governor Baker and His Snow Job
• Peter Dimond, Baker helped put T on this troubled track during Weld years
• Michael Rezendes and Noah Bierman, Baker’s role in Big Dig financing process was anything but ‘small’
• Asma Khalid, WBUR Poll: Bostonians Believe Fixing MBTA Should Be A ‘Major Priority’ For Gov. Baker

Economics

• Marc Bain, Cheap US gas means an extra $50 billion to spend on sweatpants and Oreos
• Conor Dougherty (NYT), Hoping Google’s Lab Is a Rainmaker
• Mike Konczal, The One Where Larry Summers Demolished the Robots and Skills Arguments

Politics

• Kevin Drum, The Kansas Economy Sucks, So Let’s Do a Little Gay Bashing to Distract Everyone
• Dara Lind, The Department of Homeland Security is a total disaster. It’s time to abolish it.
• Jeff Hecht, Net Neutrality’s Technical Troubles

Foreign Affairs

• Nicole Perlroth and David Sanger (NYT), U.S. Embedded Spyware Overseas, Report Claims