Are there sections devoted to the importance of clear thinking, common sense judgment, and humility?

(full disclosure, Jim is a law school classmate)  

By Jason Burke, Africa Correspondent @ TheGuardian.com, Jan. 19

Al-Qaida has been trying to win over extremists from Islamic State, while the Isis “caliphate” collapses amid heavy losses of men, material, territory and prestige. The recruitment campaign started last summer, even before Isis had lost its final strongholds, underlining the importance al-Qaida attach to winning over fighters and resources from its rivals.

One such effort was launched by al-Qaida militants in Algeria in August. Ten fighters who had been with the small Isis affiliate in the country switched allegiance after debates with Islamic scholars loyal to al-Qaida, local security sources reported. A second was launched in Syria in September.

In the Sahel region of north Africa, senior al-Qaida officials are believed to have reached out to the extremist commander whose men are thought to have ambushed and killed four US special forces in Niger in October.

Around the same time, a pro-al-Qaida news wire in Yemen boasted of the “repentance” of many Isis fighters [....]

The president has turned his focus to wider benefits of his tax overhaul after a campaign packed with pledges to keep jobs in the U.S.

By Meghan Cassella @ Politico.com, Jan. 18

[....] more than a year after the then-president-elect stood before a crowd of cheering workers and trumpeted a deal to save their jobs — and months after the company’s name faded from the headlines and the president himself moved on to other talking points — more than 1,500 once-employed residents are now out of work, Indiana union officials say. More than 200 Carrier employees clocked out of their final shift at the plant just last week. [....]

In the year since he took office, the president who once pledged to slap tariffs on trading partners and crack down on China has so far softened or abandoned — at least for now — many of his hard-line stances on trade. Trump has moved instead to cut the corporate tax rate and launch a deregulatory push, heralding a wave of announcements from other companies planning to invest and create new U.S. jobs. The president plans to tout those achievements during a visit Thursday to Pennsylvania.

But those plans offer no comfort for the Steel Valley workers at companies like Carrier that had counted on him to keep their jobs in Indiana [....]

Republicans search for lessons in Wisconsin special election upset.

By Elena Schneider @ Politico.com, Jan. 17

I didn't get around to reading on this until now. This piece is good enough to show what all the buzz is about. The district was basically Trump country in the last election, and is a very conservative area of Wisconsin, overall the types that helped elect Scott Walker and Paul Ryan in an idiosyncratic state overall. What happened, it's not being reflected in the presidential approval polls. All Dems have to do is run anyone halfways moderate in this type of area and they are winning way beyond Hillary's numbers in 2016. It surely does look like anti-Trump voting to me.

[....] the [Dem] party’s latest victory in a rural and suburban seat in western Wisconsin that backed Trump by 17 points, is unnerving Republicans from Madison to Washington.

“This special election hit the Wisconsin GOP like an electric shock,” said Charlie Sykes, a former conservative radio host in Wisconsin. “In particular, they’re very worried about women. They are losing women, suburban women, and if you extrapolate across the country, you have a real problem.” [....]

According to the liberal blog Daily Kos Elections, in 70 special elections in 2017 — both for Congress and state legislatures — Democrats did, on average, 10 points better than their 2016 presidential vote.

“No single special election alone is predictive of the midterms, but 34 state legislative seats that have flipped, on top of the margins in Virginia and the win in Alabama, show a pretty clear trend of voters just not being that into Republicans right now,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. "I wouldn’t want to be a Republican in a district that Trump won by less than 17 points.”

Schachtner’s win also sheds light on how Democratic challengers can make inroads in conservative-leaning seats: Don’t talk about Trump or Ryan.

“It wasn’t Trump or Paul Ryan’s race, it was District 10’s race,” Schachtner said. “I focused on western Wisconsin and western Wisconsin values.” [....]

of course note this cavaet: conservatives staying home

Schachtner, who was significantly outspent on TV and radio by her Republican opponent, won two of the four rural counties that compose the district. She also beat GOP state Rep. Adam Jarchow by 11 points in St. Croix County, a suburb that feeds the Twin Cities. St. Croix County backed Trump by 19 points last cycle.

“The most troubling sign is that we lost St. Croix County,” said Rohn Bishop, Fond du Lac County GOP chairman. “If we lose that county in November, we’ll get slaughtered statewide. We’re losing college-educated and suburban voters — while rural voters didn’t show up, which all is troubling to me.”

What I am thinking after seeing that is that in 2020, while anti-Trump swings are coming out now,  and will probably help Dems in 2018 while conservatives stay home disgusted, the latter might get off the couch to vote for like: a President Pence.

He might be the poster boy for free-market economics, but that distorts what Adam Smith really thought

By Paul Sagar (lecturer in political theory @ King's College, London) @ Aeon.co, Jan. 16

[....] Indeed, Smith’s single most famous idea – that of ‘the invisible hand’ as a metaphor for uncoordinated market allocation – was invoked in precisely the context of his blistering attack on the merchant elites. It is certainly true that Smith was skeptical of politicians’ attempts to interfere with, or bypass, basic market processes, in the vain hope of trying to do a better job of allocating resources than was achievable through allowing the market to do its work. But in the passage of The Wealth of Nations where he invoked the idea of the invisible hand, the immediate context was not simply that of state intervention in general, but of state intervention undertaken at the behest of merchant elites who were furthering their own interests at the expense of the public.

It is an irony of history that Smith’s most famous idea is now usually invoked as a defence of unregulated markets in the face of state interference, so as to protect the interests of private capitalists. For this is roughly the opposite of Smith’s original intention, which was to advocate for restrictions on what groups of merchants could do. When he argued that markets worked remarkably efficiently – because, although each individual ‘intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention’ – this was an appeal to free individuals from the constraints imposed upon them by the monopolies that the merchants had established, and were using state power to uphold. The invisible hand was originally invoked not to draw attention to the problem of state intervention, but of state capture.[....]

By Roxanne Roberts @ WashingtonPost.com, Jan. 17

Two former White House social secretaries wanted to write a bipartisan memoir about working in the executive mansion. Then came the 2016 election, and their message evolved into a guide to the importance of civility and respect in modern America.

[.....] Bernard and Lea Berman, both former White House social secretaries, are co-authors of the new book “Treating People Well: The Extraordinary Power of Civility at Work and in Life.” Bernard worked for Barack and Michelle Obama, Berman for George W. and Laura Bush, but their job was the same: Make every person who walked through the door feel welcomed, valued and comfortable.

Then came the bitter election of 2016, and what started out as a bipartisan memoir about working in the White House evolved into a guide to the importance of civility and respect in modern America.“Some people heap disrespect on anyone who dares oppose them, tap into anger and manipulate it for their own benefit, and don’t seem to see anything wrong with that,” they write. “If bad behavior is contagious — as many studies have shown it is — we’re in an epidemic.” [....]

Headline: DNC overhaul struggles as Sanders-Clinton rivalries persist

By Edward-Isaac Dovere @ Politico.com, Jan. 16

One year into Tom Perez’s project to save the Democratic National Committee from complete collapse, officials are beginning to dig out of the hole left by Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s mismanagement, Barack Obama’s indifference, Russian hacking and the bitter rivalry between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders capped by accusations of election rigging.

But going into a midterm election that should be the Democrats’ to lose, the DNC is still struggling to bring its factions together and assert itself. Throw into the mix powerful super PACs, the much-better-funded party committees focused on Congress and governors, and more independent voters than ever, and many wonder whether the DNC has a place at all anymore [....]

Link fixed.

By Rachel Roubein & Peter Sullivan @ TheHill.com, Jan. 15

A battle is brewing in the courts over the Trump administration's move to let states impose work requirements for recipients of Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor.

Advocacy groups are gearing up to sue the administration, arguing that it doesn’t have the power to allow work requirements and other rules for Medicaid without action from Congress. 

But the administration is defending the legality of the shift. When unveiling guidance Thursday on the work requirements, top Medicaid official Seema Verma said the administration has "broad authority” under current law to allow states to make changes through waivers [....]

She was pretty iconic for me for a couple years travelling around the world - a voice that always made you sit up and listen