By Reid Wilson @ TheHill.com, June 21

The number of non-Hispanic white people in the United States decreased for the first time in the nation’s history between 2015 and 2016, according to new figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The data show the nation’s white population is aging rapidly, as Americans delay their decision to have a family and as the flow of foreign immigrants from European countries ebbs. At the same time, minority populations are growing much faster, hastening a demographic shift that has been decades in the making [....]

By Erica Pandey @ Axios.com, June 20

The rise of automation is hurting middle-skills jobs — those that require some training beyond a high school degree but not a bachelor's degree.

By Erica Warner @ WashingtonPost.com, June 20 (right now this is the # 1 most popular story in their Business section)

The Senate on Wednesday rejected billions in spending cuts proposed by the Trump administration as two Republicans joined all Democrats in voting no.

American Airlines Asks Government Not to Use Its Flights to Carry Immigrant Children

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), announced early Wednesday that he is leaving the Republican Party, which he decried as “fully the party of Trump” and “a danger to our democracy and values.”

In early-morning tweets, Schmidt, a vocal Trump critic, urged voters to elect Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections and harshly criticized the administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S. border, describing the government-run detention centers as “internment camps for babies.”

Perry Bacon Jr at 538 will have a weekly column addressing identity and politics. The column will focus on how identity issues are impacting a political. Bacon realizes that. Some issues will be incendiary. He also notes that identity issues can sometimes lead to contradictory results. I’m happy happy to see a trusted source making an attempt to describe identity issues. Some want to pretend that tribes are going to go away. Tribes are always seen as something minorities push. I am reminded that after Trump was elected, Obama wondered if whites wanted to stay in their tribes. Hopefully the new column will teach us all something about our political situation.