{"id":641,"date":"2018-02-04T03:59:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T03:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/?p=641"},"modified":"2018-02-04T03:59:46","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T03:59:46","slug":"saturday-6-pack-february-3-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/?p=641","title":{"rendered":"SATURDAY 6-PACK: February 3, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A weekly listing of articles, audio clips, and other tidbits I\u2019ve encountered that seemed interesting, insightful, or otherwise useful \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This week’s major event was the State of the Union address, that (nearly) annual exercise in recapping and previewing the President’s agenda.\u00a0 Coming at the end of the current occupant\u2019s first year in the Oval Office, a re-cap of the year that has preceded the address would be in order.<\/div>\n
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First up, a two-fer, two recaps of the first year of the current\u00a0 … uh … administration<\/em> doesn’t seem like quite the right word.\u00a0 But whatever you call it, these perspectives are worth considering:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/analysis-shutdown-dynamics-highlight-the-state-of-politics-on-trump%e2%80%99s-anniversary\/ar-AAuWoTS?li=BBnb7Kz<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0—————————————————————————–<\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/opinion\/opn-columns-blogs\/leonard-pitts-jr\/article195679389.html<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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Second, on the morning of the speech, Mara Liasson of NPR offered this frank and succinct assessment of the State of Politics in our (sort-of) Union:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/01\/30\/581778754\/examining-the-state-of-the-nations-politics<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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Third, there\u2019s the speech itself \u2026 The current occupant is not known for great rhetorical style when left to his own methods.\u00a0 However, his speechwriter(s) saw fit to string together familiar, patriotic tropes that are common in a number of these speeches, which was a pleasant change from the \u201cAmerican Carnage\u201d inaugural address (even if it made much of the State of the Union speech clich\u00e9d and almost meaningless).\u00a0 These were woven with heart-warming\u00a0 vignettes about specific Americans (and one Korean), each of whom did something heroic on scales both small and great.\u00a0 So far, so good.\u00a0 But the current occupant is\u00a0 well-known to be less than a close acquaintance with the truth.\u00a0 Because his voice acts on my nerves much like fingernails on a blackboard, and because his speaking (scripted or off the cuff) is peppered with so many inaccuracies, distortions and flat-out lies, I prefer to read the transcripts.\u00a0 This annotated one is particularly helpful:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/01\/30\/580378279\/trumps-state-of-the-union-address-annotated<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Fourth, the current occupant has made much of what happened in the stock market this past year as proof his policies are succeeding.\u00a0 Of course, he will likely find someone (or something) else to blame for Friday\u2019s<\/span><\/span> significant drop.\u00a0 But as the Clinton campaign famously put it in 1992, oftentimes \u201cIt [is] the economy, stupid.\u201d\u00a0 Time will tell more certainly than the State of the Union Address what, if any, impact the economic policies described in the speech actually had on the economy.\u00a0 But here is much to think about and consider as we wait and see: five economists discuss America\u2019s economic outlook.\u00a0 None of them are boring to listen to.\u00a0 Only one of the five is strongly committed to a particular political mindset (Stephen Moore, former econ advisor to the current occupant of the Oval Office and one of the architects of the recent changes in the tax code); the other four represent a variety of perspectives and can consider multiple angles:<\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.mprnews.org\/story\/2018\/01\/24\/iq2_debate_on_economic_boom<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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If the State of the Union Address dominated the first part of the week, the Nunez memo has dominated the most recent days.\u00a0 Item Five: what is in the memo?\u00a0 It\u2019s been often described as an exercise in cherry-picking — but as at least one observer has noted, to call it that could be an insult to cherries.\u00a0 Here is the full text of the memo along with the letter from White House counsel Don McGahn authorizing its release.\u00a0 This annotated version fills in details that are well-known and yet have been omitted from the memo; the notes also point out underlying details that are not known at this time.<\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/02\/02\/582828461\/fact-check-read-the-gop-memo-released-by-house-intelligence-committee<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u00a0===========================================<\/div>\n
And finally, what next?\u00a0 Here\u2019s another two-fer: both a pre-release and a post-release assessment on the memo and its likely impact<\/div>\n
Before \u2026.<\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/the-9-biggest-questions-about-the-nunes-memo-answered\/ar-BBIyVEO?li=BBnb7Kz<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
After \u2026<\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/opinion\/the-nunes-memo-doesnt-matter-heres-what-does\/ar-BBICw2T?li=BBnbcA1<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A weekly listing of articles, audio clips, and other tidbits I\u2019ve encountered that seemed interesting, insightful, or otherwise useful \u2026   This week’s major event was the State of the Union address, that (nearly) annual exercise in recapping and previewing the President’s agenda.\u00a0 Coming at the end of the current …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}