News and updates

Here is a selection of articles we’ve read this week.

Politico Special Report – Does the white working class really vote against its own interests? In exchange for policies like the new tax bill, which several nonpartisan analyses conclude will lower taxes on the wealthy and raise them for the working class, did they really just settle for a wall that will likely never be built, a rebel yell for Confederate monuments most of them will never visit, and the hollow validation of a disappearing world in which white was up and brown and black were down? Read more from Politico.

Today’s College Students – Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republicans on Capitol Hill are advocating a fundamental rethink of higher education, pushing for more vocational programs and shorter pathways to credentials.  Today’s college students aren’t just 18-year-olds living in cramped dorm rooms on ivy-covered campuses. Rather, the men and women who attend college often work at least part-time to cover their tuition and living costs, enroll in schools they were guaranteed to get into and major in professionally focused degrees like business and nursing. Read more from the Wall Street Journal.

‘Sh*thole’ Heard Round the World – President Trump on Thursday balked at an immigration deal that would include protections for people from Haiti and some nations in Africa, demanding to know at a White House meeting why he should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” rather than from places like Norway, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation. Read more from the New York Times.

2018: Year of the Woman? – With the seating of Minnesota Democrat Sen. Tina Smith on Tuesday, Jan. 3, the 115th Congress is now able to claim 106 female members — the most of any Congress to date. Smith is the 51st woman to serve in the Senate since the first was appointed in 1922. There are currently 22 female senators serving, an all-time high for the chamber, and 84 women serving as voting representatives in the House (just one below the record of 85 set in 2015).  Read more from Roll Call.

VIDEO: The Week in Hits and Misses – Roll Call’s Congressional Hits and Misses is back! With both chambers on the Hill for the second session of the 115th Congress, hear lawmakers’ funny, bizarre and awkward moments of the week of Jan. 8, 2018. Check it out on Roll Call.

5 (White) Guys Burgers – Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi complained Thursday that immigration negotiations are being led by “five white guys” — and was quickly rebuked by her No. 2, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, himself one of those white guys involved in the talks. “The five white guys I call them, you know,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference. “Are they going to open a hamburger stand next or what?” Pelosi said, complaining that minority members of Congress were not involved in deciding the fate of Dreamers. Pelosi’s quip was a reference to the hamburger chain Five Guys and the five white men leading the immigration negotiations. Watch the press conference on Politico.