The late-breaking news is all about the Kavanaugh nomination: The woman who accused him of sexual assault (when he was 17 and she was 15) has come forward, so it’s not an anonymous accusation any more. Two Republican senators, including one on the Judiciary Committee, say the committee shouldn’t vote on the nomination until they investigate this charge.
As I’ve often said, the Weekly Sift doesn’t do breaking news; I’m not going to try to compete with CNN. Sometime in the next day or two we should find out whether or not the Judiciary Committee is going to try to ram a vote through on Thursday, as originally planned. Watch your usual breaking-news sources.
Instead, my featured article this week summarizes a few of the more insightful ten-years-after articles about the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank, which sparked the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession. If you just look at the nationwide statistics, that financial crisis seems to be comfortably in the rear-view mirror: It was bad, but it’s over, and things are better than ever now.
But the reality is more complicated. The pre-collapse economy didn’t recover, exactly. It changed, and in many ways became even more unequal than it was before. The soaring stock market and low unemployment form one part of the story, but soaring student debt and the increasingly untenable situation of the working poor are another part. “10 Years After: the Post-Recovery Economy” should be out between 10 and 11 EDT.
The weekly summary has the Kavanaugh nomination to cover, plus Hurricane Florence (and the echoes of last year’s Maria), Paul Manafort flipping, and a few other things. It should be out between noon and 1.
The Weekly Sift 