Must Read

• James Fallows, How America Is Putting Itself Back Together
• Scott Lemieux, Justice Scalia’s legacy: blistering zingers and a more partisan America
• Jedediah Purdy, Dismissing Sanders: Democratic Condescension and the Mythic Political Grown-up
• Dan Froomkin, Henry Kissinger’s War Crimes Are Central to the Divide Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

Should Read

• Daniel Larison, A “No-Fly Zone” in Syria Is Still Insane
• Philip Giraldi, The Pentagon Fights Back
• Matt Taibbi, The Vampire Squid Tells Us How to Vote
• Demos, Voter Turnout By Income, 2008 US Presidential Election
• Charles Marohn, A Simple Idea for Flint
• Jeff Tollefson, Forests Not Equal When It Comes to Climate

Politics

• driftglass, What Is The Sound Of 10,000 No Labels Idiots Masturbating
• Gracy Olmstead, What Babbitt Says About 2016 [Ed.:  I don’t think the author quite sees the forest for the trees but worth reading.]
• Daniel Larison, Foreign Policy and the Democratic Debate
• driftglass, The New Adventures of Old Pristine
• Dean Baker, Krugman on Bernie Sanders’ Electability
• Andrew Gelman, What difference would it make if everybody voted? Leighley and Nagler disagree with Wolfinger [Ed.:  From 2007.  Still relevant.]
• Rich Yeselson, Why is “Laborism” an increasing influence within the Democratic Party even though union density continues to decline?
• Steve Eder and Dave Phillips (NYT), Faith in Agency Clouded Bernie Sanders’s V.A. Response [Ed.: “Bernie initially came out like this was a Republican attack and was extremely defensive about it… But he is no dummy.  He quickly realized the V.A. was lying, and he turned right around and was all over them.”]
• Michelle Goldberg, Hard Choices: I used to hate Hillary. Now I’m voting for her.
• Gaius Publius, A Non-Neoliberal Woman President Is Not One of the Choices
• Dan Kervick, The Clinton Campaign’s “Single Issue” Meme Flop
• David Cay Johnston, You agree with Bernie Sanders (but you might not know it)
• Matthew Yglesias, Bernie Sanders is the future of the Democratic Party

Economics

• Dean Baker, Will Sanders’ Financial Transaction Tax be a Free Lunch for Those Who Don’t Live on Wall Street?
• Paul Krugman (NYT), Bonds on the Run
• Landon Thomas Jr. (NYT), Swedish Bank Move Creates a Global Shudder
• Mike the Mad Biologist, Welfare Reform Reality: The Mississippi Delta Edition
• John Glionna, Too poor to retire and too young to die
• Jessica Bruder, The End of Retirement: When you can’t afford to stop working [Ed.:  Related video here]
• Abrahm Lustgarten and ProPublica, A Free-Market Plan to Save the American West From Drought

Education

• Chris Dillow, On Recommended Reading
• John Schwartz (NYT), Science Teachers’ Grasp of Climate Change Is Found Lacking
• Suzanne Goldenberg, Two-thirds of US students are taught climate change badly, study finds
• Cathy O’Neil, The Mount St. Mary’s story is just so terrible

Science

• Jesse Singal, How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired
• Cody Sullivan, The Forgotten Water Vapor at High Altitudes
• Jennifer Chu, Scientists make first direct detection of gravitational waves

Philosophy

• C.J. Polychroniou, Why I Choose Optimism Over Despair: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

Ending on a Positive Note (Valentine’s Day!)