Extra, Extra
This is Not a Drill: Trump says he might keep Exxon out of Venezuela after its CEO called it ‘uninvestable.’ But does Exxon (or any other oil company) really want to be in Venezuela right now? “Executives need to feel confident that a country won’t suddenly descend into civil unrest, military conflict, or armed revolution. But at the moment, nobody knows what the political situation will be in Venezuela a week from today, let alone in a year or a decade.” And there are more challenges, including the oil itself. “Current oil prices—about $60 a barrel—are historically low. And they are well below the roughly $80-a-barrel cost of extracting and refining Venezuelan oil—much of which is the kind of thick, low-quality petroleum (known within the industry as ‘heavy sour crude’) that requires extensive processing.” Big Oil Knows That Trump’s Venezuela Plans Are Delusional.
+ Marco Dependent: “By most standards, Rubio occupies a privileged post: his desk in the White House is just a few steps from the Oval Office. But it is not the position that he hoped to occupy. In 2016, Rubio ran for President and lost to Trump in the primary. He now serves his former opponent—an unstable leader who regularly traduces institutions that Rubio spent his career supporting. ‘Ultimately, he has to be a hundred per cent loyal to the President, and when the President zigs and zags Rubio has to zig and zag, too,’ a former Western diplomat told me. ‘He’s had to swallow a lot of shit.'” Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker: How Marco Rubio Went from ‘Little Marco’ to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler.
+ A Good Read: “Mississippi has gone from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013, to a top 10 state for fourth graders learning to read — even as test scores have fallen almost everywhere else.” NYT (Gift Article): How Mississippi Transformed Its Schools From Worst to Best (or at least, very improved.)
+ The White-ing Was on Wall: “Mr. Trump’s comments were a blunt distillation of his administration’s racial politics, which rest on the belief that white people have become the real victims of discrimination in America.” NYT: Trump Says Civil Rights Led to White People Being ‘Very Badly Treated.’
+ Protein Kills: It seems like it’s only a matter of time before we learn that protein is the silent killer. Such are the ebbs and flows of nutritional guidance. In the meantime, America Has Entered Late-Stage Protein. “In some ways, protein is just the latest all-consuming nutritional fixation. For decades, the goal was to avoid fat, which meant that pretzels were good and peanut butter was bad and fat-free Snackwell’s devil’s-food cookie cakes were a cultural phenomenon. Then Americans rediscovered fat and villainized carbs. But protein is different. Whatever your dreams are, protein seems to be the answer.” (It seems meaningful that this article was written by someone named Sugar…)
+ Playing in the Band: A few minutes after I learned of Bob Weir’s death, I heard the Grateful Dead blaring through the speakers in my corner grocery store. He was a national treasure and also a local legend. “A member of the Dead for its first three decades, and a keeper of the flame of the band’s legacy for three more, Weir helped to write a new chapter of American popular music that influenced countless other musicians and brought together an enormous and loyal audience.” Bob Weir, guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead, has died at 78. Once, when “asked if success had changed him, he said, ‘You know those pistachios that don’t have the little crack in them to get you started? I don’t bother with those anymore.'”
+ Around the Globes: One Battle After Another and Adolescence took home some of the top awards at the Golden Globes. Here are all the winners, the snubs and surprises, and Nikki Glaser’s opening monologue, wherein she mocked CBS News on CBS. “Yes, CBS News: America’s newest place to See BS news.” (That pun is a pretty clear indication that Nikki is a NextDraft reader…)
