Required reading from around the web of the best, most interesting, or most though provoking things we’ve read:
Lawler: Jobless claims hover near 50-year lows
“Thursday’s report was right in line with forecasters’ expectations for claims to rise slightly after hitting the lost levels since 1969 the week before. Even with the modest increase, average weekly claims have run near the lowest levels in a half century over the past month. Low claims are good sign. If few people are showing up at state unemployment agencies, it suggests that layoffs are rare and job creation is strong. The decades-low numbers of jobless claims in recent weeks have been among the most encouraging signs about the economy.”
Read more at the Washington Examiner.
Penn: Polling could be missing reality, again
“The biggest ‘fake news’ story of the last few years was that Donald Trump had almost no chance of being elected president. The entire pundit-polling-news establishment (including myself) was wrong, and the expectation was that these institutions would recalibrate their coverage to reflect a true picture of the country. They made an enormous miscalculation and they would, of course, make changes. Almost two years later, very little has changed in polling and analysis at major institutions and news media. If anything, the polling has drifted even further from reality when you look at the questions being asked and, more importantly, the questions not being asked. You don’t need polls to see the America you live in. You need polls to understand the part of America you don’t know, don’t see, and don’t understand.”
Mikelionis: Michael Cohen secretly recorded conversation with CNN’s Cuomo, telling him he paid Stormy ‘on my own’: report
“Cohen reportedly assured Cuomo that he was not taping their conversation, and put the phone in his desk drawer. The phone appears to record the whole conversation.”