Obama, Facebook, and Nicki

Good morning,

No those three don't really have much to do with each other...except that I found them to be the subject of several pieces I read this morning.

Thought I would share here.

Presidents often turn more moderate to make gains in their final years. Think of Bill Clinton's 1997 budget deal, or George W. Bush's 2007 (failed) immigration reform effort, or Ronald Reagan's 1986 tax reforms. Second terms can feel like new presidencies. 

President Obama's increasingly successful second term has been the exception to that rule. It's been a concentrated, and arguably jaded, version of his first term. The candidate who was elected to bring the country together has found he can get more done if he acts alone — and if he lets Congress do the same. 

The unexpected and ingenious strategy of Obama's second term, Ezra Klein, 7/21/15, Vox

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

What do you call a multimillion-dollar, for-profit company that’s run in large part by unpaid or underpaid grunt laborers? A century ago, you might’ve dubbed it robber-barony or sharecropping — if not, you know, outright slavery. 

In 2015, though, we call it the social Web: a glorious dystopia where everybody works for likes — as in, “for free” — while a handful of tech tycoons profit. 

You don’t know it, but you’re working for Facebook. For free., Caitlin Dewey, 7/22/15, Washington Post

Rex/Shutterstock/Guardian montage

“If I was a different ‘kind’ of artist, Anaconda would be nominated for best choreo and vid of the year”. And there, in a single tweet on Tuesday, rapper Nicki Minaj kicked off a conversation about race, feminism, and the music industry that might have been ignored had it not been derailed by the planet’s biggest pop star, Taylor Swift. 

The Nicki Minaj debate is bigger than Taylor Swift's ego, Nosheen Iqbal, 7/22/15, The Guardian

Anyway, that's it for this morning. Curious what you might think about any of these. Share your thoughts in the comments,

JR aka Nexus