Volume 2.19 (May 6-12)

Pick of the Week— Why Pay More? (Peter Singer, Project Syndicate)

Politics

Does immigration hurt support for the welfare state? (Dan Hopkins, Wonkblog)

How colleges are wooing the rich and sticking the poor with the bill (Dylan Mathews, Wonkblog)

The Gosnell case: Here’s what you need to know (Sarah Kliff, Wonkblog)

A new recipe for electoral reform (Trevor Potter and Bob Bauer, WaPo)

You’ve Got Sales Tax (Jeff Saginor, The American Prospect)

No, the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill Won’t Cost You $6.3 Trillion (Matthew Yglesias, Slate)

The Myth of Presidential Leadership (Norm Ornstein, National Journal)

Where have all the jobs gone? (Jared Bernstein, NYT)

Workers Claim Race Bias as Farms Rely on Immigrants (Ethan Bronner, NYT)

Start-Up Diplomacy (David Rohde, NYT)

Here’s How Conservatives Can Persuade Me They Care About Poor People’s Health (Matthew Yglesias, Slate)

How we broke the Senate without breaking any rules (Ezra Klein, Wonkblog)

Small donors may make politics event worse (Ezra Klein, Bloomberg View)

The Thin Red Line (Dexter Filkins, New Yorker)

Economy

Challenge to Dogma on Owning a Home (Floyd Norris, NYT)

How Low Can Part-Timers’ Hours Go? (Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect)

How oil travels around the world, in one map (Brad Plumer, Wonkblog)

How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment (Nancy DiTomaso, NYT)

One hospital charges $8,000 — another, $38,000 (Sarah Kliff, Dan Keating, Wonkblog)

Mormonism

Mormons and the Politics of Mother’s Day (Taylor Petrey, Peculiar People)

Traditional Mormon Sexual Purity Lesson Contributed to Captivity, Elizabeth Smart Tells University Audience (Joanna Brooks, Religion Dispatches) and Did Mormon Morality Teachings Really Make it Harder for Elizabeth Smart to Run? (Joanna Brooks, Religion Dispatches)

Mormonism and McDonald’s (Saskia T, Juvenile Instructor)

Women are the root of all evil (nat kelly, Feminist Mormon Housewives)

International

In China, Power is Arrogant (Yu Hua, NYT)

Culture

I’m still here: back online after a year without the Internet (Paul Miller, The Verge)

Schooling Richwine (Diego A. Von Vacano, The American Prospect)

How to Spot a Weak Argument (Daniel Dennett, Medium)– Surely, you need to read this.

The Best Little Boy in the World- That’s Me (Adam Chandler, NYT)

Psychiatry’s Guide is Out of Touch with Science, Experts Say (Pan Belluck, Benedict Carey, NYT)

Doctor Who? Doctor Jew (Liel Liebovitz, Tablet) with Andrew Sullivan’s take here.

I have tried to recover a sense of humanity…” (Kelly Baker, Religion in American History blog)– Beautiful take on empathy and “evil” religion

Not Church v. State but State v. Nation (Ray Haberski, U.S. Intellectual History blog)