LETTER

It’s Thursday. In headline news, President Trump continued his end-of-summer tour of the west by giving another speech in Reno, Nevada before the American Legion on the need for national unity after threatening to shutdown the government in an effort to urge Congress to approve funding for his border wall.
In other news, the Federal Trade Commission approved Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods; a federal judge in Texas threw out the state’s voter ID law for discriminating against minority voters; and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Rich Hill came up short of throwing a perfect game against the Pittsburgh Pirates after the team committed an error in the ninth inning and losing a no-hitter bid by surrendering a homerun to hitter Josh Harrison in the tenth.
As always, good luck on the day ahead and thanks for reading Wonks This Way.
Cheers,
The Wonks Team
Politics and Public Policy
- Bloomberg News analyzes Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s strategy for conducting the Trump–Russia collusion investigation, citing the parallels between the figures interviewed by investigators with law enforcement tactics for fighting organized crime.
- The Washington Post assesses the financial costs of the Afghanistan War, arguing that the proposed troop increase could cost as much as a $1 trillion and that expenditures for veteran health-care claims would go on for half a century.
- The Los Angeles Times examines the permanent campaign of the Trump presidency, analyzing how the president uses campaign rallies while in office to energize his political base and control the media narrative about his presidency.
Business, Science, and Health
- The New York Times writes about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, explaining how war and the destruction of the country’s weak economy and infrastructure has created the largest cholera epidemic since the outbreak in Haiti in 2010.
- NPR reports on the resurgence of France’s salt industry, noting the growing demand for sea salt harvested manually off the country’s coasts due to changing tastes and preferred methods for food preservation.
Sports and Culture
- Dom Consentino of Deadspin writes about the uselessness of the NFL preseason, chronicling the recent history of injuries and the alternatives previously considered by the league for reducing the number of preseason games.
- Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report evaluates Brock Osweiler’s place in the NFL, determining whether or not he’s worthy of a starting quarterback role after his swift decline from the Super Bowl-winning Denver Broncos.
- Chris Herring of FiveThirtyEight analyzes the Kyrie Irving–Isaiah Thomas trade and what benefits the Celtics and Cavaliers received by swapping point guards from both salary and roster standpoints.

