memeorandum: Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer (Tim Wu/New Yorker)

4:50 PM ET, December 27, 2014

Top Items:

Police outside cop funeral turn backs on NY mayor — Associated Press 16 mins ago — NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of officers outside the church where a funeral was held for a policeman killed along with his partner in an ambush shooting turned their backs on the mayor as he spoke during Saturday's service.

Discussion: CANNONFIRE, Gothamist, Scared Monkeys, The Other McCain and Slantpoint

Karoli / Latest from Crooks and Liars:

Hundreds Of NYPD Officers Turn Backs To Bill DeBlasio At Officer's Funeral — Protesting at a funeral? What's next, the New York version of Hillsboro Baptist Church? — You remember that time that Mayor de Blasio asked the protesters standing for Eric Garner and Mike Brown to stand …

Discussion: CBS New York and Mediaite

New York Post:

Cops turn backs on de Blasio at executed officer's funeral — Law enforcement officers turn their backs on a video monitor as Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during the funeral of slain NYPD officer Rafael Ramos. — As Mayor Bill de Blasio took the podium Saturday at the funeral of P.O. Rafael Ramos …

Discussion: ThinkProgress and Washington Post

Mireya Navarro / New York Times:

Mourners From All Corners of New York City Pay Tribute to a Slain Officer — At Christ Tabernacle, a megachurch in the Glendale neighborhood of Queens with thousands of members, Officer Rafael Ramos was remembered by those who gathered at his wake on Friday in many ways, and for many reasons.

Discussion: BREITBART.COM, New York Post, TPNN, RedState, New York Magazine, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, NPR, Hot Air, USA Today, Washington Post and DNAinfo New York

John Cardillo:
BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: NYPD COPS CALL OUT MAYOR BILL DeBLASIO ON HIS “INCENDIARY RHETORIC.”

Discussion: TPNN, CBS New York, Gothamist, New York's PIX11, NY Daily News, Mediaite, Gawker and Booman Tribune

Skschust / CBS New York:
Mourners Gather For Wake Of Fallen NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos

Discussion: Gothamist, CBS Boston, CBS Los Angeles, New York Times, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Mashable

Tim Wu / New Yorker:

Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer — This fall, JetBlue airline finally threw in the towel. For years, the company was among the last holdouts in the face of an industry trend toward smaller seats, higher fees, and other forms of unpleasantness. JetBlue distinguished itself by providing decent …

Discussion: View from the Wing, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Outside the Beltway

ABC News:

Jesse Jackson Admits Affair, Illegitimate Child — Moving to pre-empt a tabloid newspaper report, the Rev. Jesse Jackson this morning released a statement admitting he had an extramarital affair that resulted in a daughter who is now 20 months old. — “This is no time for evasions …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Jamie Schram / New York Post:

Pakistani officials furious over ‘Homeland’ — Mandy Patinkin plays former CIA honcho Saul Berenson during a tight spot of season four of “Homeland.” — Claire Danes is lucky no Emmy voters live in Islamabad. — Pakistani officials are furious with Showtime after watching the fourth season …

Discussion: RT and TMZ.com

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

The immigration strike team — Democrats are already plotting ways to boost Hispanic voter turnout in 2016. — After a midterm election in which declining Hispanic turnout cost Democrats dearly in close races, causing some leaders to question whether President Barack Obama made a mistake …

Discussion: US News

History.com:

FDR seizes control of Montgomery Ward … On this day in 1944, as World War II dragged on, President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders his secretary of war to seize properties belonging to the Montgomery Ward company because the company refused to comply with a labor agreement.

Discussion: New York Times

David Beckworth / Macro and Other Market Musings:

Follow-Up to the Fed's Dirty Little Secret — My last post made the argument that monetary base injections at the zero lower bound (ZLB) can be effective if they are permanent. I also noted that this understanding is a standard view in macroeconomics and that it implies the Fed's QE programs …

Discussion: New York Times

Lucy McCalmont / Politico:

Polls: Obama ending the year with improving approval ratings — President Barack Obama is ending the year, and his sixth year in office, on a high note — even performing better than his predecessor. — A recent Gallup poll shows Obama with a 43 percent December approval rating at the end of his sixth year in office.

Discussion: Addicting Info, The Huffington Post and PoliticusUSA

Jonah Goldberg / Townhall.com:

Dear GOP: Show, Don't Tell — Hey, Jeb, Ted, Rand, Marco, Bobby, Chris and the dozen or more others I'm forgetting, here's something to write on your bathroom mirror in 2015 and beyond: The “P” in POTUS stands for “President,” not “Pundit.” — I understand that the Seinfeldian faux-holiday Festivus …