Weekend Digest: After A Roiling Week, Where Do We Begin?

It was a roiling week of news from controversies regarding the Confederate flag to Supreme Court rulings on health care and same-sex marriage. We round up this news and more in our Weekend Digest.

TV PREVIEW: THE SUPREMES
This week on Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9 a.m. on KATV Channel 7:

The Supreme Court makes major rulings this week. How will their decision on health care impact the marketplace in Arkansas and the state’s efforts towards reform? Former Attorney General Dustin McDaniel weighs in with his thoughts.

Plus, our political roundtable includes KATV’s Janelle Lilley, Sen. David Sanders, and Health Insurance Marketplace director Cheryl Smith. What happens next? We’ll explore.

The Supremes also issue an opinion on same-sex marriage. We’ll break down the opinion and what might happen next.

In the business arena, Internet advertising is exploding and for one Arkansas-based company – it’s generating millions in revenue. Inuvo CEO Rich Howe joins me for a one-on-one. And we’ll dive into the latest employment statistics to look at what’s really happening on the jobs front.

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics Sunday at 9 a.m. on KATV Channel 7.

THE NEW SOUTH AND THE CONFEDERATE FLAG
Forbes reports, “The debate over the flag may be framed in history and racism, but it is running smack into those states’ economic realities.”

States like South Carolina and now Alabama.

Two big things happened in Alabama on Wednesday. Gov. Robert Bentley announced that Google will build a $600 million data center in Stevenson, in the northeast part of the state.

The governor also issued an executive order removing Confederate flags from the state Capitol grounds in Montgomery.

Asked later if he had ordered the stealth action, Bentley replied, “Yes, I did,” and explained that it was partly in response to the murders of nine people in Charleston, S.C. last week.

“But Bentley’s response, as reported by AL.com, also framed the situation that he, and other Southern governors, face as their states carve out new futures. The debate over the flag may be framed in history and racism, but it is running smack into those states’ economic realities.”

What are those realities?

Go to this link for the full story.

THE TICKET TO BECOMING A CEO
Could it be becoming an intern? That would mean working for a company for an entire career. For some, that’s exactly how they rose to the top.

On July 1 Dennis A. Muilenburg, 51, will take over as CEO of $91 billion (revenues) aerospace giant Boeing Co. An aeronautical engineer, he started at Boeing 30 years ago as an intern. After climbing up the corporate ladder and heading the defense and space businesses, he has served as chief operating officer and president since 2013, and was widely seen as the heir apparent.

At a time when few people think of working for the same company for their entire career, Muilenburg’s elevation to the top job at Boeing shows that company loyalty can still pay off.

Find out how the same route has paid off for other CEOs at this link.

THE U.S. CITIES WHERE CREATIVE JOBS ARE THRIVING
It’s the designers, actors, and artists that make cities interesting. The rest of us just take advantage. Fast Company shows us where those jobs are growing the fastest.

A BIG BAND GETS A BIG PLAN
Harvard Business Review explores how musicians make money today. Album sales are down 14%, single downloads are down 11%, and only the streaming services are up, 28%. Technology has forced music artists to completely rethink the way they approach their businesses.

The most successful artists in this new landscape have begun to look at new business models and new industries to strengthen their existing brands. They’re extending their brand into areas like technology, gaming, fashion, and lifestyle content — essentially becoming entertainment platforms.

Find out here how one huge band looking for a new business model teamed up with Harvard Business School for a strategy collaboration.

THE WHITE HOUSE BRIEFLY CELEBRATES OBAMACARE RULING
Real Clear Politics examines the Obamacare ruling from the Supreme Court this week through the lens of the White House, where political victories and failures come and go. There’s no rest for a President as the work is never done and another issue will quickly rise to urgency.

In every White House, there are emotional moments of exultation triggered by achievement, victory or risks rewarded. The joy quickly ebbs, but when the high-five moments strike, they remind presidents why they wanted the job in the first place.

President Obama, Vice President Biden – and every Democrat who supported the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act five years ago – experienced a mood-lifting moment Thursday when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Congress intended to help consumers afford the costs of private health insurance, no matter where they happen to live.

Read more at this link.

2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES REACT TO GAY MARRIAGE RULING
National Journal rounds up responses and reactions from the myriad candidates running for U.S. President in 2016.

From Hillary Clinton to Carly Fiorina, from Mike Huckabee to Donald Trump (whose tweet had a big error in it), and everyone else, click here to read their tweets and statements.

HOW TO REFORM FEDERAL FUNDING OF HIGHWAYS
The Hill reports, “Government programs are well-nigh impossible to restrain or reform. The federal highway system is no exception.”

It began in 1956 to help facilitate transportation throughout the country, and the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) was set up to fund the highway system. The HTF was supposed to expire in 1972, and the states were supposed to take charge of funding maintenance of the highways in their jurisdictions. Inertia in Congress keeps HTF reform from happening, but there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

What is it? Click on this link for the full report.

WHY THE CHARLESTON MASSACRE WON’T MOVE CONGRESS ON GUNS
In fact POLITICO reports, “If anything, there’s less support in the Senate for expanded background checks than after Sandy Hook.”

Democrats and even the occasional Republican are calling on Congress to take up gun control measures again in the wake of the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina.

But in interviews Wednesday, key senators who back federal background checks to keep firearms out of the hands of felons and the mentally ill conceded there’s no easy way to force a debate — let alone a vote — in the GOP-controlled Senate.

And even if they could, there’s next to no chance background-check legislation could pass a much more conservative Senate than the one that spurned a legislative response to the Sandy Hook shootings two years ago, senators said.

And apparently there is no strategy working to push for the legislation.

For the complete story, follow this link.

GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA SHOWS HER POLITICAL UPSIDE
The Washington Post reports, “When Nikki Haley was elected governor of South Carolina in November 2010, every Republican I knew told me that she would be on every GOP presidential candidate’s VP short list in 2012 and could even be a potential frontrunner in her own right for the 2016 presidential nomination.

It didn’t work out that way.

Haley struggled through her first term – beset by poor relationships with her own party in the state legislature, a major hacking scandal involving the state’s revenue agency and a sputtering economy. Democrats even talked about her as vulnerable heading into her 2014 reelection race.

All of those dire predictions of unfulfilled political potential seemed a million miles away Monday when Haley announced that she was calling on the state legislature to remove the Confederate flag from the state Capitol grounds in the wake of the murders of nine people at a church in Charleston last week.

Haley, smartly, cast herself as an example of just how much the state has changed – describing herself as a “minority female governor elected and reelected” by voters of the state, a message affirmed by the cross-racial and cross-party group of politicians lined up behind her in support of her position. That forward-looking message delivered by that messenger – an Indian American woman with a Southern accent – is incredibly powerful for a party that badly needs non-white male voices in leadership roles.

For the full post, connect here.

STREET PHOTOGRAPHER DISCOVERY
One of the most important street photographers of the 20th century that nobody knew or even realized her work existed has been discovered.

Upshot says it all was revealed when a man bought 10,000 undeveloped negatives at an auction.

The photographer was a nanny and her name was Vivian Maier.

Imagine this: perhaps the most important street photographer of the twentieth century was a nanny who kept everything to herself. Nobody had ever seen her work and she was a complete unknown until the time of her death. For decades Vivian’s work hid in the shadows until decades later (in 2007), historical hobbyist John Maloof bought a box full of never developed negatives at a local auction for $380.

John began to develop the negatives and it didn’t take long before he realised that these were no ordinary street snapshots from the 50’s and 60’s — these pictures were a lot more than that.

Find out why and take a look at this link.

DON’T NEGLECT THE HUMANITIES
STEM skills are at the forefront of education now, but Harvard Business Review says we shouldn’t neglect the humanities.

Who doesn’t stand in awe of the advances that science and its STEM siblings (technology, engineering, and math) have created to better our world? But since the time of Aristotle, it has also been recognized that the hard sciences and the humanities must walk side by side in governing human action.

Aristotle’s philosophy is still sound today. But to the extent that we side with him, we must challenge our modern era’s overwhelming emphasis on the STEM disciplines as the keys to progress.

Yes, we will continue to welcome advances in computerization, robotics, communications, nanotechnologies, medicine, space exploration, and more — but to ensure these are in service of the good life, we must also advance our thinking in the humanities: philosophy, social affairs, and the arts. It is not either/or, but both.

Learn more here.

SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEW iPHONE
The rumors are swirling and the spies are snooping for clues on what has become one of America’s biggest anticipated announcements. What will the new iPhone look like?

We won’t spoil the surprise, but click here and we’ll let Fortune tell you.