Weekend Digest: The last stand for ‘Never Trump,’ rescue puppy, and secret room at Mt. Rushmore edition

TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7 in Central Arkansas and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

Conventional wisdom
The conventions are about to begin. Republicans in Cleveland, Democrats in Philadelphia. What to expect and how will the VP picks play out? Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin and former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker talk politics.

Highways and tourism
Highways and tourism. Two state leaders offer their thoughts on how to bridge Arkansas’ highway funding gap and how to build Arkansas’ off-road visitor count. Shannon Newton with the Arkansas Trucking Association and Parks and Tourism director Kane Webb are our guests.

Home sales
Arkansas’ home sales report shows the real estate market’s strength. We’ll go inside the numbers for a closer look. 

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics in Central Arkansas on KATV Channel 7, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.

WHAT DO THE ‘BEST COMPANIES’ DO?
Well they “aren’t afraid to replace their most profitable products,” says Harvard Business Review.

“For a long time, the Silicon Valley funding model has been hailed as a powerful alternative to the stifling way corporate America works. Many are betting on the new generation of technology firms to unsettle the old guard. Today the number of unicorns—startups that valued at $1 billion or greater—is staggering. Fortune counted more than 170 of the mythical creatures, with an average of one unicorn born every week during 2015. Back in 2009, there were just four companies that fit the bill.

Despite this surge, the reality is that disruption doesn’t always happen as quickly as people assume. More than 40% of the unicorns that went public since 2011 saw their valuation stay flat or dropped. Some observers have compared the situation to the dot-com bubble of the late ‘90s.”

Meanwhile, tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Facebook have continued to grow impressively, especially considering their large size. What is the secret that allows these incumbents to fend off the startups aiming to displace them?

The answer is deceptively simple: embracing self-cannibalization. Self-cannibalization occurs when a company chooses to proactively replace one product or process with another that is potentially worth less. Forward-looking incumbents recognize the need to cannibalize their own products, rather than leaving it to other startups, who are more than happy to take on the challenge.

HBR says it’s not an easy approach, “But there are four rules which can help managers of all walks of an organization instill the principle in their day-to-day work, in order to make self-cannibalization successful in the long run.”

Learn what they are at this link.

YOUTUBE PAYS BILLIONS, MUSIC INDUSTRY SAYS IT’S NOT ENOUGH
Fortune reports, “Record labels and rights-holders says the video streaming service should be forced to pay more.”

“YouTube often seems a bit like the allegory of the elephant and the blind men, each of whom describes a different part until it sounds like a menagerie of completely different animals. For some artists, the video service is a godsend-a way of reaching their fans and of generating revenue easily. For many users, it is a fun and efficient way to stream music. The music industry, however, sees it as legalized theft.”

Record labels and music distributors, along with some prominent musicians such as Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney, have been putting on a full-court press over the past few months to pus the latter viewpoint, arguing that YouTube and its parent Google (which in turn is owned by Alphabet) systematically undervalue music.

“According to these groups, YouTube happily looks the other way while people upload pirated versions of songs, makes it too difficult for artists and their representatives to remove them, and doesn’t pay enough even when it does share revenue with rights-holders.”

What tool does YouTube use for “safe harbor”? Find out at the full version of this story, by clicking here.

HOW PRIVATE EQUITY FOUND POWER AND PROFIT IN STATE CAPITOLS
The New York Times says, “Private equity firms have used sophisticated but indirect political maneuvering with state and local entities to smooth the way for growth and revenue.”

“Inside a cramped committee room on the cactus-dotted campus of Arizona’s Capitol, Kelsey Lundy stepped to the podium to detail new legislation and the higher costs it would impose on struggling borrowers. But Ms. Lundy is not a lawmaker, a government employee or even a statehouse intern.

“She is a lobbyist for one of the nation’s largest lenders.”

That lender – controlled by the Fortress Investment Group, one of Wall Street’s most powerful private equity firms – wrote the bill. Months later, in 2014, the state’s legislators passed the law, making it easier to charge interest of 36 percent to borrowers living on the financial margins.

“Since the 2008 financial crisis, Fortress and other private equity firms have rapidly expanded their influence, assuming a pervasive, if under-the-radar, role in daily American life, an investigation by The New York Times has found. Sophisticated political maneuvering – including winning government contracts, shaping public policy and deploying former public officials to press their case – is central to this growth.”

For more on this story, go to this link.

FUTURISTIC LOWLINE PARK COMING TO NEW YORK CITY
And get this, it will be underground. The world’s first underground park.

The Lowline is a project to build a green landscape in an abandoned subway under Manhattan. The plan would create a public space with natural vegetation – accomplished via sunlight piped in through high-tech tubes. As with any urban project, red tape has slowed development in recent years. But now, eight years after the idea was conceived, the city granted the land to the Lowline on Wednesday afternoon. The transfer is conditional on the Lowline meeting a series of goals over the next 12 months.

“The project is the brainchild of James Ramsey, a Yale-educated architect, designer, and former satellite engineer for NASA. He came up with the idea in 2008, when he first learned of an abandoned subway terminal under Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Ramsey recruited his friend Dan Barasch to be the community outreach and business brains, and together the two co-founded the Lowline, a non-profit organization with the goal of making the vision a reality.”

To read more about plans for the world’s most futuristic park, go here.

THE ONE-TERM PRESIDENCY OF TRUMP/CLINTON
“Not much about this toxic political moment – the demise of trust in government, rage at elites who have controlled a broken system, brutal personal attacks, a disregard for facts, and rupture besting unity – is likely to abate after Election Day. Then we get to do it all over again in four years,” posts Real Clear Politics.

At ages 70 and 69 by Inauguration Day in January, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would seem to be unlikely two-term presidents. Not only would Trump become our nation’s oldest person elected president (after Ronald Reagan), but should Clinton win, she would become the second oldest. Perhaps more powerful than Father Time are the odds that neither of these two highly polarizing and disliked candidates can heal a deeply divided country and become a trusted leader. Against the backdrop of a nation reeling from a burgeoning terrorist threat, economic deterioration, and painful racial division, the campaigns of two singularly unpopular presidential candidates have left most Americans feeling emotions ranging from disappointment to despair.

For the complete post, click here.

FINDING HILLARY’S VOICE
Politico explores how difficult it has been for Hillary Clinton and those who work with her on messaging to find her voice.

Clinton is known for taking a draft of a speech and changing it some indelible way to make it more literal and less readable. (The joke at her Brooklyn campaign headquarters is that she would take the public safety slogan “If You See Something, Say Something,” and, in her literal-minded way, change it to say, “If You See Something, Alert the Proper Authorities.”)

The entire episode illustrated Clinton’s paradox: On the one hand, she’s a deeply involved candidate who trusts her own instincts. But on the other, she still struggles, after all these years, when it comes to messaging — and remains almost hostile to the idea of a narrative that Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and even Donald Trump seem to craft so naturally.

Read more here about how Hillary Clinton and those around her work to find the right footing for her rhetoric.

PENCE PICK WOULD SHOW A DIFFERENT SHADE OF TRUMP
U.S. News & World Report posts, “The Indiana governor is the safest, most broadly acceptable choice of Trump’s options for No. 2.”

“A first-term governor and former six-term congressman from the Midwest who is beloved by social conservatives and respected by mainstream party stalwarts, Mike Pence is the prototype of the modern day traditional Republican politician.”

In selecting him as his vice presidential running mate, Donald Trump could prove something even his most sincere admirers had doubted: He can go conventional.

“Given Trump’s weakness among conservatives and evangelicals, yes, this is a strong choice nationally,” says Dick Wadhams, a former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. “And Pence gives some intellectual heft to the ticket along with Washington experience.”

“If Trump follows through and taps Pence as his No. 2, it will demonstrate that he has the ability to play the game he upended with bravado and volatility like an old-fashioned, buttoned-down, calculating pol.”

Click here to learn why Pence emerged as the favorite in the Trump camp over three other vice presidential finalists. (Pence indeed was on Friday picked by Trump for the ticket.)

THERESA MAY: FEMALE, BUT NOT FEMINIST
POLITICO has posted an opinion column from the UK’s leader of the The Women’s Equality Party, Sophie Walker.

“Theresa May starts her new job as Britain’s prime minister from atop piles of headlines ruminating the significance of her sex. For weeks, we have teetered on the brink of having a really interesting debate about doing politics differently, only to be drawn back to discuss her shoes and her lack of children. This is the reality of being a woman in politics. But it does not have to be.”

It really matters to have political representatives that look like you. For women to see other women in positions of power is significant – no matter where on the political spectrum you sit. But for a woman’s power to be truly consequential, she must wield it with an understanding of how it will effect the lives of other women. And it is important to remember that not all women leaders are feminists.

“The Women’s Equality Party – the United Kingdom’s newest political party, which I lead – exploded into life a year ago out of deep frustration at the glacial pace of change. Old parties were hampered by competing priorities, and equality for women had fallen off their to-do lists. We wanted to put it back there and make sure it did not also fall off their value structures and their visions of society.”

The impact of leaving the European Union on women was barely considered. The impact shifting exchange rates could have on the cost of living for women – who are less likely to be in work, more likely to have caring responsibilities, and more likely to be making economic decisions about household expenditures? We brought this up, but we didn’t hear anything back. What about the impact of trade tariffs on the public purse, on the money we have for public services on which women disproportionately rely? What will happen to funding for women’s organizations battling to support survivors of domestic and sexual violence as that epidemic of violence swells? Silence.

“May now has an opportunity to answer all these questions.”

But will she or can she? Go to this link for the full read.

A FORMER PORN STAR IS ONE OF D.C.’S LOUDEST SPORTS FANS
Think, for a second, about the most famous fans of D.C. sports teams. There’s Wolf Blitzer and Chris Wallace, Luke Russert and David Gregory, Alan Greenspan and Chuck Todd, Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, Charles Krauthammer and Ben Bernanke. These are household names in many cases, important and serious men from Official Washington,” says The Washington Post.

“And so who might be the most influential person to tweet something like this: “Wizards won, Caps won, Lookin’ at you, Skins! Let’s go 3 for 3 in DC tonight!” Or tweet a video of a Jayson Werth postgame interview, post comments on a Redskins Periscope stream, swap off-color insults with Penguins fans and be pictured on a pop culture website wearing a John Wall jersey?”

I think the answer might be Mia Khalifa. Not familiar? That’s the pseudonym for a Lebanese-born 23-year-old who grew up in Montgomery County, earned worldwide attention after a brief stint as an adult actress and now calls herself a “social media personality” with more than a million Twitter followers plus nearly 300,000 on Instagram — and who can’t stop talking about D.C. sports teams.

Intrigued? Well read on at this link.

RESCUE PUPPY’S DELIGHTFULLY WEIRD PORTRAITS SCREAM ‘ADOPT ME’
“A challenge: look at these photos of adorable puppy Carpe Diem. Then see if you can resist submitting your adoption application.”

Ready to take the challenge? Then click here from Mashable.

SECRET ROOM AT MT. RUSHMORE HOLDS AMERICAN DOCUMENTS
“Did you know there’s a secret room in Mt. Rushmore?”, asks ViralNova.

“If you ever wanted the movie ‘National Treasure’ to be real, I’m about to make your dreams come true.”

In the Black Hills of South Dakota sits one of the most iconic monuments in America. Carved into the side of the mountain, the glorious Mount Rushmore is visited by thousands of people from across the country and around the world year after year, and for good reason. It is truly a sight to behold. But here’s something you might not know about this American treasure.

There’s a secret room tucked away behind Lincoln’s head. Take a look and find out what’s in there at this link.