NYTimes: Reforms to Ease Students’ Stress Divide a New Jersey School District

NYTimes: Reforms to Ease Students’ Stress Divide a New Jersey School District

"Both Asian-American and white families say the tension between the two groups has grown steadily over the past few years, as the number of Asian families has risen. But the division has become more obvious in recent months as Dr. Aderhold has made changes, including no-homework nights, an end to high school midterms and finals, and a “right to squeak” initiative that made it easier to participate in the music program."

The Trump-Clinton fight gets fierce | MSNBC

The Trump-Clinton fight gets fierce | MSNBC

How Trump wins, even if he loses | MSNBC

How Trump wins, even if he loses | MSNBC

The Key To The GOP Race: The Diploma Divide | FiveThirtyEight

"The latest polls of the Republican presidential primary show a party badly divided by education: Donald Trump’s strong showings are entirely attributable to huge leads among voters without a college degree, while voters with a degree are split among several candidates."



The Key To The GOP Race: The Diploma Divide | FiveThirtyEight

NYTimes: Obama Accuses Trump of Exploiting Working-Class Fears

NYTimes: Obama Accuses Trump of Exploiting Working-Class Fears

"President Obama said in a radio interview airing on Monday that Donald J. Trump, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is exploiting the resentment and anxieties of working-class men to boost his campaign. Mr. Obama also argued that some of the scorn directed at him personally stems from the fact that he is the first African-American to hold the White House.

Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times

On the surface, it is a battle over whether Puerto Rico should be granted bankruptcy protections, putting at risk tens of billions of dollars from investors around the country. But it is also testing the power of an ascendant class of ultrarich Americans to steer the fate of a territory that is home to more than three million fellow citizens.



The investors with a stake in the outcome are some of the wealthiest people in America. Many of them have also taken on an outsize role in financing political campaigns in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. They have put millions of dollars behind candidates of both parties, including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Some belong to a small circle of 158 families that provided half of the early money for the 2016 presidential race.



To block proposals that would put their investments at risk, a coalition of hedge funds and financial firms has hired dozens of lobbyists, forged alliances with Tea Party activists and recruited so-called AstroTurf groups on the island to make their case. This approach — aggressive legal maneuvering, lobbying and the deployment of prodigious wealth — has proved successful overseas, in countries like Argentina and Greece, yielding billions in profit amid economic collapse.



The pressure has been widely felt. Senator Marco Rubio, whose state, Florida, has a large Puerto Rican population, expressed interest this year in sponsoring bankruptcy legislation for the island, says Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. Mr. Rubio’s staff even joined in drafting the bill. But this summer, three weeks after a fund-raiser hosted by a hedge-fund founder, Mr. Rubio broke with those backing the measure. Bankruptcy, he said, should be considered only as a “last resort.”



And this past week, House Republican leaders said any financial rescue for Puerto Rico may not come until the end of March.



Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times

Flint toxic water tragedy points directly to Michigan Gov. Snyder | MSNBC

Flint toxic water tragedy points directly to Michigan Gov. Snyder | MSNBC

Justice Scalia under fire for race comments during affirmative action argument - LA Times

Justice Scalia under fire for race comments during affirmative action argument - LA Times

"It is deeply disturbing to hear a Supreme Court justice endorse racist ideas from the bench of the nation's highest court," Reid said on the Senate floor. "The only difference between the ideas endorsed by [Donald] Trump and Scalia is that Scalia has a robe and a lifetime appointment."

Republicanism Trumps Religion When It Comes To Anti-Muslim Sentiment | FiveThirtyEight

"We can at least say this much: Iowa’s religiosity — 57 percent of Republican caucus-goers identified as born-again or evangelical Christians in 2012 — won’t make its voters extra receptive to Trump’s proposal. According to our research, negative views of Muslims among Republicans are not based on conservative Christian attitudes toward another religion; they’re based in Republican partisan identity. And it may take a political ally, such as Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention, to persuade evangelicals to denounce Trump."



Republicanism Trumps Religion When It Comes To Anti-Muslim Sentiment | FiveThirtyEight

Sanders knocks Trump's scapegoating strategy | MSNBC

Sanders knocks Trump's scapegoating strategy | MSNBC

Even Rachel Maddow doesn’t understand Trump | MSNBC

Even Rachel Maddow doesn’t understand Trump | MSNBC

GOP in chaos over Donald Trump | MSNBC

GOP in chaos over Donald Trump | MSNBC

Spike Lee: African Americans don't have 'green light vote' | MSNBC

Spike Lee: African Americans don't have 'green light vote' | MSNBC

Students demand change on campuses nationwide | MSNBC

Students demand change on campuses nationwide | MSNBC

Harvard Law students call for change to seal Harvard Law School students are demanding a revision of the school's seal which features the family crest of founder Isaac Royall, who was a slave owner. Student Derecka Purnell joins to discuss. - Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC

Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC

Bernie Sanders Gets Immigration Policy Right

Bernie Sanders Gets Immigration Policy Right

"Mr. Sanders, the Vermont senator seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, turns away from the insanity. His plan starts with the right premise: that immigrants should be welcomed and assimilated, not criminalized and exploited. His proposals seek to uphold American values, bolster the rule of law, bolster the economy and protect and honor families.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Credit Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesPhoto by: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Recognizing Congress’s chronic inaction on immigration, Mr. Sanders promises to use executive authority well beyond what President Obama has done. He would protect young immigrants and their parents from deportation, and give “broad administrative relief” to young immigrants, to the parents of citizens and legal permanent residents and to others who would have been allowed to stay under the 2013 Senate bill. This affirms the humane and sensible principle behind that legislation — that 11 million unauthorized immigrants should stay and contribute, not be isolated and expelled.

The Sanders plan tackles an ugly truth — that racial profiling and the nation’s vast deportation and detention machinery have made suspected criminals of millions of people who don’t fit the definition. His promise to “decouple” federal immigration enforcement from local policing would be a sharp break from dragnet policies that expanded under President Obama. Mr. Sanders rightly defends “sanctuary city” policies that protect public safety by building trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement.

Mr. Sanders’s promise to increase immigrants’ access to the justice system, with more funding for courts and lawyers, stands in sharp contrast to the Republican view of unauthorized immigrants as a shadow society of criminals who haven’t been deported yet. Mr. Sanders instead sees them as parents, breadwinners, taxpayers, bulwarks of the economy and of the communities they live in, aspiring Americans trapped by unjust laws and oppressive policing."

NYTimes: For Carly Fiorina, Peripatetic Childhood Helped Build Worldview

NYTimes: For Carly Fiorina, Peripatetic Childhood Helped Build Worldview

"But Mrs. Fiorina’s father was not just any Republican. He was one of the country’s most esteemed conservative law professors, a Duke Law School dean whom President Richard M. Nixon appointed as a deputy attorney general and then a federal judge. His opinions on issues like California’s so-called three strikes law for repeat offenders influenced the Supreme Court, and his advocacy for a brilliant student named Kenneth Starr influenced American history."

Ted Cruz embraces religious radicals with violent message | MSNBC

Ted Cruz embraces religious radicals with violent message | MSNBC

Ted Cruz embraces religious radicals with violent message | MSNBC

Ted Cruz embraces religious radicals with violent message | MSNBC

Will media challenge Trump’s 9/11 falsehoods? Donald Trump has repeatedly defended his controversial comments that American Muslims celebrated in New Jersey when the Twin Towers fell. Lawrence O'Donnell breaks down Trump's many inaccuracies with E.J. Dionne and Michael Brendan Dougherty. - The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

Marco Rubio vows US troops will inflict 'humiliating defeats' on Isis | US news | The Guardian

"When will we ever learn?   Vietnam,  Cambodia,  Laos,  Iraq,  Afghanistan were all sold to us with the same combination of hubris and ignorance.   We lost each of these wars."

South Korea Targets Dissent - The New York Times

"South Koreans can be as proud of their country’s emergence from dictatorship into a vibrant democracy as they are of the rags-to-riches development that made their country a global industrial powerhouse. So it is alarming that President Park Geun-hye appears intent on backtracking on the democratic freedoms that have made South Korea as different from North Korea’s puppet regime as day is from night.



Last weekend, tens of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to protest two repressive government initiatives. One would replace the independently selected history textbooks now available to South Korea’s educators with government-issued textbooks. The other would change labor laws to make it easier for South Korea’s family-controlled business conglomerates to fire workers."





South Korea Targets Dissent - The New York Times

Pentagon Expands Inquiry Into Intelligence on ISIS Surge

Pentagon Expands Inquiry Into Intelligence on ISIS Surge

"WASHINGTON — When Islamic State fighters overran a string of Iraqi cities last year, analysts at United States Central Command wrote classified assessments for military intelligence officials and policy makers that documented the humiliating retreat of the Iraqi Army. But before the assessments were final, former intelligence officials said, the analysts’ superiors made significant changes.

In the revised documents, the Iraqi Army had not retreated at all. The soldiers had simply “redeployed.”

Such changes are at the heart of an expanding internal Pentagon investigation of Centcom, as Central Command is known, where analysts say that supervisors revised conclusions to mask some of the American military’s failures in training Iraqi troops and beating back the Islamic State. The analysts say supervisors were particularly eager to paint a more optimistic picture of America’s role in the conflict than was warranted."

Paris: The war ISIS wants Why does ISIS want to create a war against well-equipped French and American soldiers? Could it be to create greater hostility toward Muslims in the West? Lawrence talks with Nafees Hamid and Scott Atran about ISIS’ creating “managed chaos.”- Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

Anti-refugee rhetoric echoes dark past The backlash against Syrian refugees is prompting comparisons to Japanese internment camps -- and comparisons to the treatment of Jews in World War 2. - All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC

All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC

Pocket: Refugees From War Aren’t the Enemy

Conceived partly in response to the Paris attacks, the bill seeks to “pause” admission of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Though there are real fears of terrorism, this measure represents election-year pandering to the xenophobia that rears up when threats from abroad arise. People who know these issues — law enforcement and intelligence professionals, immigration officials and humanitarian groups — say that this wrongheaded proposal simply would not protect Americans from “foreign enemies.”



One of the bill’s chief sponsors, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the House committee overseeing the Department of Homeland Security, surely knows how federal protocols for admitting refugees work. Yet the bill disregards the complicated current process, which already requires that applicants’ histories, family origins, and law enforcement and past travel and immigration records be vetted by national security, intelligence, law enforcement and consular officials. This process can take 18 months to two years for each person.



Among other hurdles, the measure would require that the secretary of homeland security, the director of the F.B.I. and the director of national intelligence personally certify that every refugee from Syria and Iraq seeking resettlement here is not a threat. That’s a lot of women, children, and old people.



Pocket: Refugees From War Aren’t the Enemy

Dr. Ben Carson is Not Smart

Dr. Ben Carson is Not Smart

"“Smart” is a multifaceted cognitive feature composed of excellent analytical skills, possession of an extensive knowledge base that is easily and frequently augmented, possession of a good memory, and being readily curious about the world and willing, even eager, to reject previously accepted notions in the face of new data. Being smart includes having the ability to analyze new data for validity and, thinking creatively, draw new insights from existing common knowledge.

As a neurologist in practice for 20 years and one who has worked closely with many neurosurgeons I can assure you, Dr. Ben Carson does not meet the above criteria. Not even close. He is a painfully ignorant person. This is an easy point to defend. From his statements on the pyramids as grain silos, his rejection of extensive, confirmatory evidence of climate change, to his glaringly unworkable alternative to Medicare, most Americans out of the conservative media bubble are familiar with the litany of uninformed, intellectually shabby statements he has made over the last few months."

The GOP Has a Much Bigger Problem Than the Debates | The Nation

The GOP Has a Much Bigger Problem Than the Debates | The Nation

"From 2009 on, the party’s leaders have either peddled or tolerated the notion that Barack Obama is an illegitimate president who wasn’t born in the United States—and now Trump, the 2012 birther-in-chief, has been leading the pack most of this cycle. GOP leaders promised to repeal Obamacare, take the debt ceiling hostage to force budget cuts, and slash taxes without inflating the deficit. They accomplished none of this. Now they wonder why their base is so enraged."

How a football team helped take down a college president | MSNBC

How a football team helped take down a college president | MSNBC

Joe to Carson: You are lying, just admit it | MSNBC

Joe to Carson: You are lying, just admit it | MSNBC

An attack on 'Killing Reagan' | Fox News Video - l never thought it was possible that I could feel sorry for George Will but watch him being abused by the rude and classless O'Reilley is more than any human,being should have to go through. You have to wonder what kind of parents O'Reilly had? He surely did not learn common courtesy and decency.

Middle-Aged White Americans Are Dying of Despair

Middle-Aged White Americans Are Dying of Despair

"Between 1978 to 1998, the mortality rate for U.S. whites aged 45 to 54 fell by 2 percent per year on average, which matched the average rate of decline in the six countries shown, and the average over all other industrialized countries. After 1998, other rich countries’ mortality rates continued to decline by 2 percent a year. In contrast, U.S. white non-Hispanic mortality rose by half a percent a year. No other rich country saw a similar turnaround.

That means “half a million people are dead who should not be dead,” Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in economics and co-author of the paper, toldThe Washington Post. “About 40 times the Ebola stats. You’re getting up there with HIV-AIDS.”

The reasons for the increased death rate are not the usual things that kill Americans, like diabetes and heart disease. Rather, it’s suicide, alcohol and drug poisonings, and alcohol-related liver disease."

Don't Underestimate Bernie's Brand

Don't Underestimate Bernie's Brand

"On a recent NPR segment, David Brooks of The New York Times questioned why Sanders did not challenge Hillary Clinton during the Democratic debate if he truly wanted to be president, suggesting that he had raised the white flag of surrender by not using Clinton’s email controversy against her. His statement reflects a mindset indoctrinated by decades of increasingly aggressive political debate. But Americans are looking for a president who has a clear sense of purpose—an ideology, if you will—rather than one who merely indulges in character assassination to win power. Sanders’s message and tone are so different that they simply do not compute for pundits—but they resonate with voters."

The Price of Denialism - The New York Times

"As the comedian John Oliver so aptly put it in commenting on a recent Gallup poll that found that one in four Americans disbelieve in climate change: “You don’t need people’s opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking: ‘Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?’ Or ‘Do owls exist’ or ‘Are there hats?"



The Price of Denialism - The New York Times

Poppy Bush Finally Gives Junior a Spanking - The New York Times

"The gentlemanly 91-year-old is not going gentle into that good night. He finally spit out what he had been obsessing about privately for so long: Why did Cheney, 41’s loyal defense secretary, turn so belligerent and unilateral, “knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything and use force to get our way in the Middle East”? How did the neocons manage to push his son’s administration into pursuing their foolish agenda of refashioning the Middle East at the point of a gun?



He ultimately faults his son for the administration’s deadly embrace of Cheney and the neocons and for allowing Cheney to create his own national security apparatus, noting: “But it’s not Cheney’s fault. It’s the president’s fault,” adding at another point, “The buck stops there.”



Poppy Bush Finally Gives Junior a Spanking - The New York Times

Why Are Asian-Americans Such Loyal Democrats? - The New York Times

Today’s Asian Americans are not only liberal on the expected issues like health care reform, immigration reform, and educational reform, but they also seem to espouse liberal views across a wide range of unexpected issue areas like environmental politics, affirmative action, and the like. We even find, in our 2012 National Asian American Survey, that nearly 2 out of every 3 Asian Americans who report earning more than $250,000/year supported an approach to reducing the federal budget deficit that would raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000-a-year



Why Are Asian-Americans Such Loyal Democrats? - The New York Times

Twitter's 'blind spots' on diversity Leslie Miley, former Engineering Manager at Twitter, joins to discuss why diversity should be a priority for large tech companies like Twitter. In this segment, we described the employment at Twitter as such: 2% black, 59% white, 29% Asian, and 3%... Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC

Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC

Ben Carson just can’t quit lying: CNN can’t corroborate any of the key stories from his autobiography

Ben Carson just can’t quit lying: CNN can’t corroborate any of the key stories from his autobiography

"Carson claims to have punched a seventh-grade classmate in the head while holding a lock, and attempted to stab a classmate named “Bob” in ninth grade, but CNN spoke to nine people who knew him at the time — two of whom lived next door to the Carsons and knew young Ben well — and not a single one of them could corroborate his stories.

Carson has said that this is because he was ashamed of his temper and hid it from the world, but the incident in seventh grade allegedly happened at school, where one classmate, Gerald Ware, said that if it had happened, “it would have been all over the school.”

Carson wrote in “Gifted Hands” that people who didn’t know him as a youth would “think I’m exaggerating when I say I had a bad temper,” but even the people who did know him believe he’s exaggerating.

“He got through his day trying not to be noticed,” Robert Collier told CNN. “I remember him having a pocket saver. He had thick glasses. He was skinny and unremarkable.”

Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC - The ripple effects of China's one-child policy In an effort to boost economic growth and confront and aging population lacking caretakers, China is now allowing couples to have two children for the first time in more than three decades. Author Mei Fong joins Melissa Harris-Perry.

Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC

Ben Carson admits he never applied to West Point - CBS News

Ben Carson admits he never applied to West Point - CBS News

Ben Carson said he was offered a full scholarship to West Point, but never applied

Ben Carson said he was offered a full scholarship to West Point, but never applied

Carson admits to a major lie about his background | MSNBC

Carson admits to a major lie about his background | MSNBC

It’s Not Brain Surgery, Ben Carson

It’s Not Brain Surgery, Ben Carson

"HE has said there is “no overwhelming science” to support human-induced climate change. He has compared a body riddled with bullets to the notion of gun control and declared the latter to be “more devastating.” He has hedged on the question of childhood vaccine safety to suggest that “a multitude of vaccines” backed by decades of conclusive research ought to be considered with “discretion.”

The retired pediatric neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has used his doctor badge to wade into uncomfortable, and unscientific, conversations."

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Marketing to Doctors (HBO)

Loyal Biden embraces Obama legacy – what's Clinton's excuse? | US news | The Guardian

“President Obama and I have ideologically had no disagreement,” Biden said. “I mean none. Zero.”

He didn’t stop there. “Look,” Biden said. “I spend between, depending on the season, four to seven hours a day every single day with the president.” He added that he and Obama were “sympatico”, “didn’t disagree on a single substantive issue” and that “my grandchildren and his children are each other’s best friends now, they vacation together”.

Bernie Sanders Attack Donald Trump | Bernie Sanders Interview With CNN'S...

Bernie Sanders Sits Down With Rachel Maddow (Full Interview) | MSNBC

Hillary’s Turning Point

Hillary’s Turning Point

"Commentators across the spectrum, liberal and conservative alike, have praised Clinton’s performance in the first Democratic primary debate, a marked contrast with the skepticism and hostility she previously faced from pundits and the media. And with good reason: The candidate who has been consistently on the defensive since launching her campaign in April was poised, prepared, personable, and energetic. Now, Clinton’s campaign hopes Tuesday will prove to be more than just one good night. If all goes well, they say, it could be the turning point that sets her on a smooth path to the Democratic nomination."

Queen Hillary Came to Play - The New York Times

Hillary Clinton crushed it! There is no other way for me to put it.



Her performance Tuesday night at the first Democratic debate was so spectacular as to erase all doubt: Weakened as she may be, there is still fire in that belly, and she will not quietly shift to the side to make room for someone else — not Bernie Sanders, and not Joe Biden should he ever stop this annoying dillydallying and decide to run.



And I don’t consider her performance spectacular simply because of what she did — although she demonstrated a remarkable assuredness and dexterity — but also because of what the others didn’t do.



Queen Hillary Came to Play - The New York Times

Ben Carson Is Wrong on Guns and the Holocaust - The New York Times

Ben Carson Is Wrong on Guns and the Holocaust - The New York Times

Ted Cruz, sleeper candidate? The much-derided GOP senator is banking on picking up Trump, Carson and Fiorina supporters when those candidates leave the presidential race.

All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC

Suit Over Firing Exposes Strife Within Benghazi Panel - The New York Times

Suit Over Firing Exposes Strife Within Benghazi Panel - The New York Times

"A former investigator for the Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi plans to file a complaint in federal court next month alleging that he was fired unlawfully in part because his superiors opposed his efforts to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in the Libyan city. Instead, they focused primarily on the role of the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, he said.

The former investigator, Bradley F. Podliska, a major in the Air Force Reserve who is on active duty in Germany, also claims that the committee’s majority staff retaliated against him for taking leave for several weeks to go on active duty. If true, the retaliation would violate the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, which Major Podliska plans to invoke in his complaint, according to a draft that was made available to The New York Times."

Ben Carson: Arm kindergarten teachers | MSNBC

Ben Carson: Arm kindergarten teachers | MSNBC

Fmr. Newtown teacher responds to Ben Carson In her book 'Choosing Hope,' fmr. Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis describes how she hid her first graders in a bathroom during the Newtown school shooting. She also joins Ari Melber reacting to Ben Carson's comments on arming teachers.

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

Wait, what did Ben Carson say? The #2 candidate in the Republican presidential race has been quietly and politely saying even more outrageous things than Donald Trump.- All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC

All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC

Ben Carson: Founding Fathers wouldn't have trusted a Muslim president - He never read the Treaty of Tripoli 1796.

What an idiot!  Guess Carson never read the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796. "ARTICLE 11. -  As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."





Ben Carson: Founding Fathers wouldn't have trusted a Muslim president | MSNBC

Ben Carson’s Holocaust theory prompts outcry from Jewish groups | MSNBC

"Jewish groups and Holocaust scholars say Ben Carson’s claims that Nazi gun control laws contributed to the Holocaust are offensive and inaccurate, but Carson is not backing down.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Friday, Carson asserted that “not only the Jews, but the entire populace” in Germany could have prevented or lessened the extermination of the Jews if Adolf Hitler hadn’t blocked their access to guns.

Murdoch: Ben Carson would be 'real black president' - POLITICO

"The News Corp chief has been tweeting for some time about the retired neurosurgeon, but on Wednesday he took it a step further.

"Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black president who can properly address the racial divide? And much else," Murdoch tweeted, referring to Carson's wife Candy.

"Read New York magazine for minority community disappointment with POTUS," he continued, referring to an article in the magazine which asks whether President Barack Obama has done enough for the black community."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2015/10/rupert-murdoch-ben-carson-black-214544#ixzz3o02aPpVl

The Real Value of Jeb’s “Unfortunate Comments” - The New Yorker

"Politico has posted a fifty-one-second compilation video of what it calls “unfortunate comments” by Jeb Bush—“stuff happens,” “free stuff,” “anchor babies,” “I’m not sure we need to spend half a billion dollars for women’s-health issues,” and so on. The implication is that it’s a mystery why a sixty-two-year-old third-generation politician, the grandson of a senator and the son and brother of Presidents (his own son George P. Bush, an office-holder in Texas, is fourth-generation), would be capable of making stupid mistakes in a campaign that he has to have been thinking about for decades.

Ben Carson's Scientific Ignorance - The New Yorker

"His central claim—that the second law of thermodynamics rules out order forming in the universe after the Big Bang—is a frequent misstatement made by creationists who want to appear scientifically literate. In reality, it is completely false. Local order in parts of the universe is always possible at the expense of heat and disorder dissipated to the external environment. The human body is one example: we take in energy from our environment to build up complex molecules that help power our bodies, and, in doing so, we release heat to the world around us. A snowflake is another beautifully ordered example of what simple natural meteorological processes can produce. Stars form by gravity, collapsing into spherically ordered structures that can remain in this form only if they release tremendous heat energy into the environment. Carson elides these physical realities by creating a straw man: he says that scientists believe that, after the Big Bang, the universe was “perfectly ordered.” But no such claim has been made by scientists; instead, we describe how local order, including galaxies, stars, planets, and life, developed over time."

How to Reduce the Gun Carnage - The New York Times

"To the Editor:

Re “Killers Fit a Profile, but So Do Many Others” (front page, Oct. 4):

James Alan Fox, a criminologist, is correct in saying, “We can’t round up all the people who scare us.” But we can do a lot more to sever the link between them and easy access to guns.

Most mass killers obtained guns legally, because of the sieve-like national background check system — unlike the system in New York. To receive my pistol permit, I was asked about my employment and other history, and I submitted the names of four character references who completed multi-page questionnaires probing the kind of person I was, including my “demeanor or behavior.”

All this information and more was submitted to law enforcement and a county judge (I was also interviewed). They could decline my application if the information suggested that I was troubled. Too bad most states don’t conduct real background checks.

ROBERT J. SPITZER

Cortland, N.Y.

The writer, a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland, is the author of five books on gun policy."

NYTimes: The Aftermath of a Deadly Airstrike in Afghanistan

"Two things are known for certain about the deadly American airstrike on the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, run by Doctors Without Borders. One is that the attack killed 22 people, including 12 staff members. The other is that an initial Pentagon statement saying the strike may have caused “collateral damage” was outrageous and dehumanizing.

Beyond that, there are many unanswered questions and much confusion about how the hospital, a major health care facility in Afghanistan’s northeastern region, came to be a target.

Gen. John Campbell, who commands American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, acknowledged at a news conference on Monday that the airstrike by an American gunship on Saturday had “accidentally struck” civilians and promised a thorough investigation. That is not sufficient. In addition, an independent panel should quickly be empowered to obtain all the information needed to produce a credible conclusion about what went so horribly wrong."

Recommended read from Salon.com: Donald Trump is poetic justice: How the GOP establishment's chickens are coming home to roost

"Conservatism as a political and social philosophy promotes retaining traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others, called reactionaries, oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were."

Wikipedia's definition of conservatism is a bit simplistic, but it's good enough for government work: conservatives generally want to keep things as they are, and reactionaries want to return things to the way they used to be. In neither case is moving forward considered to be a good thing. It's the liberals who are always talking about hope and change and leaving the bad old days behind. The tension between the two worldviews has always been present in American life. In recent times America's conservative movement has been defined by its strong religiosity and high esteem for institutions like the military and police, while liberalism pushes toward modernity and social evolution. The push and pull between those two philosophical poles has been a feature of American culture at least since Alexis de Tocqueville made his anthropological field trip back in the 1830s."

How Steve Jobs played Carly Fiorina like a fool

Within the tech industry it is argued that Fiorina was fired from HP in 2005 "because she did her job poorly" especially since her high profile moves, such as the merger with Compaq, ended badly for HP.  But Levy tells a tale that encapsulates her stunning failures at HP even greater. In  January of 2004, Fiorina proudly announced her showstopper at CES - the flagship event for consumer electronics. That showstopper? The baby blue HP iPod. I can almost hear the reader question "The baby blue HP iPod?". Yes, the baby blue HP iPod.



Fiorina had sealed a deal with the Steve Jobs-led Apple for HP to sell HP branded iPods. Now, you may wonder, why on earth would a company whose motto was "Invent!" be excited about rebranding another company's product? Well, for one, up to that point Apple had not had much success getting the 3 year old iPods into retail stores - Apple mainly sold iPods online and at Apple stores. So Fiorina thought she had her big break, she could rebrand another company's product and sell it at your neighborhood Big Boxmart store. In exchange, Apple got HP to ship all their PCs with the iTunes store pre-installed. This was pretty significant for Apple, as HP had a large market share in PCs, and the move allowed Apple to grow its iTunes store business.



Levy however, details the flaws with Fiorina's plan



In return, HP got the right to sell iPods. But not in a way that could possibly succeed. Fiorina boasted to me that she would be able to sell the devices in thousands of retail outlets; up to that point Apple mostly sold them online and in its own stores. But by the time in mid-2004 that HP actually began selling its branded iPods, Apple was expanding to multiple retail outlets on its own. And soon after HP began selling iPods, Apple came out with new, improved iPods — leaving HP to sell an obsolete device. Fiorina apparently did not secure the right to sell the most current iPods in a timely fashion, and was able to deliver newer models only months after the Apple versions were widely available.

The HP iPod never made up more than 5% of total iPod sales.



How Steve Jobs played Carly Fiorina like a fool

How a New York Accent Can Help You Get Ahead - The New York Times

THEIR partisans may be loath to admit it, but Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump do in fact share some common ground. There is of course their upstart, outsider image. Then they share a posture of forthrightness and candor. A third similarity is how they talk. Not what they say, but how they sound: Like they’re from New York.



Other politicians with no hint of New York in their speech, such as Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, would likely love to have “telling it like it is” as part of their brand. Only Chris Christie seems to even come close. See a pattern?



But how could a New York accent actually play a positive role in politics? Well, we can start with the observation — made by the Georgetown linguist Deborah Tannen — that New Yorkers tend to have a different conversational style than other Americans. New Yorkers usually favor being more direct. We speak over one another, particularly to show our engagement with what our interlocutor is saying. We like to tell long stories. And we don’t mind arguing as long as it is not too personal.







How a New York Accent Can Help You Get Ahead - The New York Times

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Is Reached - The New York Times

ATLANTA — The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations on Monday agreed to the largest regional trade accord in history, a potentially precedent-setting model for global commerce and worker standards that would tie together 40 percent of the world’s economy, from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia.



The Trans-Pacific Partnership still faces months of debate in Congress and will inject a new flash point into both parties’ presidential contests.



But the accord — a product of nearly eight years of negotiations, including five days of round-the-clock sessions here — is a potentially legacy-making achievement for President Obama, and the capstone for his foreign policy “pivot” toward closer relations with fast-growing eastern Asia, after years of American preoccupation with the Middle East and North Africa.





Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Is Reached - The New York Times

Real Time with Bill Maher: Overtime – October 2, 2015 (HBO)

Seeking President, No Experience Necessary

"This climate can’t be understood apart from the aftershock of President Obama’s winning re-election. Republicans could rationalize his victory in 2008. Mr. Obama was something of a blank slate, he presented himself as a nonideological, unifying figure, and the financial crisis, which heightened in the months before the election, virtually ensured his triumph. That year, the stars aligned in just the right way for Democrats.

But by 2012, President Obama was viewed by Republicans as a complete failure whose repudiation was inevitable. The fact that he easily won re-election, with 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206, was a huge psychological blow to Republicans, much like the one Democrats experienced in 1984, when Ronald Reagan — despised by many liberals — won re-election in a landslide."

The Second Amendment enabling legislation which the current radical Supreme Court ignored in 2010 - The Militia Act of 1792

The problem is not the Second Amendment. The original intent of the Amendment was spelled out clearly by the congress which wrote it six months after it's ratification in the Militia Act of 1792, It was for the States to form a citizen militia which had specific enacting legislation in the 1792 Act. At the time we did not have a national army. The act mandated all white male citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 to have a rifle, ammunition and a knapsack and to be enrolled in the State Militia. The drill schedule is in the act.



The Militia Act of 1792

The Militia Act of 1792, Passed May 8, 1792, providing federal standards for the organization of the Militia.

An ACT more effectually to provide for the National Defence, by establishing an Uniform Militia throughout the United States.

I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act. And it shall at all time hereafter be the duty of every such Captain or Commanding Officer of a company, to enroll every such citizen as aforesaid, and also those who shall, from time to time, arrive at the age of 18 years, or being at the age of 18 years, and under the age of 45 years (except as before excepted) shall come to reside within his bounds; and shall without delay notify such citizen of the said enrollment, by the proper non-commissioned Officer of the company, by whom such notice may be proved. That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack. That the commissioned Officers shall severally be armed with a sword or hanger, and espontoon; and that from and after five years from the passing of this Act, all muskets from arming the militia as is herein required, shall be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound; and every citizen so enrolled, and providing himself with the arms, ammunition and accoutrements, required as aforesaid, shall hold the same exempted from all suits, distresses, executions or sales, for debt or for the payment of taxes.

II. And be it further enacted, That the Vice-President of the United States, the Officers, judicial and executives, of the government of the United States; the members of both houses of Congress, and their respective officers; all custom house officers, with the clerks; all post officers, and stage-drivers who are employed in the care and conveyance of the mail of the post office of the United States; all Ferrymen employed at any ferry on the post road; all inspectors of exports; all pilots, all mariners actually employed in the sea service of any citizen or merchant within the United States; and all persons who now are or may be hereafter exempted by the laws of the respective states, shall be and are hereby exempted from militia duty, notwithstanding their being above the age of eighteen and under the age of forty-five years. 

You may read the rest by clicking on the link above.

Why Afghanistan Is Going To Fall To The Taliban Again

"The Taliban has since charged that Afghan intelligence purposely gave the U.S. the hospital's coordinates. Even the possibility that such an accusation is true -- and the duration of the sustained attack suggests that something unusual happened -- points toward the reason that Afghanistan is headed back toward Taliban control: The government is thoroughly corrupt, and the U.S. has been unwilling to take measures to address the situation. While a handful of civilian and military leaders identified corruption as an existential threat to the country, the problem remains unsolved. "

The crucial factor everyone's forgetting about Google's Pixel C | Computerworld

"From the start, Google's Pixel line has been about building products with the future in mind -- devices with hardware that the accompanying software may not yet seem to justify. The Pixel program's goal has always been to "push the experience forward" and encourage the entire ecosystem to move toward "a whole new generation" of devices, as Google execs once explained it.



Think of the original Chromebook Pixel's processing power and touchscreen, for instance. At the time of that device's launch, they seemed to many like over-the-top and even unnecessary elements. Today, Chrome OS is capable of doing far more than it did back then -- running packaged apps and even a (small but steadily growing) number of touch-centric Android apps. Increasingly, affordable Chromebooks are now coming with the kind of power and capabilities once limited to the pricey Pixel. The Pixel introduced the hardware, and then the software -- and little by little, the rest of the ecosystem -- started to catch up.



So back to the new Pixel C. Why would Google create what's effectively an Android laptop when the OS itself isn't fully ready for that?"





The crucial factor everyone's forgetting about Google's Pixel C | Computerworld

It has long appeared that the Republican obsession with investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya was not a genuine attempt to get the facts behind a tragic incident in which four Americans, including the United States ambassador, lost their lives but a partisan witch hunt targeting Hillary Rodham Clinton, the frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Now there is proof of the duplicity and political chicanery behind the creation of the Select Committee on Benghazi. It was ham-handedly exposed by Representative Kevin McCarthy, who, in his quest to become the next speaker of the House, couldn’t resist boasting about what he considers his party’s major political accomplishment. “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” Mr. McCarthy, Republican of California, told Fox News. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee, what are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping, why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened.”

Jeb Bush shrugs off Oregon shooting: "Stuff happens" Dumb, dumb and dumber.

Recommended read from Salon.com: The Donald is a fraud: The unseemly truth about his "American success story"

"ere was the Trump Taj Mahal (with $1 billion in debt) in Atlantic City in 1991 and the Trump Plaza Hotel in Atlantic City in 1992 (with $550 million in debt). Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, the company created from the post-bankruptcy ashes of the Taj Mahal, the Trump Plaza, and also Trump Marina in Atlantic City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (with $1.8 billion of debt) in 2004. Bankruptcy number four, Trump Entertainment Resorts (the post-bankruptcy company created to take over the remains of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (with $1.74 billion of debt) in February 2009.

While Trump owned 28% of its stock, as he told Bloomberg News upon resigning from the board four days before the $53 million bond payment that forced it into bankruptcy was due, “I have nothing to do with it. I’m not in it. I’m not on the board.”

Watch President Obama address deadly Oregon shooting

Obama: Inaction on gun violence is a political decision | MSNBC

For the second day in a row, President Obama spoke forcefully about the scourge of gun violence in America.

“This is happening every single day in forgotten neighborhoods around the country. Every single day, kids are just running for their lives just trying to get to school,” Obama said at a White House press conference that followed an event announcing the departure of Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

On Thursday, America experienced yet another mass shooting when a heavily armed gunman killed nine people and injured several others at a community college in southwest Oregon. The gunman – identified by authorities as 26-year-old Christopher Harper Mercer – apparently left a hate-filled note at the crime scene, according to law enforcement officials. Harper Mercer owned a total of 13 guns, all purchased legally, according to authorities. Six of the weapons were recovered at the scene of the shooting.

Asked Friday what he would do differently to address gun violence, Obama said he has directed his staff to identify ways to enforce existing laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Obama once again called on the American people to pressure Congress to pass gun control legislation.

Obama: Inaction on gun violence is a political decision | MSNBC

Bernie Sanders reacts to Oregon campus shooting Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders talks to Chris Hayes about Thursday's deadly campus shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon - All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC

All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC

OR sheriff opposed expanded background checks | MSNBC

OR sheriff opposed expanded background checks | MSNBC

Obama, Guns, and the Politics of Hopelessness - The New Yorker

The President started out by saying some words about the victims and their families, and said, “America will wrap everyone who’s grieving with our prayers and our love.” Then he said, “It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America—next week, or a couple of months from now…. We are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.”





Obama, Guns, and the Politics of Hopelessness - The New Yorker

The very definition of a old school "Uncle Tom" In jest, Ben Carson tells the whole truth about police shootings, then quickly backs off of it

"In jest, Ben Carson tells the whole truth about police shootings, then quickly backs off of it."

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Migrants and Refugees (HBO)

New Nexus phones, Chromecast 2, and Pixel C tablet: All the new gadgets Google just announced

Transcript: Pope Francis’s comments to bishops in Washington He speaks directly about immigration. - The Washington Post

"My second recommendation has to do with immigrants. I ask you to excuse me if in some way I am pleading my own case. The Church in the United States knows like few others the hopes present in the hearts of these “pilgrims”. From the beginning you have learned their languages, promoted their cause, made their contributions your own, defended their rights, helped them to prosper, and kept alive the flame of their faith. Even today, no American institution does more for immigrants than your Christian communities. Now you are facing this stream of Latin immigration which affects many of your dioceses. Not only as the Bishop of Rome, but also as a pastor from the South, I feel the need to thank and encourage you. Perhaps it will not be easy for you to look into their soul; perhaps you will be challenged by their diversity. But know that they also possess resources meant to be shared. So do not be afraid to welcome them. Offer them the warmth of the love of Christ and you will unlock the mystery of their heart. I am certain that, as so often in the past, these people will enrich America and its Church."



Transcript: Pope Francis’s comments to bishops in Washington - The Washington Post

I'm Not Going To Censor Myself To Comfort Your Ignorance. - Jon Stewart

Christopher Columbus of Brooklyn - The Essence of "White Privilege" This is pathetic but all to common. "In it, a white male jogger yells at another white man for running into him with a stroller. The jogger goes ballistic, yells out “white trash,” and later adds: “You’re new in the neighborhood! I came to this neighborhood! The only reason white people like you are living here is because I settled this f**king neighborhood for you!” A black officer steps into break up the shouting match, but the irony doesn't end there. The jogger -- who has been hilariously nicknamed Christopher Columbus of Brooklyn -- continues to shout: "White privilege! White f**king privilege!...You pushed your stroller right into me, and all I say was 'excuse you,' and then you said, 'f**k you f**k you!' You f**king white trash!" What the 46-year-old completely missed while he was accusing another man of taking advantage of white privilege? White men “settling” into neighborhoods that were once predominantly black, to make room for other white people, is the epitome of white privilege. But despite the Internet's response, that lesson doesn't seem to sink in with the jogger, who told Gothamist, his "street cred, especially in the black community, in this city, is huge." Needless to say, it’s all pretty pathetic. Watch the shameful scene below:

Obama and Xi Must Do More Than Agree to Disagree | Jimmy Carter

The Chinese must understand that America would like to see a peaceful, prosperous, and free China and that we do not wish to undermine the rise of China. Similarly, Americans need to understand that China differs from the Soviet Union that we faced in the Cold War. China needs to be encouraged to participate in and defend the international order governed by international laws and norms.

While the current challenges that threaten to derail the U.S.-China relationship are great, I am sure that Deng Xiaoping would agree with me that none of these challenges are more daunting than the ones we worked together to conquer.

Finding ways toward peace and sustained development at home and abroad are at the core of the missions of both President Obama and President Xi. With many conflicts raging and the global economy still fragile, now is the time for each nation to defend a global order conducive to peace and development.

The two presidents must use their meeting later this month to do more than simply agree to disagree on many issues. They can forge a consensus on how to build trust through U.S.-China collaboration that acts to solve our common global challenges. Our joint commitment to take the lead on pressing environmental challenges would set an example that few other nations could not follow.

Obama and Xi Must Do More Than Agree to Disagree | Jimmy Carter

Dr. Ben Carson: Satan Invented The Big Bang Theory Ben Carson has largely been successful at creating an image of a very likable, reasonable person, not necessarily driven by any sort of extreme philosophy. A 2012 speech shows that’s all smoke and mirrors. Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola (Think Tank), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below. "In a speech delivered in 2012, Ben Carson said the big bang theory was part of the “fairy tales” pushed by “high-faluting scientists” as a story of creation. Similarly, Carson, a noted creationist, said he believed the theory of evolution was encouraged by the devil.”*

Lunch with the FT: Ta-Nehisi Coates - FT.com

"At the start of this year, Coates, who turns 40 on Wednesday, was a fairly well-known journalist. He had published a little-read memoir about growing up in Baltimore, The Beautiful Struggle (2008), but his reputation stemmed chiefly from a 2014 article for the Atlantic magazine arguing that the US should pay black Americans reparations for slavery. Then, this July, his slim book Between the World and Me was published in the US amid national furore over the #blacklivesmatter movement, protests in Baltimore and the massacre of black churchgoers by a white man in Charleston, South Carolina. The book argues that the “destruction of black bodies” is not simply a constant of American history but the very foundation stone of white American “progress”.



Lunch with the FT: Ta-Nehisi Coates - FT.com

Pope Francis Challenges Congress to Heal World’s ‘Open Wounds’ - The New York Times

Pope Francis Challenges Congress to Heal World’s ‘Open Wounds’ - The New York Times

A Major (General) correction for Trump In the Rewrite, Lawrence has an update for Donald Trump and Fox News commentators who pilloried Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and his family - and it comes from Major General Kenneth Dahl, who conducted the investigation into Sgt. Bergdahl's case.

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

Senate Democrats to Unveil Aggressive Climate Change Bill - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders on Tuesday plan to unveil a measure intended to signal their full-throated support of President Obama’s aggressive climate change agenda to 2016 voters and to the rest of the world.

The Democrats hope that the bill, sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell, of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, will demonstrate a new unity for the party on energy and climate change, and define Democrats’ approach to global warming policy in the coming years.



Senate Democrats to Unveil Aggressive Climate Change Bill - The New York Times

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Dr. Ben Carson | MSNBC

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Dr. Ben Carson | MSNBC

Sarah Palin To Be Trump's Secretary Of Stupid

Cartoon: Herr Trump

"First Donald Trump came for the Mexican immigrants, but I wasn't a Mexican immigrant, so i didn't speak up..." -said someone on the internet. Donald Trump and his supporters swear he is the hottest newest thing on the political scene since forever, but we all know that we've heard a campaign like this before. Maybe in the 1930s. In one of those countries that's better than our loser country, according to this candidate. I think we should relearn this lesson and look into those history books, before someone bans them.







Cartoon: Herr Trump

Trump and the Man in the T-Shirt - The New Yorker

But even more outrageous, this week, was Trump’s tolerance of the questioner’s premise: that Muslims in America are “a problem.” Calling Obama a Muslim is not wrong because being a Muslim is bad; it’s wrong because he is a Christian, and so “Muslim” becomes a shorthand for impostor and liar, for deceptive secret agent. Trump, though, went well beyond not defending the President: he affirmed an attack on the millions of Muslim Americans who are as much a part of the national community as anyone else. The man in the T-shirt’s actual point, after all, was about the supposed training camps “where they want to kill us.” He wanted Trump to answer his question: “When can we get rid of them?”

Trump and the Man in the T-Shirt - The New Yorker

What Exxon Knew About Climate Change - The New Yorker

"As early as 1977, Exxon (now ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest oil companies) knew that its main product would heat up the planet disastrously. This did not prevent the company from then spending decades helping to organize the campaigns of disinformation and denial that have slowed—perhaps fatally—the planet’s response to global warming."



What Exxon Knew About Climate Change - The New Yorker

In Unit Stalked by Suicide, Veterans Try to Save One Another - The New York Times

In Unit Stalked by Suicide, Veterans Try to Save One Another - The New York Times

How Pope Francis Came to Embrace Not Just Climate Justice but Liberation Theology | The Nation

"It must be a little disorienting, as a Democrat heading into primary season, to wake up one morning and find yourself to the right of the pope. And not just any pope, but a wildly popular rock-star pope, whose favorables even among non-Catholics are sky-high. Yet that is the situation in which most Democrats, and certainly presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, find themselves on the question of climate change as Francis comes to the United States in September to address Congress and the United Nations."



How Pope Francis Came to Embrace Not Just Climate Justice but Liberation Theology | The Nation

Donald Trump May Not Have a Second Act - The New Yorker

On Wednesday evening, during the Republican Presidential debate on CNN, Trump was exposed as ignorant of basic policy details (he was a bystander during the foreign-policy exchanges), boorish (he refused to apologize to Columba Bush for saying that her background influenced Jeb’s allegedly permissive views on undocumented immigrants), and he seemed—no other way to put it—“low energy” as the debate dragged on into its third hour. (As my colleague Amy Davidson put it, “he seemed to be insulting people just to stay awake.”) Political observers then spent the day after the debate ruminating on whether we may be witnessing the beginning of Trump’s decline, and whether his fate will look similar to that of the five Republican candidates—Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum—who all experienced similar polling surges in the 2012 G.O.P. Presidential contest, before Republican voters wised up and picked Mitt Romney.



Donald Trump May Not Have a Second Act - The New Yorker

Candidates Use Second G.O.P. Debate to Taunt Donald Trump - The New York Times

Candidates Use Second G.O.P. Debate to Taunt Donald Trump - The New York Times

Questions on the Blake Assault - The New York Times

By The Editorial Board, www.nytimes.comView OriginalSeptember 15th, 2015



Yes, they can start by firing him.



James Frascatore, the New York City police officer who jumped and assaulted an innocent man, James Blake, in Manhattan last Wednesday, has disgraced the department. Commissioner William Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio should make an example of him. They should make it clear that his unprovoked aggression — caught by a security camera, so there is no doubt about what he did — reflects everything that causes people to distrust and hate the N.Y.P.D. The officer’s further transgressions — not identifying himself to Mr. Blake, not apologizing, failing to void the arrest in follow-up paperwork — speak to an appalling lack of judgment by someone unfit for the job.



The mayor and Mr. Bratton need to acknowledge all this, and they should explain a few other things.



Like: Why shouldn’t Officer Frascatore be arrested for assault? Why was he still loose on the street despite his long history of excessive-force complaints, first reported by WNYC, including punching a driver in the mouth (after stopping him for a broken taillight) and another man in the stomach (while calling him a racial slur)? That those victims were both black and Mr. Blake, is biracial deserves attention. Why is no action taken when multiple complaints are filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board?



After the death of Eric Garner on Staten Island at the hands of the police in July 2014, Mr. Bratton promised to retrain all of his officers in professional, nonlethal arrest procedures. How could Officer Frascatore not have gotten the message?



Mr. Bratton fiercely defends his department’s aggressive policing of small infractions, so that “quality of life” in the city is preserved. But “quality of life” should also mean the freedom to stand on the sidewalk without worrying that a plainclothes officer will attack you.



There is a public job, too, for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which said in a statement that Officer Frascatore’s assignment to desk duty had been “premature and unwarranted.” What will it take for the union boss Patrick Lynch to stop reflexively defending excessive force and admit that Officer Frascatore and Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who led the group tackle that smothered the life out of Mr. Garner, reflect a larger problem?



Mr. Blake, a big name in pro tennis, has lots of media attention and is willing to use it, for which the city should be grateful. Too many people who should know better have been trying to derail the debate over police misconduct.



Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Raymond Kelly, a former police commissioner, have lately been making self-serving attacks on Mr. de Blasio and his Constitution-based approach to law enforcement. Mr. Kelly, flacking his new memoir, has argued for a return to the lawless “stop and frisk” tactic that flourished on his watch, on the grounds that violating the rights of hundreds of thousands of innocent people is smart policing.



New Yorkers deserve policing carried out with “Courtesy, professionalism, respect,” painted on the sides of patrol cars. Officers Frascatore and Pantaleo make those words a farce.



Correction: September 16, 2015

An editorial about the police attack on James Blake misidentified Raymond Kelly, the former New York City police commissioner. He served under Mayors David Dinkins and Michael Bloomberg, not Rudolph Giuliani.





Questions on the Blake Assault - The New York Times

All In Exclusive with Ahmed Mohamed | MSNBC

All In Exclusive with Ahmed Mohamed | MSNBC

Donald Trump Is Target of Conservative Ad Campaign - The New York Times

"The group, Club for Growth, is focusing its considerable firepower first on Iowa, where Mr. Trump has leapt to a significant lead over more conventionally credentialed Republican candidates, panicking Republican leaders. The group will spend $1 million on advertising in the state starting on Thursday, with plans for further spending in the weeks ahead, the club’s president, David M. McIntosh, announced at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday.





Donald Trump Is Target of Conservative Ad Campaign - The New York Times

How Segregation Destroys Black Wealth - The New York Times

"The complaint, and the investigations that led to it, shows how real estate agents promote segregation — and deny African-Americans the opportunity to buy into high-value areas that would provide better educations for children and a greater return on their investments.



Over the course of nearly a year, the alliance reports, black and white testers posing as home buyers had drastically different experiences when they contacted a real estate company near Jackson, Miss. Agents often declined to show properties to black customers who were better qualified than whites, with higher incomes, better credit scores and more savings for down payments. Meanwhile, white testers who had expressed interest in properties in the majority-black city of Jackson were steered into majority-white communities elsewhere.



These problems are not limited to the South. Indeed, another alliance investigation covering a dozen metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham, Chicago, Dayton, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, San Antonio and the District of Columbia, suggests that housing market discrimination is universal.



Despite being better qualified financially, black and Latino testers were shown fewer homes than their white peers, were often denied information about special incentives that would have made the purchase easier, and were required to produce loan pre-approval letters and other documents when whites were not."



How Segregation Destroys Black Wealth - The New York Times

Real Time with Bill Maher: Overtime – September 11, 2015 (HBO)

Donald Trump’s glory days as the butt of Spy’s jokes: How the “short-fingered vulgarian” rose to the occasion and became a break-out national star - Salon.com

The thing that amazed me about the ’80s and ’90s Trump – I’d never seen anyone who so manifestly and desperately thrived on media attention. He couldn’t have enough – as close to a literal addiction as I’ve ever seen. So now, with this summer and this campaign, he’s getting more attention than ever. And it’s like some X-Man thing or The Hulk – he’s just getting bigger and bigger. You can see him just vibrating with the pleasure of people paying attention to him every day.

There’s nothing about him that indicates that he’s a happy person – so it’s an interesting combination of “I’m rich, I’ve got this beautiful wife,” and yet, “Why don’t you seem happy? Warren Buffett seems happy.”

Donald Trump’s glory days as the butt of Spy’s jokes: How the “short-fingered vulgarian” rose to the occasion and became a break-out national star - Salon.com

Megyn Kelly trips up patently unprepared Ben Carson with softball question about Kim Davis and slippery slopes - Dumb, dumb and dumber - Dr Carson is clueless concerning American Constitutional law as well as American history. He is well out of his depth. You do not have Constitutional rights when you take a job government or private. You waive those rights when you take the oath. This is elementary. How sad. Salon.com

Megyn Kelly trips up patently unprepared Ben Carson with softball question about Kim Davis and slippery slopes - Salon.com

Emasculated white men love Donald Trump: The real reason a billionaire bozo rules the GOP - Salon.com

Trump, as a phenomenon (rather than as a mere presidential candidate), is a direct reflection of a profound nationwide fear among white men. The rise of Trump shows just how elemental the worries about seeing Hillary in the White House are among that set. Hillary Clinton symbolizes just about everything that has “old-school” American men – and there are many of those – afraid.



Emasculated white men love Donald Trump: The real reason a billionaire bozo rules the GOP - Salon.com

Even Fox News Can't Defend 'Ridiculously Stupid' Argument From Kim Davis' Lawyer Though Fox Commentator Misconstrues Article III Of The Constitution

Wow, Fox News gets the answer right though the got Article III of the Constitution wrong.   The Constitution does not give the Supreme Court the last word on interpreting the Constitution.  In the case of Marbury vs Madison 1803 the Supreme Court asserted the right to be the last word in Constitutional interpretation.  This set a precedent which has lasted until today.  Fox News is pretty poor.



John H Armwood



Even Fox News Can't Defend 'Ridiculously Stupid' Argument From Kim Davis' Lawyer

How Chinese and Americans Are Misreading Each Other -- And Why It Matters | Fu Ying

BEIJING -- While speaking at a dinner forum in Beijing, I was asked by an American participant what the Chinese disliked about the United States. Being among friends, I spoke my mind: it is Americans condescendingly lecturing others. What astounded me somewhat, though, was that many Americans present were actually surprised by this comment. What seems obvious to one group can be seen as surprising to another.

Later, I posed the question to a number of my WeChat (a Chinese mobile service combining the function of Facebook and Twitter) groups to seek views from others. I received many messages back. For example, Peggy, a mother, wrote that the Americans are too sloppy with their diet and the restaurants are stuffed with greasy and salty food. Shu, a grade school kid: American parents give their children freedom, letting them do whatever they want. Hui, a businessman from western China: I like the toll-free American highways.

How Chinese and Americans Are Misreading Each Other -- And Why It Matters | Fu Ying