Rolling Stone magazine asked the presidential candidates about what songs they liked and some used at their campaign events. All but one of them are pretty unexceptional. But can you guess Ben Carson’s favorite song?
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Rolling Stone magazine asked the presidential candidates about what songs they liked and some used at their campaign events. All but one of them are pretty unexceptional. But can you guess Ben Carson’s favorite song?
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Thomas Frank takes apart recent efforts in the mainstream media to minimize Bill Clinton’s culpability in the massive incarceration of young black men. Recent news reports have emphasized that incarceration rates were rising well before the Clinton years. But Frank says that this has always been well known to anyone who has looked at the ‘War on Crime’ and so it is hardly news worthy now. But he says that the fact that it is being reported as news sheds an interesting light on its purpose.
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Saturday Night Live gives us a look at last week’s Democratic debate between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and the questions from members of the audience had a distinct Seinfeld insider joke vibe. (For those not in the know, Larry David who is a ringer for Sanders and has been appearing as him many times on SNL, was the creator of that TV show.)
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I have become drearily familiar with stories of Muslims getting kicked off flights because other passengers were frightened by the way they dressed, spoke, looked, or otherwise acted in ways that Real Merkins don’t. These stories are becoming so common that I have not even bothered to comment on them. But one thing that struck me recently is how often Southwest Airlines is involved in these peremptory bootings of Muslims.
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Bernie Sanders has tough climb in order to win the New York primary on Tuesday where Hillary Clinton currently has a big lead in the polls. But if he falls short, it will not be for want of trying. The last week has seem him having a series of high profile events that generated positive publicity.
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ProPublica has the awful story of what happened to 32-year old Austria Bueno, her husband, and her two children as a result of the harsh and punitive use of local laws against poor people.
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There have been recent news reports about the $5 billon dollar fine levied by the Justice Department on Goldman Sachs for deliberately misleading mortgage bond investors during the period leading up to the 2008 housing bubble crash.
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I did not watch last night’s debate between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton that according to news reports was quite contentious. Philip Weiss looked closely at what Jake Tapper said was a ‘historic moment’ in American politics. For once a leading candidate deviated from the stance of uncritical support for whatever Israel does and instead balanced support with criticisms of its disproportionate response to attacks that had especially left Gaza devastated and caused an immense amount of suffering for the Palestinian people.
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There has been quite a lot of attention recently to the 1994 crime bill that Bill Clinton signed into law that led to the widespread imprisonment of large numbers of young black men with devastating consequences for the community. The Clintons and their supporters have gone into damage control mode and it has followed the usual pattern of suggesting that ‘everyone’ agreed on that policy at that time and that it is now Monday morning quarterbacks who are complaining with the benefit of hindsight.
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As the talking heads go into overdrive about what would happen in a contested Republican convention and the party establishment despairs at having to choose between two candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that they hate, here is someone who offered to be a compromise candidate in the past and could serve that role now. He couldn’t be worse.
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