You’re not helping, Ben

At a time when the Donald Trump camp should be telling all its surrogates to just stop talking about the Khans so that media attention shifts away from this damaging issue, his supporter Ben Carson emerges from hibernation to suggest that all this spectacle could be ended if both Trump and the Khans apologized to each other, though he admitted that this was unlikely to happen. When asked what exactly the Khans should apologize for, Carson was typically vague saying that they had said things about Trump that were not true.
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Can a marathon be run under two hours?

The current world record for the marathon in 2 hours, 2 minutes and 57 seconds set by Kenyan Dennis Kimetto in the 2014 Berlin Marathon. This raises the question of whether a marathon can be run under two hours. Although the current record seems tantalizingly close to the two hour mark, it translates into a distance of six-tenths of a mile in a race and that seems so formidable that some suspect that that barrier will never be broken.
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The baiting of Donald Trump

The Democratic party’s strategy against Donald Trump has become clear. We have seen that Trump lacks self-control and feels the need to respond to every slight and attack, however trivial the charge and however unknown the attacker. He feels a compulsion to show that he is the best at everything and reacts strongly to any challenge to his dominance. If you say something nice about him, he likes you but if you say something even slightly negative, he turns on you viciously. He cannot admit to making a mistake, however small, and apologizing is unthinkable because both those things (in his mind) denote weakness and he has a compulsion to portray himself as invulnerable and strong.
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The impact of the first female major party nominee

Much has been made of the fact that Hillary Clinton is the first woman to be the presidential nominee of a major political party in the US and if elected would be the first woman US president. This is undoubtedly an important step and I can see why so many Americans are savoring the moment. For me personally, my reaction is “What took America so long?” since Sri Lanka elected the first woman head of state back in 1960 and many, many other nations have done so since.
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Security clearances

It is the custom for presidential nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties to get security briefings from members of the intelligence agencies, presumably so that they have a better awareness of foreign policy issues and are better prepared when one of them eventually takes office. They do not have to get security clearances for this purpose. This briefing process is not required by law but has evolved over time and has been uncontroversial.
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Trump’s tax returns

It is clear that Donald Trump is anxious to not follow the tradition now extending back many decades of presidential candidates releasing their tax returns. The practice began in 1963 with candidate George Romney (father of Mitt) who released 12 years of returns. Since then, almost all presidential candidates and every eventual Democratic and Republican nominee has done so.
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Trump’s lack of self-control

I am finally back home in Cleveland after being away for about ten days to deal with some personal matters and am now catching up with a lot of the political news that I could only superficially skim while away.

Following the two conventions much commentary has been devoted to contrasting ‘the sky is falling rhetoric’ of the Republican convention with the more sunny vision of the Democratic one, which challenged Donald Trump’s claim that he will make America great again by saying that America is already great.
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