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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I started this blog with the intention of moderating it with a very light hand and resisted the urge to ban people, hoping I would never have to do so. But I have decided that I cannot stick to that ideal and have banned the commenter known as StevoR.
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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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Yesterday’s interfaith panel held at my university was interesting. The Hindu was a no-show so the first part began with the other three panelists (the Protestant campus chaplain, a Jewish rabbi, and a Muslim imam, who was the same person from Thursday’s session) each giving 15 minutes presentations. The Protestant chaplain was a minister in the United Church of Christ. This is one of the most socially enlightened and progressive of Christian denominations.
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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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I received a photograph from the organizers of the interfaith discussion last Thursday and post it to give you a sense of the occasion.
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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