I wrote earlier about the “Rule of Three”, the idea that in a group setting that it takes the presence of at least three members of a marginalized sector to make them feel comfortable enough to speak up. But even then, it may take a conscious effort on their part to break through the dominance of the majority group.
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I have written before about how Sri Lanka has had women heads of state since 1960 and women have occupied high positions in government, academia, and business for a long time. This does not mean that they are treated equally in all spheres (they still tend to be expected to be the primary homemakers, child rearers, and care givers irrespective of their positions and responsibilities outside the home) but it does mean that one did not see obvious signs of women being restricted.
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The US government has just agreed to a massive $38 billion dollar aid package to Israel, the largest in history even as the Netanyahu government pursues its apartheid policies against the Palestinians with increasing vigor, as it often does during US election season when all the media attention is focused on the foolishness of the campaign.
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The deaths of at least 62 Syrian troops and more than 100 injured by a US bombing attack that apparently went awry and struck them instead of an ISIS target has threatened the partial cease-fire that was supposed to be just getting underway. The repeated bombings of wrong targets undermines the constant reassurances we get from the US government of the reliability of their smart weaponry.
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This is what graced the front page of today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer. How absurd is it that this is now considered news?
For some time now there has been a coalition of evangelical Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons, joining forces to advance conservative causes, especially around opposition to abortion, pornography, and equal rights for the LGBT community. This alliance has provided a reliable voting bloc for the Republican party too.
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He talks with Seth Meyers about why we should get beyond personalities and whether we like or dislike a candidate, why Hillary Clinton’s policies are far superior to those of Donald Trump, where the Democratic party has failed, and what it still needs to do. Elsewhere, Sanders said that Trump’s campaign was based on bigotry and his focus on president Obama’s birth certificate was emblematic of that.
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The Princeton Election Consortium website run by Sam Wang (a Princeton University neuroscientist who has taken on a second interest in statistical analyses of US elections) has been my go-to site for the last few election cycles because I like his down-to-Earth looks at the state of the polling race, free of hyperventilating over the this or that latest poll. He does not post often but his website contains up-to-date information based on poll aggregation and is well worth keeping track of. If you enjoy statistics and its application in politics, this is the site for you.
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Elizabeth Warren continues to doggedly pursue the wealthy banksters who got off scot-free after pretty much destroying the lives of so many people and threatening to wreck the global economy. She has asked the director of the FBI and its inspector general to explain why there was no action taken against the 14 individuals specifically criminally referred to them by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) that was set up to examine the causes of the financial meltdown.
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I mentioned before that Donald Trump’s main personality feature is his desire to be the dominant person in any situation. That can work well in some situations such as in the testosterone-soaked world of business or in Republican primary politics. But it can also work against him in other situations.
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