How Roger Ailes got taken down by a ‘dumb blonde’

I mentioned in a previous post that my schadenfeude has limits when it comes to actual physical harm done to people and their families. But I have no limits to my enjoyment when it comes to how the odious, sexist, serial harasser Roger Ailes of Fox News got his comeuppance at the hands of someone who was widely seen as a dumb blonde. As I have noted before, former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson may have played a dumb blonde on her network but she is no fool.
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The Trump campaign message becomes clear

So on Wednesday we had Donald Trump going to Mexico and meeting with their president Enrique Pena Nieto. Following it, he lavishly praised the Mexican people and said that the two had a cordial discussion, and that they did not discuss the wall or who would pay for it (something that the Mexican president later contradicted), suggesting to observers that he was going to change his approach on the divisive issue of immigration.
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Rules for elevator behavior

It is interesting how conventions quickly develop for situations where people are put in close proximity, such as in elevators. There is even a name for the study of how people relate to others in public spaces: proxemics. This post looks at what we know about elevator behavior, such as how people arrange themselves as they enter, that people look at the numbers, possibly as a way to avoid eye contact with others, and that “Men leave more space between themselves and other men than women do with other women”.
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Resurgence of polio

We have come really close to eradicating the deadly disease of polio and so any setbacks have to be viewed with concern. NPR’s Jason Beaubien, who has been doing some excellent reporting on health issues in Africa, says that the recent discovery of two new cases in the northeast of Nigeria (near the border with Chad) has health experts worried because that country had gone for two years without any cases and was on track to be next country to be declared polio-free.
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The voting population that matters gets smaller

In a previous post, I wrote about how voter volatility has dropped sharply beginning with the 1996 elections, resulting in much greater stability in voter patterns. This has resulted in the cementing of party preferences in about 80% of the states leading to a semi-permanent red state-blue state map of the US, with just a handful of about 10 states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin being the largest of this small group) considered swing states whose outcome is now considered to be still up for grabs.
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When bad things happen to bad people

Readers may have heard that Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, was one of those people whose homes were flooded by the torrential rains that fell on Louisiana and flooded parts of Baton Rouge and other areas. The FRC is one of those evangelical organizations that have an anti-LGBT mission, though like many Christian groups, they claim to “love the sinner and hate the sin”.
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What is the deal with the Trump visit to Mexico?

Needless to say that I was startled to read in the news that Donald Trump would be going to Mexico today to meet with that nation’s president Enrique Pena Nieto, prior to his much publicized speech on immigration in Arizona later in the day. News reports say that the invitation came from Nieto and that Trump would be accompanied by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions.
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