they started sending them to Australia. In fact, it was precisely because of America’s fight for independence that the Brits had to start sending their criminals to Australia. But from 1718 until 1775, convict transportation to the American colonies flourished. Some estimates claim that almost 10 percent of migrants to America during this time were British convicts.

In fact, experts estimate that over 52,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America.

Many Australians have more or less embraced their convict history. But if you’re an American who had no idea that your country’s founding included a huge prison population, you’re not alone. Historically, Americans have not been too keen on discussing the fact that convicts came to what would eventually become known as the United States.

The Post-ABC News poll (29 percent), the Emerson poll (30 percent ) and the Morning Consult poll (31 percent) all show former vice president Joe Biden dropping a significant amount yet still in first place. In early states, Biden lost 12 points compared with 7 points overall in the Morning Consult survey.

Morning Consult shows Biden has lost 8 points among African Americans, but not all of his support went to Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.). After the debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also gained slightly (4 percent) with African American voters in that same poll.

In face-to-face match-ups against President Trump, Biden does the best of any Democrat and consistently scores outside the margin of error. Sanders recently has come in slightly above Trump (a shade over 4 percent in the RCP averages), but often within the margin of error. Harris and Warren are about 2 points ahead of Trump in the RCP averages (again within the margin of error).

We have several takeaways from all of this.

First, it’s clear that Biden’s support was in fact fragile, as the first significant event in the contest, the debate, demonstrated. His draw, however, has been in large part premised on his ability to beat Trump; if he continues to do a whole lot better against Trump than the other contenders, that advantage will remain...

Fifth, the past few weeks should underscore how unstable the race is and how early we are in the primary. We will see five more debates before the end of the year alone. We are still learning a whole lot about the candidates’ backgrounds and records, and none has started a concerted attack on any other participant...

Finally, we’ve seen a dramatic demonstration of how critical the black vote is in the Democratic primary. As we saw in 2008, a front-runner with strong African American support can tumble if those voters find a viable African American contender, as they did with Barack Obama after his Iowa victory. The support of African American voters — as Obama had in 2008 and Hillary Clinton had in 2016 — can be absolutely critical, if not determine the outcome. And that, in turn, points to a failure in media coverage: Rather than trace the whims of mostly white, super-progressive voters, the media should be paying a whole lot more attention to African American voters. It’s they who will likely pick the nominee, and in turn, determine whether Democrats can field a winning candidate to boot out Trump.

Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson on Thursday shared a photo of herself edited into a viral Vogue magazine photo of all the Democratic women running for the White House.

“Happy July 4th! Other generations have done what they were called to do, and now it’s our generation’s time to do what we are called to do,” Williamson posted on Instagram. The photo shows Williamson added to a painting in the background of the picture.

“The American revolution is an ongoing process, a continuous journey Into more and more expanded realms of possibility for everyone. It’s amazing when you dust off certain phases and reclaim them for their modern relevance. 'Let freedom ring' is not just a cliche after all... #bigtruth,” the candidate continued.

A Williamson campaign spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill, "The campaign did not create the meme. All credit goes to the people of the internet who never fail to deliver."

Williamson was not included in the Vogue photo of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). She criticized the decision to exclude her, saying on CNN the Framers of the Constitution did not make Vogue magazine the “gatekeeper” for the race.

Amy Chozick, the author of the piece in Vogue, in an interview explained that the magazine's editors decided to focus on women who were already serving in elected office. Williamson was the only woman running for president who was not included in the picture.

In one of the most dramatic turnarounds in recent history, the number of Americans opposed to busing school children for racial purposes has declined from an overwhelming 78-14 percent in 1976 to a current 53-41 percent, a decline of 25 points over the past decade. From 1971 to 1976, well over 7 in every 10 people across the country were opposed to busing for racial purposes.

One of the chief reasons for this startling change of thinking in the country is the fact that the satisfaction levels with the experience of busing children has taken a sharp upward turn, according to this latest Harris Survey, taken by telephone between November 26th and December 2nd, among a national cross section of 1,250 adults. Back at the beginning of this decade, in 1981, only 54 percent of all parents whose children were being bused said they felt the experience was "very satisfactory." Another 33 percent said it was "partly satisfactory", with only a relatively small 11 percent who said it was "not satisfactory." Among whites, less than a majority, 48 percent, found the busing experience for their children highly satisfactory.

Now, a much higher 71 percent of all families whose children have been bused for racial purposes say they are very satisfied, up a full 17 points in only 5 years. Rut the biggest change upward has occurred among whites. The number of whites highly pleased with the bus i no of their children has jumped a full 25 points just since 1981. By contrast, among black parents, high satisfaction has actually declined from 74 to 64 percent, although a sizable majority obviously still are pleased by it.

Significantly, whites are now more satisfied with busing their children to school for racial purposes than is the case among blacks. This is one of the most dramatic shifts in publ ic opinion, but is particularly significant since it has taken place in the area of busing.
This shift in attitudes has been accompanied not by a decline in the number of children who are bused for racial purposes, but instead by a sharp increase. Just five years ago, the Harris

Survey indicated that no more than 19 percent of the households of the country reported that they had a child in their family who had been picked up by bus to go to school with children of other races. Now, a much higher 32 percent of the households have had that experience. The number of black families who have had such a busing experience has risen from 40 to 48 percent and the number of white households has gone up from 17 to 31 percent.

These results indicate that busing now has been much more widely accepted by public school systems than has previously been either reported or realized, Significantly, as more white families have had their children go through the busing process, they have found that their worst fears simply did not materialize. Instead the entire process was one of high satisfaction.

In turn, the actual experience of busing then appears to have changed public attitudes about busing generally. For a generation, the Harris Survey had found that while the number who found busing unsatisfactory had never gone above 16 percent, nonetheless the vast majority of people, by margins of 5 to 1 or better steadfastly, in almost a by rote reaction, firmly stated their opposition to busing.

Yet a remarkable transformation has occurred in school desegregration since the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that legally segregated public education was unconstitutional. As the Federal Government forced Southern state and local governments to desegregate, the region's public schools became more integrated - primarily because of racially focused busing - than many schools in the North and West. A report released in January by the Joint Center for Political Studies, a Washington-based research organization, indicated that Southern and border states continue to lead the nation in the desegregation of black students, while segregation is increasing in the Northeast; segregation of Hispanics has risen sharply nationwide. Yet President Reagan, Attorney General William French Smith and Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Divison, William Bradford Reynolds have repeatedly asserted that mandatory busing plans are ill-considered and unworkable and that voluntary measures are the best means of achieving desegregation. The Justice Department has joined in court other parties seeking to reduce or eliminate busing plans in Seattle, Tacoma and Pasco, Wash., and Nashville, Tenn., but the courts have ruled against all these attempts.

Polls show that while support for desegregated schools continues to increase, disapproval of busing as a means to accomplish it has hardened. ''If mandatory busing had proven to be effective in desegregating school systems across the country,'' says Assistant Attorney General Reynolds, ''then I think you would probably have a much different public response. But time after time, in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, it's been shown that (busing) has not been effective, and as a result of that, public education has suffered mightily.'' But many civil-rights professionals and academic desegregation experts argue that such remarks are completely at variance with the facts about racially focused busing, and they have presented substantial evidence that busing largely works. Their research shows that, contrary to popular opinion, busing has usually been imposed only after careful consideration and, in many cases, after voluntary desegregation measures have been tried and proved unsuccessful. It has found that minority students generally have made academic gains without damaging the scholastic performance of whites. In most instances, the health and safety of students has not been jeopardized; nor have they been forced to travel extraordinary distances to school. Busing does not consume a large portion of the school system's budget, nor does it subvert the so-called neighborhood-school principle. Their assertions have been bolstered by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, which concluded after hearings in 1981 that ''busing achieves a degree of desegregation that is unattainable through other means.''

Sen. Kamala Harris of California has catapulted into a virtual tie with former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — and she'smade significant inroads with black voters — following her widely praised debate performance last week, a new national poll released Tuesday showed.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters showed Biden with 22 percent support and Harris with 20 percent — a double-digit jump for her since the university's previous poll last month.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont were in third and fourth place in the poll, with 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, was in fifth, with 4 percent support.

No other candidate got more than 3 percent in the poll.

Biden's 2 percentage point lead over Harris was within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

"Round 1 of the Democratic debates puts Senator Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden on two different trajectories, as support for Harris surges but continues to slip for Biden," Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Mary Snow said in a statement. "Biden's once-commanding lead has evaporated," she added.

The poll, conducted June 28 to July 1, also showed that Harris had caught up with Biden in receiving support from black Democratic voters — a bloc with which Biden has done well.

In the latest poll, Biden's support among black Democratic voters shrunk to 31 percent from 48 percent in the June poll. Harris, on the other hand, saw her support among black Democratic voters grow to 27 percent, from 11 percent in the June poll. The June poll numbers on African American voters were provided to NBC by Quinnipiac.

The poll suggests a substantial upswing for Harris and a notable decline for the former vice president. In the Quinnipiac's poll of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters last month, Biden received the support of 30 percent of the respondents, while Sanders had 19 percent, Warren had 15 percent and Buttigieg had 8 percent.