For the past painful year, the Republican presidential contenders have been bombarding Americans with empty propaganda slogans and competing, bizarrely, to present themselves as the least experienced person for the most important elected job in the world. Democratic primary voters, on the other hand, after a substantive debate over real issues, have the chance to nominate one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.

Hillary Clinton would be the first woman nominated by a major party. She served as a senator from a major state (New York) and as secretary of state — not to mention her experience on the national stage as first lady with her brilliant and flawed husband, President Bill Clinton. The Times editorial board has endorsed her three times for federal office — twice for Senate and once in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary — and is doing so again with confidence and enthusiasm.

Mrs. Clinton’s main opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, has proved to be more formidable than most people, including Mrs. Clinton, anticipated. He has brought income inequality and the lingering pain of the middle class to center stage and pushed Mrs. Clinton a bit more to the left than she might have gone on economic issues. Mr. Sanders has also surfaced important foreign policy questions, including the need for greater restraint in the use of military force.

In the end, though, Mr. Sanders does not have the breadth of experience or policy ideas that Mrs. Clinton offers. His boldest proposals — to break up the banks and to start all over on health care reform with a Medicare-for-all system — have earned him support among alienated middle-class voters and young people. But his plans for achieving them aren’t realistic, while Mrs. Clinton has very good, and achievable, proposals in both areas.

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Hillary Clinton is the right choice for the Democrats to present a vision for America that is radically different from the one that leading Republican candidates offer — a vision in which middle-class Americans have a real shot at prosperity, women’s rights are enhanced, undocumented immigrants are given a chance at legitimacy, international alliances are nurtured and the country is kept safe.
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In his article, Dana Milbank addresses the unpleasant fact of how good the GOP is at demonizing and dispatching opponents. We have seen them hounding Hillary Clinton for a couple of decades. We all need to remember that with many people if you repeat a lie often enough they will begin to think it's a reality. This works with, sorry to say it, many people (most are known as "the GOP base" but they are not limited to that group).

Nobody knows this better than the GOP. They count on people being programmable to win elections - well along with voter suppression (and, in a pinch, the Supremes to abort an election and choose who the 'winner' is). It seems many people are blythely oblivious to this fiendish facility of the GOP at McCarthyist politics, in their enthusiasm for their candidate who nobody doubts (in Democratic circles) is a good man. The Dana Milbank article could serve as a good medicament for those enthralled by reveries of Sir Good-at-Heart being victorious over the monstrous malevolence of the GOP - if they are open to his knowledgeable advice (and entreaty?).


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-would-be-insane-to-nominate-bernie-sanders/2016/01/26/0590e624-c472-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html

8. Gerrymandering.

When was the last time you saw a front page headline about gerrymandering?

Before the 2010 election, conservatives launched a plan to win control of state legislatures before the census. The idea was to be in power when national congressional districts were redrawn in order to fix them so Republicans would win a majority of districts.

The Redistricting Majority Project was hugely successful. In 2012, Barack Obama was elected President by nearly 3.5 million votes. In Congressional races, Democrats drew nearly 1.4 million more votes than Republicans yet Republicans won control of the House 234 seats to 201 seats.

How is this possible?

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Most Americans expect that Hillary Clinton would prevail against her leading GOP opponent in November, while Bernie Sanders’ chances are rated less well. The thought of Donald Trump as president inspires high levels of public anxiety.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll also finds Americans divided about the need for a third party in this country – but not so divided about a potential independent run by Trump, should he fail to win the GOP nomination. Fewer than a quarter say they’d even consider voting for him as an independent candidate for president.

With Trump as the GOP nominee vs. Clinton, 54 percent of Americans say they’d expect Clinton to win (42% think Trump would win_Bill USA); among registered voters (a more GOP-leaning group), Clinton has 52 percent support. Clinton’s seen by much wider margins as beating Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. Sanders, for his part, is seen as beating Cruz or Rubio – but potentially losing to Trump.

(Those polled 46% expect Sanders would beat Trump. While 49% of those polled think Sanders would lose._Bill USA)

this poll was conducted for ABC by Langer Research Associates.

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Sanders and his supporters boast of polls showing him, on average, matching up slightly better against Trump than Clinton does. But those matchups are misleading: [font size="+1"]Opponents ("Opponents"?? ...how 'nice' of Dana to not put in print: "the GOP&quot have been attacking and defining Clinton for a quarter- century, but nobody has really gone to work yet on demonizing Sanders.[/font]

Watching Sanders at Monday night’s Democratic presidential forum in Des Moines, I imagined how Trump — or another Republican nominee — would disembowel the relatively unknown Vermonter.

The first questioner from the audience asked Sanders to explain why he embraces the “socialist” label and requested that Sanders define it “so that it doesn’t concern the rest of us citizens.”

Sanders, explaining that much of what he proposes is happening in Scandinavia and Germany (a concept that itself alarms Americans who don’t want to be like socialized Europe), answered vaguely: “Creating a government that works for all of us, not just a handful of people on the top — that’s my definition of democratic socialism.

But that’s not how Republicans will define socialism — and they’ll have the dictionary on their side. They’ll portray Sanders as one who wants the government to own and control major industries and the means of production and distribution of goods. They’ll say he wants to take away private property. That wouldn’t be fair, but it would be easy. Socialists don’t win national elections in the United States .
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ADEL, Iowa - Hillary Clinton called on Bernie Sanders to join a proposed Democratic debate next week in New Hampshire, telling MSNBC's Chris Matthews that she is "anxious" to make the debate happen.

"I'm ready for the debate, and I hope Sen. Sanders will change his mind and join us," she said in the interview, which will air on "Hardball" Wednesday night. "I think the DNC and the campaigns should be able to work this out. I've been for, you know, for a long time, that I'd be happy to have more debates, and I hope we can get this done."

Asked if she wanted the Democratic National Committee to sanction the debate, Clinton replied, "I would like the chairman of the parties and the campaigns to agree we can debate in New Hampshire next week."

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Clinton and Martin O'Malley, the third candidate in the race, quickly said they would be open to joining, but Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said his candidate was not interested in an unsanctioned debate.
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» The FAO Food Price Index* (FFPI) averaged 154.1 points in December 2015, down 1.5 points (1.0 percent) from its revised November value, with international prices of all the food commodities used in the calculation of the Index falling, except for sugar and oils. Over the full year, the index has averaged 164.1 points, nearly 19 percent less than in 2014, marking the fourth consecutive annual decline.

In what has to be the ultimate rock-paper-scissors game, a computer is able to decode what choice its opponent has made before they move a hand.

Sophisticated mind reading seems more possible than ever.

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The research was spearheaded by Toshimasa Yamazaki, a computer science and systems engineering professor in the Department of Bioscience and Bioinformatics at Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan. He and his team studied a dozen men, women and children using an electroencephalogram or EEG to detect their brainwaves.

First he had them say “rock,” “paper,” and “scissors” in Japanese. Then he had them concentrate on each word without saying it, RocketNews24 reported. The results varied by person, but computer readings showed similar brainwave patterns for the spoken and unspoken tests — to the point where Yamazaki’s team could frequently figure out which word the person was thinking.

Measuring the brain signals and doing analysis like this is nothing new, but Yamazaki’s work is focused on part of the brain called the Broca area. It’s full of motor neurons involved in speech production and language comprehension. He also had the advantage of the Japanese language because vowels have proven easier to read through EEG than consonants.
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