Hillary Goes To Church in Fla.: "We Are Not Going To Back Down" (X-posted from GD)

Mathematics and Religion

So, who are the smartest scientists? (since we're on the topic...)

My question is, where do mathematicians fit in here?

NRA Shows Its Support for Donald Trump With Big Ad Spending

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Donald Trump, who has seen the Republican establishment’s support for his presidential candidacy deteriorate in recent weeks, has found a stalwart in one conservative institution: the National Rifle Association.

The group has spent more than $26.8 million on ads promoting Mr. Trump and attacking Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. That’s more than twice what it spent at this point in the 2012 election and more than any other outside group backing the GOP ticket in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records. The next biggest spending pro-Trump group, Rebuilding America Now, has spent less than $17 million on advertising.

“No other outside group committed the necessary resources to defeat Hillary Clinton so the NRA had to fill the holes,” said Jennifer Baker, spokeswoman for the NRA-Institute for Legislative Action.


The pro-gun-rights group endorsed Mr. Trump earlier than it had with any other presidential candidate—a fact he mentions frequently on the campaign trail. And the GOP convention speech by Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s political and lobbying arm, was the group’s first appearance at a national party convention.


Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/nra-shows-its-support-for-donald-trump-with-big-ad-spending-1477431363

If it's Sunday, Hillary Clinton is making a stop at church (X-posted from GD)

Sam Harris: Donald Trump would be our first atheist president

Republican Donald Trump could become the first atheist president of the United States, according to neuroscience author Sam Harris.

“The one thing that is surprising and actually hopeful in Trump’s candidacy is the fact that he has dissected out the religious, social conservative component of the Republican Party,” Harris said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

“Evangelicals, for the most part, were going for Trump over Cruz when it was pretty clear to them that Trump was just pretending to be religious.”

Harris, who is associated with the “New Atheism” movement, mocked Trump for referring to “Second Corinthians” as “Corinthians Two” during a speech at the evangelical Liberty University.

“It is clear to them that he is just miming the language or impersonating a person of faith, but they don’t care really, as long as he does it,” he explained. “And that — if you look for a silver lining to this – it shows they just want a space where their religious convictions are not under attack. They don’t really care that the person in charge share them. If you pretend to share them, that’s good enough.”

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“He might be our first atheist president.”

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http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/sam-harris-donald-trump-would-be-our-first-atheist-president/

"Here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics."

Open Carry and Election Law

ByJosh MarshallPublishedOctober 16, 2016, 3:20 PM EDT


Here's one topic I've been thinking about and which we're going to be talking about next week. Where do state laws on voter suppression and open-carry intersect with federal laws on voter intimidation and voting rights?

You saw this incident last week where two Trumpers stood outside a Democratic campaign office in Virginia for twelve hours holding firearms. This was obviously menacing behavior. And this takes on a new dimension, both substantively and in terms of federal law, when it's tied to elections. But it was also completely legal under state firearms laws.

We know Donald Trump now repeatedly asks his supporters to go to minority precincts on election day to search for signs of voter fraud and attempts to steal the election. Today his chief surrogate Rudy Giuliani told Jake Tapper that Democrats are able to steal elections because they "control the inner cities." So there's no longer much attempt to be subtle about warning that black people are going to steal the election for Hillary Clinton.

Voting officials in a number of open-carry states say it wouldn't necessarily be against the law if Trumpers did some version of what happened in Virginia outside polling places. It wouldn't necessarily be protected either. It would be up to the local election official to decide if it amounted to intimidation or interference.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/open-carry-and-election-law

"I'll keep you in suspense, OK?": The NRA needs to drop Trump TODAY and end the suspense.

Every hour that passes since this sentence was uttered by the NRA's officially endorsed candidate is another hour of NRA-induced and NRA-sponsored suspense.

The NRA needs to end the suspense and clarify where it stands on the US Constitution, now.

The NRA Has Aired 1 in 6 of All Pro-Trump TV Ads

The gun lobby has launched a $22 million ad-blitz to defeat Clinton.

Oct 19, 2016



As more Republicans abandon their support for Donald Trump, the National Rifle Association has launched a more than $22 million ad blitz to help elect him and defeat Hillary Clinton. As reported by the Center for Public Integrity, the gun lobby is responsible for 16 percent of all pro-Trump television ads aired during this election cycle.

The NRA ads mostly target residents in the swing states of Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and and are tailored to court women—a demographic that's expected to largely vote against Trump. According to CPI, the NRA has been behind about 1 of every 8 presidential TV ads aired in Ohio in October. (It's aired about 1 in 9 presidential ads in North Carolina and about 1 in 20 ads in Pennsylvania during the month.)</p>

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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/nra-television-ads-spending-hillary-clinton-donald-trump