Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders have something to prove in Nevada
The state's Democratic electorate -- 40% non-white and including a heavy union presence spread across a vast, difficult-to-organize territory -- provides the first true test of both candidates' national viability and battle plans. ...... For Clinton, Nevada is an opportunity to prove her strength with minorities and demonstrate how a six-month organizing head start can put the lid on her upstart opponent. ..... "Not everything is about an economic theory, right?" Clinton rhetorically asked the crowd Saturday in Henderson. "If we broke up the big banks tomorrow -- and I will, if they deserve it, if they pose a systemic risk, I will -- will that end racism?" she said as the crowd answered "no." ...... After a narrow win in Iowa for Clinton, and a historic victory for Sanders in New Hampshire, the national polls show the race turning into a dead heat: Quinnipiac University's latest survey has3-D 'bioprinter' produces bone, muscle, and cartilageClinton up just 44% to 42%.
..... "They downplayed Nevada so much that I wondered, what do they know that I don't?'" said one unaffiliated Democratic operative who knows Nevada.
The researchers produced three types of tissue - bone, cartilage, and muscle - and transplanted it into rats and mice. ..... Five months after implantation, the bone tissue looked similar to normal bone, complete with blood vessels and with no dead areas ......... "We are also using similar strategies to print solid organs" ...... "Actual personalized medicine, especially in the tissue regeneration field, is on its way."Flower preserved in amber was ancestor of modern poisonous plants
The perfectly-preserved flowers named Strychnos electri are estimated by researchers from Oregon State and Rutgers universities to be from 20 million to 30 million years old. ..... It comes from the family of flowering plants called asteroid that gave us potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, petunias and our morning cup of coffee. But this one is from the genus Strychnos, which ultimate produce strychnine and curare – poisons used in everything from rat control to blow-gun weapons. Strychnine also played a part in the movie “Psycho,” in which Norman Bates uses rat poison to kill his mother and her boyfriend. ....... And one ancient genus, which has now been shown to be inherently toxic, existed for millions of years before humans appeared on the planet.No longer blind: Why that gravitational wave discovery is so heavy
The detection of spacetime ripples produced by a cataclysmic collision of two black holes is the first major discovery of the new field of gravitational-wave astronomy. President Obama Criticizes G.O.P. Field, Particularly Donald Trump
Mr. Obama also made clear his reluctance to change course in Syria, where he said Russia had blundered into a “quagmire.” ......He spoke more optimistically about Libya, saying that there was a recognition of the need for a coherent state. The United States, he said, would support efforts to put together a new government there. ..... “The good news in Libya is that they don’t like outsiders coming in and telling them what to do,” he said.Mike Bloomberg’s Outlandish Presidential Fantasy
An independent presidential run by the billionaire would help Democrats retain the White House
Bloomberg would have almost no chance of actually getting elected President. .... Perhaps he might get 40 percent or so of the overall vote, but not in enough states to either win 270 electoral votes or to prevent an other candidate from winning a state’s electoral votes. While the country is closely divided between Democratic and Republican voters, most states are not. ........ he would have to take mostly from Democrats in some states, and mostly from Republicans in others. That would be extremely difficult for any candidate, even one with Mr. Bloomberg’s thick wallet. ...... Mr. Bloomberg has said he would run only if the Democrats nominated Mr. Sanders and the Republicans nominate either Mr. Trump or Ted Cruz. In that scenario, centrists from both parties would consider voting for Mr. Bloomberg. .....Black and Latino Voters Sway From Clinton to SandersThe Democratic base, therefore, would be unmoved by Bloomberg, while Republican voters frightened by the prospect of Mr. Trump or Mr. Cruz, and more concerned about economic rather than social policy would be a more fertile ground for Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign.
....... this year, as many Republicans embrace Mr. Trump’s populism, seems to be a limited appetite for a candidate who does not have a populist bone in his body and who promotes gun control. To suggest his political profile will resonate broadly in the electorate is to be oblivious to what is going on, and what many people are thinking, in America. ....... Mr. Bloomberg is clearly smart, qualified and experienced enough to be President, and perhaps even a very good one, but that will not be enough to get him elected President.
If Sanders stays on message, Clinton will see the nomination disappear like it did in '08 against Obama
I can’t believe Hillary would be coasting into the primaries with her current margin of black support if most people knew how much damage the Clintons have done—the millions of families that were destroyed the last time they were in the White House, thanks to their boastful embrace of the mass incarceration machine and their total capitulation to the right-wing narrative on race, crime, welfare and taxes. ........ In South Carolina, where African-Americans comprise 30 percent of the population, Mr. Sanders cut Ms. Clinton’s lead from 40 points to 22 points. ...... To combat the surge in support Mr. Sanders is receiving in South Carolina, Ms. Clinton sent her husband, Bill Clinton, and 170 black women to try to protect her lead in the state. ...... In Nevada, where Latinos make up nearly 30 percent of the population, Mr. Sanders is rapidly closing the gap against Ms. Clinton. ....... When Democratic voters are exposed to Mr. Sanders, they overwhelmingly support him ..... If Mr. Sanders continues to stay on message with a campaign that is resonating with Democratic voters who actually want change, Ms. Clinton may begin to see the nomination dissipate before her eyes like it did in 2008 against Barack Obama, who was a junior senator from Illinois with little name recognition prior to his campaign.Michael Bloomberg could be the one to stop Trump: Wells
Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering running for U.S. president and could be an antidote to the Donald.
I like to think that Donald Trump is Bloomberg’s No. 1 target, and that it was the Donald he was addressing when he told the Times that he finds the current level of campaign discourse “distressingly banal and an outrage and an insult to the voters.” ....... Trump responded in his trademark fully infantilized style: “He was a friend of mine. As far as I’m concerned, he’s not a friend anymore.” What sounded to Trump like a “nasty shot” was, he assumed, directed at him. ...... Bloomberg in his first run for mayor. ... As I wrote then, Bloomberg’s schedule was as light as dandelion fluff. He showed up half an hour late at a Staten Island bingo hall and spoke for all of two minutes — a felicitous public speaker he was not — before retreating into his tinted-window black Suburban. There were no connecting-with-the-people moments. ....... An encounter at his campaign office could not have lasted more than 30 seconds, barely enough time to note the man’s taut presence, a person of physical discipline ..... But that is what happened. Bloomberg didn’t win by much, but he won. And ran the city for three terms. (In a 2013 profile, the New Yorker’s Ken Auletta pegged Bloomberg’s three-campaign spend at $260 million.) ....... In office he was anti-smoking, anti junk food (autocratically so), pro gay rights, pro abortion rights, pro bike lines and was a founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He pushed through tax increases and left office with a $2-billion surplus. Critics include those opposed to charter schools, which Bloomberg fought for. ....... I once interviewed his partner, Diana Taylor, who at the time was superintendent of banking for the state of New York. Taylor’s big push was to incentivize banks to service low income and immigration populations, which had been red circled (read abandoned) by the financial services industry.......Unlike Trump, in other words,Mark Cuban Says Mike Bloomberg Should Run For PresidentBloomberg is not a hard-line ideologue and surrounds himself with thinkers. ...... unlike Trump, he really is a self-made businessman. His father was a bookkeeper at a dairy.
Forbes estimates Bloomberg’s current net worth at a whisker shy of $40 billion. The magazine pegs Trump’s net worth at $4.5 billion. And he started out with $1 million from dad. .......Someone needs to block the Trump insanity. Mike Bloomberg might be just the man for the job.
Bloomberg is reportedly considering a run, and sees an opportunity for an independent candidacy if Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were to become the nominees for their respective parties. ..... Cuban added that he isn’t ready to pick a candidate, but he again encouraged Bloomberg to run to see if he would change the tone of the debate.The 'good billionaire': Silicon Valley roots for Bloomberg for president
The tech industry sees Michael Bloomberg, who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, as one of its own – the hero to Donald Trump’s ‘bad billionaire’
there is one corner of the US still holding out for a Bloomberg candidacy: Silicon Valley. ..... The tech industry sees the billionaire entrepreneur, who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, as one of its own....... “Bloomberg is good billionaire to Trump’s bad billionaire,” former Google executive and current startup founder Mike Dudas said. ..... In part, Bloomberg’s popularity in the tech sector stems from the absence of any other candidates that so closely resemble the values that underpin the industry. ...... “In Silicon Valley, everybody loves somebody who’s an operator,” Calacanis added. “Bloomberg’s an operator. You just look on Twitter people are like yes, yes, yes, Bloomberg please, please, please.” ...... Vermont senator Bernie Sanders may enjoy a constituency among some radicals in Silicon Valley – and the self-avowed socialist is now outpacing Clinton in fundraising among employees at the five largest tech companies. ...... “He’s an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur,” Shonfeld said. “He invented the SaaS business model. That’s how he made his billions.” ....... He added: “Literally I’m here at the Nob Hill Center and there’s hundreds of companies here that are all trying to sell subscriptions and most of them for data services, and he [Bloomberg] invented this.” .......Thomas Piketty on the rise of Bernie Sanders: the US enters a new political era“The guy who won the New Hampshire primary for the Republicans has openly threatened to shut down the internet to fight Isis,” Johnson said, referring to Trump. “How do you propose to shut down the internet?”
The Vermont senator’s success so far demonstrates the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections
From 1930 to 1980 – for half a century – the rate for the highest US income (over $1m per year) was on average 82%, with peaks of 91% from the 1940s to 1960s (from Roosevelt to Kennedy), and still as high as 70% during Reagan’s election in 1980. ....... This policy in no way affected the strong growth of the post-war American economy, doubtless because there is not much point in paying super-managers $10m when $1m will do. The estate tax, which was equally progressive with rates applicable to the largest fortunes in the range of 70% to 80% for decades (the rate has almost never exceeded 30% to 40% in Germany or France), greatly reduced the concentration of American capital, without the destruction and wars which Europe had to face....... Reagan was elected in 1980 on a program aiming to restore a mythical capitalism said to have existed in the past. ....... The culmination of this new program was the tax reform of 1986, which ended half a century of a progressive tax system and lowered the rate applicable to the highest incomes to 28%. ....... Democrats never truly challenged this choice in the Clinton (1992-2000) and Obama (2008-2016) years, which stabilized the taxation rate at around 40% (two times lower than the average level for the period 1930 to 1980). This triggered an explosion of inequality coupled with incredibly high salaries for those who could get them, as well as a stagnation of revenues for most of America ......What a Bloomberg Run Might Look LikeReagan also decided to freeze the federal minimum wage level, which from 1980 was slowly but surely eroded by inflation (little more than $7 an hour in 2016, against nearly $11 in 1969). Again, this new political-ideological regime was barely mitigated by the Clinton and Obama years.
...... Hillary Clinton, who fought to the left of Barack Obama in 2008 on topics such as health insurance, appears today as if she is defending the status quo, just another heiress of the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political regime. .......Sanders makes clear he wants to restore progressive taxation and a higher minimum wage ($15 an hour). To this he adds free healthcare and higher education in a country where inequality in access to education has reached unprecedented heights, highlighting a gulf standing between the lives of most Americans, and the soothing meritocratic speeches pronounced by the winners of the system.
....... Meanwhile, the Republican party sinks into a hyper-nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-Islam discourse (even though Islam isn’t a great religious force in the country), and a limitless glorification of the fortune amassed by rich white people. The judges appointed under Reagan and Bush have lifted any legal limitation on the influence of private money in politics, which greatly complicates the task of candidates like Sanders......However,new forms of political mobilization and crowdfunding can prevail and push America into a new political cycle.
If it feels to the Democratic and Republican Party establishments that events are spinning out of control, there’s a reason for that, but things could get worse in a hurry. ..... If Bloomberg is actually willing to commit 10 figures to a presidential run, he can compete on turf that has not been up for grabs in decades. That’s not to say it would be an easy fight, but the GOP nominee or Hillary Clinton could not ignore him in California, New York, Florida or Texas. If a “silent majority” truly exists, and they are disgusted with their options for the general election, Bloomberg could find his path down the middle. ...... His campaign would add radical uncertainty to a race that already feels unpredictable.Michael Bloomberg’s Road Map to the White HouseHe’s just the latest harbinger of the coming end of America’s devotion to its two-party heritage. He might just be the disrupter the system needs.
....... Reed Galen is a political strategist in California. He was John McCain's deputy campaign manager until July 2007.
You are the eighth-richest person in America with a net worth of more than $38 billion..... You served three terms as mayor of New York. You’ve been a Democrat, a Republican and an independent. And you believe that the country has suffered from political polarization and needs a strong president who can get things done and bring the country together. ....... One-third of voters self-identify as independents, and Congress’ job approval sits in the low double digits. Voters are unhappy with the status quo and the two parties’ political establishments. ...... with the two major parties nominating controversial candidates – that’s the scenario I’m starting with – there looks to be room for a candidate in the middle. ...... Gallup foundWhy Michael Bloomberg Could Run for President and WinMississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Utah, Arkansas, Tennessee, Montana, Idaho, Oklahoma and South Carolina
are the nation’s most conservative states. Bloomberg could not carry any of them. ....... Gallup’s most reliably Republican presidential states that are not already on the most conservative list:Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Texas and Georgia.
....... Voters in those20 states, with 166 electoral votes
, would be very likely to support a conservative and/or a Republican, not an elitist Manhattan billionaire independent who occupies the left on guns, the size of soft drinks and other issues. ....... Gallup’s list of most liberal states includes Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Maryland. Add to them states that are among the most reliably Democratic – Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois, New Mexico, Michigan and the District of Columbia – and you have12 states with 151 electoral votes.
........ New York, Connecticut and New Jersey might be uniquely receptive to a Bloomberg candidacy, and California, which ranks seventh as both the most liberal and the most Democratic state in the nation, according to Gallup, might find his message appealing. More importantly, if Bloomberg were to have any chance of winning 270 electoral votes, he would need to carry the Golden State and the other three Northeast states. ........ I count 29 states (plus D.C.) with 243 electoral votes as starting out of Bloomberg’s reach. That leaves 21 states, with 295 electoral votes, as potentially winnable ....... Bloomberg would need to win 270 of the available 295 electoral votes, a virtual impossibility considering that some states would be particularly difficult for him in a three-way race – e.g., Alaska, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, North Carolina and Ohio. ........ the national map and voters’ strong partisan attachments – in spite of the public’s grumbling about partisanship – make it tantamount to impossible for Michael Bloomberg to win the White House. The electoral votes simply are not there. And if he were to run,he almost certainly would increase the GOP nominee’s chances of becoming the next president
......At the end of the day, Bloomberg’s path to the presidency in 2016 looks remarkably like a dead end.
Not many people considered the possibility last year that Trump could win the Republican nomination, or that Bernie Sanders could win the Democratic nomination. Before we join all the other pundits in dismissing out of hand the possibility that Michael Bloomberg might be sworn into office as the 45th president of the United States, let’s stress test the assumption. ......Bihar court orders registration of case against JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya KumarA candidate who is neither a socialist nor a racist would have a large niche.
...... Jesse Ventura in Minnesota, Lowell Weicker in Connecticut, or Angus King in Maine, among others, have established the mechanical viability of defeating two major-party candidates. It is clearly possible for an independent to win a three-way race against two established party candidates in a state. And if it is possible to do it in a state, it is also possible to do so in enough states to add up to 270 electoral votes. ......... In 1992, Ross Perot was up to 39 percent in the polls, before he began wigging out in public, ranting about President Bush’s plot to disrupt his daughter’s wedding, dropping out of the race even while riding high, and then erratically reentering in October. Perot still received 19 percent of the vote. ....... Getting from competitive to first place is not as imposing a barrier as it might seem, though. A three-candidate race creates an inherently unstable dynamic, where voters have to choose based not only on their preference, as they do in a normal two-way race, but also on the basis of which candidate can win. ...... One paradox of American politics is that high numbers of voters call themselves “independent” even as smaller numbers of them actually swing between the parties. Political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster have called this phenomenon “negative partisanship” — most voters have developed deep voting attachments not out of positive affection for their own party but out of intense loathing and fear of the opposing party. An initial Bloomberg base would consist of pure independents (a small number) plus Democrats who can’t abide socialism and Republicans who can’t abide Trump. If that base reached a threshold of viability, Bloomberg could see a sudden influx of Democrats who are terrified of Trump, Republicans who are terrified of Sanders, or both. ......... the election of either a self-professed critic of the “free enterprise system,” ora reality-television buffoon
as president ....... In a world like that, the election of buttoned-down CEO Michael Bloomberg might quickly seem not just thinkable but downright boring.
The complaint said that the news of Kanhaiya and others raising anti-national slogans injured national sentiment and created hatred in the minds and urged the court to take legal action against the accused.JNU Student Leader Kanhaiya Kumar Framed By Centre: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said the central government framed JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges. ..... He said Jawaharlal Nehru University is a prestigious institution and there is a tradition of free debate and discussion in a democratic environment. An attempt is now being made to “murder” democracy in the institution. ..... Kumar also saidNepal PM says Constitution can be amendedthe BJP-led government is trying to create an emergency-like situation in the country
. ......“Those who stand and speak in favour of the BJP are nationalists and those who oppose the BJP are termed anti-national. The BJP should not try to impose its ideology on the country,” he said.
India publicly expressed its unhappiness with the new Nepalese Constitution, which it felt was not “inclusive” enough and failed to protect the rights of the Madhesis in the Terai region. ..... India has been pushing Nepal to amend its Constitution to address the demands of the Madhesis who are ethnically and culturally closer to India.Meet Madhesi demands for successful India visit: Nepal PM told
“The people and the government of India have shown overwhelming support to our issues during the six-month-long agitation, launched by the UDMF, so if the Prime Minister wants to make his India visit successful, he should address our issues,” Mahato told reporters in Kathmandu. ..... Madhesis, who are largely of Indian-origin, have led a nearly six-month-long violent protest for better political representation, redrawing of the provincial boundaries and the federal structure of the Constitution. The protests have claimed more than 50 lives before being called off unexpectedly this month. .... “Boundary demarcation is the bottom-line of our demands and unless the demands are properly addressed through an amendment to the Constitution the movement will not stop,” Mahato warned.In South Carolina, Clinton and Sanders compete for black votes
who helped Jesse Jackson win the state of Vermont in the ’80s ..... feel that many of the crime policies that began under President Bill Clinton have done long-term harm to their communities. ..... Sanders has to do the ‘Carolina two-step’ ” — increasing his name recognition and then convincing voters he can deliver. ..... Clinton proposed new federal regulations that would end what she said wereAfter Historic Freeze, an Unlikely Spring Spreads Eastoverly punitive school discipline policies that disproportionately affect minority students
. ........... “We have got to achieve the day when young black males and women can walk the streets without being worried about being harassed by a police officer.” ...... Sanders participated in the 1963 March on Washington as a college student and says he wants to end racial profiling, combat police misconduct and dismantle private prisons. ...... “Bernie has a passionate, motivational speech that draws young people,” she said, taking a respite from her call sheet. “What I love about Hillary is her facts. Her reality. She’s not selling you a white picket fence. She’s selling you things that she can deliver.” ......“Things are picking up, and Bernie’s name is coming up in every conversation,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot closer than people ever believed it could be.”
Take off your parkas and get out your umbrellas — only two days after some of the coldest weather in decades blasted the Northeast, vastly warmer conditions moved in Tuesday, flipping temperatures by as much as 60 degrees and opening the rain buckets. ..... Binghamton, New York, went from a low of minus-18 on Sunday to a high of 43 on Tuesday. Boston, which plunged to minus-9 degrees on Sunday, basked in 50 degrees Tuesday. .... The transformation comes thanks to the leading edge of a surge of warm Western air moving in from the Rocky Mountains.No longer blind: Why that gravitational wave discovery is so heavy
The detection of spacetime ripples produced by a cataclysmic collision of two black holes is the first major discovery of the new field of gravitational-wave astronomy.
The ability to directly detect gravitational waves — which are generated by the acceleration or deceleration of massive objects in space — has been compared to a deaf person suddenly gaining the ability to hear sound. An entirely new realm of information is now available. ....... "It's like Galileo pointing the telescope for the first time at the sky" ...... For many centuries, astronomers could only work with optical light. But relatively recently, researchers built instruments allowing them to study the universe using X-rays, radio waves, ultraviolet waves and gamma-rays. Each time, scientists got a new view of the universe. .......... Other exotic objects scientists hope to study with gravitational waves are neutron stars, which are mind-bogglingly dense, burned-out stellar corpses: A teaspoon of neutron-star material would weigh about a billion tons on Earth. Scientists aren't sure what happens to regular matter under such extreme conditions, but gravitational waves could provide extremely helpful clues, because these waves should carry information about the interior of the neutron star all the way to Earth, LIGO scientists said. ........ "Until now, we have only seen warped space-time when it is very calm — as though we had only seen the surface of the ocean on a very calm day, when it's quite glassy" ...... Questions remain about the nature of the graviton, the particle believed to carry the gravitational force (just like the photon is the particle that carries the electromagnetic force). ..... scientists have many questions about the inner workings of black holes, which gravitational waves may help illuminate (so to speak). ....... "When Einstein predicted general relativity, who would have predicted that we'd use it every day when we use our cellphones?" ...... (General relativity provides an understanding how gravity influences the passing of time, and this information is necessary for GPS technology, which uses satellites that orbit further away from the gravitational pull of the Earth than people on the surface). ........ LIGO is "the most sensitive instrument ever built," said Reitze, and the technological advances that have been made while building the observatory may feed into technologies that will be used in ways people can't yet predict.The Chirp Heard Across the Universe
two of the largest and most sensitive microphones ever made — a brief, rising tone from gravitational waves generated by an immeasurably powerful collision of two black holes a billion years ago ..... Various justifications have been offered, from lists of the practical benefits of past discoveries that seemed useless when they were made, to the metaphysical notion that the better we understand our universe, the better we understand ourselves. ...... The curiosity of our species knows no bounds; more remarkably, neither does our capacity for satisfying it. And that is truly wonderful in itself, even if it doesn’t lead to a better toaster. ...... “seems destined to take its place among the great sound bites of science, ranking with Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr. Watson — come here” and Sputnik’s first beeps from orbit.” ..... LIGO (for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) ...... potentially changes the shape of scientific inquiry into the next century ..... vindicates an investment of about $1.1 billion over 40 years by the National Science Foundation.Bypoll Results 2016 from Bihar, MP, UP, Punjab, Karnataka and Telangana: BJP and allies win 7 out of 12 seats
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