New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs executive order directing all state entities to divest from any organization that divests from Israel. I'm not sure Mr. Cuomo's order is "unconstitutional" or even "McCarthyite," but it is immature -- and it demonstrates that the BDS movement (BDS stands for Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions) has gotten under the skin of those who would have a swordfight over their pro-Israel bona fides. The bills the New York legislature has been mulling, on the other hand, do sound both unconstitutional and McCarthyite.
In the wake of Hillary Clinton's well-received foreign policy speech/Donald Trump bashfest, FAIR's Adam Johnson finds the "liberal" media too eager to "Trumpwash" Mrs. Clinton's own foreign policy record. She voted for the Iraq war, presided over a "disastrous regime change" in Libya, and enabled an anti-democratic, right-wing coup in Honduras, and for the "liberal" media this is "sensible" and "prudent." That's what the "liberal" media does best -- move the center further right. (What's that? Donald Trump himself has moved the center further right with his hysteria? Of course he has. But who has enabled Mr. Trump more than anyone?)
Teenage birth rate in America hit an all-time low in 2015. Which doesn't mean Donald Trump won't retweet some fascist moron's rambling about the teen birth rate being higher than ever, but it's good to know facts. The teen birth rate fell much faster than the birth rate among the general population, and has been falling generally since the 1990s, when contraception became more widely available (and also much less stigmatized, with the Surgeon General Koop's pronouncements in the last 1980s). And yes, in case you were wondering, "all-time" kinda does mean all-time -- the teen birth rate in the 1950s was a lot higher. No, really.
Kansas state Supreme Court orders public schools to close after June 30 due to lack of funding by the legislature. And Gov. Brownback actually has the cojones to say the Court is "playing politics" with the state's public schools, as if he hasn't been playing politics with everyone in Kansas over the last six years -- his lengthy "experiment" (his word!) in slavish tax-cutting results in Kansas routinely collecting less money in tax revenue than it projects. There's a lesson in there, somewhere.
Finally, famous Republican Ben Stein says he'll vote for Donald Trump in the general election -- after slamming his views on economics pretty hard. Mr. Stein says he'll vote for him because "he does personify a kind of national pride which I think has been lacking" in the Obama era, and if he means "pride" in the sense of "deadly sin number one," then I'll agree, though I wouldn't agree that's a reason to vote for someone. He also says "I don’t think the regular folks know much about the economy or about how trade works," this after admitting that "I don’t know that many regular folks." I don't know many regular folks who are fluent in the writings of David Ricardo, but I know plenty of regular folks who know they're getting screwed and who know people like Donald Trump are the ones screwing them, and knowing the latter is a lot more important than knowing the former.
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