The Double Standard—Trump and Priebus Style

Here is Reince Priebus’s response to questions raised by Chris Wallace on FOX about the New York Times article chronicling Donald Trump’s long history of very sexist behavior towards women: In essence, Priebus is arguing that because such attacks have not previously derailed Trump’s candidacy, they no longer matter. Trump is a transformational candidate because…

Two News Reports on the Same Survey

“Military Times Survey: Troops Prefer Trump to Clinton by a Huge Margin” Leo Shane III and George R. Altman Military Times May 10, 2016 In a new survey of American military personnel, Donald Trump emerged as active-duty service members’ preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin. However, in the latest…

Loretta Lynch on Transgender Rights

  Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch Delivers Remarks at Press Conference Announcing Complaint against the State of North Carolina to Stop Discrimination against Transgender Individuals Monday, May 9, 2016   Good afternoon and thank you all for being here.  Today, I’m joined by [Vanita] Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of…

How the Cutting Edge Does Damage

BY MARTIN KICH An article on the AsiaOne website cites a news item that originally appeared in the Huaxi Metropolis Daily, reporting that “a robot is being designed to compete with 12th graders during the college entrance examination in 2017 and get a score qualifying it to enter first-class universities in China.” Indeed, in the…

President Obama at Howard University

  To President Frederick, the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff, fellow recipients of honorary degrees, thank you for the honor of spending this day with you. And congratulations to the Class of 2016! (Applause.) Four years ago, back when you were just freshmen, I understand many of you came by my house the night…

Disrupting Scholarly Publishing

In a recent article for the Australian journal The Conversation, Dana Ruggiero explains why the “Black Market In Academic Papers Is Spooking Publishers.” The title is actually somewhat misleading because scholarly papers are being shared without cost in ways that circumvent the corporations that have come to dominate the “market” in academic publishing. Ruggiero reports…

Asking Ellen to Stop Promoting U of Phoenix

Here is the text of a petition posted on MoveOn.org: “We’re big fans of Ellen DeGeneres and her fights for progressive values, which is why we couldn’t believe she’s partnering with the Apollo Group’s The University of Phoenix- one of the most notorious of the predatory “for-profit” colleges. “She announced her partnership in the “Rise…