Join us here at 4 PM PT to discuss the results of the New Hampshire primary
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Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is Hillary and Bernie supporter smackdown:
Roster of 100-year-olds grows: The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the number of Americans who are at least 100 years old increased by more than 43 percent from 2000 to 2014, according to the latest available data. Such longevity depends on genetics, good luck and the usual prescription of balanced eating, exercise and continued social interaction, according to geriatric researchers.
Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. explains “40 acres and a mule”:
The promise was the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time, proto-socialist in its implications. In fact, such a policy would be radical in any country today: the federal government's massive confiscation of private property—some 400,000 acres—formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its methodical redistribution to former black slaves. What most of us haven't heard is that the idea really was generated by black leaders themselves.
It is difficult to stress adequately how revolutionary this idea was: As the historian Eric Foner puts it in his book, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, "Here in coastal South Carolina and Georgia, the prospect beckoned of a transformation of Southern society more radical even than the end of slavery." Try to imagine how profoundly different the history of race relations in the United States would have been had this policy been implemented and enforced; had the former slaves actually had access to the ownership of land, of property; if they had had a chance to be self-sufficient economically, to build, accrue and pass on wealth. [...] As we know all too well, this promise was not to be realized for the overwhelming majority of the nation's former slaves, who numbered about 3.9 million. [...]
“Florida man” outdoes himself: A Palm Beach man has been arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony, and misdemeanor unlawful possession and transportation of an alligator after he threw on of the reptiles through the drive-through window of a Wendy’s restaurant. No motive has been ascribed to the man. Police taped the 3.5-foot-long alligator’s jaws shut, drove it to a nearby canal and released it. That was in October. On Monday, the man allegedly responsible was released on $6,000 bond and told to stay away from Wendy’s and all other animals except his mother’s dog.
[Florida Man is a Twitter feed that curates news headline descriptions of bizarre domestic incidents involving a male subject residing in the state of Florida. The tweets are meant to be humorously read as if they were perpetrated by a single individual dubbed “the world’s worst superhero.”]
Alex and Wiley build a scale-model solar system in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. As you can see from the fascinating linked video, they needed seven miles to do it.
Where the good jobs are: Three years running, North Dakota was the state with the highest “Gallup Good Jobs” (GGJ) employment rate in 2015, at 51.5%. But, with low oil prices, a lot of those good jobs in shale deposits of the Bakken formation are going away. Several states in the Northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions—Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado and Iowa—made it into GGJ’s top 10. West Virginia at 38.3 percent had the lowest GGJ rate for the second year in a row.
Texas prosecutor disbarred for sending innocent man to death row for sending innocent man to death row: Anthony Graves was convicted as an accomplice in a 1992 arson that killed five children and a grandmother. From then until he was exonerated in 2010, he was in prison, including 12 years on death row. Twice he came close to execution. In 2011, after being freed, he received $1.4 million from the state of Texas for wrongful imprisonment. The prosecutor, Charles Sebesta, lost his disbarment appeal Monday. He had had his license to practice law revoked by the Texas state bar in June for presenting false testimony and withholding evidence from the defense in the Graves’ case. Among other things, the person who was convicted of starting the fire, Robert Carter, informed Sebesta that he had acted alone even after being pushed to implicate Graves as an accomplice. Sebesta never told the defense about Carter’s statement.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Primary day in NH, the perfect day for Armando to decry it one more time. WA legislator introduces gun regulation preemption bill & it’s full of fake Founder quotes. More on coin tosses, caucuses & the vagaries of voting systems. Cruz’s crazy college career.
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