VOTE 2016 - Second Presidential Debate

"The challenges of a town hall debate" PBS NewsHour 10/9/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  On Sunday night in St. Louis, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump meet for their second of three televised 90-minute debates.  This time, the debate will follow a town meeting format, with voters joining the moderator in asking questions.  As NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Jeff Greenfield reports, that format has tripped up many candidates before.

"Shields and Brooks on ‘anticlimactic' Clinton victory, Trump's ‘moral chasm'"



"Watch the second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump" (1:56:52)

OPINION - Shields and Gerson 10/7/2016

"Shields and Gerson on the 2005 Trump tape, Russian hacking and the upcoming debate" PBS NewsHour 10/7/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  With the only vice-presidential debate over and the second presidential one just ahead, it's the home stretch of the election -- and it's full of surprises.  Judy Woodruff talks to syndicated columnist Mark Shields and The Washington Post's Michael Gerson about the 'enthusiasm gap,' whether the new video of Trump threatens his support among evangelicals, Russian hacking, Sunday's debate and more.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  It's also the moment we turn to the analysis of Shields and Gerson.  That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson.  David Brooks is away.

Gentlemen, welcome.

So, there was a lot of news that we learned about late this afternoon that has to do with this campaign.

But, Mark, I do want to start quickly with a question about Georgia.  The very fact — and you heard to some of the voters we talked to — the very fact that a state that Mitt Romney won by eight points four years ago, where it's close — I mean, it's still uphill for Hillary Clinton, but it's close because of what we talked about.

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist:  Yes.

No, it is.  Defined — the interviews defined the enthusiasm gap.  It isn't just on one side.  It's on both sides.  There's minimal excitement.  And, for Hillary Clinton, I think what came through in your piece is, it's not a question of the percentage of the African-American vote, in addition trying to get 30 percent of the white vote, but it's numbers.

She could get high percentages, but if you don't get numbers in the turnout — but the hope, obviously, is that Georgia can move eventually, if not this time, into the category of Virginia, North Carolina, states that have changed; Colorado, and Nevada.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Michael.

MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post:  Yes.

I think that the Republican fear is exactly the Virginia example.  When Barack Obama won it in his first term, it was the first time Virginia had gone Democratic since 1964.

MARK SHIELDS:  That's right.

MICHAEL GERSON:  And now it's not even close.  It's because — Hillary Clinton is ahead by about eight points in Virginia.

The state has gotten more diverse; more Hispanics and Asians, more college-educated people.  It's gone in a certain direction that I think Republicans fear for a couple of these states that region.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So, as we said at the outset, there’s been a blizzard of news late this afternoon, Mark, starting with the Obama administration naming Russia, saying high officials in Russia were behind these hacks against the Democratic Party and other Democratic figures.

Then you had WikiLeaks coming out soon after with information about John Podesta, who is Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, and some e-mailed exchanges over nuclear energy, and then the Washington Post story, which I think I want to start with that, essentially releasing the audiotape — and you heard it in John Yang’s report — showing — videotape showing Donald Trump’s lewd remarks about women about 10 years ago.

MARK SHIELDS:  Judy, let’s get one thing straight. This is not locker room talk. This is not a preteen, adolescent finding dirty words.

This is a 60-year-old man being obscene, obscene toward — in discussing women, boasting, bragging in the worst and most offensive way.

And I just think the political implications are profound.  Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican in New Hampshire, has said she would vote for Donald Trump, but will not endorse him.  In a debate this past week, she was asked, do you consider Donald Trump to be an appropriate role model for the children of New Hampshire?  “Absolutely” was the end of her answer, was immediately pounced on.  She apologized.  Cut a spot.

Every Republican candidate in the country who is in a competitive race is going to be asked in the next week, whether in a debate or where else, by opponents or by the press, do you consider Donald Trump to be an appropriate role model for the children of our state?

And it just — as far as the women’s vote you just reported on in Georgia, it makes it so, not simply difficult.  It makes it almost impossible for somebody with self-respect, who has a mother or sister or a daughter, you know, somebody like this in Abraham Lincoln’s chair.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Michael, how do you assess this?

MICHAEL GERSON: Well, I think the problem here is not just bad language, but predatory language, abusive language…

MARK SHIELDS:  It is.

MICHAEL GERSON: … demeaning language.

That indicates something about someone’s character that is disturbing, frankly, disturbing in a case like this.  And I think evangelicals have a particular problem right now.  I mean, they are the people who argued, many of whom, leaders, argued that character counts during the Bill Clinton years.

And now character apparently doesn’t count at all.  So, I think there’s a deep tension here.

BRIEF BUT SPECTACULAR - Dr. BJ Miller

"In facing death, this doctor sees a way to live well" PBS NewsHour 10/6/2016

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SUMMARY:  Dr. BJ Miller does not work to heal patients, but to ensure quality of life amid advanced or serious illness.  Sometimes people suggest his job is depressing, but Miller doesn’t see it that way.  When people are dying it changes how they live, he says.  Miller gives his Brief But Spectacular take on dying and living.

GREED FILES - The U.S. Drug Cartel and the Opioid Crisis

"How drug companies helped drive the opioid crisis" PBS NewsHour 10/6/2016

aka "A Primer on Incentivizing for BIG Profit"

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SUMMARY:  The abuse of opioids has become a major public health concern; more than 28,000 people died by overdose in 2014.  According to reporting by STAT News, drug companies downplayed the addictive effects of opioid drugs in the late 1990s, assuring doctors that they could be safely used for chronic pain and incentivized their use.  Hari Sreenivasan talks to journalist David Armstrong.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The abuse of opioids remains a major public health concern around the country.

The federal government says more than 28,000 people died by overdose in 2014.  That's the most recent year for nationwide data.  The health news site STAT has been reporting on the problem and what has been driving it.

Journalist David Armstrong sat down with Hari Sreenivasan recently.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  David, your investigation looks at a number of big pharmaceutical countries that you say helped sow the seeds for some of this epidemic that we have today.  How so?

DAVID ARMSTRONG, STAT:  Well, the way they sowed the seeds was by making this drug widely used.

And the way they did that was to downplay the addictive properties of this drug when marketing it to doctors, in a way that was later shown to be false and misleading.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Now, doctors can prescribe drugs off-label for something that it wasn't originally designed to, but how were the pharma companies abusing this?

DAVID ARMSTRONG:  Well, they were primarily abusing it in the way they were assuring doctors that these powerful opioids that are a controlled substance would not be addictive in the way that they later proved to be addictive, and could be used for things like chronic pain, which we now know they're not very effective at.

So they were able to broaden the market through a series of misrepresentations and through a series of aggressive marketing tactics.

FLORIDA - Zika Control?

"In Florida, controlling Zika is no simple matter" PBS NewsHour 10/5/2016

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SUMMARY:  Florida's battle against the outbreak of Zika is intensifying as the number of cases climbs.  The state currently has 940 documented instances of the virus, with 230 in Miami-Dade County alone.  Efforts to contain the spread of the disease focus on mosquito control and avoidance, but many details about Zika remain a mystery.  For more on the outbreak, William Brangham reports from Miami.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  Beyond the famous sugar-white sands of South Beach in Miami, there's a clear sense of unease about the growing public health crisis here.

GOV.  RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.):  This means Florida has become the first state in the nation to have local transmission of the Zika virus.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Over the last few months, officials have been waging an all-out war against mosquitoes, spraying pesticides from the air, going door to door in some neighborhoods, checking plants and standing water, and plastering the city with warning signs, telling residents how to protect themselves from Zika.

There are now over 940 documented cases of Zika in the state of Florida and over 230 in Miami-Dade County alone.  But the epicenter is here in Miami, and the largest number of locally-acquired Zika infections have occurred in these two neighborhoods.

How are people in Florida doing with this?

SAMMY MACK, Health Reporter, WLRN:  The pregnant women that I have talked to, and their partners, or people who know pregnant women are taking it very seriously, and there's a lot of anxiety there.  There's a lot of anxiety there.

Pregnant women should avoid nonessential travel to the county.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Sammy Mack is a health reporter for WLRN, the local NPR station in Miami.  While she's eager to cover this big story, Mack has ended up in the middle of in it in a way she'd rather not.  She's also four months pregnant.

SAMMY MACK:  It became an issue of, OK, how — how am I going to cover this thing that is happening in the middle of my beat, in a way that is not putting me at any kind of additional risk?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Mack took one of the free Zika tests offered by the state, but the results took weeks, and those delays can limit the options for pregnant women.

SAMMY MACK:  I waited five weeks to get my results back.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  In the middle of a pregnancy?

SAMMY MACK:  In the middle of a pregnancy.

If women don't get their test turned around quickly and are waiting four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, whatever it is, that may affect their window to decide to terminate the pregnancy.  Florida restricts abortion past 24 weeks.

NOBEL PRIZE - Picking the Winners

"The amazing, complicated science of the Nobel winners explained" PBS NewsHour 10/5/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A trio of scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating some of the world's tiniest machines.  Their nanorobots use extremely controlled movements to perform tasks that the creators hope will one day be useful in the world of medicine.  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss these mini machines and the other science and medicine Nobels awarded this week.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  The latest winners are in the field of chemistry, and the Nobel went to a trio of scientists who helped pioneer tiny molecular machines in the world of Nanotechnology.  These are specially designed molecules that can produce controlled movements.  And there's talk they could some day be useful in the world of medicine.

Our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, is here to walk us through the significance of this and the other Nobels awarded this week.  He joins us tonight from San Diego.

Miles; Drs. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Fraser Stoddart, and Bernard Feringa, for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.  How small are we talking?

MILES O'BRIEN (NewsHour):  Well, think of a nanometer.

A nanometer is — well, there are 80,000 of them in a human hair.  That will give you an idea.  We're talking very small.  Imagine machines at the molecular level that can do work, and some of the applications that we're thinking about are potentially drug delivery inside our system, and many others where tiny machines can pack a punch.

Another application they're looking at potentially, Hari, is creating computer storage capability at the atomic level.  Well, if you're storing things at the atomic level, you basically need a processor that is at the molecular model.

And so nanomachines are potentially revolutionary.  We're still very early on, though, in that game.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  How do you build something that small?

MILES O'BRIEN:  It's basically a chemical process that you engage with, and that is part of their insight.

And, you know, basically, the researchers are saying that we're kind of like the Wright Brothers at this point.  We built a flying machine, but how could you possibly have conceived of the 747 at the time that occurred?

These mechanisms, these tiny nanomachines, have the capability of revolutionizing medicine, revolutionizing computer storage, and really who knows what, because we can't imagine that 747.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  All right, let's shift to physics.

The Nobel was given to David Thouless, Duncan Haldane, and Michael Kosterlitz for something called topological phase transitions and phases of matter.  I need an advanced degree just to understand what the prize was for.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Yes, yes, it's — this is a tough one.  It's a lot of mathematics and physics.  And it's difficult, frankly.  It's tough sledding.

But it is a very human moment involved.  There is a very human moment involved.  Dr.  Kosterlitz got the word in his car.  Listen to his response.

QUESTION:  We run the official Web site for the Nobel Prize.  Have you already heard the news of the announcements to the physics…

DR. MICHAEL KOSTERLITZ, Nobel Prize Winner:  No, haven't heard anything.  I'm talking from an underground car park in Helsinki, Finland, right now.  So, I can barely hear you.

VOTE 2016 - The Supreme Court Issue

"How the deadlocked Supreme Court became a leading campaign issue" PBS NewsHour 10/4/2016

NOTE:  Mitch McConnell does NOT make a logical (nor Constitutional) argument.  He can get what he wants by bringing the President's nomination to the floor for a vote then get it disapproved, then the next President would have to submit a nominee.

What he (and Republicans) fear it that Merrick Garland WOULD be approved.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The Supreme Court has refused to rehear a case over President Obama's executive action aimed at protecting millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.  The decision reflects the continuing difficulty of the court's deadlock without a ninth justice.  Gwen Ifill looks at the implications of the deadlock and how the prospect of a new justice is influencing the presidential race.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal this week to rehear a key immigration case dealt a setback to millions of undocumented immigrants hoping to stay in the U.S. legally.

It also reflects the continuing difficulty of deadlock, in this case, the limitations of an eight-person bench.  The issue of the immigration program's legality could yet return to the high court, but one whose makeup is likely to be decided by the next President.

Twelve-year-old Victoria Bonilla, like many seventh graders, spends weeknights hammering away at her homework.  Unlike her classmates, she worries her mom won't always be there to help.

VICTORIA BONILLA:  I'm worried that they might take my mom away from me, which is really hard for a kid, because, like, you know you can't live without your mom.

GWEN IFILL:  Victoria is an only child and a U.S. citizen.  But she was born to a mother who came to the country illegally, from Eli Salvador in 2004.

The Bonillas live in Gaithersburg, Maryland, a Washington suburb, where Hilaria works as a restaurant manager.  She says she moved to the U.S. to escape domestic abuse, one of an estimated four million parents who would have qualified for legal status under a 2014 executive action issued by President Obama.

The President's plan was blocked by a Texas federal judge last year, leaving families like the Bonillas in limbo.  The [Supreme] court deadlocked 4-4 when it heard the case earlier this year, leaving the lower court's hold in place.

And with the ninth seat vacant since Justice Antonin Scalia's death nearly eight months ago, there is no resolution in sight.

NewsHour regular Marcia Coyle covers the court for “The National Law Journal.”

MARCIA COYLE, National Law Journal:  This is such an important issue, it may be well that the court is willing to take another shot at it if it does have a ninth justice eventually.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  I chose a serious man and an exemplary judge, Merrick Garland.

GWEN IFILL:  President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, chief judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals, has languished without a confirmation hearing since March, after the Republican Senate majority declared it was too late in the President's term to allow him a nomination.

SEN.  MITCH MCCONNELL, Senate Majority Leader:  The American people may well elect a President who decides to nominate Judge Garland for Senate consideration.  The next President may also nominate somebody very different.  Either way, our view is this: Give the people a voice in filling this vacancy.

GWEN IFILL:  The conservative Judicial Crisis Network has spent more than $4 million opposing Garland's confirmation.

CARRIE SEVERINO, Judicial Crisis Network:  The Constitution gives the authority to choose the Supreme Court justices to the President, as the nominator, and then to the Senate, which gives its advice and consent.  And there's a lot of ways it can do that.  It doesn't have to have hearings or votes on a specific schedule.  And, historically, two-thirds of the justices who have not been confirmed, who've been rejected by the Senate, it's been because they didn't get a vote.

First Monday in October

"Will the short-staffed Supreme Court keep a ‘low profile’ this term?" PBS NewsHour 10/5/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  As the late Justice Antonin Scalia's seat remains empty, the Supreme Court begins a new term with only eight members.  What challenges will arise from the reduced size of the nation's highest court?  Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss that question, as well as a recent case on racial bias and the death penalty and other matters expected to be heard this term.

VOTE 2016 - Oklahoma's Teacher Candidates

"Affected by budget cuts and testing, dozens of Oklahoma teachers are running for office" PBS NewsHour 10/4/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Oklahoma ranks 45 out of 50 states in spending per student.  It's home to overcrowded classrooms and more than 100 districts that have approved four-day school weeks.  Now, more than 40 teachers who are tired of not being heard are trying to change things themselves -- by running for office.  Special correspondent Lisa Stark of Education Week reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  In some parts of the country, it's not just the presidential race on voters' minds.  State elections are taking center stage in some places, too, like Oklahoma, where education is at the forefront of the ballot.

Teachers are upset over spending cuts and what they see as a political assault on public education.  They have decided it's time to take matters into their own hands.  A record number of teachers are running for seats in the state legislature.  All of this comes as Oklahoma faces tough budget decisions.

Special correspondent Lisa Stark of our partner Education Week reports from Oklahoma as part of our weekly segment Making the Grade.

LISA STARK, Special correspondent:  Football is king in Oklahoma, so it's no surprise the Norman High School homecoming parade shuts down the town's main street.

There's candy for the kids, cheerleaders, and athletes, of course, and enjoying the ride, Oklahoma's teacher of the year, whose day job is deciphering algebra for ninth graders at Norman High.

This is Shawn Sheehan's sixth year teaching.

So, you love being a teacher?

SHAWN SHEEHAN, Oklahoma Teacher of the Year:  I do.  I love it.  I love working with kids.  I really do.  And I love math.  That sounds super nerdy, but I do love math.

LISA STARK:  So, it may seem odd that Sheehan, Oklahoma's top teacher, is ready to hang up the white board.

SHAWN SHEEHAN:  I made the decision to run for state Senate.

I think what it is, is, we have is a lack of representation at the state capitol.  We have folks up there who don't really understand what's going on in education and what's going on in our communities.

LISA STARK:  He's not the only one who feels that way.  Sheehan has joined more than 40 educators who have filed to run for the Oklahoma legislature.

Why do you think so many educators are running this year?

SHAWN SHEEHAN:  I think, in this state, educators are finally fed up.  And it's almost like a sense of, we don't have anything to lose at this point.

SPORTS - The Voice of the Dodgers

"Vin Scully ends his 67-year career as voice of the Dodgers" PBS NewsHour 10/4/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  After 67 years in the broadcast booth as a sportscaster for the Dodgers, Vincent “Vin” Scully is retiring.  On Sunday, he called his last game in Los Angeles, but he has been with the team since it was in Brooklyn.  Jeffrey Brown spoke with the baseball legend in 2009 about why he prefers to be the sole commentator of a game and the thrill he gets from the crowd.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  As the baseball playoffs get under way, one of the game's legendary figures, Vin Scully, is signing off; 88-year-old Scully called his last Los Angeles Dodgers game on Sunday.  That closed an incredible 67-year career that started back when the Dodgers called Brooklyn home.

Jeffrey Brown spent a day at the ballpark with Scully in 2009.

Here's an excerpt of that profile.

VIN SCULLY, Broadcaster, Los Angeles Dodgers:  It's time for Dodger baseball.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It's a voice that generations of Dodger fans have grown up with, savored, loved.....

VIN SCULLY:  Ground ball to third, backhanded by Blake.  He straightens up to throw him out.  Easy inning for Randy Wolf.

JEFFREY BROWN:  ......In Los Angeles, but also, incredibly, going all the way back to Brooklyn in the 1950s.

VIN SCULLY:  The pitch at the right ankle of Andres Torres.  Ball one.

Now, admittedly, there are days where you think, you know, I'd rather sit under a tree and read a book than go to the ballpark.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Yes.  Everybody has those days, right?

VIN SCULLY:  But what's great is, you come to the park, you do the routine stuff, and then the crowd comes in, and the team takes the field, and the crowd roars.  And, all of a sudden, you're delighted as a kid in a candy store.

COLOMBIA - Voters Reject Peace Deal

"Why did Colombian voters reject the FARC peace deal?" PBS NewsHour 10/3/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In a surprise vote, the Colombian people narrowly rejected the peace deal with guerrilla group FARC that would have ended Latin America's longest running conflict.  After the vote, Colombia's president and the top FARC commander both appealed for calm and reiterated their support for peace.  William Brangham speaks with Bernard Aronson, U.S. Special Envoy for Colombian Peace Process.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now to a major upset in South America.

Yesterday, voters in Colombia rejected a peace deal between their government and the largest rebel group, known as the FARC.  It was hoped the deal would put an end to 50-plus years of conflict that's left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

William Brangham has the latest.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  Sunday's stunning outcome in Colombia touched off celebrations in parts of Bogotá.  Voters narrowly rejected a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, this despite predictions it would win easily.

CLAUDIA, ‘No' Supporter (through translator):  We have all been victims of the FARC and this victory is calling to the government to renegotiate the agreements, not to hand over the country to the FARC.  It's very emotional.  This is what Colombia wants.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  But yes-voters complained opponents of the peace deal were misguided.

ANTONIO SANGUINO, ‘Yes' supporter (through translator):  Fifty percent of the people who went out to vote allowed themselves to be convinced by a message of hate, a message of revenge, a message of keeping us in the past.

WAR ON ISIS - Fight for Iraq

"To drive ISIS from Mosul, a complicated coalition joins forces" PBS NewsHour 10/3/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Two years ago, Islamic State troops stormed Mosul, Iraq.  Today the city is the militant group's last remaining urban base in the country, but Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S.  and others, are preparing to drive them out.  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports from Qayarah, Iraq, in partnership with Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now the first of three reports this week on the fight for Iraq.

Thirteen years after the U.S.  military invasion, the country still struggles to stand on its own, as it faces profound challenges, none more dire than the threat posed by the Islamic State, which controls parts of the country.

Tonight, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, special correspondent Jane Ferguson and producer Jon Gerberg look at the coming crucial battle to reclaim the city of Mosul from ISIS and to drive it from Iraq once and for all.

JANE FERGUSON, special correspondent:  Hungry and crushed together in the punishing sun, these Iraqis, refugees in their own land, desperately grasp for food.

They have fled south of Mosul City, where fighting between government forces and ISIS has been raging for months.  New offensives have ISIS in retreat, but with their homes, and all they know, engulfed in the battle, they have come here.

Escaping from Mosul just days ago, this woman says she and her family of seven were lucky to get away.  Running away from ISIS is dangerous, and she didn't want to be identified.

WOMAN (through translator):  There are many people who want to leave, but cannot.  The ones they catch, they break their legs.  They just use a block on the sidewalk and break their legs.  If the person has already gone very far, they just kill them.

JANE FERGUSON:  We are 60 miles south of Mosul.  Just up the road, these troops are fighting the ISIS insurgency.  Iraqi special forces have already pushed ISIS from many areas of the country.  The battles have been tough, destroying almost everything in sight.

The Iraqi army has fought for months over these areas south of Mosul City, swathes of land and villages just like this that they have been pushed out of.  But even though they retook this land several months ago, civilians have yet to return.

These soldiers now have their sites set north, planning to take back the city of Mosul, the Islamic State's last remaining major urban base in Iraq.

At 23, Mahmoud has fought and won several battles against the group.  And these men are ready to take Mosul.

MAHMOUD DUYOUL SABBAGH, Iraqi Special Forces (through translator):  By God, my morale is high.  Praise be to God.  Praise and thanks be to God.  We will kick is from Mosul.

"The controversial force joining the fight against ISIS" PBS NewsHour 10/5/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Militia groups, made up mostly of Shia fighters and often backed by Iran, have become instrumental in the charge to drive the Islamic State from Iraq.  But their battlefield presence makes them a controversial force -- many militia members are accused of war crimes and have killed Americans.  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

"In Fallujah, ISIS is gone — but so is everything else" PBS NewsHour 10/7/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  An hour west of Baghdad, Fallujah used to be a thriving population center.  Two years ago, it was overtaken by the Islamic State.  The Iraqi army regained control of the city in June but now faces another hurdle,  rebuilding.  In over a decade of warfare, nearly all of Fallujah has been destroyed.  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports in conjunction with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

FOR REF:

• Sunni Islam (ISIS/ISIL are the far extremists, NOT all Sunni are followers of ISIS)
• Shia Islam
• ISIL/ISIS/DASH

VOTE 2016 - Control of the Senate

"Why Senate control could ride on this tight New Hampshire race" PBS NewsHour 10/3/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In New Hampshire, a high-profile contest is drawing outsized attention and outside money due to its stakes in shaping the Senate.  Republican incumbent Sen.  Kelly Ayotte and Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, both well-respected and popular political figures in their state, are running a neck-and-neck race while keeping the presidential candidates at an arm's length.  Lisa Desjardins reports.

LISA DESJARDINS (NewsHour):  The start of fall in New Hampshire.  Along with the changing leaves this year, the Granite State is home to something else special, a contest between two respected and popular Senate candidates.

Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, out gathering votes at an apple festival this weekend, is defending her seat.  Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan, rallying volunteers, is hoping to win it.  Polls show it is a toss-up race, a sharp partisan fight, even as both brandish they are not.

GOV.  MAGGIE HASSAN, Democratic Senate Candidate:  We passed a bipartisan Medicaid expansion program.  We froze in-state tuition at our university system, and actually lowered it at our community colleges.

SEN.  KELLY AYOTTE, Republican Senate Candidate:  I have one of the most bipartisan records in the Senate.  I have certainly been called a problem-solver by the independent group No Labels, who I have worked with.

LISA DESJARDINS:  Both are former lawyers, both known for their work ethic.  Neither is flashy.  But Hassan charges Ayotte is too conservative for the state, in lockstep with the GOP on defunding Planned Parenthood, overturning Roe vs. Wade, and on guns.

GOV.  MAGGIE HASSAN:  Whether it's standing with the gun lobby, rather than expanding background checks so that terrorists can't get guns online and at gun shows, or whether it's standing against a woman's right to make her own health care decisions, those decisions of Senator Ayotte, her positions and her votes, really have pulled us backwards.

LISA DESJARDINS:  Ayotte stands by her position to ban most abortions as a matter of faith, adding she supports access to more contraception.  She attacks Hassan on taxes, a core issue here.

SEN.  KELLY AYOTTE:  In terms of taxes, I'm someone who focuses on low taxes, a better tax climate for individuals and small businesses.  She has long record of increasing taxes, not only on small businesses, but on campgrounds, registration fees, on the people of New Hampshire.

LISA DESJARDINS:  Hassan's tax record is complicated.  She cut taxes for some, but raised them for others, citing urgent needs like fighting the opioid crisis.

Meanwhile, both candidates are keeping their party's presidential nominees at arm's length.  Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were both in New Hampshire last week, but neither Hassan nor Ayotte joined them on stage.  Ayotte has said she's voting for Trump, but not endorsing him.

But how do the important people, the voters, see this?

Jim Jalbert runs a thriving family-owned bus company, C&J Bus, in Portsmouth.  Jalbert is a registered Republican who doesn't like Trump.  But between Ayotte and Hassan:

JIM JALBERT, C&J Bus Lines:  If you look at the two of them, they're both really good people.

TRUMP NOT FILES - Trump's Basket of Inexplicables

Form "Real Time with Bill Maher" (HBO)

ASTRONOMY - God's View of Our Solar System

"To Scale: The Solar System"

On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits, a true illustration of our place in the universe.

A film by Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 9/30/2016

"Shields and Brooks on Trump's ‘solitariness' and Clinton's fight for millennials" PBS NewsHour 9/30/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Since Monday night's debate, Donald Trump's taxes and tweets have drawn rapt attention.  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the "bizarreness" of the week's campaign developments, Hillary Clinton's struggle to win millennial voters back from third-party candidates and the congressional decision to override a presidential veto.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  And that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Gentlemen, here we are.  Monday night, you were here after the debate.

And now my first question isn't about a significant policy discrepancy.  The entire news cycle has been concerned with whether or not he paid taxes and also how he is treating a beauty queen, or how he treated her and how he is still treating her.

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist:  You're right, although I don't think they're bookends.  I don't think they're of equal value or significance.

I think that his disdain for paying taxes and his self-identification as a smart person for not doing so reveals any absence, a total absence of civic-mindedness, citizen responsibility.

I mean, the idea of John Kennedy's ask not what you can do for your country — ask not what your country can do you for, but what you can do for your country, is just so alien to that.

But the attack on Alicia Machado fits a pattern.  I mean, this is a man who, as Tony Schwartz, who wrote “The Art of the Deal,” the ghost writer of it, and made Trump really a central figure in America with that book, wrote — he said, every time he's criticized or caught for any of his lies, he doubles down.

And that's exactly what he does.  And usually in the pattern with Mr. and Mrs. Khan, the Gold Star parents; and with Judge Curiel, is to pick on someone who doesn't have the resources, the stature, the voice that he does, and try to overwhelm them.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  David, we're working on a story for Sunday on kind of the impact on the Latino vote in Florida, for example.

And we even saw, since the debate, increase in search registration, searches in predominantly Latino areas, according to Google.  Is this going to matter, the fact that he has called this Miss Housekeeping?  Did that resonate?  Did that connect?

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:  If the vote can go any lower.

It might affect turnout potentially.  But his support in the Latino community wasn't super high.  And his support among women is not super high.  So, it may go lower.  But maybe it can't.

But to me, the crucial fact of this story — well, first, we should just step back and be aware of its bizarreness, that we are a month away from electing a President and one of our candidates is up in the middle of the night tweeting about an alleged sex tape.

MARK SHIELDS:  A 70-year-old grandfather.

DAVID BROOKS:  Yes.  Yes.  It's just another day in paradise as far as this election goes.  And so we should just continue to remind ourselves of that bizarreness.

HACKING THE VOTE - Manipulation of Election 2016 Results?

A gift from Donald's Russian friend.

"Could hackers compromise November election results?" PBS NewsHour 9/30/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Since the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, there has been growing concern about cyber-manipulation of election results this November.  Voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona were penetrated in June, and the FBI reported this week on attempts against several other states.  Hari Sreenivasan talks to chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner for more on the threat.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Concern has been growing about possible cyber-manipulation of the U.S. election since revelations in June that the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Committee's data had been stolen.

U.S. intelligence official pointed the finger at Russian-government-linked hackers, though wouldn't say so publicly.  Separately, Illinois and Arizona's voter registration databases were penetrated in June, forcing them to temporarily shut down.

This week, FBI Director James Comey told Congress there had been new attempts to penetrate many more state voter databases.

Margaret Warner has been looking into this and joins me now.

So, what's the real danger to the elections if voter registration databases are being hacked?

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  Hari, on one hand, it could be strictly criminal.  People want to get addresses, home phone numbers, e-mails, and use it for criminal purposes.

And many states have had to deal with that in the past.  But the other danger is that information can be used to selectively used to manipulate the vote on Election Day.

For example, send out e-mails to voters in certain districts, perhaps minority districts, and, oh, your registration place has been changed, your voting place has been changed.  And this has been done often by phone.  It's an old, old trick.  Or to simply to delete them from the database, so when they get there, there is incredible confusion.

So, as a senior homeland security official told me this afternoon, the other danger that really worries us is that just the news of these hacks undermined American voters' view of the credibility of the U.S.  election system.  And there are certainly foreign powers who would like to do that.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  So, let's talk about those foreign powers.

Do the U.S. officials believe that the Russians are behind this or any of the other hacks that have been related so far?

MARGARET WARNER:  Yes.

First of all, they established that they were behind the hacks you mentioned earlier, the DNC and the DCCC, and that there are two sort of outfits, what is called Fancy Bear — it's a nickname — and one is Cozy Bear.

One is linked to the old KGB called the GRU and one is linked to military intelligence.  And I was told by cyber-experts who have been involved in these investigations that these voter database hacks are the work of so-called Fancy Bear, which is the one side to Russian military intelligence.

This is the same outfit that, in Ukraine, in Ukrainian elections two years ago, penetrated the database of the Ukrainian election authorities and tried to switch the actual plate that showed who was winning where.  They didn't succeed, but the fake plate that showed someone else won did end up on Russian TV in Russia.

NEWSHOUR BOOKSHELF - "The Terror Years"

"Understanding the rise of the Islamic State" PBS NewsHour 9/30/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  As a young man, Lawrence Wright first visited the Middle East when he taught English in Cairo.  He has spent much of his life since reporting on the region -- documenting culture by sharing the stories of individuals.  His new book, “The Terror Years,” considers the evolution of extremism and the Islamic State since 9/11.  Wright sits down with Jeffrey Brown to discuss.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Lawrence Wright first went to the Middle East as a young man to teach English in Cairo.  It was the beginning of a long relationship with the region that would coincide with the rise of terrorism and American wars that continue to this day.

His 2006 book, “The Looming Tower,” on the growth of al-Qaida and events leading to 9/11, won the Pulitzer Prize.  Now he's pulled together writings from “The New Yorker” magazine, the product of many years of reporting, in a new book titled “The Terror Years:  From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State.”

And, Larry Wright, welcome back to you.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT, Author, “The Terror Years”:  Thank you, Jeff.  It's good to be with you.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Fifteen years after 9/11, I suppose there is a sense of wanting to tie things together.  Did you see a guiding thread in your work when you went back to look at it?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT:  Yes.

I was planning just to put together a collection of articles, but then when I looked at all the work that I had done on terrorism since 9/11, I never thought that I would still be writing about that 15 years later.

But I realized these pieces told — had a kind of narrative quality in terms of the evolution of ISIS and al-Qaida and how it's developed from 9/11 until today.

TRAIN CRASH - Hoboken, New Jersey

"Investigators delve into mystery of Hoboken's rush hour train crash" PBS NewsHour 9/29/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A rush hour commuter rail train smashed into a station in Hoboken on Thursday, killing one and injuring more than one hundred.  Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Brenda Flanagan of NJTV News about the factors that may have led to the accident and upcoming investigations into transit security and safety.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Investigators in Northern New Jersey have a big question to ponder tonight:  Why did a commuter train smash into a station in the midst of rush hour?

For now, the answer is anything but clear.

It was 8:45 this morning, when a New Jersey transit train came barreling into Hoboken without slowing down.  A passenger in the first car said there'd been no hint of anything wrong.

JAMIE WEATHERHEAD-SAUL, Rain Passenger:  There wasn't even a screeching, like it was halting.  It just kept going.  Maybe there was some kind of, like, braking involved, because the lights went off and people started screaming.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  The speeding railcars crashed through a barrier and into the outer wall of the terminal waiting room, crushing the front of the train and collapsing part of the ceiling.

POLICE SCANNER AUDIO:  We have a train that's into the train station at Hoboken terminal.  We are going to need multiple EMS for multiple injuries.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Police and emergency workers rushed to the station, a commuter hub just outside New York that handles 50,000 passengers every day.  Bystanders jumped in to help people pinned under mangled steel and concrete.

MIKE LARSON, New Jersey Transit Employee:  The second half of the first car was completely destroyed, to where they were crawling on their hands and knees.  And we were trying to get as many people out.  I assisted in maybe three or four people getting out.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  The lone fatality was a woman on the platform killed by the falling debris.

NEWSHOUR BOOKSHELF - "Uproot"

"This DJ mixes the world's local music to create a global sound" PBS NewsHour 9/29/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Jace Clayton, aka DJ/rupture, spends his time traveling, absorbing music as well as creating it.  To create his art, he mixes various melodies and rhythms from all over the world in order to create new, complex sounds.  Jeffrey Brown speaks with Clayton about his new book, “Uproot,” in which he chronicles his travels and journey to amplify musical conversations.

JACE “DJ /RUPTURE” CLAYTON, Author, “Uproot:  Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture”:  So, what I will start off with, scratchy old 45 that I found in Morocco, just kind of randomly dropping the needle on the record.

Let's see.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  What does a deejay do?  Well, Jace Clayton, AKA DJ /rupture, takes musical pieces from around the world, adds his own sounds and mixes them together, creating something that will make you get up and dance, or maybe listen in a brand-new way.

JACE CLAYTON, Author, “Uproot”:  Activating music, you know, keeping music alive.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Each part is alive on its own.

JACE CLAYTON:  Each part is alive on its own, but I love the way in which, when you bring these things into overlap or superimposition, they start talking to each other in new and surprising ways.  And you can tell all sorts of stories with this.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The 41-year-old Clayton graduated from Harvard with a degree in English, but music has been his passion since middle school.

In 2001, he put a mix called “Gold Teeth Thief” on his Web site and was stunned when hundreds of thousands of people around the globe started sharing it.

He's traveled the world ever since, both making music and collecting it, and tells what he's found in a new book, “Uproot:  Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture.”

Gold Teeth Thief

BRIEF BUT SPECTACULAR - iO Tillett Wright

"Photographer documents the beauty of difference across the LGBT spectrum" PBS NewsHour 9/29/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  It’s hard to look someone in the eye and deny their humanity, says iO Tillett Wright.  Now Wright has spent the past six years photographing people who identify across the LGBT spectrum.  Wright offers a Brief but Spectacular take on finding beauty in difference.

POLITICAL INK - "The Year of Voting Dangerously"

aka "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," starring Donald Trump

"Maureen Dowd on why politics in 2016 sounds like a ‘primal scream and death rattle'" PBS NewsHour 9/28/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Why does the presidential political landscape look like it's been ripped from the ‘90s? And will Donald Trump inspire more celebrities to run for the highest office?  New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd sits down with Gwen Ifill to discuss her new book, "The Year of Voting Dangerously," and what she thinks of politics today.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now back to the campaign, this time through the eyes of a highly influential columnist who says she's never seen anything like it.

I sat down recently with New York Times writer Maureen Dowd about her new book, “The Year of Voting Dangerously.”

It is the latest addition to our series Political Ink.

You say, after years of covering these people, that President Obama is too cool, Hillary Clinton is too cold, and Donald Trump is way too hot.  What's a voter to do?

MAUREEN DOWD, Author, “The Year of Voting Dangerously”:  Where were you when I was writing my book blurb?  That's perfect.

(LAUGHTER)

GWEN IFILL:  Huh?

MAUREEN DOWD:  Yes.

That's the wild thing about this election year.  It's like the revenge of the '90s.  All of those characters we started with are back, you know, in different capacities.  Bill is back as first lady.  Monica Lewinsky is back as a bullying advocate — anti-advocate.

And, you know, Hillary is back.  Rudy Giuliani is back.  Newt Gingrich is back.  Seinfeld back, in the sense that Steve Bannon, who's running Trump's campaign, made all his money from Seinfeld.

GWEN IFILL:  Oh, they're all back.

MAUREEN DOWD:  They're all back.

GWEN IFILL:  Well, as I read this book — and a lot of it is columns of yours I have read, one…

MAUREEN DOWD:  And Trump.

GWEN IFILL:  And Trump, of course.

MAUREEN DOWD:  Sorry.

GWEN IFILL:  One at a time.  One at a time.

But when I read them again altogether, I come away with the impression you don't like any of these people.

MEMORIAM - Israel's Shimon Peres

"Remembering Shimon Peres and his hopes for a ‘new' Middle East" PBS NewsHour 9/28/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Israel's Shimon Peres had a political career that extended for nearly five decades.  A protege of Israel's very first prime minister, he went from top defense jobs to prime minister, taking a conciliatory approach toward Palestinians that lead to the Oslo Accords and a Nobel Peace Prize.  Peres died at 93 years old.  William Brangham gets an assessment from Thomas Friedman of The New York Times.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  One of Israel's founding fathers died last night.  Shimon Peres was present at the country's very beginning, and served in just about every high-level office in the Jewish state.

William Brangham has this remembrance.

We invite Shimon Peres to come up.

MAN:  Shimon Peres to come to the rostrum to receive the gold medal.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  It was a moment of great promise, Shimon Peres, then the Israeli Foreign Minister, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Peres had helped negotiate the so-called Oslo Accords.  And, accepting the award, he spoke of his hopes for a new Middle East.

SHIMON PERES, Israeli Foreign Minister:  A Middle East without wars, without enemies, without ballistic missiles, without nuclear warheads.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Born in present-day Belarus, Shimon Peres was a boy when his family emigrated to Tel Aviv in 1934.  He joined the Jewish resistance in the 1948 war of independence, and became a protege of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's very first Prime Minister.

He went on to hold numerous top defense jobs, helping build the Jewish state's military and its top-secret nuclear weapons program.  With Ben-Gurion's backing, Peres won a seat in the Israeli Parliament in 1959, launching a political career that extended for over five decades.

As defense minister under prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, he oversaw the dramatic 1976 rescue of Israeli hostages at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.  Peres himself went on to serve as prime minister, first in 1977, and again as part of a unity government in 1984.

He took a conciliatory stance toward the Palestinians, and later, with Rabin back in power, he conducted the Oslo negotiations in secret.  The resulting deal, signed in 1993 in Washington, aimed at establishing mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinians and setting them on a path toward peace.

SHIMON PERES:  From this green, promising lawn of the White House, let's say together in the language of our Bible, 'peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near.'

"Delegations from 75 countries pay tribute to Shimon Peres" PBS NewsHour 9/30/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The funeral of Shimon Peres, who passed away Wednesday at 93, brought together delegations from 75 countries -- even those with a bitter history of war.  After shaking hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eulogized his former rival as a "great man."  Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also spoke of Peres' legacy.  William Brangham reports.

ENVIRONMENT - Getting the Lead Out

"How and why we need to get the lead out of our lives" PBS NewsHour 9/28/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Our love/hate relationship with lead is as old as history itself.  The origin of "plumbing" comes from the Latin word for lead.  But only in the 1970s did we realize the consequences of even low doses of the hazardous metal, and by then it was in our pipes, our paint and our fuel.  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien examines the lasting health consequences.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now the risks of lead exposure, particularly for children.

After some debate, Congress appears poised to provide special aid to Flint, Michigan, and possibly other cities with lead in their water.

Our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, looks at why lead was used for so long in so many places, and the health concerns, part of our weekly series on the Leading Edge of science and technology.

RICHARD TRETHEWEY, Plumber, “This Old House”:  My great-grandfather would be quite proud right now.

MILES O'BRIEN (NewsHour):  But he also might be a little worried, because fourth-generation plumber Richard Trethewey is showing me the technique for molding, shaping and joining pipe made of lead.

We met in the cellar of the latest renovation project for the venerable PBS series “This Old House.”  It's a 1909 arts and crafts home in Arlington, Massachusetts.

MAN:  Let's get started by talking with Rich Trethewey, the plumber.  Come on in.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Trethewey has been part of this famous band of TV renovators since the show debuted in 1979.

RICHARD TRETHEWEY:  So, in 1909, this was high living, because you had a basement laundry.

MILES O'BRIEN:  He fired up a burner and put some lead in a pot to do some plumbing the old-fashioned way.

RICHARD TRETHEWEY:  When this house was plumbed, that lead pot would've been going all day long.

LIFTOFF - African-American Female Entrepreneurs

"For African-American female entrepreneurs, funding challenges call for creative bootstrapping" PBS NewsHour 9/28/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S. is African-American women.  But minority-owned businesses often face greater challenges getting funding.  The NewsHour's April Brown profiles two women who have bucked the stereotypes and gotten resourceful to launch their ventures.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Nearly a decade after the great recession, the pace of creating a new business is still slower than it was back in 2007.

A new report finds a small uptick this year, including in the U.S.  When it comes to tech start-ups, the image is often of young white men in hoodies, but it turns out African-American women control about 1.3 million businesses, and they are the country's fastest growing group of entrepreneurs.

Special correspondent April Brown recently met two women trying to break into the club.

ZOLA BOWIE, Caregiver:  I love peanut butter.

APRIL BROWN, Special correspondent:  Zola Bowie works as a caregiver in the San Francisco Bay Area for a company called Oneva.  She often can be found watching the Santos family's three kids, who are all under the age of 4.

The children's mother, Arlene Santos, says she couldn't run her tech company without the help.

ARLENE SANTOS, Oneva Client:  As a career woman, you don't want to feel guilty that you have a meeting.  You want to make sure that home life is taken care of.  And that's really what Oneva does.

APRIL BROWN:  Marvie Jean Darden, who also lives in the Bay Area, had a stroke two years ago and is nearly blind.  But she wants to remain in her home as long as possible.

MARVIE JEAN DARDEN, Oneva Client:  After I had the stroke, I couldn't do what I had done before.  I also worried about different people that we didn't know coming in to the home and everything.

APRIL BROWN:  But since Oneva introduced Mrs. Darden to Seadawn Thomas (ph) those problems have been solved.

ELECTION 2016 - Debate in Context

"The facts behind debate talking points like stop-and-frisk and trade deals" PBS NewsHour 9/27/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump debated for 94 minutes in their first public face-off Monday night.  During that time, the candidates rattled off accusations, numbers and “he said, she said” quotes.  But what was true, what wasn't and what needed more context?  Lisa Desjardins takes a look at the facts behind their claims.

"Think you know Clinton and Trump?  New documentary gets inside the candidates' past lives" PBS NewsHour 9/27/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  “The Choice 2016,” a Frontline documentary, takes an up-close and detailed look at the lives of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  Starting their stories when they were children, producer and director Michael Kirk lays everything out on the table.  Judy Woodruff speaks with him about the making of the film and what it reveals about the two people vying for the Presidency.

PBS Frontline - The Choice 2016 (full episode)

ESSAY - Tracy Grant

"How caring for a dying husband made life worth living" PBS NewsHour 9/27/2016

Tracy Grant, Washington Post article

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The best seven months of Tracy Grant’s life were the months she spent caring for her husband with terminal cancer.  Suddenly, she says, there were no “bad days.”  Petty work mishaps didn’t seem nearly as bad when all she could do was look forward to the little things, like spontaneous laughter or the night sky.  Those final months made up the best gift he gave her, Grant says.

POLITICAL INK - "Hillbilly Elegy"

"The struggling, rural, white communities that feel like nobody cares" PBS NewsHour 9/27/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance explores life in some of the most geographically secluded parts of the country and the mountain of problems communities there are facing, from economic issues to drug addiction.  The subject is a personal one for Vance, who was raised by his grandparents in Appalachia.  Judy Woodruff sits down with him to discuss his experience and how these issues came to be.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now, in this topsy-turvy election year, we have a timely portrait of Americans who are often ignored and misunderstood, depicted as only an insider could.

It's the first in an occasional series on books this election season we're calling Political Ink.

J.D. Vance, welcome to the NewsHour.

This book is many things, “Hillbilly Elegy,” but I think, amongst all else, it's a personal story.  It's about growing up in Appalachia under what I think what everybody would agree difficult circumstances, raised by your grandparents, father who wasn't there, mother had an addiction.

I think, for most people, hard to write about these things, but not hard for you?

J.D. VANCE, Author, “Hillbilly Elegy:  A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis”:  No, it was definitely hard.

I definitely struggled allotted with the intrusion and just being so open about my personal history and my family history.  But I decided that, ultimately, it was worth it because I felt that a lot of these issues needed to be talked about.  They needed to be talked about openly.  And I couldn't think of a better way to do it than just be really honest about my own failings and my family's failings, because sometimes honesty is just the best policy, and that starts with me.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Well, you do write very candidly about a rough-around-the-edges lifestyle, both in Kentucky and then when your family moved to Southern Ohio.

It's rough around the edges, but it's a life you love and a life you honor.

J.D. VANCE:  Yes, absolutely.

There are good and bad parts of this community and of my own family, of course.  And I try to be very frank about the problems, but also very compassionate, and also explain why so many of these people were so good to me and so important in my life, and, frankly, why I wouldn't have had the opportunities I have right now if it weren't for them.

GOLF - Arnold Palmer, in Memoriam

"Remembering Arnold Palmer, charismatic sports star who changed golf" PBS NewsHour 9/26/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  It was a golf career that consisted of 67 victories, seven of which were major championships.  From his ferocious swing to his magnetic personality, Arnold Palmer helped turn golf into a major television sport -- and even had a drink named for him.  William Brangham remembers the sports legend, who passed away Sunday night at 87, with Golf Channel's George Savaricas.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The tributes have poured in all day for golfing legend Arnold Palmer, from his friend and rival Jack Nicklaus, to recent champions like Tiger Woods, to dignitaries like President Obama.

A handful of other champions won more tournaments and titles, but Palmer set a standard for attracting public attention to the sport.

William Brangham has a look back at the king.

ANNOUNCER:  The U.S. Open, played in the shadow of the Rockies, saw Arnold Palmer sink an incredible putt.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  June 1960, Denver, Colorado, an improbable win in the U.S. Open became the stuff of golfing legend.

ANNOUNCER:  Coming from seven strokes behind, Palmer showed nerves of steel and a will of granite, as he battled to win the U.S. Open.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  And it defined the style of Arnold Palmer.

ANNOUNCER:  Golfing's man of the year.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  It was, perhaps, Palmer's greatest year.  He had won the Masters just two months earlier, and, all told, won eight times that season.  He followed up with victories at the next two British Opens, and two more Masters in 1962 and '64.

He reflected on his success in a 2011 interview with Charlie Rose.

ARNOLD PALMER, Former Professional Golfer:  Any time I got close, it was just I felt I had to win.  I had to.  I couldn't lose.  I couldn't let that happen to me.  And it worked.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Arnold Daniel Palmer was born on September 10, 1929, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh.

He began swinging a club at age 4 and practically lived at the area country club, where his dad was first the greenskeeper, and later, the club pro.  Palmer won the U.S. Amateur in 1954, turned pro the next year and quickly began piling up victories, 62 over his career, including seven major championships.

He had a ferocious, muscular swing that made him one of golf's greatest drivers.  And his magnetic, down-to-earth personality drew an energetic fan base, dubbed Arnie's Army.  He helped turn golf into a major television sport.

ARNOLD PALMER:  The game is so fantastic.  If I had a little bit to do with some of the enjoyment that I see today, I'm pleased with that.

"Friends pay tribute to ‘king' of golf, Arnold Palmer" by Larisa Epatko, PBS NewsHour 9/26/2016

MUSICALS - West Side Stroy's 60th

"The musical rumble that makes listeners love 'West Side Story'" PBS NewsHour 9/26/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  On this day nearly six decades ago, “West Side Story” premiered on Broadway.  And the music of the Sharks and the Jets, and star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria is as vibrant as it was in 1957.  Jeffrey Brown sits down with composer and musician Rob Kapilow to discuss what it is about Leonard Bernstein's hit musical style that has allowed the love story to live on for decades.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Finally tonight, on a light note:  On this day in 1957, “West Side Story” debuted on Broadway.

Composer and musician Rob Kapilow is back to tell us why the music has withstood the test of time.

Jeffrey Brown sat down with Kapilow recently.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Ron Kapilow, welcome back.

ROB KAPILOW, Composer:  It's great to be here.

JEFFREY BROWN:  So, “West Side Story,” one of the most famous musicals in history, but not quite what it was intended to be, I guess.

ROB KAPILOW:  I think that's true.

You know, Leonard Bernstein had already written two his musicals, “On the Town” and “Wonderful Town,” and those shows are filled with Bernstein's love, facility, and affection for the popular music of the day.  But they're lighthearted musicals, fundamentally.

And now he wanted to do something serious, and he got together an incredibly serious crew of guys.  I mean, we had Jerome Robbins, who did serious ballets.  We had Arthur Laurents, who wrote serious plays.  We had Leonard Bernstein, and they wanted to do something serious.

That was the amazing thing about Bernstein.  He could actually do both, and he crossed over.  And this whole piece is really about, in a way, the conflict between those two worlds, between the serious world.

This is going to be, he called a tragic musical comedy, if that's not an oxymoron.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Tragedies get turned into operas all the time.

ROB KAPILOW:  All the time.

In fact, tragedy is the lifeblood of opera.  It's not really an opera unless somebody dies at the end.  But people don't usually die at the end in a Broadway musical.

And this one had a body count of three, with two of them dead at the first act curtain.  I mean, that is not the stuff of a Broadway musical, not to mention a classic Shakespeare play, “Romeo and Juliet,” as the background.

JOBS ASSAULT - The Public Sector

"Contract for Disaster: How Privatization Is Killing the Public Sector" by S.E. Smith, In These Times 9/28/2016

Privatization is bad news for federal, state and local government workers, and the communities where they live.  That's according to a new report released Wednesday by In the Public Interest, a research group focused on the effects of privatization.

The study, “How Privatization Increases Inequality,” explores the role privatization plays in the American economy—compiling data on the estimated $1.5 trillion of state and local contracts doled out each year.

“A lot of decisions are small,” says Donald Cohen, executive director of In the Public Interest, but “if you add all that up, it's very significant."

Many government workers in the United States enjoy a robust structure of pay and benefits, including pensions, health care and paid time off.  Workers operate in a structured environment that acts, as the report says, as a ladder of opportunity.  A clearly outlined framework of positions and pay grades, backed by enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, makes government jobs particularly friendly to women and people of color—20 percent of public sector jobs are held by Black workers, while nearly 60 percent of public sector jobs are held by women.

For decades, work in the public sector has been a gateway to a middle-class life.  But that's changing.

Cohen notes that the Right managed to make privatization an ideological project.  This shift has generated huge profits for corporations and harmed public sector workers and their unions.

“They want to contract out not because it makes sense, but because that's their jobs.  They're right-wingers,” he says.

Privatized workers have lower rates of unionization, are paid less than their publicly-employed counterparts, don't have access to benefits and experience high turnover, the report shows.  Sometimes they work side-by-side with government employees, as at the University of California system, something that Cohen says is deliberate.

“Part of the strategy of management is to contract out part of the work to keep the pressure on the non-contract part of the work,” he says.

That strategy leaves workers shortchanged—literally.  In 2013, the National Employment Law Project found that one in five federal contractors it interviewed was using Medicaid for health care, while 14 percent needed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP).  Reliance on federal benefits shifts costs from employers to taxpayers.

Contract employees are caught in a poverty trap that hurts not just them, but their communities.  Workers who aren't making money aren't spending it, dragging down local businesses and creating a ripple effect in regional economies.

The report argues that poor record keeping and limited transparency make it extremely difficult to gauge the effects of contracting, and that the public needs to have access to such information.  Legislators, advocates, unions and workers should be invested in how, when, where and why contract labor is used.

Is it improving services while keeping standards high for workers?  Or is it being used as an ostensible cost-cutting measure, harming workers and shifting expenses to taxpayers and their communities?

We're seeing a new era of work in America, and the move to contractors over directly-employed government workers is highlighting that shift as well as its consequences.  For government workers, privatization is an economic shell game, and they are losing.

ART - From the Techie Side

RIZE Spinning Ferrofluid Sculpture


Estimated availability Feb 2017 from Ferroflow Store