Hillary Clinton’s “weakness” is what Trump anonymous Trump associates say it is

So, pretty ridiculous article in the Post today about how Trump is going to convince voters he’s not actually racist by hanging out with Ben Carson and actually speaking to Black audiences for the first time.  I’m sure that will carry far more weight than when he refused to disavow the Klan.  Anyway, this part of the article struck me as absolutely horrible journalism:

Trump’s team also hopes to exploit what the campaign’s internal poll of black voters nationally shows to be a potential vulnerability for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton once voters are informed of the crime policy record of former president Bill Clinton, according to two Trump associates.

One, this is simply not credible.  Bernie Sanders tried this.  Hillary crushed Bernie among Black voters.  Not to mention, ummm, Trump is, you know, actually racist.  Secondly, since when does anonymous “associates” of a campaign making an assertion get to be treated at face value like this?  Can Clinton aides simply assert they are “confident of victory because internal polls show at least 51% of Americans detest Trump and will never vote for him”?

That said, the article was pretty clear that his appeal is actually to convince whites he’s not actually racist.  That may work on some Republicans who want to believe it.  But actual non-whites, not influenced by partisanship to want to support Trump, sure as hell know better.

Oh, no, more emails!








Parenting and risk

This explanation of some new research and interview with the authors is so, so good.  I so love the experiment they did, so I’m going to paste the whole summary:






Whoa.  Take a second and think about that.  Also, a great interview with the authors:




Ashley: I think that developmental psychologists need to start talking about the costsof never allowing children to take a risk. People seem to make this calculation where they say: “Well, even though the chances of anything bad happening are small, there’s no harm in keeping an eye on the kids.” I think what developmental psychologists can say is: That’s mistaken — there is real harm in keeping an eye on the kids, if you’re keeping an eye on them every minute of every day. You know, psychologists study this thing called “self-efficacy” — it refers to a person’s confidence in their own ability to handle whatever comes up and succeed in a variety of situations, and it’s really important. But if kids are never allowed to take any risks or have any independence at all, they can’t develop self-efficacy. They can’t become adults who are ready to deal with problems and navigate the world.

Great stuff!  And lots more about changing cultural norms, the role of legal liability, etc.  And, okay, one like more clip because I expect I’m going to be using this particular analogy for years to come:


Reading this, you’re probably thinking that eliminating the risk of these injuries does not justify the sacrifice of kids’ mobility and independence and healthy development. We understand that kids need to walk and run and climb and jump and play in order to grow up healthy and strong, even though all of those activities involve some physical risk. Developmental psychologists need to do a better job of explaining to policymakers and parents that healthy psychological development, just like healthy physical development, involves some amount of risk.

Now, I don’t expect us to go back to how things were during my childhood when my mom let 4-year old me wander around my neighborhood unattended, but it is clear the pendulum has gone to far and hopefully research like this can help us nudge it back– at least a little bit– in the right direction.

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