Inside the GOP Implosion and the War to Stop Trump
Here is a New York Times article you may have seen. It describes the GOP's panicked, hyperbolic and yet utterly ineffectual rush to stop the Donald Trump juggernaut. As I've said before, the GOP's Trump problem reminds me of the regional and global powers' efforts to destroy ISIS. Every party sees the problem, is terrified by the problem. And yet every player has some other angle or priority that's just a bit more pressing or important. The Saudis, Iran. The Turks, the Kurds. The US, Assad. And on and on. Yet, it goes without saying that Trump isn't the real problem. He didn't bamboozle the heads of the RNC into signing some one-sided contract they can't live with. The problem is Republican voters. Look at the polls and you see that in virtually every state in the country between 30% and 50% of GOP voters currently back Trump. And only unicorn thinking supports the idea that the 70% to 50% who do not constitute some sort "anti-Trump" faction. That's the problem, not Trump himself.

When I read the Times article, observe recent weeks as they've fluttered by and think about how things got to this point, I come back again and again to conversations I have with our chief tech, Matt Wozniak. Matt uses the metaphor of debt to describe the inevitable trade off we face building and maintaining the software that runs TPM.

If we do a project in a rough and ready way, which is often what we can manage under the time and budget constraints we face, we will build up a "debt" we'll eventually have to pay back. Basically, if we do it fast, we'll later have to go back and rework or even replace the code to make it robust enough for the long haul, interoperate with other code that runs our site or simply be truly functional as opposed just barely doing what we need it to. There's no right or wrong answer; it's simply a management challenge to know when to lean one way or the other. But if you build up too much of this debt the problem can start to grow not in a linear but an exponential fashion, until the system begins to cave in on itself with internal decay, breakdowns of interoperability and emergent failures which grow from both.

This is a fairly good description of what the media is now wrongly defining as the GOP's 'Trump problem', only in this case the problem isn't programming debt. It's a build up of what we might call 'hate debt' and 'nonsense debt' that has been growing up for years.

Sanders-Clinton debate transcript: Annotating what they say
TODD: Would you unite the party by trying to pick Senator Sanders as your running mate?

CLINTON: Well, I'm certainly going to unite the party, but I'm not -- I'm not getting ahead of myself. I think that would be a little bit presumptuous. If I'm so fortunate as to be the nominee, the first person I will call to talk to about where we go and how we get it done will be Senator Sanders.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Senator, would you consider the secretary?

SANDERS: I agree with what the secretary said. We shouldn't be getting ahead of ourselves. And as I have said many times, you know, sometimes in these campaigns, things get a little bit out of hand. I happen to respect the secretary very much, I hope it's mutual. And on our worst days, I think it is fair to say we are 100 times better than any Republican candidate.

Sanders-Clinton debate transcript: Annotating what they say
TODD: Would you unite the party by trying to pick Senator Sanders as your running mate?

CLINTON: Well, I'm certainly going to unite the party, but I'm not -- I'm not getting ahead of myself. I think that would be a little bit presumptuous. If I'm so fortunate as to be the nominee, the first person I will call to talk to about where we go and how we get it done will be Senator Sanders.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Senator, would you consider the secretary?

SANDERS: I agree with what the secretary said. We shouldn't be getting ahead of ourselves. And as I have said many times, you know, sometimes in these campaigns, things get a little bit out of hand. I happen to respect the secretary very much, I hope it's mutual. And on our worst days, I think it is fair to say we are 100 times better than any Republican candidate.

Live blog: South Carolina Democratic Primary
See the data like a journalist - 3:19 p.m.

In less than four hours, results of the South Carolina Democratic primary will start rolling out, as well as information about voter turnout. If you're already following the Greenville News, then you know this website is the place to get the results information you need. But if you want to know more, go to the source.

The State Election Commission uses an online tool called Election Night Reporting to release ballot results as each precinct reports them. It includes a map that shows how each county voted. If you compare that map to a map of congressional districts, you can get an idea of how the delegate allocation will shake out as the results come in.

Click here to access Election Night Reporting. Remember, precincts don't begin reporting until 7 p.m.

February 25, 1870 First African American Senator

On February 25, 1870, visitors in the Senate galleries burst into applause as senator-elect Hiram Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, entered the chamber to take his oath of office. Those present knew that they were witnessing an event of great historical significance. Revels was about to become the first African American to serve in the Senate.
Born 42 years earlier to free black parents in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Revels became an educator and minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. During the Civil War, he helped form regiments of African American soldiers and established schools for freed slaves. After the war, Revels moved to Mississippi, where he won election to the state senate. In recognition of his hard work and leadership skills, his legislative colleagues elected him to one of Mississippi's vacant U.S. Senate seats as that state prepared to rejoin the Union.
Revels' credentials arrived in the Senate on February 23, 1870, and were immediately blocked by a few members who had no desire to see a black man serve in Congress. Masking their racist views, they argued that Revels had not been a U.S. citizen for the nine years required of all senators. In their distorted interpretation, black Americans had only become citizens with the passage of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, just four years earlier. Revels' supporters dismissed that statement, pointing out that he had been a voter many years earlier in Ohio and was therefore certainly a citizen.
Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner brought the debate to an end with a stirring speech. "The time has passed for argument. Nothing more need be said. For a long time it has been clear that colored persons must be senators." Then, by an overwhelming margin, the Senate voted 48 to 8 to seat Revels.

A PowerPoint Slide Advises Professors to Alter Teaching to Pacify Armed Students
A presentation at a faculty forum at the University of Houston that circulated Tuesday on Twitter has raised pressing questions about how professors will adapt to Texas’ controversial new campus-carry law.

A PowerPoint slide in the presentation, arranged by the president of the central campus’s Faculty Senate, Jonathan Snow, provides suggestions for faculty members to alter their behavior, among other things, when the law takes effect for all four-year public colleges in the state, on August 1.
http://twitter.com/JeffintheBowtie/status/701898811115855872/photo/1
Opponents of the law, which will allow people with concealed-handgun permits to carry their weapons into public-university buildings, seized on the image as proof that many professors will feel they need to change their curricula or tiptoe around emotionally volatile students for fear of attack.