Daily Archives: September 7, 2020

What’s the magic behind Matthew Stafford’s mastery of the Lions’ offense? – Detroit Lions Blog- ESPN – ESPN

Posted: September 7, 2020 at 2:26 am

ALLEN PARK, Mich. The ball looked it like it could have been intercepted easily. Jeff Okudah was in perfect position in the end zone. He read everything right. He was where he was supposed to be. It didnt matter.

Not even close.

Matthew Stafford put the ball where only his receiver, Marvin Hall, could catch it. It was a window so small realistically only the football could have fit through for the play to work. You could say this is only one play in a training camp and might not be indicative of how Stafford played in practice throughout August.

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Except this wasnt a singularity. It happened to Amani Oruwariye against Kenny Golladay. It happened to Jahlani Tavai and ended up in the hands of Marvin Jones. Combine that with Staffords arm strength -- which remains among the best in the league -- and theres reason to think the 12-year veteran might be on the cusp of a season in which he fulfills the potential thats surrounded him since he was drafted, both in his physical abilities and his knowledge of exactly where to throw the ball and when.

Hes a wizard, man, said backup quarterback Chase Daniel, who has known Stafford since high school. Its impressive. His recall of plays, a photographic memory, all that stuff you want in a quarterback. Its impressive and makes you want to work harder and its why hes been one of the best quarterbacks in the league going on 12 years now.

It isnt a practice thing, either. Hes done it during games, too -- either with the help of Calvin Johnson earlier in his career or throws that make you wonder how he pulled it off the past few seasons, including a pass through three Kansas City defenders for a touchdown to Golladay in Week 4 last season.

I wish more people could appreciate it, backup quarterback David Blough said.

At the time, Blough still was learning about his new teammate. A rookie out of Purdue who was traded to Detroit from Cleveland at the roster cuts deadline, Blough only watched Stafford from afar on television and what he remembered of him growing up just outside Dallas himself when Stafford was in high school.

The next day, in the quarterback meeting room, Blough got to see a small bit of Staffords personality. He almost shrugged it off as hes just doing his job although Blough said you might get a wink from him as hes saying it.

This always has been who Stafford is -- from top-rated high school recruit to top-rated college quarterback and then the No. 1 pick in the 2009 draft. Hes thrown a 5,000-yard season and holds a bevy of fastest-to NFL records.

Hes led 28 fourth-quarter comebacks, tied with Brett Favre for No. 11 in history. Hes No. 18 in all-time passing yards, with 41,025, and if he has at least a 4,000-yard season hell pass Dan Fouts and Drew Bledsoe to be No. 16 all-time. His 256 touchdowns are No. 19 all-time and hes 35 touchdown passes away from moving into the top 15.

He is also, at age 32, perhaps playing better than he ever has. Before he suffered broken bones in his back last season, sending him to injured reserve, he was playing at a Pro Bowl level in the first year in Darrell Bevells offense, completing 64.3 percent of his passes for 2,499 yards, 19 touchdowns and five interceptions.

Had he played a full season, he might have reached 5,000 yards for the second time. While hes played in other offenses before -- becoming prolific in Scott Linehans Air Raid offense early in his career and then more efficient in the Jim Caldwell/Jim Bob Cooter system for five years after that -- its possible Bevells offense fits him better than the others.

It meshes a mix of play-action and focus on the run game with enough attempts at bigger, explosive plays that take advantage of Staffords arm and the skills of Golladay and Jones to win contested catches.

When were out there at quarterback, were empowered to throw, Blough said. Take shots, take shots, take shots. [Bevell] keeps calling them and I think Matthew feels encouraged by that and confident.

While it appears he has mastery over Bevells system, and Stafford is reaching a point in his career where almost any offense is going to be something he picks up quick, Bevell has noticed some small, subtle changes entering another season with Stafford, something that could make a great quarterback even better.

He might be even a little bit quicker on some of the decisions hes making, Bevell said. We really have put an emphasis on his speed. Starting with last year when we got here and how your feet correspond to the plays, I think hes done a nice job with that.

I mean, hes just a special talent in terms of throwing the football. It just looks so effortless. He can just flick it, and the balls flying out of his hands. Hes always been impressive that way.

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Its something his teammates have known and his coaches have learned as theyve worked with him. Its something the public has understood in fits and starts, but if Stafford can stay healthy in 2020 and manage his team through an abnormal season in a global pandemic, its possible he might be able to do one thing that could get him more recognition.

Win the Lions first since division title sine 1993, when Stafford was 5 years old.

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What's the magic behind Matthew Stafford's mastery of the Lions' offense? - Detroit Lions Blog- ESPN - ESPN

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If you flew your spaceship through a wormhole, could you make it out alive? Maybe… – SYFY WIRE

Posted: at 2:26 am

Can you already hear Morgan Freemans sonorous voice as if this was another episode of Through the Wormhole?

Astrophysicists have figured out a way to traverse a (hypothetical) wormhole that defies the usual thinking that wormholes (if they exist) would either take longer to get through than the rest of space or be microscopic. These wormholes just have to warp the rules of physics which is totally fine since they would exist in the realm of quantum physics. Freaky things could happen when you go quantum. If wormholes do exist, some of them might be large enough for a spacecraft to not only fit through, but get from this part of the universe to wherever else in the universe in one piece.

"Larger wormholes are possible with aspecial type of dark sector,a type of matter that interactsonly gravitationally with our own matter. The usual dark matter is an example.However, the one we assumed involves a dark sector that consists of an extradimensional geometry,"Princeton astrophysicist Juan Maldacena and grad student Alexey Milekhin told SYFY WIRE.Theyrecently performed a new study that reads like a scientific dissection of what exactly happened to John Crichtons spaceship when it zoomed through a wormhole in Farscape.

"This type of larger wormhole isbased on therealization that a five-dimensional spacetime could be describing physics at lowerenergies than the ones we usually explore, but that it would have escaped detection because it couples with our matter only through gravity," Maldacena and Milekhinsaid."In fact, its physics issimilar to adding many strongly interacting massless fields to the known physics,and for this reason it can give rise to the required negative energy."

While the existence of wormholes has never been proven, you could defend theories that they could exist deep in the quantum realm. The problem is, even if they do exist, they are thought to be infinitesimal. Hypothetical wormholes would also take so long to get across that youd basically be a space fossil by the time you got to the other end. Maldacena and Milekhin have found a theoretical way for a wormhole thatcould get you across the universe in seconds and manage not to crush your spacecraft. At least it would seem like seconds to you. To everyone else on Earth, it could be ten thousand years. Scary thought.

"Usually whenpeople discuss wormholes, they have in mind 'short'wormholes: the ones forwhich the travel time would be almost instantaneous even for a distant observer.We think that such wormholes are inconsistent with the basic principles of relativity," the scientists said. "The ones we considered are 'long': for a distant observed the path alongnormal space-time is shorter than through the wormhole.There is a time-dilation factor because the extreme gravity makes travel time very short for the traveller. For an outsider, the time it takes is much longer, so we have consistency with the principles of relativity, which forbid travel faster than the speed of light."

Fortraversable wormholesto exist, but the vacuum of space would have to be cold and flat to actually allow for what they theorize. Space is already cold. Just pretend that its flat for the sake of imagining Maldacena and Milekhin's brainchild of a wormhole.

"These wormholes are big, the gravitational forces will be rather small. So, if they were in empty flat space,they would not be hazardous. We chose their size to be big enough so that theywould be safe from large gravitational forces," they said.

Negative energy would also have to exist in a traversable wormhole. Physics forbids such a thing from being a reality. In quantum physics, the concept of this exotic energy is explained by Stephen Hawking as the absence of energy from two pieces of matter being closer together as opposed to being far apart, because energy needs to be burned so they can be separated despite gravitational force struggling to pull them back together. Fermions, which include subatomic particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrons (with the exception that they would need to be massless), would enter one end and travel in circles. They would come out exactly where they went in, which suggests that the modification of energy in the vacuum can make it negative.

"Early theorized wormholes were not traversable; an observer going through a wormhole encounters a singularity before reaching the toher side, which is related ot the fact that positive energy tends to attract matter and light," the scientists said."This is whyspacetime shrinks at the singularity of a black hole. Negative energy prevents this. The main problem is that the particular type of negative energy that is needed is not possible in classical physics, and in quantum physics it is only possible in some limited amounts and for special circumstances.

Say you make it to a gaping wormhole ready to take you...nobody knows where. What would it feel like to travel through it? Probably not unlike Space Mountain, if you ask Maldacena and Milekhin. In their study, they described these wormholes as "the ultimate roller coaster."

The only thing a spaceship pilot would need to do, unlike Farscapes Crichton, who totally lost control, is get the ship in sync with the tidal forces of the wormhole so they could be in the right position to take off. These are the forces that will push and pull an object away from another object depending on the difference in the objects strength of gravity, and that gravity would power the spaceship through.This is whyit would basically end upflying itself. But there are still obstacles.

"The problem is that every object which enters the wormhole will be acceleratedto very high energies," the scientists said."It means that a wormhole must be kept extremely cleanto be safe for human travel. In particular, even the pervasive cosmic microwaveradiation, which has very low energy, would be boosted to high energies andbecome dangerous for the wormhole traveler."

So maybe this will never happen. Wormholes may never actually be proven to exist. Even if they dont, it's wild to think about the way quantum physics could even allow for a wormhole that you could coast right through.

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How Andersen Cheng plans to defend against the quantum computer – The Independent

Posted: at 2:25 am

A

ndersen Cheng has a way with striking and memorable analogies. Boris Johnsons government is committing 1bn to building a Frankensteins monster, he says. Im trying to build a cage without any government funding to stop it running wild. The monster in question is the quantum computer, which is a hackers dream. The cage is what Post-Quantum was set up last year to create.

Cheng was born in Hong Kong but came to England to do his O-levels and A-levels. His parents sent him to a school in Devon. They wanted me to be as far from London as possible, he says. He duly learned to drive a tractor and milk cows, but went on to study engineering at Imperial College and do an MBA. When he started working in the City at the end of the Eighties as a computer auditor, there were only six portable compact computers in the whole company and disdain for the techies from people still using calculators.

Cheng became head of credit risk at JP Morgan in the midst of the dotcom bubble. He recalls how Boo.com burnt through $150m in 18 months. There just wasnt enough broadband speed for all those virtual mannequins spinning around, he says. After a spell in private equity, Cheng decided to break away and set up on his own as a consultant in the fast-growing realm of cryptography, working on top secret projects for the British government. It was so classified even the project name was secret, he says.

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How Andersen Cheng plans to defend against the quantum computer - The Independent

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These are the most in-demand job skills, according to LinkedIn – World Economic Forum

Posted: at 2:25 am

It can be difficult to discern which skills companies are prioritizing, and what makes your rsum but not another stand out to recruiters. This common gripe among job seekers is why LinkedIn uses its vault of business data to create a job market road map each year.

This year, the company used data from 660+ million professionals in its network and 20+ million job listings to determine the hard and soft skills that are most in-demand (and most likely to get a candidate hired) in 2020.

To define the most in-demand skills, LinkedIn focused on skills that are in high demand relative to their supply. Demand was measured by identifying the skills listed on the LinkedIn profiles of people who are getting hired at the highest rates. Only cities with 100,000+ LinkedIn members were included in LinkedIn's evaluation, according to the company.

Below, we compiled the most in-demand hard and soft skills of 2020, according to LinkedIn. The online courses we listed to help you build these skills LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, Coursera, and edX are among the most popular and inexpensive options available today.

Coursera and edX allow you to take classes from the top universities in the world, like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, and more, for a fraction of the cost. You can audit nearly all of these courses for free, but auditing typically doesn't include graded homework or full access to course materials. You also don't receive a certificate of completion when you audit, which you can add to your rsum, CV, and LinkedIn profile. Enrollment fees for these online courses typically range from $30-$160.

Udemy offers over 100,000 video courses and typically prices them around $13 each. LinkedIn Learning offers over 15,000 courses and comes with a free one-month trial. After the trial period, access is $29.99 a month or $240 a year.

Below are the 15 hard and soft skills that are most likely to get you hired in 2020, according to LinkedIn:

The most in-demand hard skills in 2020

Most of this year's hard skills are in rapidly evolving fields and emphasize the importance of analyzing data. 2020 is the first year blockchain has topped LinkedIn's in-demand skills list, and business analysis (now #6) climbed 10 spots since 2019.

Bitcoin uses blockchain technology.

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2. Cloud and distributed computing

Cloud and distributed computing

Image: Coursera

Analytical reasoning

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4. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence

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UX design

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Business analysis

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Affiliate marketing

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Sales

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Scientific computing

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Video production

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The most in-demand soft skills in 2020

Soft skills are harder to quantify than hard skills. They're typically what interviewers are trying to gauge by asking about your management style or how you've handled career setbacks in the past. Four of the top five soft skills in 2020 are the same as they were in 2019.

Creativity

Image: Pexels

Organizations need people who can creatively approach problems and tasks across all business roles, from software engineering to HR. Focus on honing your ability to bring new ideas to the table in 2020.

Persuasion

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Collaboration

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Adaptability

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5. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence

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These are the most in-demand job skills, according to LinkedIn - World Economic Forum

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Bring Me The Horizons Oli Sykes: Yungblud is a new breed of rockstar – NME.com

Posted: at 2:25 am

Bring Me The Horizons Oli Sykes has hailed Yungblud as a new breed of rockstar following their recent collaboration, Obey.

Released yesterday (September 2), the team-up serves as the third single to be lifted from BMTHs upcoming Posthuman project, following on from previous cuts Ludens and Parasite Eve.

Explaining the bands decision to recruit Yungblud (real name Dominic Harrison), Sykes told Loudwire: There was an energy to [Obey] where it felt heavy but then had some slight Britpop influences, which I hear in Yungbluds music.

With our last record [amo], we kind of looked outside the scene for people to collaborate with and bring something new to the table, and with this record we wanted to have people that reflect the scene at the moment and still not choose obvious people that you would expect us to work with.

Sykes continued: I really like what Yungbluds doing. I love his energy and I think hes reflective of a new breed of rock star. Were honoured, to be honest.

Meanwhile, Yungblud has been added to the line-up for next years Reading & Leeds festivals, which will be headlined by Stormzy,Catfish And The Bottlemen, Post Malone,Disclosure, Liam GallagherandQueens Of The Stone Age.

Harrison recently revealed that his second album will be coming out this fall, and has so far shared the tracks Lemonade, Strawberry Lipstick and Weird.

It legitimately explores the ideas of identity, of sexuality, of equality, of depression, of anxiety, of life, of love, of heartbreak, of everything, Yungblud said of the LP. Me and my fan base, were coming of age together. I want to do it side by side.

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Bring Me The Horizons Oli Sykes: Yungblud is a new breed of rockstar - NME.com

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President Donald Trump Tweetstorm The Sunday Edition – Deadline

Posted: at 2:25 am

President Donald Trump said Sunday that the Department of Education is looking at the use of the controversial New York Times Magazines 1619 Project in public schools.

The project puts forth an alternative view of American history, claiming that it began in 1619, a date African slaves arrived in Virginia. Everything after that should be viewed through that lens, the project claims The project won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and the Pulitzer Center released a school curriculum based on the project. Chicago and Washington, DC have incorporated it into their school curriculums, and California is looking at using it.

But many historians have claimed the 1619 Project distorts history and has multiple inaccuracies, chief among them that the the American Revolution was fought to preserve the institution of slavery.

Related Story'The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg Addresses Trump's "Loser" Remarks, Talks Using Anonymous Sources

President Trump threatened in his tweet to remove federal funding from districts that teach the1619 Project.

Aside from that, the Commander-in-Tweet also took on the Fake News Media, mentioning that the widow of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is a huge supporter of Joe Biden. Laurene Powell Jobs is also the majority stakeholder in The Atlantic, which has rankled the President with its recent story that he disparaged slain military personnel.

Well add more communications as they come in. The tweetstorm so far:

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President Donald Trump Tweetstorm The Sunday Edition - Deadline

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Donald Trump boat parade draws hundreds in Pennsylvania: ‘We are the majority and we’re going to make some noise’ – USA TODAY

Posted: at 2:25 am

Matthew Rink, Erie Times-News Published 9:40 p.m. ET Sept. 6, 2020

With the election coming up in November, many wonder if we could have a contested election and how likely is that to happen? USA TODAY

A few hundred boaters doubling as Donald Trump voters crossed the channel between Lake Erie and Presque Isle Bay on Sunday, honking horns, flyingKeep America Great flags and waving to dozens of land-based MAGA backers.

In a show of support for Trump's reelection campaign organized by Austin Detzel, a 19-year-old college sophomore who supports the Republican president, Sunday's boat parade included vessels of all sizes, including personal watercraft.

Its been happening all over the country and, honestly, I thought someone in Erie would have done this by now, but nobody did, Detzel said. . With COVID, theres nothing to do anyway. This looked like fun.

The Erie rally had a better ending than a similar event on Saturday in Texas, where five boats participating in a parade in support of Trumps reelection campaignsank on Lake Travis, west of Austin.

Participants prepare for a boat parade in support of President Donald Trump at Presque Isle Bay in Erie on Sept. 6, 2020. The parade started at the Presque Isle Lighthouse and ended at Dobbins Landing.(Photo: JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS)

Trumps supporters, who helped him narrowly carry Erie County and the state of Pennsylvania in 2016, didnt just come by sea. They came by land, too. From the vacant West Kmart Plaza in Millcreek Township, Trump backers rode motorcycles, cars and even semi-tractors through the Erie area to Dobbins Landing.

Republican Brian Shank, a member of Erie County Council, said he was proud of the turnout.

"I put a little Facebook post up and now I've got tractor-trailers here and motorcycles,"he said. "Ive never met these people before in my life.

"They're Americans and they're tired of our country and the direction it's going," Shank continued. "And they're showing people we're not the silent majority. We are the majority and we're going to make some noise. We're going to get out and vote."

'From 'dark shadows' to 'thugs' on a plane,Trump wades deeper into conspiracy theories as election nears

Mark Schumacher, 67, wore a shirt bearing Trumps image underneath his denim button-down. A flag he held had the same image on it. Lorrie Schumacher, his wife, carried an American flag.

"This is the most important election in my lifetime,"Mark Schumacher said. "Everything is on the line. And, fortunately, through the grace of God, we have a candidate who is trying to save this country and has it headed in the right direction. He is impervious to the attacks that they throw against him from the false impeachment, the Russian hoax and now this latest thing that they're coming up with, his disparagement of professional soldiers. It's a joke. And we don't believe a word."

Roger Scarlett of Edinboro greets boaters on the South Pier in Erie during a boat parade in support of President Donald Trump on Sunday. The parade started at the Presque Isle Lighthouse and ended at Dobbins Landing.(Photo: JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS)

With Trump supporters on the lake, two events on landattempted to call out the president for his divisive rhetoric.

Local Democratic leaders and candidates spoke to a small crowd and helped register people to voteat an anti-hate event at nearby Liberty Park.

And, at Dobbins Landing, political activist Jasmine Flores and three dozen other demonstrators held signs reading Black Lives Matter and No Trump/Pence. No KKK. No Fascist USA, among other signs. A few others carried signs in support of former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee.

At one point, a small group of Trump backers stood in the median as protesters lined the sidewalk across from them. While one side chanted Four more years, the other countered with No justice, no peace.

Contact Matthew Rink at mrink@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNrink.

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Donald Trump boat parade draws hundreds in Pennsylvania: 'We are the majority and we're going to make some noise' - USA TODAY

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Donald Trump visits his golf club amid outrage over remarks about US war dead – The Guardian

Posted: at 2:25 am

Donald Trump visited one of his own golf courses on Saturday amid one of the worst scandals of his presidency in recent months and after expert warnings that up to 400,000 Americans could die of the coronavirus before the end of the year.

Trumps re-election bid is in turmoil after multiple reports of disparaging remarks he made about veterans and US soldiers that have caused widespread outrage, including calling them suckers and losers. The White House has strongly denied the allegations.

Separately, a new report was published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washingtons School of Medicine, that forecast the US death toll from the pandemic could hit 400,000 by 1 January 2021.

However, on Saturday Trump visited the Trump National Golf Club, in Virginia, passing by various roadside protesters, including one who waved a placard that read: Elect A Clown Get A Circus. Some supporters also held up Trump 2020 signs.

CNN, which tallies Trumps visits to golf courses, reported that this visit was the 295th trip to one of his own courses during his presidency.

During his campaign for the White House in 2016, Trump was a harsh critic of the amount of golf Barack Obama played during his time in office. Yet once in the White House, Trump has played far more often than his predecessor.

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Donald Trump visits his golf club amid outrage over remarks about US war dead - The Guardian

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On Labor Day, remember this: Trump’s America works only for the rich – The Guardian

Posted: at 2:25 am

On Labor Day weekend, eight weeks before one of the most consequential elections in American history, its useful to consider the inequalities of income and wealth that fueled Donald Trumps victory four years ago and which are now wider than ever.

No other developed nation has nearly the inequities found in the US, even though all have been exposed to the same forces of globalization and technological change. Jeff Bezoss net worth recently reached $200bn and Elon Musks $100bn, even as 30 million Americans reported their households didnt have enough food. Americas richest 1% now own half the value of the US stock market, and the richest 10% own 92%.

American capitalism is off the rails.

The main reason is that large corporations, Wall Street banks and a relative handful of exceedingly rich individuals have gained enough political power to game the system.

Chief executives have done everything possible to prevent the wages of most workers rising in tandem with productivity gains, so most gains go instead into the pockets of top executives and major investors. Theyve outsourced abroad, installed labor-replacing technologies and switched to part-time and contract work.

Theyve busted unions, whose membership shrank from 35% of the private-sector workforce 40 years ago to 6.4% today.

Theyve pushed government to slash their own taxes, unravel safety nets for the poor and middle class and reduce investment in education and infrastructure. Theyve eliminated a raft of labor protections. Theyve defanged antitrust enforcement, allowing their monopolies free rein. The free market has been taken over by crony capitalism, corporate bailouts and corporate welfare.

This massive power shift laid the groundwork for Trump. In 1964, almost two-thirds of Americans believed government was run for the benefit of all the people. By 2013 almost 80% believed government was run by a few big interests. The erosion in public trust was particularly steep in the wake of the Wall Street bailout and Great Recession. In 2006, 59% of Americans thought government corruption was widespread. By 2013, 79% did.

At the start of the century, a Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans were satisfied with opportunities to get ahead by working hard, and only 22% dissatisfied. By 2014, only 54% were satisfied and 45% dissatisfied. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans who believe most people who want to get ahead can do so through hard work dropped by 13 points between 2000 and 2015.

Much of the political establishment wants to attribute Trumps rise solely to racism. Racism did play a part, to be sure, but racisms sordid history in American politics long predates Trump.

What has given Trumps racism as well as his hateful xenophobia, misogyny and jingoism particular virulence has been his capacity to channel the intensifying anger of the white working class. It is hardly the first time a demagogue has used scapegoats to deflect public attention from the real causes of its distress.

Trump speaks the language of authoritarian populism but acts in the interests of Americas emerging oligarchy. His deal with the moneyed interests was simple: hed stoke divisiveness so Americans wouldnt see how the oligarchy has taken over the reins, twisted government to its benefit and siphoned off the economic rewards.

Hed make Americans so angry at each other that they wouldnt pay attention to CEOs getting exorbitant pay while slicing the pay of average workers, wouldnt notice the giant tax cut that went to big corporations and the wealthy, and wouldnt be outraged by a boardroom culture that tolerates financial conflicts of interest, insider trading and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign donations.

This way, the moneyed interests could rig the system while the president complained that the system was rigged by a deep state.

Notwithstanding all this, Trump trails Joe Biden in the polls. Trumps inexcusable failure to contain the coronavirus is having a larger impact on swing voters than the divisiveness he foments. Death has a way of concentrating the mind.

But if Biden is elected, he would be well advised to remember the forces Trump exploited to gain power, and to begin the task of remedying them. The solution is not found in mere redistribution of income. It is found redistributing power. Income isnt a zero-sum game in which some peoples gains require other peoples losses, but power indubitably is. Some have it only to the extent others dont.

If wealth continues to concentrate at the top, no one will be able to contain the corrupting influence of big money on the American system and the anger it unleashes. As Justice Louis D Brandeis once said: We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cant have both.

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On Labor Day, remember this: Trump's America works only for the rich - The Guardian

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In Texas, President Donald Trump hopes bus tour will shore up support – The Texas Tribune

Posted: at 2:24 am

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SAN ANTONIO Working to shore up historically red Texas, Republican President Donald Trump's reelection campaign launched a bus tour of the state here Thursday where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other surrogates went to pains to argue they are not sweating the state this November.

"Welcome to the Trump bus tour in Texas," Patrick said in his first remarks to reporters off the bus, before quickly volunteering: "We are absolutely 100% confident that President Donald Trump will carry Texas," and "solidly" so.

Patrick, the chairman of Trump's 2020 campaign in Texas, was followed by Trump campaign senior adviser Katrina Pierson, who insisted the president would "carry the state and carry it well." Then came another senior adviser, Brad Parscale, who claimed Trump is "in a very good position for Texas" and said he laughs when people approach him with concerns about the state, noting the attention that the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, is paying to it.

"That's all just a little bit of smoke and mirrors," said Parscale, who was Trump's campaign manager earlier this election cycle. "The president's in a clear position to win this state."

The unsolicited confidence belied a race in Texas that has looked close for months, with poll after poll falling within the margin of error. Trump carried the state by 9 percentage points four years ago, which even then was the smallest margin of victory that a GOP nominee got in Texas since 1996.

Now, in addition to the polls, Biden's campaign has identified Texas as a battleground state and made fall TV ad reservations here. And while it remains to be seen how much the campaign will eventually invest in the resource-intensive state, the initial overtures are nonetheless fueling Texas Democrats' hopes that the state is on track to flip for the first time since 1976.

Patrick recently reiterated his prediction from months ago that Trump would win Texas this November by a larger margin than he did in 2016 double digits. Speaking to the crowd here Thursday, donning a new cowboy hat after stopping at Paris Hatters in downtown San Antonio, Patrick declared that Texas "is not a swing state." Pierson told the crowd that Trump "would blow it out in the state of Texas."

Still, the existence of a bus tour two months out from the election, no less seemed to speak for itself. The bus was set to make a second stop Thursday in San Antonio before heading to Granger in Central Texas and ending Friday at Bedford in North Texas. Both Granger and Bedford are in firmly competitive political territory the former in Williamson County, which covers the suburbs north of Austin, and the latter in the sprawling suburban expanse between Dallas and Fort Worth.

Trump himself has not held a campaign rally in Texas since October, though he visited the Permian Basin in July for an ostensibly official trip that was imbued with politics as he attacked Democrats as bad for the state's energy industry.

Asked if he would advise Trump to campaign in Texas before the election, Parscale suggested that if the president did, it would not be out of political necessity. "Its gonna be because these are his people," Parscale told reporters. "Texas is Trump country."

The state's Democrats say it strains credulity that Trump is not worried about Texas at this point, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. In polls, more Texas voters have disapproved of Trump's pandemic response than have approved.

"As the Trump campaign conducts its last-ditch bus tour of Texas, it has never been clearer that they are on the verge of breaking," state Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. "Texans are demanding change. Texas will go to Joe Biden on November 3."

The bus tour stop here drew several dozen Trump supporters to the sweltering parking lot in front of the local Latinos for Trump office. Parscale, who was working in web design in San Antonio before Trump plucked him from obscurity to work on his 2016 campaign, said he had forgotten how hot the city could get. Pierson also has Texas roots she is a former Tea Party activist from Garland. And Tommy Hicks, the Dallas investor who co-chairs the Republican National Committee, was also set to participate in the bus tour, though he was not seen at the first San Antonio stop.

After the stop, one Trump-supporting couple from San Antonio said they felt good about the president's chances in Texas, though the wife, Ann Sawyer, expressed some concern about the influx of new voters coming to Texas from blue states. Sawyer, a substitute teacher, suggested it would not hurt for Trump to drop in on the state at least once before Election Day.

"It would be nice to see him," said Sawyer, who was decked out with a pro-Trump shirt, hat and flag. "It's nice to the lieutenant governor and part of [Trump's campaign] staff, but yeah, it'd be nice for him to come back again."

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In Texas, President Donald Trump hopes bus tour will shore up support - The Texas Tribune

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