How Hillary Clinton Is Making Aging Parents a 2016 Issue →

...The bulk of caregiving for the elderly, ailing, and disabled is still carried out by family members, who help their relatives with everything from bathing and dressing to preparing meals and managing medication. It’s decidedly unsexy,sometimes grueling domestic drudgery, mostly carried out by women who are hard-pressed to juggle these responsibilities with work and childcare—the so-called “Sandwich Generation” stuck between aging parents and kids. “It’s an invisible workforce,” says Carol Regan, a senior adviser and long-term care expert at Community Catalyst, a national health advocacy group. 

That’s why it’s fairly remarkable that family caregiving has come up in the 2016 campaign at all. All three Democratic candidates have offered some form of support to Americans who take time out of the workforce to care for ailing adult relatives, with Hillary Clinton unveiling her plan last week. It’s the first presidential race in recent memory where leading candidates have highlighted the need to support caregivers for elderly and disabled family members—a shift that reflects not only a focus on family-oriented economic policies, but also the huge demographic changes on the horizon. About 12 million Americans, or 4 percent of the population, currently require long-term care—a number that is expected to more than double by 2050.

The Refugee Issue Is a Religious Liberty Issue →

Late last week, nonprofit and charitable organizations around Texas received atroubling letter from the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Dated November 19, the letter instructs all refugee-related agencies in the state of Texas to report any plans of resettling Syrian refugees to the commission, and asks that if they are in the process of resettling Syrian refugees, to “please discontinue those plans immediately.” The commission’s letter followed a separate letter sent November 16 by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to President Barack Obama, wherein the governor informed the president that Texas would not be accepting any Syrian refugees.

If Abbott’s discomfort with Syrian refugees had remained at the level of gubernatorial grandstanding—keeping in mind the fact that governors lack the authority to deny specific religious or ethnic groups entry into their states—then it would likely not have been more newsworthy than similar reservations expressed by a host of other American governors. But with the letter to nonprofits and other private agencies with refugee resettlement programs, Texas moved into direct opposition to federal law and, some say, threatened the religious liberty of numerous Texan faith groups.

State sues prisoners to pay for their room, board →

21st century 1st-world slavery. Only in the U.S.

Either way, critics say the lawsuits make it harder for paroled prisoners to get back on their feet, defeating the department’s goals of rehabilitation and cutting recidivism. Because financial stability and a job are key to not returning to prison, taking away an inmate’s financial safety net increases the odds they return to crime or, at least, be dependent on taxpayers, as Melton was when he went on food stamps. Lawmakers around the country, and even President Barack Obama, have focused recently on such re-entry issues.

In a few cases the lawsuits seem punitive, if not retaliatory, to inmates, and could have a chilling effect on the incarcerated asserting their constitutional rights. After one inmate received $50,000 to settle a lawsuit against the department for failure to properly treat his cancer, the department turned around and sued the inmate for nearly $175,000 — even though the department already had agreed in writing not to try to claw back the settlement money.

Why ISIL Will Fail on Its Own →

Deciding how we think about ISIL is critical to deciding how to fight it. President Obama said he plans to stay the course by intensifying his current policy, which you might call containment plus: contain the group’s expansion in Syria and Iraq, and hasten its demise with steady air strikes and support to regional allies. His critics, meanwhile, call for a range of options, from allowing local forces to defeat the group, to easing the rules of engagement for airstrikes, to deploying U.S. special forces, to a large-scale campaign using 20,000 or more U.S. troops in direct combat ground roles.

Which is right? The answer depends at least in part on what kind of an enemy we think ISIL really is. Is it a tremendously well-resourced terrorist group that controls substantial territory, which it uses to plan attacks, vet operatives and manage a complex financial network? Or is it a fledgling nation-state that sponsors terrorist attacks? If we view ISIL as the former, then containment seems like an odd strategy, since even if contained it could continue to support terrorist attacks. But if we view it as a state, then it looks very different: a desperately poor nation trying to fight a three-front war—Iraq to the East, the Kurds to the North and Syria and other insurgents to the West.

Cash squeeze maims Venezuela's pre-election food imports →

In July, President Nicolas Maduro smiled as he sealed a multimillion-dollar food import deal with his Uruguayan counterpart designed to combat shortages ahead of Venezuela's legislative elections.

But instead of paying the $267 million as agreed, Maduro's government deposited in November under a fifth of that amount, according to Uruguay's government.

That put a brake on the shipments to Venezuela.

...

Yet five sources who work in Venezuela's two main ports say total imports are in fact down about 60 percent from last year.

Maduro says Venezuela has lost more than 60 percent of the hard currency it enjoyed in 2014 due to the oil crash. Those losses have punctured the tried-and-tested election strategy of supplying cheap goods to its largely poor voting base.

Anger is mounting over worsening shortages, now Venezuelans' No. 1 worry according to polls, and threatens to erode Maduro's support among the poor, who spend hours in line for scarce products.

Want to help the Islamic State recruit? Treat all Muslims as potential terrorists. →

Many excellent scholars — both before and since 9/11 — have produced research that tells us about the relationship between discrimination and counterterrorism.

Here’s what we know. To be most effective, counterterrorism policies need to make an explicit distinction between the individuals who genuinely threaten others with terrorism, on the one hand, and on the other, the broader populations those terrorists claim to represent. Counterterrorism efforts — especially using force — should narrowly target only the former, as much as possible.

Groups that commit terrorism often hope to provoke a violent overreaction against the community they claim to be defending. Even though most people in that community are nonviolent, such a reaction might force them to turn to the terrorist group for their own defense, swelling its ranks and realizing its ambition for greater political power.

A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois →

The rich families remaking Illinois are among a small group around the country who have channeled their extraordinary wealth into political power, taking advantage of regulatory, legal and cultural shifts that have carved new paths for infusing money into campaigns. Economic winners in an age of rising inequality, operating largely out of public view, they are reshaping government with fortunes so large as to defy the ordinary financial scale of politics. In the 2016 presidential race, a New York Times analysis found last month, just 158 families had provided nearly half of the early campaign money.

Burkina Faso votes to choose first new leader in decades →

Burkina Faso voted on Sunday in an election to choose the country's first new president in decades, a year after longtime leader Blaise Compaore was toppled in a popular uprising in which demonstrators faced down the security forces.

A successful election would establish the country as a beacon for democratic aspirations in Africa, where veteran rulers in Burundi and Congo Republic have changed constitutions to pave the way for fresh terms in office.

It also represents a turning point for a West African nation which, for most of its history since independence from France in 1960, has been ruled by leaders who came to power in coups.

Compaore seized power by that route and ruled for 27 years, winning four elections, all of which were criticized as unfair. He was ousted in October 2014 when demonstrators protested against his attempt to change the constitution to extend his tenure.