MockingBird...

The public school district in Biloxi, Miss., did not specify which words, exactly, in “To Kill a Mockingbird” are so objectionable that the book was yanked from an eighth-grade reading list last week, 57 years after it published.

“There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable,” school board vice president Kenny Holloway vaguely told the Sun Herald.

That is: the n-word, which Harper Lee pointedly did not when she wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about racism in the United States.

The n-word appears nearly 50 other times throughout “Mockingbird”  almost always in dialogue. The novel won its author a Pulitzer Prize for fiction and “made the values of the civil rights movement  particularly a feeling for the god-awful unfairness of segregation  real for millions.

Many would be unhappy with that.

Prices

President Donald Trump tweeted  that he is "working on a new system where there will be competition" in the drug sector and that "pricing for the American people will come way down."

President Trump railed against "outrageous" drug prices Monday, sending biotech and pharma stocks reeling midday. Today he said the same thing.

This will get him a second term. Just a thought.

At Hand...

A U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force battling the Islamic State group in Syria will be in control of Raqqa "within a few days" after attacking the last militant-held pocket of the city, a spokesman for the force said Monday.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, also said that fierce street battles were underway near the main hospital in Raqqa, once the de facto capital of the extremists' self-proclaimed caliphate.

A Kurdish commander said the situation has calmed down in the city in order to allow the remaining civilians to leave the area.

On the other side, Iraqi government troops entered the city of Kirkuk without a fight, taking up positions inside the city after Kurdish fighters withdrew.

Iraqi commanders ordered the operation after a contentious independence vote on Sept. 25 in the oil-rich Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Baghdad, Washington and most international leaders condemned the referendum.

Who are we backing, Iraqis, Kurdish, or oil? and why?  

DOH...

The Democrats are hiding at this time. Only Hillary is the one talking, and she is not saying any thing of value. She thinks she is still running for the presidential election and thus is trashing Trump. This is well and good, if any is listening. Look around.  Just a thought.

Austria...

Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz won the national election, putting the 31-year old on track to become Europe’s youngest leader.

Integrate...

Austria’s Interior Ministry says nearly completed final returns show the center-right party headed by Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz won the national election, putting the 31-year old on track to become Europe’s youngest leader.

Becoming head of government would be the next leap in a political career that started eight years ago when Kurz, then studying law, was elected chairman of his party's youth branch.

Smart and articulate, he eventually caught the eye of People's Party elders. He was appointed state secretary for integration, overseeing government efforts to make immigrants into Austrians, in 2011.

The results put Austria on track for a rightward turn. Both the People’s and Freedom Parties campaigned on introducing tough measures to curb immigration and to pressure foreigners already in the country to integrate.

This is the topic de-Jour all around.  Just a thought.

Bannon...

 


Steve Bannon predicted that his former boss will not only finish out his first term, but win a second term with 400 electoral votes in 2020.  Bannon was directly refuting a recent Vanity Fair article.

Bannon, who returned to Breitbart News as its executive chairman after leaving the White House this summer, has pledged to fight for Mr. Trump and his agenda from outside the White House. Part of that pledge includes fighting the establishment GOP Bannon believes is responsible for stifling that agenda.

But the GOP establishment isn't Bannon's only target. The former top Trump strategist also spoke of the need to dismantle former President Barack Obama's signature accomplishments.

Sebastian Gorka, a former deputy assistant to the president who spoke at the conference before Bannon, said Bannon has declared war on the "RINO" (Republicans in name only) class, and "every swamp dweller" in Washington, regardless of party.

Dems...

About 100 ISIS fighters have surrendered in Raqqa, Syria and have been removed from the city, the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS told ABC News.

The mass surrender is viewed as a sign that the coalition's battle to retake Raqqa could be nearing its end, with 85 percent of the city now under the coalition's control.

Separately, the Raqqa Civil Council and local Arab tribal elders have brokered a deal in which they are allowing a convoy of vehicles to leave Raqqa today.

In a press release, the coalition, which was not involved in the discussions that led to this deal, said people who are being allowed to leave Raqqa are subject to search and screening by Syrian Democratic Forces. 

Who are the Syrian Democratic forces? and how much democracy will be after the end of this fight? 

Let us hold on to our wallet.  Just a thought.

Hallelujah...

Movie...

The scary part of these allegation is that many of young hopeful can fall for someone that they may think he can raise them up to a star status. A too high of a cost and the hill with the status.