Salon: Gay and voting for Donald Trump? It’s not as crazy as it seems

Trump’s support in the LGBT community is small but nonetheless considerable. An estimated 20 percent of registered LGBT voters plan to vote for the billionaire businessman, according to a NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll conducted in September, while 80 percent are voting for Clinton. That’s roughly in line with, if a bit smaller than the LGBT support for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney back in 2012 (23 percent), John McCain in 2008 (27 percent) and George W. Bush in 2004 (23 percent).

These static numbers might suggest that conservative voters in the LGBT community are merely diehards who will vote for any Republican candidate, no matter how dangerous or destructive their beliefs are. During the Republican National Convention in July, the GOP unveiled the most virulently anti-LGBT platform in its history. [...]

The key to Trump’s LGBT appeal isn’t just ticket loyalty. As his party moves to the far right, the CEO has been falsely billed as an ally to the LGBT community. Although the Log Cabin Republicans opted not to support Trump because of his ties to anti-gay zealots like Jerry Falwell Jr. and Rick Santorum, the organization’s president, Gregory T. Angelo, said that Trump could be the “most pro-LGBT president that this country has ever had.” [...]

Trump isn’t the compassionate conservative you’re looking for. But what he has done — and very successfully, one might say — is to use the LGBT community to drum up support for his plan to place American Muslims in a Third Reich-style registry.

During the Republican National Convention, Trump became the first GOP presidential nominee to ever mention the LGBT community in his acceptance speech. That act wasn’t a benevolent one: He exploited the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting — in which a lone gunman killed 49 people, while injuring 53 more, in a Florida gay bar — by connecting it to radical Islamic terror.

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The Atlantic: Will Single Women Transform America?

In her book, All the Single Ladies, Rebecca Traister traces the long history of marriage and its varied purposes in the United States. She also argues that the unprecedented rise in independent, unmarried women demands shifts in power dynamics and policy. It’s completely revolutionary, Traister explains in this animated interview, for more young women to be unmarried than not. In the 1800s, Susan B. Anthony wrote: “In women's transition from subject to sovereign, there must needs be an era of self-sustained, self-supported homes.” Traister says that her prediction was correct, and that this has led to what Anthony once described as an "epoch of single women" in America.

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/482058/america-epoch-of-single-women/

The Conversation: Why do so many women oppose feminism? A psychologist explains

Contemporary sexism is mainly ambivalent in nature. We often hold both positive (benevolent) and negative (hostile) attitudes to women (and men). Hostile sexism involves old-fashioned and overt negativity towards women, whereby they are perceived as wanting to control men. It reflects beliefs that men should have more power than women, that women may use their sexuality to benefit from men’s higher status and that women are less competent than men.

Benevolent sexism on the other hand is more subtle. It is positive in valence but still undermines and patronises women. It views them stereotypically and restricts their social roles. It includes beliefs that good women are nurturing and that men should protect them, implying that they are weaker. This form of sexism often goes unnoticed and yet has negative consequences for women – making them less interested in activism, under-appreciating their own competencies and even lowering their performance.

It may come as a surprise but individuals who score high on benevolence to women in psychological tests are likely to be high on hostility as well. People can often have such seemingly conflicting attitudes without even realising it. This is because people divide women into “good ones” (those who deserve “positive” attitudes) and “bad ones” (those who deserve punishment). It is sometimes referred to as the Madonna vs whore divide. Crucially, both forms of sexism serve to maintain status quo.

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Quartz: The economic theory behind why Americans spend more money on Halloween during presidential election years

When it comes to seasonal holidays, Halloween has a special place in the hearts of Americans. From a social science perspective, consumers’ excitement to spend big money on a public festivity is a curious phenomenon. That’s because such behavior goes against what is commonly known among economists as the “free rider problem.” The theory goes that consumers will spend less on certain items when they think that their neighbors will take on the weight of the expense—why splurge with your own money when you think the rest of your community will take care of it? In a non-holiday application, this kind of thinking makes it hard to efficiently provide public goods by collective contributions, such as in the context of military defense services or the maintenance of public parks.

Not so with Halloween. The spooky holiday turns the free rider problem into a competition between households to out-do each other in costume choice, exterior decoration, and sweets for the kids that go from door to door to demand “trick or treat!” Instead riding on the coat tails of your community, you want to one-up them. [...]

So why do consumers spend exceptional amounts on Halloween goods during election years? One of the most citied concepts in modern economics is the “permanent income hypothesis,” which was coined by Milton Friedman. It states that individuals make consumption decisions based on present economic conditions as well as future expectations over how the economy will turn out. Take a look at the below chart, noting the US presidential-election years in 2008, 2012, and 2016. [...]

But the season is not solely based on costumes and candy anymore—it’s all things pumpkin-themed. In fact, pumpkin-flavored product sales across the industry totaled over $360 million in 2015, including the sales of Starbucks’ pumpkin-spice lattes, which have increased 13 times from 2014. Forbes estimates that total sales of pumpkin goods will increase to more than $500 million in 2016.

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The Intercept: At Hillary Clinton’s Favorite Think Tank, a Doubling Down on Anti-Iran, Pro-Saudi Policy

THE CENTER FOR American Progress hosted a sort of preview of Hillary Clinton’s Middle East policy on Tuesday, with a Clinton adviser and a Gulf state diplomat agreeing that the next president should double down on support for the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, while ramping up action against Iran.

It is a signal that a future Clinton administration would overwhelmingly favor the Gulf states in their ongoing, Middle East-wide power struggle with Iran, implicitly rebuking President Obama, who has come under fire from Gulf states for mild criticism of their foreign policy and his nuclear deal with Iran.

The founder of the Center for American Progress, John Podesta, is the campaign chair for Clinton’s presidential bid; many of the candidate’s closest advisors are alumni of CAP and it is widely viewed as a launching pad for policy staff for Democratic presidents. The center is currently helmed by Clinton transition co-chair Neera Tanden.

Panelists at the event, titled “Strengthening U.S. Partnerships in the Middle East,” argued for what is essentially a supercharged anti-Iran, pro-Saudi posture, with little disagreement from CAP moderator Brian Katulis.

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Politico: For Martin Schulz, it’s Brussels, Berlin or bust

Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk are both from the center-right, and each unequivocally supports the status quo. Juncker has advocated for “stability,” and Tusk endorsed Schulz during a debate in Germany earlier this month. “For me Martin Schulz is the best person to guarantee that the ‘grand coalition’ [between the center-right European People’s Party and the S&D] can be the basis for a rational and responsible majority in the European Parliament,” he said. “We need strong leadership, and I am sure that Martin Schulz is currently the best.”

Support for the current power-sharing arrangement comes from further afield, too. Spain’s center-right Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy made a clear link between a third Schulz presidency and the renewal of Tusk’s mandate in mid-2017, telling reporters that there was currently “reasonable equilibrium within the European institutions” before flying home from last week’s EU summit in Brussels. [...]

For Schulz, leaving Brussels would also certainly mean returning to Germany to lose an election. A recent opinion poll puts support for the SPD at 22 percent, far behind Merkel’s conservatives, who are at 35 percent. But there could be advantages to the move. If the SPD secured enough votes to remain in a coalition with Merkel, Schulz could be sure of a prestigious cabinet post, such as the foreign ministry. Otherwise, he could become the leader of the opposition — or even have a stab at becoming chancellor by forming a so-called Red-Red-Green coalition with the far-left parties, the Greens and The Left.

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Al Jazeera: Israel: Settlers' takeover of security posts 'alarming'

The top posts in Israel's national police force are now in the hands of hardline religious settlers who are seeking to make "alarming" changes to policing in both Israel and the occupied territories, critics have warned.

The growing influence of the settler movement was highlighted this month with the appointment of Rahamim Brachyahu as the force's chief rabbi. He lives in Talmon, a settlement close to the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank. [...]

That has raised deep concern among Palestinian leaders because Brachyahu has defended a notorious rabbinical handbook for settlers known as the King's Torah. It argues that Jewish religious law justifies killing Palestinians as a preventative measure - including children in case they grow up to become "terrorists". [...]

The gradual infiltration of religious settlers into the police has mirrored a similar process in the Israeli army that began two decades ago, noted Jafar Farah, director of Mossawa, a political advocacy group for Israel's large Palestinian minority.

Although the so-called national religious community - who adhere to the ideology of the settlers - make up only 10 per cent of Israel's population, recent figures suggest that as many as half of all new army recruits are drawn from their ranks."There is a clear coalition of interest between the right-wing government and the settler leadership to get their people into high positions in the major state institutions, including the security services, the courts and the media," he told Al Jazeera.

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Motherboard: A Suicide Cult’s Surviving Members Still Maintain Its 90s Website

The mass suicide of members of the UFO cult Heaven’s Gate is one of the most bizarre and enduringly fascinating events of the 90s. But nearly 20 years after the strange deaths, part of the cult’s legacy lives on via its perfectly preserved retro website, loyally maintained by two surviving members. They’ll even answer your questions via email. [...]

By all accounts, the administrators behind HeavensGate.com are a couple named Mark and Sarah King, though they would not confirm their identity when I emailed this week. Via email, the couple told me they were entrusted with this task after being members of the group for 12 years. They have regular full time jobs outside of tending the site, but take their duties seriously. They answer any inquirer’s questions within a day or so, and make sure the site—crammed with information about the cult’s beliefs, and with a strikingly 90s aesthetic—ticking along, exactly as it was in March 1997. [...]

It’s a fairly fitting legacy considering the cult had earned money throughout the 90s through a web design company (which is detailed in this Motherboard story from 2014). But what’s the purpose? Marshall Applewhite, the founder of Heaven’s Gate and one of the members who killed himself in ‘97, had predicted that the Earth would be “recycled” shortly after the cult member’s deaths, and that this was the last chance to exit to the Next Level. If the mass suicide was the last chance to depart Earth, why force two believers to stay behind and preserve information for a planet full of hopeless beings?

The admins simply told me they stayed behind because they were asked to, but in an interview with Reddit’s blog, Upvoted, last year, they went into a little more detail, explaining that those on the Next Level will return at some point, and anyone on Earth who is ready may have an opportunity to join them.

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Politico: Moment of truth for Cyprus reunification talks

Anastasiades and Akıncı agreed on Wednesday to resume their talks in Mont Pèlerin, Switzerland from November 7 to 11. The focus will be on where to draw a line marking the Turkish Cypriot community in the north and Greek Cypriot community in the south — which could result in homes and towns being reassigned, likely from the Turkish area to the Greek. Greek Cypriots want to shrink the Turkish community to reflect their larger population and economy, and take back areas that were traditionally Greek. [...]

That last phase will focus on the future roles of Cyprus’ three guarantor powers — Turkey, Greece and the U.K. — and in particular the presence of more than 30,000 Turkish troops in the north. It would likely be discussed in a meeting between the four governments, plus the U.N., outside of Cyprus. [...]

The question of whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will accept an agreement that diminishes his country’s influence in Turkish Cyprus, and the size of its military presence there, still looms large. Greek Cypriots are still skeptical of Ankara’s support, especially since the failed military coup against Erdoğan in July and his purge of the alleged organizers and their supporters.

“It’s uncertain when Erdoğan will agree to pull out his troops. After decimating the army, he wants to prove that he is at least as tough as the military,” said Michael Leigh, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. Greek Cypriots “will never agree” to Turkish troops remaining after reunification, but a gradual withdrawal could work, he added.

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