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Last night, as you may have heard, Donald Trump showed how he was the toughest guy on the planet, who can stand up to Putin and Kim Jong Il, by running away from Megyn Kelly, the world’s most terrifying person. Instead of being grilled by Fox personnel on the GOP debate, Trump launched his own, […]

2015 will probably go down as the ‘year of migration’, certainly in Europe. All the contradictions of globalisation were coming to a head. All the ‘blowback’ from Western interventions in the Maghreb and in the Levant were coming home.

The post The migration crisis: what can trade unions do? appeared first on OUPblog.

Have you been following the United States presidential race? Crystal Valentine has crafted a poem called “Crystal Gets Taken in for Interrogation After Assassinating Donald Trump.” The video embedded above features her performance at the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam.

Click on these links to listen to three more of Valentine’s works: “Black Privilege,” “Tempest,” and ‘A Voter’s Problem.” For more Donald Trump-themed videos, follow these links to watch “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Trump (Grinch Parody)” and “Donald Trump Children’s Book (ghost written by Jimmy Kimmel).” Have you ever created politically-inspired art work?

Did you know that reality TV star Donald Trump wants to write a children’s book? Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel the took the liberty of ghost writing one for him.

In the video embedded above, Kimmel reads aloud from the Dr. Seuss-style verse story, entitled Winners Aren’t Losers, during a conversation with the GOP presidential candidate. Throughout his lifetime, Trump has been credited with authoring more than a dozen books.

Jorge Ramos, a journalist and news anchor, has signed a deal with the Penguin Random House imprint, Celebra. Ramos’ name has been circulating throughout the news as of late because he recently engaged in a verbal altercation with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump on the topic of immigration.

Ramos plans to write a book entitled Take a Stand: Lessons From Rebels. The publisher plans to release the book in both English and Spanish on March 15, 2016.

Here’s more from the press release: “In Take a Stand, Ramos looks back on the groundbreaking interviews he has conducted during his thirty years as a journalist. Recounting interviews with such personalities as President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Spike Lee, Barbara Walters, Fidel Castro and more, he shares never-before-told stories and offers a unique perspective on key issues affecting the world today. Candid and at times controversial, Ramos shines a light on the concerns that influence Hispanics, the largest minority in the country. These concerns will undoubtedly shape not only the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, but also the overall future of America.”

The proudly coifed and teased hair, the desire to make a splash, the lust after wealth, the racist remarks: Donald Trump? Or Mark Twain? Today is Mark Twain’s birthday; he was born on 30 November 1835, and died on 21 April 1910.

The post What would Mark Twain make of Donald Trump? appeared first on OUPblog.

With elections just about a year away, Americans can expect to hear a lot about regulation during the next twelve months—most of it from Republicans and most of it scathing. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump typifies the GOP’s attitude toward regulation.

The post Clean air… hot air appeared first on OUPblog.

In case you couldn’t stomach five hours of GOP presidential candidates sniping at each other while competing to see who could do more to cut access to health care for women, Michael Cavna was doing some quick sketches for Twitter. Cavna—best known for his wonderful Comic Riffs column at the Washington Post—is no Jane Rosenberg, […]

Doctor Mike Tyson is giving the people what they want, and speaking his mind because everyone knows his secrets. The former boxing heavyweight champ returned to San Diego Comic-Con to promote the upcoming season of his Adult Swim animated comedy Mike Tyson Mysteries. He couldn’t really get into the details on what we can expect because then it wouldn’t be a mystery now would it. “We are about to get really, really explosive. I like to use that word: explosive,” Tyson said. “Some dignified offenses. It will be offensive but dignified.”

Tyson expressed his dream real life celebrities and cartoon favorites he’d like to see in the animated series. “Foghorn Leghorn,” Tyson confessed. “I’d want Bishop Magic Juan, Snoop Dogg, Eddie Griffin, Flavor Flav in the show. We are going for mainstream celebrities like Howard Stern.”

So, I was curious him if there was a Presidential candidate he admired or wanted to get in the ring with. Tyson fancies himself as a political pundit and had a couple things to say about Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump.

“I like Donald Trump,” Tyson said while laughing and covering his face.

ICYMI, Trump has been making headlines and climbing the polls because of the outlandish comments made about the Mexican migrants crossing the US/Mexico border during his Presidential bid announcement.

“He has balls. (Trump) is taking all those guys on. You gotta respect those kind of merits. We are all human, and we are going to make mistakes. We got a lot of emotional vampires in the world we’re living in.”

The Mike Tyson Mystery Team will be back at it again with all-new episodes on Adult Swim this fall.

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By Elvin Lim

In 2010, the Tea Party movement was out and about. Newly christened and newly outraged, they created the enthusiasm gap that creates victories in an age of evenly split bipolarized politics.

This year, the rage has sizzled out to disgruntled listlessness. Even for those still against Obamacare, the memory of its passage has waned because the promised effects of its eventual implementation will not become evident for a few more years, and the debate about the national debt is either too real (in Medicare) or too esoteric (as in the debt ceiling) for easy populist manipulation.

If Republicans are still waiting for a political novice from a midwestern town to emerge out of nowhere and take the country by storm (i.e. their Obama), then they better wait for the next cycle, because their most talented candidates have already opted to do so. The smart candidates, if they can afford the time, are polishing their CVs for 2016, because they know that whoever it is, incumbent presidents are just hard to beat; plus, they happen to be facing an incumbent president who appears as adept at filling his war-chest as he is at delivering campaign sonnets.

Trump was a fun fantasy, as was Huckabee, and as remains Herman Cain. So many tantalizing options, some sparks of celebrity, and yet no magic, no candidate with the star quality — the je na sais quoi of our era of infotainment politics. It’s not that there is no talent on the Republican side, but that the talented have wisely chosen to withhold their talent for a better shot in the future.

And so all we have on the Republican side right now is the same old. The front-runner, as far as any is visible, is a stiff millionaire with Wall Street credentials with the slick hair to match his slick politics. He was for health-care in Massachusetts before he was against it in Washington. But he does raise a lot of money, so at least he satisfies the bare minimum requirement for what it takes to take on Obama. And that’s it. For all the Right’s talk that Obama is just about the worst president that has ever befallen American (so terrible he’s even been deemed, literally, unAmerican), there is a gaping lacuna in their search for an alternative.

In the era of the permanent campaign, when all elected politicians are already campaigning for their next appearance at the poll, now is rather late in the game that we are not already speculating about the most viable candidates. Granted, the speculations are often wrong, but the point is early speculation is a sign of enthusiasm that helps create a victorious wave for whoever the nominee is later on. The last time there was an incumbent president on the ballot, the Democrats were going gaga over Howard Dean at this time in that cycle. We are well past this point for the 2012 cycle, and yet the Republican Tea Partiers are only just getting over Donald Trump’s flirtatious clownery. Whereas by 2006, the lame-duck George Bush was already being eclipsed by the media’s extended foreplay with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, most eyes remain on the same two characters, even if some are cast in contempt. There still isn’t a newsmaking, paparazzi-feeding figure on the Republican side who also looks credible enough to party apparatchiks. (Sarah Palin fails on the latter criterion), in part because no candidate on the Right has yet mastered the fine art of credible populism — as close as one can come to giving the je na sais quoi of presidential star quality a name in the era of plebiscitary and anti-intellectual politics. The existing range of candidates are sub-par because they are either too stiff or too silly.

All populists are, to some extent, sweet-talking thespians. It cannot be otherwise, because democracy makes the voter sovereign, and sovereigns love flattery. But

On Sunday, Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books publisher Margery Cuyler and actress Robin Holly will judge children’s books produced by contestants on Donald Trump‘s reality television show, The Celebrity Apprentice.

Here’s more from the release: “In the episode, the star-studded cast featuring celebrities such as Gary Busey and La Toya Jackson will split into two teams and engage themselves in one of the most prominent niches in the book publishing industry – children’s literature. Both teams will author an original children’s picture book to help raise money for charity.”

In the past, Celebrity Apprentice contestants worked at Redbook magazine and Zappos.com comics, but this is the first time the show has featured children’s books. Will you watch it?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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By Elvin Lim

In recent weeks, factions within the Republican party have begun jostling for power within the conservative movement. This is the bitter-sweet inevitability of being more than the party in opposition, but also a party recently co-opted into power. Whether the disagreement is between Rick Santorum versus Sarah Palin, or the Family Research Council versus GOProud , or Tea Party members of Congress and moderate Republicans debating the budget, or William Kristol and Glenn Beck on democracy in Egypt, these differences are only going to grow as we head toward Republican primary season.

There are, of course, differences in priorities within the Democratic fold as well. But the source of the president’s incumbency advantage derives from the fact that these differences will not be played out during the primary season. He will likely enjoy the benefit of not being challenged. So when Republican candidates are invariably jostling for advantage, the president can simply go about his business, looking presidential (and raising money.)

The reason why Ronald Reagan’s historical legacy has been revised upwards in recent times is because the children of his revolution know of no better way to hold themselves together. Or put another way, the celebration of Reagan only reveals the dearth of leadership in the conservative movement, which is still looking to the past because they cannot yet see anyone who can take them to victory in the future.

At this time in the 2008 cycle, Barack Obama had already declared his candidacy, alongside a formidable front-runner, Hillary Clinton.

Today, there is a long, lackluster, and uncommitted list of potential candidates on the Republican side (so much so that even Donald Trump managed to steal the show at this year’s CPAC Conference), but no major candidate has taken the plunge. Why? Because whoever takes the first plunge would become the universal target of all those not yet declared, and will suffer the irony that the first-mover advantage becomes the first-victim-of-infighting disadvantage. The more potential candidates predict infighting, the later they will declare, so that they can stay above the fray for as long as they can. No one candidate feels confident enough to pull the three major strands of conservatism – the libertarians, the social conservatives, and the neo-conservatives – together, and this is why Reagan is still the godfather revered.

Watch the lesser known candidates be among the first to declare as they would be able to secure some national media attention when the Reagan Library hosts the first Republican primary debate for the season on May 2, 2011. The better known candidates have more to lose and less to gain by declaring early.

In particular, s/he who waits until the situation in Egypt as well as the budget battle between the President and Congress unfolds would better be able to pivot toward the emerging priorities of the conservative movement. If Egypt transitions into a democracy friendly to US interests, then neo-conservatives of the Kristol variety would have won the argument

My thought on all this politics and financial crisis is that we can make a difference. We MUST make a difference!

What can we do right now to ensure that the youth and children of now are smart enough and prepared enough and willing enough to care about this country like we do and to run it effectively?

Education is the key to our survival. Look around you; look at the average kid walking down the street. Is that who you want running our country in 40 years? Would they even care enough to want to?

By putting more of a focus on the education of this and the next generations we can ensure that our country will be worth the respect of those around us and that we won't have to worry about the next big crisis.

I think that Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump have the right idea. In WHY WE WANT YOU TO BE RICH, they talk a lot about financial education. It is crucial to not only teach kids the basics, but to also teach them about the wonders of respect and accomplishment and self-worth. By giving them a financial education, we can increase the chances of them being successfully independent. Part of that education needs to be the analysis of situations like what we face now in the financial sector. I once heard someone say that Wall Street didn't affect them because they owned no stock. I wonder what they are thinking now.

Kids are leaving schools without the basic skills to do simple math or even to know how to read in many cases. I've seen this. It is frightening.

Is it up to government to fix our education problems? Isn't it up to the people? This is no time for pointing fingers and saying "you did it." It is a time to come together and find a solution to the problem. Don't like the schools your kids go to? Home school, give them the level of education you think they require, but be sure you include the things that are important. WE have to make certain that we all begin and master the basic skills before moving on to the "fun" stuff.

Where is the support for our educators. I do believe that a lot of the problem with education lies with the teachers. It is not their fault! But they are tired. They are overworked, they are underpaid, and they are seriously underappreciated. What incentive do they have to even care? Now, don't get me wrong, they chose their career and they had to know going in that it would have its down side, but overpopulated classrooms, lack of financial support for curriculum materials and basic tools? Was this part of the deal? When was the last time you thanked your child's teacher for their efforts. How many teachers actually feel like anyone cares?

Well, I care. I don't have children, but I am educated enough to know that if we, as a people, don't do something to support education in this country, we are all in a lot of trouble, now, and in the future!