America

On Monday, I read a 2009 book by sociologist Christian Smith and his research team, called Lost In Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood. It talks about the inner lives — the moral lives — of young adults 18-23.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is all pumped up against Muslims, calling for surveillance, torture and banning of people from the Islamic faith following the Belgium terror attacks. “This is going to happen in the United States,” said Trump on his social media account, hours after the horrific suicide bombings in Brussels. He also said that the country of “Belgium” is one of the most beautiful “cities” in the world. How does he get away with it all? Only time will tell. Maybe it is not that difficult being a billionaire!

A reader at Emory University in Atlanta writes with news that the campus is freaking out because someone wrote “TRUMP 2016″ on the sidewalk there, and put other pro-Trump graffiti around campus. New York magazine’s Jesse Singal writes:

The article gives no indication the chalkings were themselves racist or otherwise offensive, other than that they expressed support for a gross political candidate, though one did read “Accept the Inevitable: Trump 2016.”

On Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” host John Dickerson asked his press panel what the Democrats’ reaction would have been to large-scale efforts to block roads and disrupt traffic for those attending a Barack Obama rally during the 2008 campaign. While no one replied directly, Ruth Marcus said, “We know what it would be.” The understood answer was the road-blockers would encounter a nationwide crescendo of denunciation, and would be shamed as despicable racists seeking to disrupt the American democratic process.

Yesterday we were stunned when we learned that in order to support Ted Cruz and to "attack" Donald Trump, Liz Mair's anti-Trump Make America Awesome super PAC launched a Facebook campaign which in addition to showcasing Mitt Romney's support for Ted Cruz, emphasizing Trump’s past support for pro-choice policies, it also crossed the family line when it showed a GQ modeling photo of Melania Trump posing nude.