America

If you've ever watched Senator Elizabeth Warren grill a Fed chief on Capitol Hill you know that she's not one to mince words and she's not one that's easily impressed or intimidated. 

The darling of the liberal Democrats, Warren looms large over the 2016 race which many suspected she would run in. She didn't, but the Massachusetts Senator casts a long shadow and on Monday, she had apparently seen all she cared to see of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. 

Reader Leslie Fain sent this Washington Post piece in. It came out last fall, but I missed it. It’s a haunting portrait of the race and class divide in America, which is, at its heart, a cultural chasm that seems irresolvable.

It tells the story of a poor black family from New Orleans, displaced by Katrina and settled in a small Nebraska town that welcomed them with open arms. But things went badly wrong for the family there. Excerpts:

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Once the Oligarchy is above the law, the Republic is already dead.

To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway: How did you lose your Republic? Two ways, gradually and then suddenly. The Romans experienced this when their Republic was extinguished by Empire.

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• Obama to meet Raul Castro on historic Cuba trip (Reuters)
• Wall Street's Pile of Unwanted Treasuries Exposes Market Cracks (BBG)
• Dimon's Timing Looks Savvier by the Day as Equities Rebound (BBG)
• Brazilians Brace for More Drama at Top Court, Congress (BBG)
• Captured Paris Terror Suspect Salah Abdeslam Says He Planned More Attacks (WSJ)

The most fervent and polarized sides in the renewed debate on gun control share one piece of solid common ground: they both invest rather magical qualities in the cold, lifeless hardware of guns themselves.