"Trump Voter Shot After Bar Political Debate Turns Violent"

AP:  The July 25 shooting at Winston’s Bar in Cleveland came after the two men started arguing about the presidential election. Police say Hall left the bar, returned and opened fire, striking the 60-year-old man once in the leg.

But at Saturday’s hearing, defense attorney Harvey Bruner said the bar owner tried to grab Hall’s gun, which caused the gun to fire one shot.

Bruner said the 60-year-old man had said Republican Donald Trump would be a good president. Hall disagreed.

Breaking: "Trump backs out of debate with Bernie Sanders"

Politico:  Donald Trump will not participate in a debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the GOP nominee said in a statement on Friday.

"Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher," Trump said. "Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be."

Trump had originally told Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week he would participate in a debate with Sanders if the host network would donate millions of dollars to a charity.

More Clinton appearance of conflict of interest

"CNN Debate Moderator Was Member of Clinton Global Initiative"

The Clinton Foundation later told Mediaite that none of these journalists were asked to pay the $20,000 membership fee required of  members. However, it's safe to say that access to big name journalists was a key selling point for paying Clinton Global Initiative members. In a nutshell, Anderson Cooper helped Hillary Clinton raise money, and now he's presented as an impartial moderator for tonight's debate.

Then there is this story at the Washington Post.... "While at State, Clinton chief of staff held job negotiating with Abu Dhabi"

During her first four months at the State Department, [Cheryl] Mills also held another high-profile job: She worked part time at New York University, negotiating with officials in Abu Dhabi to build a campus in that Persian Gulf city.

At the State Department, she was unpaid in those first months, officially designated as a temporary expert-consultant — a status that allowed her to continue to collect outside income while serving as chief of staff...

Mills reported her NYU income on public federal disclosure forms. She did not reference the Abu Dhabi element of her role on the forms, which ask only that employees identify the sources and amounts of their outside income....

Under ethics laws, employees are prohibited from participating in matters that would have a direct and predictable effect on themselves or an outside employer.

Mills said she didn’t “recall any issues” at the State Department that would have required her to consider recusing herself and said she would have consulted with the ethics office if one had come up....

In recent years, more than 100 State Department employees annually have typically been granted a designation that allows them to hold outside employment, including scientists, foreign affairs officers and Abedin, a senior adviser. But experts said that a dual employment arrangement is rare at the chief-of-staff level and that the nature of Mills’s non­governmental work made her situation even more atypical.

“This is exceedingly unusual, perhaps exceptional in the history of modern federal bureaucratic leadership. I’ve never seen it before,” said Paul C. Light, an NYU professor who has studied government employment in depth...

After Clinton spoke at an NYU graduation ceremony in New York in May 2009, a top university official e-mailed Mills to thank her for her “help and guidance” in getting Clinton to the event, according to correspondence recently released by the State Department.

In 2011, Mills forwarded to Clinton an e-mail she had received from a university official describing a new NYU campus planned for Shanghai.

Politics: "In big races, debates few and far between"

"In many of these cases, incumbents are rejecting debates they, or their predecessors, had readily agreed to in the past. Voters who rely on debates to clarify their thinking, to connect with a candidate or to get an answer to the question candidates choose not to discuss on the campaign trail, will have to make their decisions without that input."

"The troubling trend of debate-skipping is not limited to one party, one region, or one type of officeholder. It is evident in both close-fought campaigns and blowouts alike."

If you Like the Philosophy You Have, You Can Keep It

“You can’t compare my experience with his lack of experience,” said Mr. Lhota, a onetime Wall Street financier, a deputy mayor in the administration of Rudolph W. Giuliani and a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority."

Mr. de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, scoffed at that assessment, arguing that what really mattered to voters was not executive savvy, but philosophical worldview.

“You have to look at the values that each of us brings to this,” he said. “It’s not just what job titles you’ve held.”

Snipet of a NY Times article, covering the final debate between Bill de Blasio and Joseph J. Lhota for the mayoralty of New York City.

"Want to Win a Political Debate..."

Try making the liberal argument... the article doesn't say that outright, but, I read between the lines.

Gun control? Abortion? The new social science behind why you’re never able to convince friends or foes to even consider things from your side.

I started reading this article with some interest, until it dawned on me, the article is basically saying that "wining a political debate" is the worthwhile desired goal. Never mind the substance of the positions. Never mind why would you want to have a debate in the first place. 

Imagine that instead of arguing about the quantity of gun deaths, for example, you make the case that universal background checks will allow a mom with two young kids to feel less nervous about the strange, reclusive man who lives down the street. Now your point is much less threatening. People will never believe they help bring about the deaths of innocents, but they can believe they failed to consider the peace of mind of some person they don’t know. The argument is objectively weaker, but it’s more likely to be below the threat threshold that leads to automatic rejection. It might actually be considered.

None of this is to say that when somebody is unknowledgeable or uncommitted it isn’t best to use your most powerful argument. And for political parties the priority is often driving activism rather than changing minds, and thus threatening arguments may be a better choice. But if you’re trying to convince a friend to change his views, it might be worthwhile to go against your instincts and hit him with all your weakest points.

The article is not worth reading. Go ahead if you want to, I cant stop you. I'm just warning you that I made a mistake bring it to your attention. It's liberal propaganda of the pernicious kind. If its worth anything, it should be read as a sign of what to look for when the debating society comes at you with their "weaker argument" bullshit approach.