Donald Trump’s challenge to the GOP establishment now seems on course to succeed.

As Republicans (and many others) consider what turning the party’s presidential nomination over to a real outsider will likely mean, it’s worth looking back at the last time that happened.

Some will say that it was in 1952, when General Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Ohio Senator Robert Taft for the nomination at a tense GOP convention.

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I would argue that to find the last time a genuinely anti-establishment outsider won the GOP nomination one needs to look back even further, to 1940, when Wendell Willkie surprised politicians and pundits alike by doing just that.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/ike-trump-crashed-gop-wendell-willkie/

Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School, near Stirling, Scotland on March 13 1996, armed with four legally-owned handguns and over 700 rounds of ammunition. In three to four terrible minutes, he fired 105 shots killing 16 children and their teacher, and wounding 15 more children. His last shot killed himself.

In the 20 years since Dunblane, a great deal has been learned about preventing gun violence. Only the United States, where mass shootings now number in the hundreds, seems reluctant to embrace those lessons, prompting president Barack Obama to wonder why the US could not do more on gun control.

After the Dunblane massacre, handgun control became highly political. Handgun ownership was increasing in the 1990s and sports shooting, the only legitimate reason for owning a handgun, was a fast growing sport. Yet even members of the elite country-sports lobby were troubled by newcomers, keen on “combat style” shooting, entering the sport.

These tensions opened up after Dunblane. The government commissioned Lord Cullen run an inquiry into the incident. He recommended cautious compromises (storing firearms in secure armories or police stations). These were initially rejected as “unworkable” by shooters, but they were ultimately overwhelmed by the strength of public feeling.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/how-the-uk-rewrote-its-gun-laws-and-the-challenge-it-faces-now/

If Google searches and late-night talk show hosts are to be believed, the Peace Bridge may soon be overrun with Americans fleeing Donald Trump’s relentless march towards the presidency.

Google reported that the search term “how can I move to Canada” surged 350 per cent within a matter of hours on Super Tuesday. While Cape Bretoners are encouraging those hapless refugees of Trumpmania to emigrate to their windy shores.

These Yanks aren’t traitors against their homeland — they’re simply exercising their God-given right as Americans to head north when things get rough at home.

Here’s a look at the centuries-long tradition of Americans moving to Canada.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/moving-canada-american-tradition-2/

In an interview last month, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump about his retweet of a follower who insisted that both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were ineligible for the presidency.

Trump dismissed Stephanopoulos’ question with “it was a retweet” – as if to say that retweeting someone else’s claim meant that he wasn’t responsible for the content.

When pressed, Trump continued:

I mean, let people make their own determination. I’ve never looked at it, George. I honestly have never looked at it. As somebody said, he’s not [eligible]. And I retweeted it. I have 14 million people between Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and I retweet things and we start dialogue and it’s very interesting.

It’s a response that can be reduced to I’m not saying it, I’m just saying it.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/how-trump-gets-away-with-saying-the-things-he-says/

Peru’s presidential elections are at risk of descending into farce after authorities here yanked two of the leading five candidates from the race.

The Special Electoral Tribunal (JEE by its Spanish initials) ruled that second-placed Julio Guzman hadn't legally registered his candidacy last year, because his nomination failed to comply with the minutiae of complex red tape.

In a separate ruling, it upheld an accusation that fourth-placed Cesar Acuna had broken a new electoral law by handing out money to voters.

The pair had until Monday to appeal the decision, which both of them were doing. Another panel, the National Electoral Tribunal (JNE), now has until Thursday to make a final decision. Experts believe the JNE will likely uphold the lower court’s decision.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/think-the-us-election-season-is-crazy-check-out-peru/

The most interesting examination of economics over the last three decades has been Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. But hardly anyone has taken Piketty’s policy proposals seriously, mainly because Piketty himself framed them as overtly redistributional and described them as utopian.

In America today, arguing in favor of redistributional taxes on wealth may be factually, logically, and even morally supportable — but such arguments are counter-productive. Confiscatory tax policies pose a lethal threat to the rich and powerful, demanding their aggressive resistance.

Redistributional policies also hold little appeal to the American voting public. Who among us really wants to go to war against a class we all aspire to join? Even progressives, who often embrace and utilize redistributional rhetoric as part of the inequality debate, have largely dismissed Piketty’s proposed wealth tax.

But Piketty nearly got it right. A properly structured annual wealth tax could equalize effective tax rates between labor and capital, while simultaneously stimulating more productive capital allocations — and, in the process, job creation.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/a-business-case-for-a-wealth-tax/

Thousands of Marylanders will regain the right to cast their ballots this election year, thanks to the state’s lawmakers.

The Maryland House and Senate recently voted to override a veto by Governor Larry Hogan to ensure that ex-offenders will automatically get their right to vote back once they’ve been released from prison.

Previously, Maryland required all individuals with past felony convictions to complete all terms of their probation and parole before their access to the polls could be restored through a lengthy and confusing process. That policy — which disproportionately impacted communities of color — was unduly punitive.

It delayed the restoration of voting rights for men and women who’d already paid their debt to society by completing their prison sentences. This kind of voter disenfranchisement must not be tolerated in a nation that professes to be governed by democratic tenets.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/a-voting-rights-victory-in-maryland/

An epic showdown is shaping up between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

In most of the Super Tuesday presidential primaries and caucuses, Trump and Clinton won decisive victories, building critical momentum for their campaigns.

There were a few exceptions. In the Republican contests, Ted Cruz won Alaska, Oklahoma and his home state of Texas. Marco Rubio won Minnesota in his first victory of the campaign and John Kasich finished a close second to Trump in Vermont. In the Democratic race, Bernie Sanders carried Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota and his home state of Vermont.

But overall the map was dominated by Clinton and Trump as each carried seven states.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/super-tuesday-sets-stage-for-a-trump-versus-clinton-showdown/

A campaign by some of America’s biggest companies to “opt out” of state workers’ compensation 2014 and write their own plans for dealing with injured workers 2014 was dealt a major blow Friday when an Oklahoma commission ruled the alternative system unconstitutional.

Company plans were supposed to provide equal benefits to workers’ comp. But in its unanimous ruling, the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Commission compared that notion to “a water mirage on the highway that disappears upon closer inspection.”

In addition, the U.S. Department of Labor said in a letter obtained Monday that it is evaluating whether opt-out plans in Texas and Oklahoma violate workers’ rights under federal law.

The opt-out effort was the focus of an investigation by ProPublica and NPR last fall, which found that the plans almost universally had lower benefits and more restrictions than workers’ comp.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/corporate-campaign-to-ditch-workers-comp-in-favor/

Despite a narrow loss in the Nevada presidential caucus on Saturday, Bernie Sanders is not slowing down, and neither are his supporters.

A report filed over the weekend with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) shows the senator from Vermont has received more than four million contributions, raising a total of $94.8 million through January 31st after his campaign launched last April.

“What this entire campaign has been about has been the issue of momentum and bringing more and more people into the political process,” Sanders told a crowd of 600 after the caucus, adding, “we will not allow billionaires and their super PACs to continue to buy elections in the United States of America.”

With less than a week to go until the next Democratic primary in South Carolina, Sanders told CNN on Sunday that the Nevada loss still proved how much progress his campaign has made in just a few short months.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/sanders-we-have-enormous-momentum-going-into-south-carolina/