By Joe Uchill @ TheHill.com, Oct. 11

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) slammed the Trump administration on Wednesday for missing a key deadline in implementing sanctions against Russia. 

“The delay calls into question the Trump administration’s commitment to the sanctions bill which was signed into law more than two months ago, following months of public debate and negotiations in Congress. They’ve had plenty of time to get their act together," the pair said in a joint statement on Wednesday. 

By Oct. 1, the McCain and Cardin-penned sanctions bill required the administration clarify which targets would be identified and punished as part of Russia's defense and intelligence sectors. The administration has not yet done so [...]

By Michael Kranish @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 11

Few people are closer to the president than billionaire Thomas J. Barrack Jr., who has done what few others in Trump’s orbit have done: He told the president, in effect, that he was wrong. “In my opinion, he’s better than this,” Barrack said.

By Jonathan Swan @ Axios.com, 4 hrs. ago

The Trump administration will present controversial proposals for NAFTA negotiations that are expected to attract vehement opposition from Congress, large sections of the U.S. business community and leaders in Canada and Mexico, according to sources with knowledge of the arrangements.

Why this matters: Trade experts on and off Capitol Hill are worried that the Trump demands — which many on the Hill regard as unreasonable and inflexible — will torpedo the NAFTA negotiations and will ultimately give Trump the justification he's been searching for to withdraw.[....]

Guest Op-ed by David Bornstein @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 10

For more than 40 years, Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi founder of the Grameen Bank and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, has been asserting that the most powerful way to eradicate poverty is to unleash the untapped entrepreneurial capacity of people everywhere. “Poverty is not created by poor people,” he says. “It’s created by the system we built. Poor people are like a bonsai tree. You take the best seed from the tallest tree in the forest, but if you put it in a flower pot to grow, it grows only a meter high. There’s nothing wrong with the seed. The problem is the size of the pot. Society doesn’t give poor people the space to grow as tall as everybody else. This is the crux of the matter.”

Yunus has recently written a new book, “A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions,” in which he argues that capitalism is in crisis and remains moored in a flawed conception of human motivation. He proposes a far more robust role in the economy for “social businesses,” which he defines as “non-dividend” companies “dedicated to solving human problems.” [....]

David Bornstein is the author of "How to Change the World," which has been published in 20 languages, and "The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank," and is a co-author of "Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know." He is a co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, which supports rigorous reporting about responses to social problems.

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD of The Washington Post, Oct. 9

[....] We were critical of Republican leaders from early in Mr. Trump’s candidacy for their refusal to stand against the malign sentiments he voiced. It continues to be important, in our view, that they defend tolerance, constitutional norms and other values that Mr. Trump has challenged. But speaking isn’t enough; and getting into Twitter battles with the president, as Mr. Corker did Sunday morning, may not be all that productive.

One avenue open to Congress would be to remove the president from office. If indeed Mr. Trump is so reckless that he could set the nation “on the path to World War III,” as Mr. Corker said Sunday in an interview with the New York Times, this possibility can’t be dismissed. [....]

But Congress is not ready to consider such an option — nor, in our view, should it be. Impeachment is an extreme measure that would roil the nation and should be embarked upon only with clear justification. So we repeat: What is the right response for a congressional majority that understands its president is unfit?

It seems to us the answer falls into two baskets [....]

What do you think about euthanasia? "feed 'em rice"

Not much to read here, but this small blog site has an interesting slant to history through its' maps.

In a growing number of cities and states, though, Columbus Day is being replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day

(Check out the sidebar.)

By Jonathan Swan & Stef W. Kight @ Axios.com, 4 hrs. ago

Donald Trump should hate Rand Paul.

The Kentucky senator has opposed the president on just about everything; from the first GOP budget to tax reform to Syria strikes to Trump's Saudi Arabian arms deal to his Afghanistan policy to the debt ceiling and hurricane funding to multiple attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. They could hardly disagree more. And Paul has stymied Trump's agenda at every turn — voting against the president's ACA replacement and fighting his beloved CIA director.

But the two men have cemented one of the stranger relationships of the Trump reign. Based on a half dozen sources with front row seats to the odd couple, the enemy (Paul) of a bigger enemy (McConnell) can become one of Trump's few Senate friends.

That, by the way, is a big problem for GOP leadership. Top Hill Republicans — as well as senior administration officials — are frustrated and concerned.

It wasn't always this way [....]

Current headline story @ NYTimes.com,  by Kenneth P. Vogel,.Oct. 7; Lede:

• A struggle between the Democratic Party establishment and grass-roots activists foreshadows a once-in-a-generation reorganization of the left.
• The Republican Party’s establishment is also contending with a rising rebellion, amid a broader realignment in American politics.

Alternate title: THEIR TIME: After generations in the shadows, the intersex rights movement has a message: We aren’t disordered, and we aren’t ashamed

Home page lede, my underlining: Advocates want a less rigid approach to sexual identity — and especially for society to reconsider the assumption that, to identify as a man or a woman, a person needs the chromosomes to match.