Chelsea Handler Destroys Trump's Racism Defense In One Sobering Tweet

Here's a fun game!

If Donald Trump is the least racist person you've ever met, then you've: A) Learned to live in complete solitude since birth. B) Infiltrated an undercover white supremacist group à la Daniel Radcliffe. C) Recently awoken from a “Sleeping Beauty”-like slumber and missed this entire 2016 election campaign. D) Delete your account immediately. 

The Republican presidential nominee has pledged to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. and frequently used racially charged language about immigrants and inner-city residents.

Yet Trump told a reporter in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday that he's “the least racist person you've ever met,” without the slightest hint of irony. 

Thankfully, comedian Chelsea Handler is here to break down Trump's claim for all those who need some clarification about what his statement really means. 

“If Donald Trump is the “least racist person you've ever met,” then I'm the most sober person you've ever met,” the author of Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea tweeted. 

If Donald Trump is the “least racist person you've ever met,” then I'm the most sober person you've ever met.

- Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) October 22, 2016

There's only 16 days until this election is finally over. Cheers!

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated the title of Handler's book. 

Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an e

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Court extends Florida voter registration in the wake of Hurricane Matthew

A voter walks to a polling precinct on primary day in Florida for the U.S. presidential election in Boca Raton, Florida. Photo by REUTERS/Joe Skipper

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A federal judge has given Democrats a partial victory in the presidential battleground of Florida, extending of the state's voter registration deadline one day and agreeing to consider a longer extension in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.

The initial deadline was Tuesday, but Florida Democrats, with the support of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, argued that would-be voters deserved more time. Republican Gov. Rick Scott last week urged 1.5 million residents to evacuate as the storm approached the southeastern United States.

District Judge Mark Walker issued a temporary order Monday afternoon extending the deadline through the close of business Wednesday. He set a hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m. for arguments for a longer extension. Judges grant temporary restraining orders in cases where a petitioner demonstrates irreparable harm would occur if the court took no action. The orders often portend victory once a judge considers the merits of the case.

Clinton had called on Scott, before the suit was filed, to extend the deadline himself using his emergency authority. The governor declined, saying Floridians “had enough time to register” before the Oct. 6 evacuation orders.

Though the case involves the highest stakes in a perennial presidential battleground, the judge called it “poppycock” to claim that “the issue of extending the voter registration deadline is about politics.” The case, he wrote, “is about the right of aspiring eligible voters to register to have their votes counted.”

The case comes as the two presidential campaigns try to resume their full activities in Florida and North Carolina, the two battlegrounds where Matthew left fatalities and wracked widespread damage.

Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence was in western North Carolina on Monday, while Clinton was planning to visit south Florida on Tuesday alongside former Vice President Al Gore. GOP hopeful Donald Trump was also to campaign in Florida the next two days with stops in three cities that are usually GOP strongholds. And former President Bill Clinton has his own Florida schedule Tuesday on his wife's behalf.

The voter registration dispute is key since both campaigns acknowledge that the storm's interruptions could yield even marginal effects on voter turnout efforts. North Carolina and Florida remain close, even as Clinton appears to be taking a commanding national lead. Going days without door-knocking and phone-banking around Fayetteville, North Carolina, or registering voters around Jacksonville, Florida, is enough to make Republican and Democratic aides nervous.

“The time for politics will come back, and it will just have to take care of itself,” said Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, which together with the Republican National Committee leads voter turnout efforts for Trump and the rest of the GOP slate.

Woodhouse said GOP campaign offices remained closed in Fayetteville, Greenville and Wilmington.

In his first public campaign appearance since Sunday's second presidential debate, Pence told a Charlotte crowd that eastern North Carolinians are “inspiring” for their handling of the hurricane. Pence also praised Trump for apologizing after the Friday disclosure of a 2005 NBC video that captured the real estate billionaire making predatory comments about women.

Florida's voter registration deadline applies to both in-person registration and postmarks for mailed forms.

The initial petition argued that Matthew constituted a “daunting” and “life-threatening obstacle” to registration. Scott's office said earlier Monday that the governor's legal advisers were reviewing the suit.

In 2004, then-Gov. Jeb Bush used emergency authority to allow several Florida counties to delay the start of early voting after Hurricane Charley.

Clinton aides declined comment on the suit earlier Monday, but maintain that under normal circumstances, they would have registered tens of thousands of Florida residents in the final five days of registration. President Barack Obama won the state in 2012 by fewer than 75,000 votes out of more than 8.4 million cast. Both Republicans and Democrats have intensified their voter registration efforts since.

Democrats note that South Carolina, another GOP-controlled state, extended its original Oct. 7 deadline to accept registration forms postmarked no later than Tuesday.

Hurricane Matthew drifted farther north than projected when Scott ordered evacuations, leaving south Florida's heavily Democratic counties - Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach - relatively unscathed. Campaign activities there have resumed, with Clinton aides saying only a handful of their 65 offices around the state remained closed Monday, all of them in more Republican north Florida.

North Carolina's voter registration deadline is Friday, but the state also has same-day registration on Election Day.

Barrow reported from Atlanta.

The post Court extends Florida voter registration in the wake of Hurricane Matthew appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Wells Fargo Created Fake Accounts for Nearly 10,000 Small Businesses

More information is being discovered in relation to Wells Fargo's recent scandal, showing that nearly 10,000 small businesses were also victims of the banking giant's illegal and corrupt up-selling practices. Despite CEO John Stumpf claiming ignorance as to whether...

How Montgomery County's Bus Rapid Transit Can Alleviate Suburban Poverty

Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside DC, is getting ready to do something that could set a precedent for American suburbs - build a bus rapid transit network. The 82-mile system should offer a huge boost in job access, especially for people without cars.

Bus rapid transit can improve job access while reducing household transportation costs in Montgomery County, Maryland. Photo: Beyond DC

Pete Tomao at Greater Greater Washington is especially interested in how the effort might help reduce economic inequality within the county:

Studies have found that as sprawl increases social mobility decreases. This is particularly important on Route 29, where over 12% of households have no access to a vehicle. Digging deeper we see that many folks who live on the Route 29 corridor are also those who can least afford sprawl. 50% of renters on Route 29 earn under 50% of the area median income and a total of 30% of corridor households earn under 50% of AMI.

Further compounding the need for better transit access is Montgomery's uneven recovery from the recession. The Route 29 Corridor in particular was hit hard, median income fell 12% between 2009 and 2014, compare this to 1% in the Bethesda area.

Consider this stat: in 2000, none of the county's census tracts had more than an 18% poverty rate, now there are 12 census tracts exceeding that standard. Much of this new “suburbanization of poverty” is affecting communities in the east far more than those in the west - the Route 29 BRT could help equalize odds in a part of Montgomery that has not seen major transit investments.

Perhaps nothing illustrates the need for affordable transportation on the Route 29 corridor than the number of residents who are rent-burdened, which means they spend more than 30% of their incomes on rent. Looking at data from the US Census we see that 43% of the corridor are renters, 60% of whom are rent burdened.

When you combine housing and transportation costs you see the heavy price of living in a car dependent area. Certain census tracts in Burtonsville show that the average household is spending 71% of their income on rent+[transportation]. That leaves little left over for groceries, healthcare, or savings. The trend continues when looking at other communities along Route 29. In White Oak we see households spending 50% of their income on rent+[transportation] costs, this compares with averages in transit accessible Downtown Silver Spring of 30%-35%. Providing a brt system on Route 29 will allow families to spend more money on essentials like food, and housing.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space says it's easy to understand why D.C. Metro ridership has dropped so much: service has declined. And Market Urbanism shares a study that examined what areas of L.A. that were upzoned have in common.

When Commuter Rail Has the Potential to Be Something More

American commuter rail lines tend not to draw many riders. That's what happens when service is limited and the line is set up to shuttle suburban park-and-ride commuters to an urban center in the morning and back home in the evening.

Greater Cleveland RTA's Blue Line could evolve into a more useful service than plain old commuter rail. Photo: Wikipedia

But there's a lot of untapped potential in commuter rail lines. A new report from the Transportation Research Board examines how railways like Cleveland's Blue Line, which extends to the suburb of Shaker Heights, can do a better job of connecting people to the places they need to go, writes Marc Lefkowitz at Green City Blue Lake:

Their analysis of the Blue Line shows that, for the most part, access is limited to those able to drive to it. Except for Shaker Square and downtown, the Blue Line is missing employment options.

“Employment opportunities are rare along this corridor between its terminus at Van Aken Center and Shaker Square, as is pedestrian- or transit-based access to cultural destinations, health care, and major retailers.”

Limited service outside of rush hour is a big drawback. As is the lack of development at station sites. The line is most valuable to one type of customer - a Shaker resident who works downtown.

“The relative lack of these opportunities within this Suburban Commuter Corridor is mitigated by the access to a higher diversity of opportunities available to corridor residents in the CBD. But, transit service is generally limited to commute hours, and the travel time between outlying stations and the CBD is high.”

The Blue Line is a type of “Emerging” corridor where auto-dominated travel patterns and low-density development prevail.

The report, which was sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration, points to Minneapolis's Corridors of Opportunity initiative as a model for involving many people with diverse interests in the effort to promote housing and development around rail stations, Lefkowitz says.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Systemic Failure asks which country has the more market-oriented approach to transportation policy - China or the United States? And Market Urbanism critiques the shaky new defense of sprawl from Joel Kotkin.