Question 2 expands the Charter school cap.  This is the one I'm most conflicted on. Charter schools in MA have shown to be pretty successful at educating poor and minority students.  Teachers in MA have high salaries in general - although Charter teachers likely benefit from the strong teachers union in the public schools, since they sort of set the market rate.  Right now I think it's a decent balance, I worry that this might upset that balance.  Leaning no, but on the fence.  I'm sure many people here are strongly against charters - I don't feel that way - not the way it's been done in MA, there is something to be said for providing opportunity to communities lacking that, even if they only reach a small number of students.  But I can certainly understand a lot of the complaints.

Question 3 - would ban certain types of farming - specifically all eggs would have to be cage free.  Again, on the fence.  I already practice this in my own shopping habits, but I have a bit of trouble telling everyone else they have to.  The state is already expensive to live in.  Then again, it doesn't raise the price THAT much and I do think that as a society we need to move toward better farming practices.

Missouri public defender, fed up with meager funding, appoints governor to defend assault suspect

Fed up with what they say is "reprehensible" underfunding, Missouri public defenders are calling out their governor by forcing the man they blame for a lack of resources to take a case of his own.

The state's top public defender laid out his grievances in a letter to Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon: A vetoed bill that would have lightened public defenders' caseloads. Repeated budget cuts. Unfairly withholding money allotted to the office.

Using a power granted to him in a single line of state law, Missouri's top public defender appointed Nixon as attorney for a central Missouri man charged with assault. But the decision has little to do with the man's case -- it's an attention-grabbing cry for help in a state where public defenders have long said they are overworked and underfunded

Until she ran for president, Clinton was the most admired woman in the world

This might surprise you now, but according to Gallup, in 2015 Americans admired Hillary Clinton more than any other woman in the world. More than Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai or Oprah.

A lot more.

[...] Clinton's extraordinarily high approval rating during her tenure as Secretary of State, when she reached a high of 66%. That's far above anything Barack Obama achieved in his entire presidency, and it's well above even Michelle Obama today.

[...]

Negative media coverage flipped perception

Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center reports that in comparison with all other candidates, coverage of Hillary Clinton went overwhelmingly negative, with 84% of stories taking a negative slant. That compares with 43% negative reporting on Donald Trump and 17% on Bernie Sanders.

To put it another way, the most qualified presidential candidate in history got twice the negative media as a racist four-time bankrupt con artist who is manifestly unfit for public office.

And Trump won HUUGE on earned media, garnering an estimated $2 billion in free coverage for his campaign, just by February alone--more than twice the coverage accorded Hillary. [...]

And it worked. Her approval ratings dropped like a rock.

[...]

Clinton objectively rated the most honest candidate, yet is perceived as dishonest

She's been rated by Politifact, the Pulitzer-prize-winning fact-checkers, as more honest than every other major candidate.

And despite being widely perceived as a puppet of Wall Street, her Senate voting record is rated mainstream progressive--more progressive than Joe Biden's or Barack Obama's.

Nate Silver ranks her record in liberal terms as comparable to Elizabeth Warren, and not at all distant from Bernie Sanders. [...]

Even on the explosive issue of her emails, Clinton was singled out for special condemnation. Both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice followed a similar approach to Clinton's. Yet after months of virtually non-stop negative coverage, in defiance of all independent assessments, it's almost an accepted fact that she's more dishonest than any of her colleagues or predecessors.

Hmmm, woman as liar. What an awfully familiar stereotype.

The most qualified candidate in history could lose to the least

The most qualified presidential candidate in history is running against the least qualified, and it's a close race! [...]

"The McClatchy poll shows Trump pulling just 1 in 10 votes -- 9 percent -- among Americans under 30 years old. Hillary Clinton is at 41 percent, while Johnson is at 23 percent and Stein is at 16 percent. Trump is basically tied with "undecided," which is at 8 percent."

Also:
"A Fox News poll this week didn't include Stein, but it showed Trump and Johnson close among voters under 35 -- the generally accepted definition of the millennial generation. Trump was at 23 percent, while Johnson was at 19 percent."  (Hillary got 50% in this poll)

Finally:
"In early July, a Pew study that included a larger sample -- and larger subsample of voters under 30 -- also showed Trump and Johnson virtually tied among teens and 20-somethings." (Trump and Johnson got 21% and 22% respectively, Hillary got 47%)

The Atlantic

The Fall: The Most Feminist Show on Television
The BBC drama stars Gillian Anderson as a detective investigating a serial killer, but the series' treatment of women defies the genre's conventions.

Did not win me over on Kristen Stewart.

IS TRUMP A DEMOCRATIC PLANT

There are some totally wacky ideas on that page and some thought provoking ones.
Mark Hughes, Forbes

People who dismiss the idea that Clinton and others privately encouraged Trump to run because they smartly calculated it would create disarray in the GOP (which has indeed happened) and help the Democrats in the long run, are vastly underestimating the brilliance of the Clintons and their inner circle.

The point is, the Clintons have a more nuanced and complex an understanding of politics and strategy, and of undermining an opponent, than anyone involved in modern politics.....Imagine having a former U.S. president -- and one commonly perceived as being among the smartest and most astute -- tell you you should run for president while he fans your ego (and in this theory, imagine you have possibly the biggest and hungriest ego in the galaxy).

Does someone have to KNOW they are a plant, in order to be one? Do you have to realize you're being used as a tool to dismantle a party machine, in order to function effectively as that tool? I say the answer to that is "no." If the Clintons and others secretly worked behind the scenes to convince Trump to run and fed ideas and encouragement to his worst tendencies in order to derail the already-shaky GOP nominating season, and if Trump listened to them and took their advice to heart, then he is functioning pretty effectively as their intended plant.

Now, IS it true? Well, I think it's clear Clinton had private conversations with Trump; it's clear Clinton wants to deny and silence any talk of having played a role in Trump's candidacy; it's clear Trump doesn't want anyone to think the conversations were a factor in his decision to run; and it's clear that Trump's campaign has had exactly the same impact it would have if the Clintons had planned it out and encouraged it.

Hillary Clinton has surged to a 15-point lead over reeling, gaffe-plagued Donald Trump, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

Gaps in Melania Trump's immigration story raise questions
A racy photo shoot is prompting fresh scrutiny of the would-be first lady's early visits to the United States.

[Castile's uncle] said he was told that state investigators are sifting through police squad-car video, which includes audio, from the night his nephew was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer.

 Trump can say anything he wants about women, the disabled, Mexicans, federal judges, Muslims, Gold Star Mothers, be a Putin Bro, call on Russia to cause espionage against the US government, give a green light to invade the Baltic states, allow that he is fine with Russia's actions in the Crimea and other parts of Ukraine, be an unwitting agent of Russia, look at nuclear weapons cavalierly, and lots more; but he sure got in trouble when he unsuccessfully pulled the tablecloth out from under the china by not endorsing Ryan. A step too far.

I guess somebody forgot to tell the President's black muslim immigrant brother.

A gripping non-fiction thriller, Robert Greene's KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil (House of Cards, The Girlfriend Experience, Listen Up Philip) as she prepares for her next role playing Christine Chubbuck, a Florida newscaster who committed suicide live on-air in 1974. As Kate investigates Chubbuck's story (long rumored to be the inspiration for the classic Hollywood film NETWORK), uncovering new clues and information, she becomes increasingly obsessed with her subject. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE is a cinematic mystery that forces us to question everything we see and everything we're led to believe

http://tinyurl.com/jkqmm7v

Recent LA Times daily tracking poll, and Reuters.

Although considering the recent accuracy of polling lately, one can't be sure of anything.