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Republicans May Be Shooting Themselves in the Foot on Abortion: It’s good news for Democrats if the GOP wants to express their distaste for the murder and rape exemptions to abortion laws on national TV. (Mother Jones)

The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works: The would-be Planned Parenthood “exposés” aren’t going to move the needle on the abortion debate very much. Meanwhile, irritation among women about being lectured on the subject by men could lead to an election cycle like 2012, when clueless Todd Akin and others crystallized the matter for everybody. (New York)

Bernie Sanders Draws 28,000 People in Portland: But it’s Portland, right? Why not 280,000? (Washington Post)

How Do Festivals Pick the Order of Their Posters? This is an interesting and well-researched article about a somewhat puzzling process, but all in all it really makes me want to say: PUPPET SHOW AND SPINAL TAP (Consequence of Sound)

“This Was the New Jim Crow”: An Oral History of the Ferguson Protests: “Peace during the day and war at night”—a very sobering read. (Vox)

Seven Reasons True Detective Blew So Hard This Year: Don’t get me started on this one. Nic Pizzolatto is talented, sure, but we learned just how good McConaughey, Harrelson, and Fukunaga are. And Pizzolatto wasn’t able to reproduce his trick with only a mere few weeks to generate the whole story. HBO should have waited and given everyone more time to work through the problems. (Vox)

The Story of the Other Racist Flag: No, not the Confederate flag, the POW/MIA flag. The whole movement was started as a devious plan by Nixon, and it sells a false, paranoid narrative about the U.S. leaving its troops to die everywhere, it’s completely pernicious. And it also flies on state capitols. (Rick Perlstein)

Why Political Journalists Shouldn’t Report on Internal Polling: The analogy here would be to reporting only the scientific reports that large corporations release on their own products. “The polls are obviously partisan, subject to bias, and released only when in the self-interest of the candidate.” (Columbia Journalism Review)

Mad Men: How Don Draper and Walter White Prepared us for Donald Trump: Sounds far-fetched, right? But Walt’s story is the story of the breakdown of the American Dream, and Don founded a company with his name on it by raiding his employers in a single heady weekend. Hey, premium TV has depended on bad-acting males for ever, and that’s Trump! (The Guardian)

Chicago Police Offer ‘Advice’ on How Not to Get Shot by Them: “Remember your actions and attitude can impact the situation positively or negatively.” An actvist wrote up a useful counter-list for the police, also at the link. (Chicagoist)

Silicon Valley Has No Idea What Teens Want: Basically, the success of Snapchat has really confused everyone. (The Daily Dot)
 
Lou Reed, live at the Bottom Line, NYC, 1983: