Vox Sentences: Clinton vs. Sanders vs. What’s-His-Name vs. The Other Guy

The first Democratic primary debate; worries of a third intifada in Israel and Palestine; and a constitutional crisis in Vanuatu.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

5 white people debate the future of the Democratic Party

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

• The first debate of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary will take place tonight at 8:30pm Eastern. You can watch on CNN, or online, at this link:

  [CNN.com]

• Contrary to the photo illustrations on most major websites — which show Hillary Clinton squaring off with Bernie Sanders — the debate will actually feature five candidates.*

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• (Left out of tonight's debate: Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, who is threatening to protest his exclusion by taking his ball and going home running as an independent.)

  [The Hill / Mark Hensch]

• Since even the New York Times doesn't know how to spell the name of one of the minor candidates (former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee), though, you're forgiven for not paying them any mind.

  [New York Times via Sam Brodey via Twitter ]

• Here's what you need to know about Clinton as a debater: she's always on-message, and she's really good at striking back when attacked.

  [Washington Post / Chris Cillizza]

• Here's what you need to know about Sanders as a debater: he gestures like he's bouncing a basketball, and he's got a helluva temper.

  [Mother Jones / Timothy P. Murphy]

• Everyone in Washington appears to think the debate is Clinton's to lose — and that any mistake she makes will "become" the story (apparently without human help).

  [Vox / Jonathan Allen]

• In reality, it's unlikely that any candidate will make a campaign-sinking mistake. But in case one does, please keep this GIF on hand (hat tip to Tracy Clayton of Buzzfeed):

  [Lin-Manuel Miranda via Genius]

• *About that asterisk: CNN is still hoping Joe Biden decides to enter the race and the debate. They had an extra podium set aside for him. And once it became clear he wasn't going to be in Vegas by tonight, they said he could even join by smartphone.

  [Politico / Sarah Wheaton]

• But really, Joe Biden (and the press) needs to stop with this will-he-or-won't-he nonsense. He's missing the debate. That should be enough proof he's not running for president,

  [Washington Post / Greg Sargent]

Are we headed for a third intifada?

Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu called an emergency meeting today to discuss an alarming escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine over the past few weeks.

  [New York Times / Jodi Rudoren and Isabel Kershner]

• In Jerusalem, there's been a series of Palestinian-on-Israeli stabbing attacks (including a 13-year-old and 17-year-old stabbing a 13-year-old). In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed a pregnant woman and her toddler yesterday.

  [AFP / Jonah Mandel]

• As Zack Beauchamp explains for Vox, things started heating up last month, when a group of Israelis tried to gain access to what Jews call the Temple Mount (and Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary) — the holiest site in Jerusalem.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The arrangement restricting the site to Muslims is actually a formalized agreement between Israel and Jordan, called the "Status Quo."

  [International Crisis Group / Ofer Zalzberg]

• But violence has spiraled out from there. Many on both sides are worried about a third "intifada" — or, to be more specific, a repeat of the violent, suicide-attack-laden "second intifada" of the early 2000s.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The mayor of Jerusalem does not appear to be helping. He's called for restrictions on Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem; told Israeli Jews to start carrying guns; and was photographed carrying an assault rifle through an Arab neighborhood.

  [AP via Newser]

• At least one "mistaken hate crime" has been committed: one Israeli Jew stabbed another one in an IKEA parking lot, because he thought he was an Arab.

  [Times of Israel]

When the president's away, the acting president...pardons himself and 13 other guys

Phillip Capper

• The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is in political chaos. While the president was traveling abroad, the acting president summarily pardoned 13 members of parliament — including himself — immediately after they were convicted in a massive bribery scandal.

  [AP / Nick Perry]

• In Vanuatu, governing coalitions fall apart quite frequently, so votes of no confidence in the prime minister — forcing the parties to cobble together a new governing coalition — are common. One of these no-confidence votes happened in 2014.

  [Freedom House]

• But no-confidence votes in Vanuatu usually don't involve bribing 13 members of parliament (for a total sum of $425,000) to support the no-confidence vote so you become Deputy Prime Minister in the new regime. But that's what Moana Carcasses did in 2014.

  [ABC Australia / Liam Fox]

• Nor is it typical, when the bribery is eventually discovered and you're put on trial, to threaten the wife of a member of parliament so she won't testify against you. But that's what Carcasses did.

  [Tiv News]

• Carcasses and his colleagues were convicted last week. As it happened, the president of Vanuatu was abroad. The speaker of parliament (who happened to be among the convicted bribe-takers) assumed executive powers in his stead. And the acting president just happened to use the broad pardon powers given to the president to pardon himself and his buddies.

  [AP / Nick Perry]

• This is all constitutional...technically. That doesn't make it legitimate, As one law professor said, "A political or moral reaction is it really stinks."

  [Radio New Zealand]

MISCELLANEOUS

The case for trying 21-year-olds — or even 25-year-olds — as juveniles. [Washington Post / Vincent Schiraldi and Bruce Western]

• Giving away cash is the hot new trend in development economics. But governments aren't keeping up with the research.

  [Foreign Affairs / Michael Faye, Paul Niehaus, and Christopher Blattman]

• Self-driving car skeptics often bring up moral dilemmas: does a car swerve to hit only one person if it'd otherwise hit three? Here's why it's not that big of a problem.

  [Brad Templeton]

• It turns out that the idea of doing yoga in a hot room cannot be copyrighted.

  [Slate / LV Anderson]

• After Newtown and the Oregon shooting, autistic young adults are being stereotyped as killers. This is not just wrong, it's dangerous.

  [NYT / Andrew Solomon]

VERBATIM

"Don’t get me wrong, 12-year-old me is very disappointed in current me. But it’s the right thing to do." [Playboy editor Cory Jones, on the magazine's new no-nudity policy, to NYT / Ravi Somaiya]

• "His five-year incarceration, he told the audience, allowed him to reinvent himself as a legal kind of con man: a stage magician."

  [Atlas Obscura / Jess Zimmerman]

• "If Sanders is ambivalent about America, he unironically celebrates Americans. No American politician in decades—maybe in the postwar era—has spoken of 'the people' so convinced of their essential goodness."

  [n+1 / Daniel Schlozman]

• "No man should feel that his mate has chosen him for his potential earning power. And no woman should feel that she has to change herself in order to raise her partner up, so that he can one day take care of her."

  [Quartz / Morgan Jenkins]

• ‘‘Your taste — I mean, I can’t even talk to you.’’

  [Rihanna to NYT / Miranda July]

WATCH THIS

Why you should get a flu shot every year [YouTube / Sarah Kliff, Joss Fong, Joe Posner]

Vox / Joss Fong, Joe Posner

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