THE WAGES OF HATE: Figures. Ted Cruz Stalker Fueled By Democrat Party Messaging.

ROGER SIMON: Relax, GOP: ObamaCare Will Defund Itself. “The government hopes to have 7 million insured by March. Now several weeks after launch, less than half a million have taken only the first application step. Who knows how many have actually gotten health insurance? The government isn’t saying – and we can guess why. Indeed, the entire fiasco is a perfect example of the efficiency of free markets over government.”

JOURNALISM: California Media, Jerry Brown ignore CA’s worst-in-nation poverty rate. “I have seen pack journalism my entire professional life. But I have never seen anything like the last few years out of Sacramento.”

JOEL KOTKIN: Stuck At The Bottom.

Declining prospects for upward mobility, and the simultaneous social inequality, are the existential issues of our time. The percentage of adults who believe things will be better for their kids is at its lowest point in 30 years, with a majority now saying upward mobility for the next generation is not likely. The kids, God bless them, are still far more optimistic.

Despite President Obama’s occasional class-warfare rhetoric, this gap has widened significantly under his watch; the top 1 percent of earners garnered more than 90 percent of the income growth in his first two years, compared with 65 percent under George W. Bush. But the problem is more extensive than one or two administrations. Most Americans’ incomes have stagnated for almost a quarter century. . . .

This growing inequality, with its racial connotations, is fundamentally socially unsustainable. Yet how to restart upward mobility remains a difficult proposition. Progressives might shout loudest about inequality, but their economic policies have failed to produce either upward mobility or greater equality.

Indeed, under the current liberal regime, the prospects for the poor and working class have decreased markedly while the wealthy, often villainized by the administration, have luxuriated. During much of the tenure of the first black president, the gap between Anglo incomes on the one side and those of blacks and Hispanics has widened, doubling since the Great Recession.

Indeed, racial economic disparities are mostly unchanged or are growing. The black unemployment rate remains more than double the white jobless rate and reaches 40 percent among black youth.

A debate is needed now about what policies best promote upward mobility. Some combination of encouraging broader-based economic growth and nurturing fundamental values of education, family and social engagement arguably offers the best approach. It is a message likely neither political party particularly wants to hear, but it’s one they need to acknowledge and confront.

Well, I’ve offered my plan already.

LUGGAGEBLOGGING: So a while back I blogged about getting this Everki laptop briefcase. I’ve now had it for a month, and it’s worked out very well. The zipper compartments and brightly colored lining make it much, much easier to find things, and the “checkout friendly” feature, where the laptop compartment swings out to lie flat when going through the x-ray machine, really works well.

I was happy enough with that, in fact, that a couple of weeks ago I bought this Briggs & Riley garment bag too. I’ve been using the same Land’s End garment bag for over 20 years, and it works fine but is beginning to show its age. I’m not dumping the Land’s End bag, because it’s smushable and can fit in an overhead compartment, while this bag has to be checked, but I took the new one with me to LA last week and it worked great. It rolls very smoothly through airports and parking garages, it was easy to pack and unpack, and it holds a lot. They say 4-6 suits, and that’s probably right: I packed 3 sportcoats (easy to switch out when shooting multiple PJTV segments back-to-back) 8 shirts, and assorted other stuff for a week’s trip and it handled everything fine, delivering it all unwrinkled at the other end. I’ve always been a low-end luggage guy, but I’m beginning to see why people pay more.

UPDATE: Andrew Morriss writes:

Took your advice and bought the laptop bag, which is terrific. So I took the plunge on your garment bag recommendation too.

Keep field testing stuff for the rest of us!

I do what I can. It’s work!

CONSUMER REPORTS: Yeah you’re gonna want to stay off of Healthcare.gov for at least another month.

LEADERSHIP: Pitiful: ‘Choke on this, peasants!’ WH Obamacare flack retweets Oliver Willis GOP-slam.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on Men’s Boots.

Also, up to 70% off on Women’s Boots.

Plus, TV Deal of the Week: The Munsters, complete series, $31.49.

PROF. JACOBSON: Anatomy of how a racism lie spread half way around the world. I’m disappointed in Taegan Goddard, whose Political Wire site has grown steadily more MMFA-ish over the years.

21ST CENTURY GENDER POLITICS: “I’ve been told that I must be a feminist, that my job is feminist, that I absolutely cannot be a feminist, and, one time, that my vagina should be revoked for crimes against women.”

21ST CENTURY MEDICINE: Transgender Group Demands Free Mammograms Under Obamacare.

FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD: Dick Cheney calls his current health “a miracle.” “Two years ago, Cheney was gaunt, carried a sallow complexion and needed a cane to walk. Today, he says he’s a new man and feels ‘fantastic.’ At 72, he says he has no real physical limits. ‘I fish. I hunt…I don’t ski, but that’s because of my knees, not my heart. So, it’s been a miracle,’ he tells Gupta.”

CLIMATE: Some historical perspective.

AT AMAZON, fall deals on Sports & Outdoor Apparel.

Plus, deals on Mac software.

And, today only: Amazon Instant Video: Own Popular Movies in HD for $5.99 Each or in SD for $3.99 Each. Lots of movies, from The Dark Knight Rises to The Lord Of The Rings.

THE URBANIZATION MYTH: Where Are The Boomers Headed? Not Back To The City.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sebastian Thrun imagines a future with only 10 universities.

APPLE ISSUES A MACBOOK AIR RECALL over bad flash memory.

VIDEO: Stop What You’re Doing and Fly Over This Amazing Crater Rim on Mars.

BIG GOVERNMENT AND BIG CONSTRUCTION AGAINST THE LITTLE GUY: Work Begins on Calif. Bullet Train, Locals Angry. “In the Central Valley, there is intense distrust of the authority, which has started buying up property, land and businesses, some of which have been in families for generations.”

WE’LL PROBABLY NEED TO BAN THIS, WHAT WITH A NEW ICE AGE COMING: Carbon-negative energy, a reality at last — and cheap, too.

THE PAINFUL STORY behind modern anesthesia.

GENTRY LIBERALISM: Well-Heeled in the Windy City: Rahm Emanuel splurges on amenities for the elite, while poor and middle-class Chicagoans suffer.

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 164.

BACKLASH: Far Right Has Strong Showing in Socialist France.

According to a new survey by BFM TV, a French station, nearly one in two French voters (46%) think Marine Le Pen is the best opposition candidate to take on the ruling Socialist party. That’s a lot of support for a far right politician who once compared Muslim blocking French streets during prayer times to the Nazi occupation of France in WWII

The poll wasn’t asking respondents for the politician they’d like to see become president, and it wasn’t asking which politician they like the most. The 46 percent were saying Marine Le Pen is the best opponent to the ruling Socialist Party. Still, that’s quite a lot of support for someone so controversial.

Le Pen frequently courts controversy. She’s been called racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim. But she remains popular. Her party recently won a small election in southern France where disillusionment with Francois Hollande and his Socialist Party runs strong.

Le Pen’s popularity could have repercussions beyond France’s borders. She and Geert Wilders, a far-right politician in the Netherlands, are exploring the possibility of creating a pan-European Eurosceptic movement.

Read the whole thing. But is Geert Wilders really “far-right?” Maybe by Netherlands standards.