2020, contd. (VI)

Suleimani’s Killing Creates New Uncertainty for Trump Campaign
Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman | Jan. 7, 2020

...Some advisers have highlighted to Mr. Trump the short-term lift the strike could give his re-election prospects, and his campaign has run nearly 800 distinct Facebook ads trumpeting the killing, according to Acronym, a progressive digital strategy group. The ads refer to Mr. Trump’s “leadership as commander in chief” and direct voters to an “Official Trump Military Survey,” which acts as a portal to his campaign website.

But whether the strike will help the president win over more voters rests on factors largely outside Mr. Trump’s control. How Iran retaliates, and how voters who responded to his 2016 campaign message about ending “forever wars” in the Middle East react to a potentially escalating conflict are the two most immediate questions...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/us/politics/trump-campaign-suleimani.html

Attention:
Will the owners of a blue planet with plate tectonics please attend to your vehicle.
It is overheating.

-God @TheTweetOfGod | 4:11 PM · Jan 7, 2020

(hi "margd")

________________________

You're looking at the photo below and you may be thinking...


( © copyright 2020 Associated Press / Daily Mail Group (London))

(..."German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas had also 'made very clear that General Soleimani was a terrorist and he was on the EU terrorist list.' "

—Politico reporters Judith Mischke and Zoya Sheftalovich citing Richard Grenell, U.S. envoy to Germany.)

"Oh! Wait a minute! I've seen this image before somewhere. I think I recognize that car."

Well, friend, that photo is not merely car-wreckage.

No, sir. No, ma'am.

The twisted and burning remains you see there? That's also an image of the present state of the sneaky Democrats'* plans for corrupting and undermining the fair-election prospects for the American voters in the coming November 2020 presidential race.

Still to be decided is the matter of the Democrats' candidate. But the Republicans? They're running the incumbent, President Donald J. Trump.

Democrats had been busy trying to figure out ways to overcome what many of them see as their dismal chances of defeating Trump without resorting to extraordinary and underhanded ways and means. While others had skipped straight to efforts to quickly devise just such means.

Well, those, he latter, underhanded clandestine plans?— they're now also represented in the photo image above.
_______________________

* Sneaky Democrats: The typical Democratic national party leadership; not to be confused with the candidate Tulsi Gabbard, for example.

_______________________

Pelosi:
Oh, I know!: We say this is all part of Trump's collusion with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to manipulate the presidential race in Trump's favor!

Schumer:
We're fucked!

LOL!

See y'all in November!, ya hear!?

_______________________________________

And now lots of words from Joe Biden, former Vice-president of the United States (under Barack Obama), former U.S. senator from Delaware and candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for the office of president of the United States. (in a speech almost certainly written for him.)
___________

(Published in USA Today)

Joe Biden: Worse than even his policies, Donald Trump is destroying America's soul

Joe Biden
Opinion contributor
Published 1:57 PM EST Jan 6, 2020

Every four years, American democracy is rekindled in Iowa, as neighbors come together in libraries, union halls, churches, and cafeterias, and set our nation on a path to picking the next president. That duty has always been sacred to Iowans — but it’s a far graver responsibility this time around than it has ever been before.

It’s no secret just how much damage President Donald Trump has done to our communities. He has repeatedly tried to snatch away our health care — and return us to the days when you could be denied care for having a pre-existing condition. His reckless, unnecessary trade war and Big Oil ethanol waivers have decimated Iowa farmers and producers — evaporating livelihoods and exacerbating a tragic spike in farm bankruptcies. And his chief legislative victory — a tax cut that largely benefited the wealthiest Americans — was little more than a slap in the face to working people.

But worse, somehow, than his policy failures has been the damage he’s done to the soul of our nation. He fans the flames of hate groups at home. He embraces murderous dictators abroad. He rips children from their mothers’ arms at our border. He pressures foreign nations to interfere in our elections. Every day, his endless spigot of unhinged lies, thoughtless cruelties, and petty complaints embarrasses his office and degrades our national character. Is it any wonder that the once-unimaginable sight of allied world leaders mocking and laughing at the American president has now become routine?

Some of my opponents in the Democratic primary will tell you that Donald Trump isn’t the issue — they’ll say that our focus should be on what the country will look like after he leaves office. With all due respect, they are looking past the crisis staring us in the face: What happens if he wins again?
We can't afford four more years.

Our country is strong; we can withstand four years of Trump. But if we give him a second term, there is no telling how much more damage he will do to our core values, our standing in the world, or the character of our nation.

Imagine four more years of unchecked corruption and naked grift. Four more years of broadsides against our democracy, our free press, and the very concept of truth. Four more years of fawning deference to Vladimir Putin abroad — and to the NRA here at home.

That doesn’t have to be our fate. In less than a month, Iowans can say "enough," and take the first step toward beating Donald Trump and restoring the soul of our nation.

Restoring our soul means creating policies that reflect our shared values. That means ensuring that health care is a right for all — not just the wealthy — by giving every American the choice to either stick with a private plan or choose an affordable, quality Medicare-like public option. It means revitalizing the basic middle class bargain for all Americans, so that no one has to leave their home-town — be it Manhattan or Mason City, L.A. or Elkader — to find opportunity. It means banning assault weapons and limiting magazine clips, so that every parent can look their kids in the eye and tell them, “You will be safe at school.” Most of all, it means treating every person with dignity.

I know how seriously you take your responsibility as caucus goers, and I believe you’ll choose a candidate who can build a broad, diverse coalition to unify this nation around our common values — someone who understands that our country is made strong by the ideals and dignity of our people.

We don’t have to give in to Donald Trump’s dark, petty, angry vision of America. We can choose to be the more perfect union we have always aspired to be. We can restore the defining American promise — that no matter where you start in life, there’s nothing you can’t achieve. And, in doing so, we can restore the soul of our nation. I hope you’ll join me in that fight today — and that you’ll caucus for me on Feb. 3.

Now, let's examine this piece of oratorical artistry.

Donald Trump—the real-estate magnate—roundly ridiculed as an inept, incompetent megalomaniac, that Donald Trump—can destroy the "soul" of America?

Notice that Biden, interestingly enough, does not make this quite explicitly his warning in the body of this pathetic speech. Thus, he never quite directly claims that Trump could or shall, unless stopped, "destroy" America's "soul," and certainly not intentionally.

From this, then, it appears that, in his speech, Biden suggests that Trump's evil capacities are such that he, Trump, could inadvertently "destroy" America's "soul."

Not bad, that, for a guy who's a bumbling, inept fool.

He wouldn't necessarily deliberately "destroy" America's "soul" but, if left alone, he might do this accidentally—like, in his spare time. It would be just one of the side-effects, surely the worst, no?, of letting Donald be Donald.

Now, it must be very difficult to "destroy" America's "soul" since, even after three years in office (on the 20th of this month) Trump has not quite achieved the full destruction of America's "soul."

So Mr. Biden invites us to imagine, along with him, what Trump might do if not stopped, if allowed another term in the elected office of president of the United States.

What might he then do? Kill more terrorists, the likes of, say, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or Iran's General Qassem Suleymanei? Well, who knows?

Biden, however is concerned that Trump shall, among other things, finish off America's soul. Never mind what other Americans themselves might think or say about it.

Despite the fact that, "Our country is strong;" and that "we can withstand four years of Trump" ... "if we give him a second term, there is no telling how much more damage he will do to our core values, our standing in the world, or the character of our nation."

You see? As I explained, Biden stops short of stating unequivocally that Trump, unless prevented, is certainly, definitely, going to do to America's soul the kind of rude stuff he oversaw done to the bodies, if not the souls, of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and General Qassem Suleymanei.

We mustn't—and, as Biden informs us, we needn't—allow or accept this terrible damage to the soul of America which is bound to come about from (as we're invited to imagine) "four more years of unchecked corruption and naked grift. Four more years of broadsides against our democracy, our free press, and the very concept of truth. Four more years of fawning deference to Vladimir Putin abroad—and to the NRA here at home."

All that is what Biden fears the re-election shall mean—not to mention the end of his own, Biden's, presidential prospects. For there is simply almost certainly not another shot at the presidency within the cards held in the hand of Fate. Indeed, it would not surprise me if Fate's grant of Mr. Biden's lease on life does not even extend up until next November's election-day. Hence, certainly, the urgency of all this for Mr. Biden.

As he (or his speech-writers) tells us, "In less than a month," everything can change. In less than a month, "Iowans can say 'enough,' " (or, in other words, "For God's sake! Save us!, Please!, Mr. Biden! Save us!") and, in so doing, "take the first step toward beating Donald Trump and restoring the soul of our nation."—still not quite fully destroyed at that point.

Again, Democrats are as much as saying that the stakes in the coming election, as they apparently were in 2016, are simply the permanent fate of the nation's soul. The implication of this is clear: voters are not entitled to prefer to re-elect incumbent President Trump. What Biden would have the reader accept as an already foregone conclusion is that such a choice would be, virtually by "definition", an "illegitimate" one. Just as they have since losing the presidential election of 2016, Biden, Pelosi and their fellow-Democrat-supporters seek to annul, reverse and delegitimize the 2016 presidential election's result—only because that result was their own defeat. Now, they hope to preëmptively delegitimize a Trump re-election.

Their none-too-subtle message: 'If voters fuck this up (“again” “next time”), why, then, they've tempted Fate too long and too far and, with things at that point in Fate's cruel hands, it's America's soul lost, for good and all.'

(Or not. Who knows? Would there be any further point in presidential elections past the next one—if, in their hardly-imaginable stupidity, American voters were to re-elect Donald Trump despite Mr. Biden's clear and friendly warning and, in the process, doom the soul of America? Why?)

If a nation, a people, a citizenry, may be said to have, in some meaningful sense a national "soul", then that 'thing', whatever it is, however defined or described, is surely inseparable from what such a people should recognize as "theirs" "their own", a thing collectively held: this abiding "identity," this informing and motivating "purpose".

Now, if any such exists for the American people of the United States, that is, for their "body politic", it is extremely hard to see how it could exist or reside in anyone or anything other than, and certainly not "higher" than, the public themselves.

How it could be, then, that one person, however important or powerful, could wreck this commonly-held American "soul", could practically single-handedly ruin or undo the nation's informing purposes and guiding sense of ideals?—that is not explained in Biden's speech nor does it seem, on reflection, to be a very coherent conception.

Who, after all, other than or better than the American people themselves as a whole body, acting in their capacity as the electorate, every two or, certainly, every four, years in their choice of a president, to make their renewed statement on the state-of-the-nation's Soul? They and only they can possibly discharge such a duty; that is their office, as voters and, if they don't discharge it, no one else can step in and do it in their place. Yet Biden, by his speech, seems to claim that he can and that he ought to be entrusted to do so. That isn't merely nonsense on his part. It's a con-man's ploy, a snare presented to people, an invitation to voters to join in the act of their own victimization, dressed up disingenuously as their "salvation."

Biden, here, isn't proposing to act as the instrumental agent in saving the nation's soul. He's proposing to Americans that, instead, they confuse the act of electing him (in order to replace Trump) with the act of "saving the national soul." That should be seen for the con-artistry that it is and rejected—politely or not so politely.

Trump's cult followers (and their defense of everything Trump)
remind me of moths drawn to a flame. It has become obvious
that a single cult personality in this cyber era can be a constant
danger to the well-being of everyone on planet earth.

In 1997 protection of former presidents & spouses was limited to ten years. Restored to lifetime in 2012--appropriately, I think:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_Presidents_Act
How much will former President Trump's protection cost the American taxpayer? Hope constraints on who and where are clear! He's made a lot of enemies and has shown no tendency to be frugal with taxpayer money...

Mnuchin seeks delay of proposed disclosure of Secret Service spending on presidential travel until after election
Carol D. Leonnig and David A. Fahrenthold | Jan. 8, 2020

The Trump administration is seeking to delay a Democratic effort to require the Secret Service to disclose how much it spends protecting President Trump and his family when they travel — until after the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the discussions.

...Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and key senators have been negotiating draft legislation to move the Secret Service back to his department, its historic home.

Mnuchin has balked at Democratic demands that the bill require the Secret Service to disclose the costs related to the travel of the president and his adult children within 120 days after it is passed, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Mnuchin has agreed to Democrats’ push for a requirement that the Secret Service report its travel expenses but wants such disclosures to begin after the election.

The government spent about $96 million on travel by Obama over eight years, according to documents obtained by the conservative group Judicial Watch. A report by the Government Accountability Office, which serves as the congressional watchdog on federal spending, estimated that Trump’s travel cost $13.6 million in just one month in early 2017. That total included the costs of travel for Secret Service and Defense Department personnel, and the costs of renting space and operating equipment such as boats and planes. If spending continued at that pace, Trump would have exceeded Obama’s total expenses before the end of his first year in office.

The extensive international business travel and vacations of his grown children, with Secret Service agents in tow, as well as the expense the Secret Service incurs to secure numerous Trump properties, have added to the agency’s financial strain, according to its budget requests.

Since their father was elected, Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. have made business trips to overseas locales including Ireland, Scotland, Dubai, Uruguay and India. In 2017, Eric Trump’s visit to a Trump building under construction in Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,000.

...A 1976 law allows the president to designate one primary residence outside the White House for the Secret Service to protect full-time. It also requires the agency to report to Congress semiannually the costs of securing that property. The measure did not anticipate a chief executive who regularly visited that one property, as well as multiple others.

The Secret Service has failed or been late in recent years to provide even those limited cost reports...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mnuchin-seeks-delay-of-proposed-disclosu...

>5 margd: "He's (President Trump) made a lot of enemies and has shown no tendency to be frugal with taxpayer money..."

________________________

"Trump gives away his annual $400,000 salary, according to The Washington Post, but he is the third president to do so. U.S. presidents Herbert Hoover and John Kennedy gave their earnings to charity."

(Presidents' Salaries During and After Office ) "Donald Trump's term is from 2017 to 2021. He earns $400,000 a year with a $50,000 expense account. He donates this to a different federal department each quarter."

" Presidents Who Did Not Take a Salary

" The Constitution requires a president to take a salary.(9) The Founding Fathers wanted to protect even wealthy presidents from misfortune that could tempt them to take bribes. The salary may have also been designed to ensure that a lack of personal wealth would not prohibit a president elect from taking office.(10)



"Four presidents refused a salary*. Instead, they donated all or part of it."

* Donald J. Trump
John F. Kennedy
Herbert Hoover
George Washington

"Because of the way the Electoral College works, changing the results of a few counties in a few states
could change the outcome of a presidential election."

The malware election: Returning to paper ballots only way to prevent
Lulu Friesdat, Opinion Contributor — 08/19/19
With so much attention on what happened in 2016, we have lost much of the time available to protect the 2020 election...
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/457869-the-malware-election-returning-to-...

-Andrea Chalupa @AndreaChalupa | 10:32 AM · Jan 13, 2020
__________________________________________________________________________________

A Senate report said GRU likely compromised election systems in 4 Florida counties in 2018.
Rick Scott's win, which Rasmussen called "one of the great electoral oddities in midterm Senate election history," came down to 0.2% points

New report on U.S. elections hacking raises old question: What happened in Florida?
David Smiley and Alex Daugherty | Jul. 26, 2019
...(July 2019) the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a heavily redacted 67-page report that appears to include new information about efforts by Russian hackers to probe and target elections networks in Florida...
https://tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/07/26/new-report-on-florida-elec...

-Andrea Chalupa @AndreaChalupa | 10:46 AM · Jan 13, 2020

Running Against the Devil review: Rick Wilson's anti-Trump missile
Charles Kaiser | 14 Jan 2020

...His advice to Democrats is beautifully summarized in his epilogue:

"Do not, as my party did, underestimate the evil, desperate nature of evil desperate people. Do not come to this fight believing that the Trump team views any action, including outright criminality, as off limits. (The 2020 election) is a battle that decides whether they have an unlimited runway to create a dynastic kleptocracy based on an authoritarian personality cult that makes North Korea look like Sweden, or whether the immune system of the Republic kicks in and purges them from the body public" …

"There is no bottom. There is no shame. There are no limits … He is surrounded by cowards with frightening and tremendous skills" …

...The author admits that he would prefer to have a conservative as president, but he’s willing to throw his weight behind any Democrat in order to get rid of Trump. His fear should also be ours: “There’s only one thing that can save him, and that’s a Democratic party too stubborn, undisciplined and foolish to get out of its own way.”...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/11/donald-trump-rick-wilson-running...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How to dump Trump: Rick Wilson on Running Against the Devil
Martin Pengelly | 11 Jan 2020

...make the election a referendum on the president

...fight where the fight is, which is these 15 electoral college swing states, and those states are not as woke and liberal as other parts of the country.

...Take Bernie Sanders. Wilson doesn’t just say he thinks the democratic socialist from Vermont would be the opponent of Trump’s dreams, “the easiest person in the world to turn into the comic opera villain Republicans love to hate, the Castro sympathiser, the socialist, the Marxist, the guy who wants to put the aristos in the tumbril as they cart them off to the guillotine”.

He also hits Sanders for echoing Trump in harking back to an America that never was – “only with more unions” – and pillories him for his reaction to defeat in 2016. In Wilson’s view, Sanders damaged Clinton at the polls and then, after she “beat him fair and square, he took his ball and went home”, failing to support her in November. Wilson contrasts that starkly with Republican support for Trump.

...Asked which Democrat is best suited for the fight, Wilson admits to being impressed by Warren’s willingness to work hard and how she champions the little guy (but her plans provide opportunities for Republican ads). But he still goes for Joe Biden.

“I think it will be Biden because name ID is very powerful,” he says of the former senator and vice-president. “He is the one candidate who has shown the most ability to contrast with Trump in terms of a broader, bigger picture that isn’t just locked into what’s the hot flavor of Democratic messaging this year.

“He’s talking about that big American sense of unity and reconciliation and saying we’ve got to work with Republicans too.”

It’s true you don’t get much policy detail at a Biden rally, but you do see plenty of slightly hokey appeals to the better angels of America’s nature.

“There’s nothing in Joe Biden that scans as evil or dark or weird or out of touch,” Wilson says. “He can be a little goofy but that’s not bad, not the worst thing in the world right now.

“I think neither Warren nor Sanders and certainly not Pete Buttigieg have ever had a breakthrough with African American voters sufficient to eliminate Biden’s advantage. And also, Biden’s got the secret weapon.

“If Barack Obama is free to get out there and do the campaigning that only he can do in American political life, I think that would be a meaningful lift for the Democrats.”

...co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a Super Pac named for the party’s greatest leader and meant to persuade loyalists away from a man many consider its worst.

...“this time I am putting my ideological priors and my preferences aside, because I think that Donald Trump is an existential threat to the Republic. I’ll do anything I can to help ensure that he is not president for another four years.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/11/donald-trump-rick-wilson-running...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:39 AM · Jan 13, 2020:
Mini Mike Bloomberg is spending a lot of money on False Advertising.*
I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your Healthcare, you have it now,
while at the same time winning the fight to rid you of the expensive, unfair and very unpopular Individual Mandate.....

....and, if Republicans win in court and take back the House of Represenatives, your healthcare, that I have now brought to the best place in many years, will become the best ever, by far. I will always protect your Pre-Existing Conditions, the Dems will not!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* 0:55 Bloomberg ad ( https://twitter.com/Mike2020/status/1216854351744028674 )

________________________________________________________________________

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 1:53 PM · Jan 13, 2020
Shouldn’t Democrats take advantage of Trump engaging (and lying) on pre-existing conditions
by confronting Trump with millions of dollars of ads to force discussion of this issue?
It’s one of their strongest issues for 2020, should start to get it firmly in voters’ minds now.

#8--keeping in mind that the Democrats over the last 20-30 years have worked at rolling back the gains made by FDR's new deal. People have been calling Sanders a commie for as long as I can remember so I don't expect that's going to stop.......but who's shown himself to be Putin's bestest buddy BFF? That's the Donald. I see Sanders more as a FDR kind of democrat. For those who want to call him a socialist--fine but it's with a small s. Mr. Wilson should keep that in mind. America is a very conservative country but there are still quite a lot more registered democrats compared to republicans. Will Sanders bring out the republican base for Trump? No doubt. I'd argue that Warren and Biden would also. The oligarchs for one are very frightened of a Warren presidency. As for Joe--Trump's already well in on tearing him apart---the Ukraine thing isn't over despite Trump's crimes and it's because Hunter's position there even if legal is not very ethical. He's going to hammer that message and his crowds are going to eat it up. The dems lose their message when they worry about the other side so much. Always be brave--those who can't be convinced it's too bad for them. Not a good idea to make over the party to suit the likes of republicans like Wilson who've lost the bit of grip they had in their own party.

Which is to say Mr. Wilson's book is Mr. Wilson's opinion and keeping in mind that Mr. Wilson is a republican Joe Biden fits more comfortably within republican points of view. He's the one who says he knows Republican Senators for instance and that they're really good people and he can work with them and I have to ask Really? But Biden is republican friendly. Some people see that as a strength--I don't like it.

The five most dangerous men on the planet are in cahoots ~

Putin/Trump/McConnell/Barr/Pompeo

Do voters in America really want to give these evil men 4 more years in power?????????

Bernie Sanders’ Very Online Fans Are Filling Elizabeth Warren’s Twitter Mentions With Snakes
Ryan Brooks | January 15, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryancbrooks/warren-bernie-snake-twitter-202...

________________________________________________________

Watch: today’s snake emoji accounts are tomorrow’s online promoters of the Gabbard “independent” candidacy
-David Frum @davidfrum | 8:55 AM · Jan 15, 2020

Such a stupid conflict. Sanders could have and should have handled this better. If he said "I think a woman can't win in 2020", he could have elaborated now and explained that he meant the chances of a woman winning were bad--and used the opportunity to acknowledge the misogyny that hounded Clinton. A final flourish of "...but then I hadn't seen you campaign, Elizabeth! Completely changed my mind!", would have knocked them all on their tushies and all the air out of this balloon of stupid.

And if he didn't say that to Warren--I doubt she's lying, btw, more likely it's a matter of representation--he STILL could have saved the situation by replying "I have no recollection of ever saying something like that, but if I ever doubted the chances of a woman winning--see what happened to Clinton--I don't doubt them now etc."

Absolutely the worst and dumbest option is for this to become cemented into "one of them is a liar". Sanders even aggravated the situation by substituting "she is saying I said a woman can't be president of the US"--when Warren said merely "he said he thought a woman can't win in 2020" That's, like, ideas continents apart. But too late now.

As for the Berniebros. Yeah, the fuckheads exist and will do to any woman as they did to Clinton. But Sanders can't be blamed for them, and we'll see if and what he replies.

There goes my Sanders-Warren ship... I knew it wasn't likely but sorting the problem of the only two progressive people being opponents by getting them on the same ticket was a dream for a while now. Sigh.

Difficult, I know, to ignore, but Russians will be happy to see Dems divided by such things--and by a Gabbard candidacy.
And they are not above stoking flames.
Can we be strong enough to not take the bait?

(Cue 'mayhem'.)

Elizabeth Warren is still my second choice. She has some great policy proposals--she's very good at that. I think part of the issue is that for a long while she was with Sanders on his medicare for all plan and hadn't worked out her own--just rode on Bernie's coattails on that one single issue and when called out by Buttigieg she unfortunately kind of accepted that as a homework assignment and then got battered afterwards for it and that was Pete's game in the first place to batter her over that and since then she's fallen from being the frontrunner and her campaign is lagging behind the others. This is the second time an asshole has given her a homework assignment. Never accept homework assignments from assholes. The first time was the DNA test that Trump talked her into. She understands the economics of this country as well as anyone anywhere. I would like to be clear on that and that's a very valuable thing in the right hands but this is something that worries me about her--that she might be manipulated in much the same way Obama was during his presidency by some not so benign actors.

I don't believe Bernie said what she says she has or put another way I'm very doubtful. It seems to go entirely against his grain. I know a lot of people don't like him for 2016 but he was on the campaign trail pretty much night and day for the last 5/6 weeks of Hilary's campaign and getting blistered for it by a lot of his own supporters. That couldn't have been easy. If he didn't believe Hilary could win---and in fact she got almost 3 million more votes than Trump and should be the POTUS IMO---why would he have bothered? This doesn't smell right to me.

>15 lriley:

If he didn't believe Hilary could win---and in fact she got almost 3 million more votes than Trump and should be the POTUS IMO---why would he have bothered? This doesn't smell right to me.

Why not? I don't believe a woman can win in 2020--and I thought so in 2018 as well, when Sanders supposedly said this, and in 2019 and in 2017. Why--because in 2016 Clinton, an ordinary centrist Democrat, was drawn and quartered misogynistically to the point of burning her in effigy and calling her a murderer and runner of paedo pizza joints. Did a single Berniebro defend her from this? No--they found the slobbering sleazebag orange conman a better candidate than this sharp, educated, competent woman.

Women are powerfully hated in the US, more than men of any colour. So the last time I thought a woman can become POTUS was in 2016.

Therefore, to me what Sanders said or supposedly said makes good sense. He too thought for a while that a woman could/would win--in 2016. And no one could blame him if he thought differently in 2018, for reasons I noted above. What doesn't make sense is for him to twist what was supposedly said into something even worse. Of course no one believes that he thinks women can't be presidents--but then that is not what the supposed statement says.

And I for my part find it hard to believe that Warren would utter such a thing knowing it's a stone cold lie. That would be diabolically dishonest, but also stupid. She doesn't strike me as a diabolically dishonest or stupid person. Could she be mistaken? Sure, she could have misremembered or misinterpreted something. In any case, I don't see why he gets benefit of the doubt and she does not, unless it's again that women are lying bitches and snakes.

I think it's more likely she is talking about something he really did say, but maybe not something he recognises in how she now represented it. This actually happens a lot in male-female conversations. One or the other side says something that to them appears a minor thing, or self-evident, and it's stated casually, and the other side is going in their head "did he/she really just say that, what does it mean, hmmm, tone is casual, maybe not important" etc.

It's also exactly the sort of thing that would affect one more the closer one got to the elections, the sort of thing that would nag at one more as time went by, not less.

In sum, I don't get why this has caused such a fuss and wish Sanders didn't make it worse with that distortion about how Warren's saying that he thinks women can't be presidents of the US.

Adding: of course, I wish she had said nothing about it even more.

#16--In a way it's another reminder that people aren't perfect and if you're running for high office sooner or later something not so great is going to rear its ugliness. FWIW I was watching a series from Vermont PBS several days ago--it's a series of 15 or so minute clips titled Beyond Bernie. There's 5 or 6 of them but not all of them focus on Sanders. The fourth one is pretty much about the women's movement in Vermont going back into the 60's and this is more about a leftist inspired movement that Sanders among others sprung out--not really about the Democratic party. Sanders name is mentioned only once towards the end of that clip. Anyway I just don't see it from him but really there's no way of really knowing and I like them both--one says yes and the other no and the media feeds off of it. It helps Biden and Buttigieg more than anyone else I think. It's out there though--hopefully neither of them give it more oxygen than it's gotten already.

The other thing is Clinton would have won if it weren't for this undemocratic electoral college. Who gets the most votes is the winner for every other office in the United States.

>7 margd: Gaming the Electoral College, contd.

Interesting assessment on effects of Electoral College today based on voter turnout, not state population.
"Except for Florida, the states with the smallest weights are midsized, with between seven and 20 electoral votes each."
Number votes by state shown in table at: https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/allocation

Whose votes count the least in the Electoral College?
Dale R. Durran | March 13, 2017 8.19pm EDT

...The electoral vote total for each state is determined by its population relative to other states, plus two more votes equal to its representation in the Senate. Yet focusing on state population is not the most useful way to determine the relative weight accorded each state’s ballots. It does not help us understand how the weights assigned to voters by the Electoral College differ from the equal weights given to all voters in a popular vote. That’s because the popular vote weighs each vote according to the total turnout, not the total population.

As a professor who studies how mathematics can be used to model weather using computers, I was curious to make an apples-to-apples comparison between the Electoral College and the popular vote. I did this by using the number of ballots cast, rather than population, to compare the weight given to voters in each state by the Electoral College.

Large states such as California, Texas and New York do comparatively well under this analysis; it is the midsized states that fare the worst. These unexpected results help us understand whose votes carry the least weight in U.S. presidential elections.

...My calculations show voters in Wyoming did indeed receive the most weight, 2.97, for their votes. Voters in Florida came out on the bottom, with a voting weight of just 0.78. The weight given to the votes in Louisiana exactly matched the national average of one.

...Two of the largest states, California and New York, came out only slightly below the national average. Votes from Texas, the second most populous state, actually received an above-average weight of 1.07.

...Except for Florida, the states with the smallest weights are midsized, with between seven and 20 electoral votes each. For these states, there is no systematic relationship between vote weight and each state’s electoral vote total.

...The way the Electoral College rewires American presidential elections in comparison to a simple popular vote is clearly complex. The Electoral College does add extra weight to votes cast in the least populated states. But the way this system treats voters in the remaining states is not well-understood. In states with seven or more electoral votes, it tends to weigh votes based on that state’s voter turnout, rather than its number of electoral votes.

Whatever one’s political affiliation, it is hard to be enthusiastic about a system that penalizes voters in high-turnout states.

https://theconversation.com/whose-votes-count-the-least-in-the-electoral-college...

>18 lriley:

It helps Biden and Buttigieg more than anyone else I think.

Exactly. Which is depressing beyond endurance. The US has never been this close to finally reaching and getting something better; it lost one chance with Sanders in 2016, and now for a second time??? Would be a bloody tragedy.

I'm sorry to say this because I know it's unfair in many ways, but after this latest fiasco Warren should bow out and everyone should throw their energies behind Sanders. He's polling better than she is, isn't he? He's drawing the biggest crowds and the most passionate support. If Warren could bring herself to it, and start NOW, she could bring her supporters to him.

Everything else works in favour of those two bags of nothing, senile Biden and chinless Pete the soldier boy. (Ugh, I'd prohibit ex-military from running for president. No one who voluntarily joined the US military should ever be POTUS.)

>19 margd:

The eternal scandal.

TYT (The Young Turks) seem to be taking bait?
From overheard snippets: issues start with Trump and ALWAYS transition to blaming "establishment Democrats" for something or other.
Will their listeners be able to support eventual Dem candidate, if not Bernie?

>22 margd:

Ugh, no, best ignore that site. Wall to wall dudebro droppings.

Disgusting. On the bright side, it's likely to work in Sanders' favour.

Hillary Clinton says ‘nobody likes’ Bernie Sanders and won't commit to backing him

#20--FWIW I think the ones who are still in should at least stay through the first few primaries. They've come this far--they might as well. Democracy is different voices. The battle really is between the left side of the party and the center of the party. It seems to me that Warren is moving a bit back towards the middle--it's not really a stupid move on her part but I think she's too late doing it. Again I really think her problems really began when Buttigieg (who is by far the least qualified as Klobuchar aptly pointed out) challenged her on Medicare for all and she fucked it all up and directly after her poll numbers and donations started dropping.

Bernie is really the candidate of the Occupy Movement which was huge (and he was one of the very few politicians who supported that movement) but it was suppressed at street level during Obama's first term. So many of the concerns voiced then by young people are what Sanders talks about all the time and FWIW the foundational protest of that movement was student loan debt (that's what started if off and it's also something which by the way Warren's campaign addresses in a positive way) and 8 years later that's only gotten worse--like climate has gotten worse---like more and more people either are bankrupted by our health care system or they refuse treatment and learn to live with their medical issues without or die trying......so it's not a wonder to me that young people support Sanders in such great numbers and IMO I think the young people of this nation are getting a really raw deal---they're going to have to lead and fight the war against climate change while at the same time so many of them are looking at paying off massive college debt with low wage--no benefit work. They are fighting back though--you can see it with living wage movements--you can see it with them trying to unionize low paying industries--you can see their activism in so many things and it's good thing to see. But yeah I also get that they're angry and some of them really let loose at times and not always in nice way. I see Omar, Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez as Occupy congresspeople and Tlaib and AOC both are democratic socialists. They are activist minded people using the political system to get their points across but that's generally what other politicians on all sides do too. This movement is growing and people even in the center of the democratic party would be smart to realize it--they might not be large enough to win this time around but the democratic party cannot win without them so they're going to have to accomodate for them to stay in power and by accomodate I don't think you can get away with bullshiting them.

We're past the point where things like climate or health care can be fixed with half measures. We're way way past the point of continuing to allow billionaires and corporations to be tax scofflaws. We cannot allow young people to continue to have their lives destroyed by either regime change war or student loan debt anymore. These things are going to destroy us and there's no doubt that Trump is a total piece of shit but even so some of these democrats that want to replace him just don't take these things seriously enough or they're getting paid off by those who have an interest in these issues continuing to be ignored.

Anyway Sanders is a vessel and if he fails there will be others--and maybe they'll be more palatable but things will also very likely be so much worse because we wait longer for the changes we need now.

One more thing I think the economy is going to crash in the next year or two and it's not going to matter who is at the helm. It's the cycle of things on the one hand and it's the damage that Trump's administration has been doing on the other.

One of the odd things by the way--Morning Consult did a poll in January 2019 and Bernie Sanders was the most popular US Senator in the United States with 64%--the other Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy came in 2nd with 62%. Bernie got an 80% score in what I think was a statewide poll in 2016. Maybe it's the water in Vermont though I have to say I've been to Vermont a few times and the water is pretty good but they make some of the best beer I've ever had. They'd be my top state in that regard. But anyway if you listened to a lot of people in mainstream media whether it's the Washington Post, NY Times, MSNBC or CNN just to name the main of the mainstream 'liberal' media spectrum you'd almost have to think that everyone hated him and it is really really strange to me. There's a real disconnect here.

The idea that Senator Warren is some sort of "progressive" is as ridiculous as that she's a native-American "indian".

Unappreciated hazards of the US-China phase one deal
Chad P. Bown | January 21, 2020 5

The centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s much anticipated “phase one” trade agreement with China, signed January 15, is a commitment by Beijing to import an additional $200 billion worth of American goods and services over the next two years. Trump is certain to cite that pledge time and again in his re-election campaign. Many experts were, of course, quick to note that China’s promised purchases are bound to fall short. In fact, a close look at the data—presented below—shows that the numbers are even more unrealistic than first believed.

That matters, because with unrealistic export targets, the deal may be doomed from the start. Other beneficial aspects of Chinese commitments in the agreement could be put in peril. Even worse, hostilities might renew, leading to a reescalation of trade tensions currently on hold.

Fortunately for the White House, the deal is structured so that the evidence of shortfalls in those Chinese purchase pledges won’t be clear until after the presidential election in November 2020. But anyone who cares about establishing a stable and productive relationship between the world’s two largest economies should be concerned...

https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/unappreciated-hazar...

>7 margd: "A Senate report said GRU likely compromised election systems in 4 Florida counties in 2018.
Rick Scott's win, which Rasmussen called "one of the great electoral oddities in midterm Senate election history," came down to 0.2% points"

Donald Trump and Lev Parnas discussed Rick Scott in secret recording
Steve Contorno | June 28, 2020

At the same April 2018 dinner where President Donald Trump ordered the removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, he also discussed Florida Sen. Rick Scott with Ukrainian-born South Florida businessman Lev Parnas.

...About halfway through the (83 min) recording, Parnas mentioned he lived in Florida, prompting Trump to ask how Scott, then Florida’s governor, was faring in his U.S. Senate campaign.

“Rick Scott’s good,” said Parnas, who was indicted in October on charges that he and his business partner, Igor Fruman, steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors. Both are now key figures in Trump’s impeachment proceedings.

“Is he going to win?” Trump asks.

Parnas responded: “It’s going to be close, but I think we’re going to pull it out."

He repeatedly referred to Scott’s election effort as “we." Parnas also told Trump: “We’re doing a fundraiser” for Scott in May and mentioned having lunch with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, now one of Trump’s impeachment defense lawyers.

Fruman, Parnas’ business partner, donated $5,400 to Scott’s Senate campaign on May 25, 2018. Scott’s office announced that Fruman’s money was donated to Shriner’s Hospital after the two were taken into custody at Dulles International Airport in October.

Fruman also donated $15,000 to the Rick Scott Victory Fund. That was also donated to the hospital...

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/01/28/donald-trump-and-lev-p...

#29--Rick Scott is very much a opportunist. Much like Trump he always has an eye on what's in it for him.

Trump allies are handing out cash to black voters

The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.
…
The organizers say the events are run by the book and intended to promote economic development in inner cities. But the group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.

"Charities are required to spend their money on charitable and educational activities,” said Marcus Owens, a former director of the Exempt Organizations Division at the Internal Revenue Service who is now in private practice at the law firm Loeb & Loeb. “It's not immediately clear to me how simply giving money away to people at an event is a charitable act.”
The organizers say the events are run by the book and intended to promote economic development in inner cities. But the group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.

"Charities are required to spend their money on charitable and educational activities,” said Marcus Owens, a former director of the Exempt Organizations Division at the Internal Revenue Service who is now in private practice at the law firm Loeb & Loeb. “It's not immediately clear to me how simply giving money away to people at an event is a charitable act.”

Asked about the legality of the giveaways in a brief phone interview, the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s CEO, Darrell Scott, said that most gifts were between $300 and $500, and that the group mandates that anyone who receives over $600 fills out a W-9 form in order to ensure compliance with tax law. He did not respond to follow-up questions about how the giveaways were structured and whether they met the legal standard for a charitable act.

Scott declined to name the donors funding the effort. "I'd rather not,” he said. “They prefer to remain anonymous."
…
As Trump’s reelection campaign ramps up its outreach to black voters, Scott has come on as a co-chair of its new “Black Voices for Trump” initiative, along with former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain and the YouTube video performers Diamond & Silk. The initiative, whose homepage asks voters to text “WOKE” to a campaign phone number, has been holding its own swing state events in recent months.

But a Trump campaign spokesman said the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s events were unrelated to its own efforts, and that the campaign “has no knowledge of or affiliation with these activities.”
…
Charitable organizations can hold events praising and honoring public officials so long as they avoid supporting or opposing candidates in elections.

"If they do it independently and it really is agenda focused, not electoral, yes that's permissible under campaign finance law," said Adav Noti, a senior director at the Campaign Legal Center, an election law watchdog.

But if a rally veers into electioneering, issues with campaign finance law can arise, experts warned. Determining when rhetoric crosses that line can be difficult. “It's always a fine line," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission.

One recipient of the cash giveaway in Cleveland, dressed as a Christmas elf, declared, "Four more years of President Trump. Yay!" after receiving her gift.

The more pressing legal issue raised by the event, and by plans for more like it, is the question of whether the cash giveaways constitute legitimate charitable activity.

Advocacy group launches tour to encourage religious voters to vote against Trump

The nonprofit Vote Common Good has launched a national bus tour, including stops in Iowa in the days ahead of the caucuses, in an effort to influence faith-based voters to vote against President Trump.

Evangelicals have largely stood with Trump because of his commitment to socially conservative causes and his appointment of two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, though there are pockets of opposition among religious voters who cite his actions on issues such as immigration as well as his rhetoric.

Vote Common Good say they specifically oppose the Trump administration's policies on family separations for undocumented immigrants and health care, which the group says do not align with Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other religious traditions.
…
“We’re essentially traveling the country, trying to engage and energize religiously motivated voters to oppose the Trump administration by using the common good as their voting criteria for a vote,” Robb Ryerse, the political director of the organization and a pastor, said.

Ryerse added that for Christians, it is “concerning because there’s so many things” in the administration that are “so out of step” with the life and teachings of Jesus.

After tonight, I never want to hear another Democratic voter complain about not feeling "energized" or "heard" or "enthused" or "excited."
Vote for your primary choice, and then be ice-cold in your determination to show up at the polls and vote for the nominee, whoever it is.
- Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom | 11:57 PM · Jan 30, 2020

I’m off to Iowa tomorrow to help @PeteButtigieg because I think he has the best vision for America and the best chance to beat Trump.
No matter your candidate, go all in for them. And then go all in for whenever wins the nomination. Today hurts. Channel it. Let’s win.
- Jules Bailey @juleskbailey | 2:23 AM · Jan 31, 2020

_______________________________________________________________

How impeachment could flip the Senate
Rahm Emanuel | Jan. 29, 2020

...there’s one arena in which impeachment is likely to have an outsize impact: in the battle for control of Congress. The House looks to stay in Democratic hands: Already, fear of a Trumplash partly explains why 26 House Republicans have announced they are retiring or seeking another office. Meanwhile, Democrats are said even by some Republicans to be “crushing” House GOP fundraising efforts. If Republicans are too busy defending their seats to run competitively in districts already controlled by Democrats, Pelosi’s double-digit margin in the House is likely to survive.

...the scandal...could upend things in the Senate, where Republicans hold a three-seat margin. Impeachment will likely decide the fate of a handful of Senate Republicans currently in cycle. For Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Cory Gardner (Colo.) and Martha McSally (Ariz.), a vote to convict is unthinkable: It risks the president’s wrath and a likely primary challenge. That combination would force each senator to embrace an agenda alien to most swing voters.

A vote to acquit, however, will force every senator to own Trump’s emboldened rhetoric of being exonerated. Which means they’ll have to defend Trump when the next embarrassing audio recording hits the airwaves, or when another witness surfaces to speak, or when John Bolton’s book comes out, or when internal memos about the “drug deal” come out via the Freedom of Information Act. Republican senators will become full-time exonerators.

That dilemma is now playing out in real time. Some 63 percent of voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina look unfavorably on the Senate’s decision to date to disallow witnesses and hide documents — yet all five senators mentioned earlier have, so far, voted against transparency. That may partly explain why the five Republican senators are “underwater,” meaning that more constituents view them negatively than positively. And if that snapshot bodes poorly, the trend lines are worse: In the last quarter of 2019, McSally and Collins saw 5- and 4-point drops, respectively, in their “net” approval rating — an indication that a rising share of their constituents view them in a negative light.

...If Democrats nominate a candidate who projects calmness, coolness and character in contrast with Trump’s chaos, corruption and constant conflict, we are likely to emerge from the November election in much better shape than many might now anticipate. And our success will be tied explicitly to the vote these senators take giving the president a pass for behavior most Americans now view as illegal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/29/rahm-emanuel-oped-impeachment...

#33--Not a fan of Rahm Emanuel. Even so there are a lot more Republican Senate seats (23) in this cycle than for Democrats (12) up for grabs. Republicans have a very good chance of taking back Alabama--Doug Jones. They have somewhat of a shot--not a very good one IMO at taking Gary Peters in Michigan.

IMO the Democrats though have a larger list than Emanuel's of vulnerable Republicans. First off I think they could make things very uncomfortable for Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. He's not well loved. Democrats have two serious contenders vying for who takes him on--Amy McGrath and Matt Jones. It will probably be McGrath. Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper is running against Cory Gardner and I expect Hickenlooper wins. Gardner's protection of Trump is more about getting a plum lobbying post after he's defeated. Martha McSally is very vulnerable as well---Mark Kelly is running against her. He is the husband of the congresswoman Giffords who was shot in the head but survived several years ago. I think Kelly flips that. I think the two Georgia Senate seats are up for grabs too---Georgia is kind of a purplish state now and Brian Kemp had to pull off all kinds of voter suppression tactics to win the governorship in 2018. David Perdue's seat was already in the cycle but the other seat was held by Johnny Cochrane who was forced into retirement and replaced by an absolute political novice in Kelly Loeffler. She's very vulnerable. She has money but she's never run for anything in her life. Then there's Joni Ernst in Iowa--that's a purplish state too. If Democrats get their vote out there she's in trouble. Susan Collins in Maine--I think she's done. Tillis is going to have it difficult but my guess is he survives. I would like to see someone give Lindsay Graham a hard time but I expect he'll be back too and John Cornyn in Texas will probably also survive but again that's a state going purple and Texas (like California and New Mexico) is not a majority white population anymore--the logistical dynamics are changing here and there.

But anyway it's very conceivable that the Democrats take the Senate back in November. That said there are certain Democratic Senators who aren't very reliable in that they often side with Republicans--Joe Manchin (WV) and Kristen Sinema (AZ) would be examples---Jones also but he's really between a rock and a hard place in Alabama.

Trump entertains his cult followers at rallies the same way Hitler
entertained his cult followers at massive outdoor gatherings.
Trump has taken his cues from the actions of the master
manipulator of the 20th Century. Trump's followers love the show
and the hate-filled messages/lies just as Hitler's did back when.

Haupt-Führer der politischen Korrektheit




St. Lousi, MO. October 2008 Est. crowd 100 000+

_______________________



Berlin, July 2008 Est. crowd 200 000

#36--frankly I don't know what kind of point you're trying to make but my guess is it's pretty dumb.

Senator Alexander appears to imply that Trump shooting someone
on Fifth Avenue would be A-OK with him because of the results of
the 2016 election!!!!!!!

#35 I think that, stylistically at least, Trump is more like Mussolini than Hitler

The Next Trump Crisis Is Already Here
David Frum | Feb 3, 2020

Ukraine is by no means the only dirty secret being covered up.

...Even as White House Counsel Pat Cipollone argued on the president’s behalf that witnesses were unnecessary, he was plausibly alleged to be a crucial fact witness by another fact witness.

...Then will come the crisis of the administration’s battle to suppress Bolton’s book—and all the other narratives that current insiders may want to tell in order to clear their own besmirched reputations.

...Sometime before the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in consolidated cases about whether Trump can continue to keep secret his tax returns and other business documents.

...Trump can of course hope that he wins on every point in the Supreme Court. Yet such a victory will not protect him unless it is overwhelming. If Trump wins 5–4, with the newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh, casting a vote for secrecy, this outcome will not command much legitimacy among Trump’s political opponents.

...Trump is driving a poorly packed egg cart over stony roads. He holds too many secrets, too ill-concealed, shared with too many people and companies with too little loyalty to him...

...Yet the impeachment process has achieved something. It has removed deniability from the Republicans. They were enablers; now they are accomplices.

...If the impeachment remedy has failed, the ballot remains, as corrupted as Trump is determined to make it. If Trump loses in 2020 and pulls the Republican Senate majority tumbling after him, then the rickety old constitutional system will be vindicated after all. Crime will not have paid off. But if he does win, this first Trump term will be only the choppy prelude to the storms to come after 2020.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/next-trump-crisis/605938/

Good to see Mike Bloomberg pushing back on name-calling, errors, projections, crimes, and hate. Maybe it takes another New Yawker to respond?

Mike Bloomberg @MikeBloomberg | 10:26 PM · Feb 2, 2020:
Donald Trump said he was going to bring change to this country.

He did.

#SuperBowl (ad)
0:34 ( https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1224172285839511552 )
America Deserves Better

___________________________________________________________

Trump tweeted congrats to the state of Kansas, whereas Kansas City is in Missouri.
Not such a big deal if this was his only slip--and if the midwest wasn't Trump-country, with Iowa Rs voting today...

Mike Bloomberg @MikeBloomberg | 12:17 AM · Feb 3, 2020:
Congratulations to the @Chiefs on an incredible season and a hard-fought Super Bowl win.
It’s a great day for the great state of Missouri.

I worry about the people running the polling locations in the various states. Obviously, the Repubs know to stack the courts. Are they doing the same thing inside the state organizations that run and monitor elections?

Recent stories about other GOP candidates being ignored by state Republican Party Committees (Iowa, for one); SOSs voting rolls cleansing, people like Brian Kemp, etc. etc. etc.

Some issues reported on Georgia voting machines in election

The Republican told news outlets that the state’s new ballot markers and counters performed well, saying voters experienced “just two minor issues.”

But state Democrats and poll watchers said they observed more problems, including failures of ballot markers, ballot printers, scanners and a lack of voter privacy.
--------------

As Maureen Dowd put it in her opinion piece yesterday:

“This trial in so many ways crystallized the completely diametrically opposed threats that Democrats and Republicans see to the country,” (Senator Chris) Murphy told The Times’s Nicholas Fandos. “We perceive Donald Trump and his corruption to be an existential threat to the country. They perceive the deep state and the liberal media to be an existential threat to the country.

“That dichotomy, that contrast, has been growing over the last three years, but this trial really crystallized that difference. We were just speaking different languages, fundamentally different languages when it came to what this trial was about. They thought it was about the deep state and the media conspiracy. We thought it was about the president’s crimes.”

I feel like I have spent my career watching the same depressing dynamic that unspooled Friday night: Democrats trying, sometimes ineptly, to play fair and Republicans ruthlessly trying to win.

Jill Biden stated that Graham is no longer a family friend. News
flash ~ he never was a true family friend. Graham craves the
spotlight. He cozies up to whomever has an enormous, bright
spotlight shining on him (McCain & Biden before). At the present
time, it is a life-long con man and cult personality living in the
WH.

Well, apparently we can't let Sanders get the media coverage for winning the Iowa caucuses. (Don't worry. They'll sort it out eventually. Some other news cycle, when it can be buried.)
The Big Screw 2.0 is in process.

>41 margd: Bloomberg, apparently aiming to live rent-free in Trump's head:

CBS News asked @MikeBloomberg — who is campaigning in California during the Iowa Caucuses — about his feud with President Trump, and
whether people want to see two billionaires fighting on Twitter.

Bloomberg: "Two billionaires? Who's the second one?"
0:42 ( https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1224546051941683202 )

- CBS News @CBSNews | 11:11 PM · Feb 3, 2020:

>44 davidgn: When I heard about the Iowa screw-up, I thought "Uh oh. Our house Bernie Bro will be stomping around tomorrow am." (And he is.)

If just technical error, incredibly horrible timing--first foot out in the 2020 election + incredible suspicion in Sanders camp.

If conspiracy, inter-Dem rivalry OR someone already guilty of rigging elections--and in need of a diversion? revenge? Someone who wants us to distrust the system?

So glad there are paper ballots for backup--everyone should have them.

Dave Weigel @daveweigel
Some context for all this: The DNC spent roughly two years hammering out new caucus/primary rules, and even new debate rules, with heavy Bernie-world input. Mission one: Create a process that Sanders voters would consider fair.

It appears they got what they asked for.

-

"Democrats voted overwhelmingly on Saturday for the biggest reforms to its presidential nomination process in decades, including a major reduction in the power of super delegates, and a measure to make state caucuses more accessible. The reforms were approved after a four-hour debate at the Democratic National Committee’s meeting in Chicago, and were backed by both DNC chairman Tom Perez and Senator Bernie Sanders, who had sharply criticized the role of super delegates as he ran for president in 2016....

“Today’s decision by the DNC is an important step forward in making the Democratic Party more open, democratic and responsive to the input of ordinary Americans,” Sanders said in a statement after the vote. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/08/democrats-strip-power-from-superdelegate...

Paper trails are always nice. Too much reliance on technology--take it FWIW I'm a bit of an old fart and technically challenged by lots of things----things can go awry though--be hacked or communities can be underserved by shoddy equipment just opens things up to foul play. I'm kind of thinking that this is just something that kind of happened--there's nothing really sinister going on here.

The guess I have is Sanders won the most vote--but really didn't break through the ceiling. That Buttigieg is second and might be kind of close--that he and Warren to lesser extent picked up a lot of would be Biden voters. That Klobuchar and Biden are close for 4 and 5. That Biden is in a lot of trouble--too low energy and did not have enough of a ground game and not a lot of money in the bank. That Bloomberg is waiting in the weeds. I think the question for both Buttigieg and Bloomberg if Biden bombs and they end up being the centrists is how well either connects with the black vote as Buttigieg has an issue there and I'm not sure that Bloomberg does either.

>49 lriley: Yes.

Don’t get roped into Iowa conspiracy theories. It was human error.
When Trump spouts this stuff, remember, he’s doing it to get you to lose confidence, give up & not vote.
Don’t let him keep you from voting. The one way to be sure your vote won’t count is if you don’t cast it.
- Joyce Alene (U Alabama law prof) @JoyceWhiteVance | 8:50 AM · Feb 4, 2020

Recall that one of the pieces of Russian propaganda that Trump embraced most openly in 2016 was
that the election was rigged and that he suggested he might not concede if he lost.
- Susan Hennessey (Lawfare, Brookings) @Susan_Hennessey | 7:49 AM · Feb 4, 2020

Beyond the delay, the most alarming story are coordinated (& false) claims by Trump surrogates the vote is rigged.
Beware of more in 2020 w/damaging consequences.
Don Jr: “The fix is in..AGAIN”
Eric Trump: “..they are rigging this thing."
Parscale: "Quality control=rigged?"
- Jim Sciutto (CNN) @jimsciutto | 7:34 AM · Feb 4, 202

Maddening.

Is the Iowa Caucus a Relic of the Past? | Full Frontal on TBS

YES

Not to get me wrong--I think if Bernie is not the nominee he will support the democratic nominee whoever it is and that most of those who support him will also but he doesn't have a unifying message.

That said--personally I don't think and I'm pretty sure Bernie doesn't think we should unify with those in the center right and anything right of that. As we're seeing in the impeachment trial and not for the first time that Republicans really aren't about that either---are completely unwilling to compromise at all on anything and that trying to compromise with them is only going to drag us towards their positions. And that if you want to do nothing about climate until it's too late, nothing about people not being able to afford health care and either dying or suffering doing without or being bankrupted or nothing about wealth disparity--just continuing to let a fraction of the 1% to become even richer at the expense of the rest of our society then you go on with the message of trying to unify the country but doing that IMO you're playing into the hands of people like Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham. There's no compromise really even with the Susan Collins's if you really are serious about tackling the real economic and social problems our country faces right now. The Republican right support racist walls and are intent on stacking the courts and Roe vs. Wade IMO would likely come up again in the Supreme Court if Donald gets another term and they're not at all interested in playing fair--they'll win however they can. Really I don't see playing with these guys at all. I think they need to be marginalized as much as possible.

LOL!

The Democratic Party's incompetence runs the gamut from "A" to "Z"

(The Guardian (London)) Joe Biden flopped in Iowa. And so did the Democratic party's reputation | Nathan Robinson |
The apparent malfunctioning of a new app, meant to transmit vote totals, threw the Iowa caucus in disarray. And this benefited some more than others | Tue 4 Feb 2020 08.00 GMT
Last modified on Tue 4 Feb 2020 08.24 GMT
___________________________

“If you’re the type of person who thinks the Democratic party is a creaking, incompetent entity whose leadership needs overthrowing, the Iowa caucuses certainly validated your point of view. None of us knew who would win, but we had at least expected a result. We didn’t get one, at least not on caucus night. State Democratic party officials announced that due to 'quality control' issues, release of the result would be indefinitely delayed. On a conference call with representatives of the candidates, party officials hung up the phone when asked when the totals would be released.

“So what do we know? Well, one thing we can say confidently is that 'frontrunner' Joe Biden flopped. There were places where Biden didn’t even meet the 15% threshold needed to maintain viability from the first round to the second round – at one caucus site, the attorney general of Iowa had to switch from Biden to Buttigieg when Biden was disqualified. It explains why Biden’s surrogate John Kerry was heard on the phone the other day asking whether it would be possible for him to enter the race at the last minute to save the Democratic party from being conquered by Sanders.

“Internal numbers released by the Sanders campaign, showing results from 40% of caucus sites, showed Sanders winning with approximately 30% of the vote, Pete Buttigieg coming in second with 25%, Elizabeth Warren third with 21%, and Joe Biden a very distant fourth with 12%. If those numbers match the ultimate totals, they are great for Sanders and absolutely horrific for Biden. Sanders will have kicked the crap out of the frontrunner, Barack Obama’s former vice-president and the man most favored to win the nomination. It would be a stunning upset.

“But Biden caught a lucky break. With the party not releasing the actual result, his campaign sent a letter demanding that the result be suppressed until such time as the 'quality control issues' were resolved. If it takes long enough to get the official count, Biden may hope that Iowa is old news, or that the issues surrounding the caucus are discussed far more than the actual result. (That’s one reason we need to make sure we don’t get bogged down too much in talking about the procedural issues rather than the actual outcome.)

“So what went wrong? It’s still not quite clear, though there were reports that a special app used to transmit vote totals had malfunctioned. Questions were immediately raised about who built the app and how it had been deployed. Ironically, it was introduced in order to 'get results out to the public quicker' and had been 'hastily put together' over the last two months. There had been security concerns from the start, and when NPR questioned the state party chairman, he 'declined to provide more details about which company or companies designed the app, or about what specific measures have been put in place to guarantee the system’s security'. Ironically, it was apparently developed by a firm literally called 'Shadow', partly funded by the Pete Buttigieg campaign.

“If you’re a Sanders supporter, you have reason to be suspicious. We had already seen the Des Moines Register suppress the results of its 'gold standard' poll on the eve of the election, after a complaint from Buttigieg. And with 0% of caucus results in, Buttigieg declared himself 'victorious', praising the 'incredible result' and saying Iowa had 'shocked the nation'. The only thing that had shocked the nation at this point was Iowa’s total inability to perform the relatively simple task of counting people’s votes. But Buttigieg, good McKinseyite that he is, was getting a head start on deploying the PR spin.”
... ...

>53 proximity1: Thanks. Exactly the person I wanted to hear from.

50 contd.

Laura Rosenberger @rosenbergerlm | 8:38 AM · Feb 4, 2020:
Reminder of this from SSCI's election security report on 2016 - the Russians had a disinfo campaign ready to go alleging a rigged election.
This is why perceived lack of integrity is a huge vulnerability - and anyone feeding into that narrative is undermining democracy.

Laura Rosenberger @rosenbergerlm | Jul 25, 2019:
This from SSCI report is nightmare scenario. Combo of probes of election systems with info ops alleging election outcome is invalid.
Evidence here that the Russians have prepared for this before. It’s the most impt reason to do everything possible to ensure integrity of systems.
Image ( https://twitter.com/rosenbergerlm/status/1154535957644939265/photo/1 )

:)

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords doesn't look so bad now
( https://twitter.com/dgkdc/status/1224637847497510912/photo/1 )

- William D. Adler (NE IL U) @williamadler78 | 10:28 PM · Feb 3, 2020

Trump’s Jokes About Defying Election Results Could Create Chaos

>54 davidgn:


The Democrats' ancestors ran Ilium. Found in the rubble of the ruins was a fragment of a clay tablet on which were the words in ancient Greek, roughly translated in our idiom,

"Relax. We got this."

___________________________



Aeneas fleeing from Troy (painting,circa 1750) (Pompeo Batoni, (Italian) 1708–1787 ) |oil on canvas | 76.7 × 97 cm (30.1 × 38.1 in) | Sabauda Gallery, Torino, IT.

(from The Sack of Ilium ( Iλίου πέρσις ("Iliou persis") ("The Sack of Troy") of uncertain authorship and date (possibly Circa 7th C. B.C.)

Only a ten-line fragment survives of an epic poem in the Trojan cycle. For the rest, an ancient Greek chrestomathy (χρηστομάθεια (a collection of selected literary passages)) supplies the tale's outline.
________________________

The Trojans were suspicious of the wooden horse and standing round it debated what they ought to do. Some thought they ought to hurl it down from the rocks, others to burn it up, while others said they ought to dedicate it to Athena. At last this third opinion prevailed. Then they turned to mirth and feasting believing the war was at an end. But at this very time two serpents appeared and destroyed Laocoon and one of his two sons, a portent which so alarmed the followers of Aeneas that they withdrew to Ida. Sinon then raised the fire-signal to the Achaeans, having previously got into the city by pretence. The Greeks then sailed in from Tenedos, and those in the wooden horse came out and fell upon their enemies, killing many and storming the city. Neoptolemus kills Priam who had fled to the altar of Zeus Herceius; Menelaus finds Helen and takes her to the ships, after killing Deiphobus; and Aias the son of Ileus, while trying to drag Cassandra away by force, tears away with her the image of Athena. At this the Greeks are so enraged that they determine to stone Aias, who only escapes from the danger threatening him by taking refuge at the altar of Athena. The Greeks, after burning the city, sacrifice Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles: Odysseus murders Astyanax; Neoptolemus takes Andromache as his prize, and the remaining spoils are divided. Demophon and Acamas find Aethra and take her with them. Lastly the Greeks sail away and Athena plans to destroy them on the high seas."
_________________

(Sources: Wikipedia; Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/348/348-h/348-h.htm#chap78))

One chaos at a time, please. The Iowa fuckup is a disgrace and should be the kiss of death to that stupid ritual. A handful of white people giving heart attacks to the whole country.

Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign has released its own Iowa caucus results, which show the Vermont senator with “a comfortable lead” with 60% of the vote in.

The campaign said their results reflect data sent to it by “precinct captains around the state.”

The Sanders campaign results, which, again, they say reflect 60% of the votes, show:

First round
Sanders 29.08%
Buttigieg 21.63%
Warren 19.51%
Klobuchar 12.27%
Biden 12.04%

After realignment
Sanders 29.4%
Buttigieg 24.87%
Warren 20.65%
Biden 12.92%
Klobuchar 11.18%

Election officials should take their time to get it right. If it messes up the candidates planned narratives (or the networks planned specials) then that's just too bad. Everyone should just calm down.

(Although I do agree that it's time for caucuses to go).

#60--If those numbers work out that way they are staggeringly bad for Biden. Biden may have been much more viable 4 years ago than he is now. He just seems lost and it lends credibility to the John Kerry thinking about replacing him story. Whoever ends up the nominee has got to be committed to work and I just don't get that vibe from Biden at all--sometimes I don't think he's all there. He had the weakest ground game in Iowa and his corporate donors at least for the time being seem to have deserted him. Also if you're running on an electability argument (and his campaign is not much as far as substance IMO) you got to win and win and win. Maybe things would turn around if Barack endorsed him but that's another thing--why hasn't that happened?

and it lends credibility to the John Kerry thinking about replacing him story

Bah, better they relaunch Gore then. The man's always been an environmentalist and got nothing but derision for that. Bet it doesn't look so kooky now.

Mr. Mobile Crap is interesting.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/04/pro-israel-buttigieg-seth-klarman-iowas-votin...

Do I know what really happened? No. But in context, it would be the height of irony if this fiasco WASN'T intentional.

#64--it is interesting. The Iowa Caucus was just so stupid--I watched the MSNBC feed and their ace vote stat guy got himself all in a lather running up and down for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what the fuck was going on so much so that the other goofballs were laughing their asses off and they still ended up unable to explain. Shadowy oligarchs are always hovering in the background + Peter's Wine Cave shit. Pete has 'friends' and he can raise money but he's not going to win if he cannot get the black vote or at least a significant amount. Last point Sanders is still leading in overall votes.

At best Pete comes out with a narrow win in Iowa and gets one more delegate than Bernie does. Bernie should easily win New Hampshire and then we're back to another caucus state in Nevada. The Sanders campaign has been working overtime with Hispanic voters there and have the endorsement of the Clark County (Las Vegas) black caucus. Mayor Pete has issues with black voters and I don't see him doing well in Nevada and I don't see him doing well in South Carolina either. Biden tends to get older black voters but Sanders is really strong with younger black voters--Mayor Pete's history with black people in South Bend is pretty awful.

A lot depends on March 3--14 states that day and early polls has Sanders up in California which has a massive amount of delegates--416. Texas has 228--Biden's been up there that's been dropping. Those two states again are two of the four majority minority states. They're not rural white states like Iowa. The democratic nominee IMO is going to have to do well in both of them and win at least one of them.

I think the big story is Biden coming in fourth with a measly 15% of the votes (although with only 63% of precincts reporting)

We are living in a very long and disgusting Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode.

>67 Molly3028:

>86 proximity1: Yeah, but nobody's talking about THAT story.

#64--(again) Watching Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez at Democracy Now interviewing John Nichols:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqPY4RBvN9g

Nichols remarks on how the same App responsible for Iowa's caucus to be used for Nevada's caucus on Feb. 22nd.

>67 Molly3028: & >68 Taphophile13:

The brain-dead, completely-out-of-touch, Democrats went "All in" for Joe Biden-- a washed-up corruption-ridden hack from the 70s--whose candidacy left Iowans completely unimpressed--left Iowans sick of being told, ad nauseam, by the Democrats' puppet mas-media that Biden is the "favorite" and next-to-sure-thing. Right. Biden's so "sure" a thing that Hillary Clinton still encourages nonsense-talk about her possible candidacy and the Democrats need two days to find, assemble, count and report the one-hundred-thousand-and-something caucus-members' ballots.

The Democrats, a party under which, since George McGovern's defeat in the election of 1972, the main "message" has been: "Your votes, your 'democracy', mean nothing now. We're all essentially Republicans in one way or another now. Here, have a hanky," ---nominate warmed-over mush and hope the public finds it exciting.

Democrats and their hangers-on and, especially, the wealthy elite who despise Trump remain fairly desperate and convinced that Trump is going to be re-elected. Trump's acquittal from the idiotic and ill-conceived impeachment & trial is now just ahead.

Pelosi's theatrically ripping in two pieces a copy of Trump's speech is the kind of bone-headed stunt which Trump's strategists must have leapt up and cheered as they watched in disbelief. Pelosi cannot imagine how many people watched her do that and felt their skin crawl in revulsion.



There is absolutely zero chance that, by November, these people will have gotten the first clue to their unbelievable political stupidty.

_______________________________

"Here’s a question for Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Have you heard of Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity? The one where he says it’s 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'?

"To judge by your conduct, I’m guessing you haven’t. Either that or you think Einstein was an idiot, too.

"Then again, maybe you’re a secret Republican agent trying to re-elect President Trump. Is that why you keep making the same mistake over and over again?

"You’ve been screwing up for three years, starting with the juvenile resistance where you refused even to negotiate over big national interests such as border control. Then, just when it seemed you couldn’t sink any lower than that cheap, partisan impeachment you engineered, you hit a new low during the State of the Union.

"Your mumbling and sneering smiles throughout President’s Trump’s powerful address were bad enough, but your decision to tear into shreds your copy of his speech and drop it like a dead fish was shameful beyond measure." ... ...

-- Michael Goodwin, New York Post, 04 February 2020

The Borowitz Report posted a picture of a younger Pete today. Yum!

The US military is responsible for more wars and war crimes, more death and suffering than any other after the WWII so I wouldn't celebrate those who join this organisation voluntarily.

A veteran might be less cavalier about others' lives than President Bone Spurs...
(After WW2, my dad would call a snow day at drop of a hat, lest someone got hurt.)

Anything "might be". This person wasn't an indigent kid who saw no other way to suceed in life. He chose to join the military of a country that routinely goes around smashing other countries in the name of an utterly abhorrent nationalistic, chauvinistic, and yes, I'll say it, fascistic vision in which Americans have the right to everything over everyone.

But that's just the first thing that's repellent about him as a candidate.

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/05/dnc-loses-public-trust-in-primary-process-...

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-app-shadow-acronym/

#74--a main issue with that is we turn everything into a police action but really we have no business going around the world playing policeman. It's a role that our politicians have taken on--defenders of the universe. The United States has over 1000 out of country military bases all over the globe--Base Nation and it's a good reason why we can't have good things like medicare for all--like we have the shittiest infrastructure---what's more the American public has been sold on this do gooder concept and really getting in line and supporting the military no matter what is really about supporting the politicians sending them wherever to do whatever. I did 4 years in the Coast Guard--I didn't like it very much--I liked a lot of the people that I met there....not all. They're basically just ordinary men and women though and the rest of the armed services are the same. I hear this 'thank you for your service' and what heroes they are all the time. It kind of makes me cringe. Our military should be used strictly for defense purposes. We should IMO shut down our overseas presence at least as much as possible. There are hotspots such as North Korea I don't know if that's a good idea--because they are a nuclear threat but really from a 1000+ out of country bases to about 20 should be a goal.

Anyway I joined the Coast Guard in 1981 and got out in 1985. I was 23 when I went in and it wasn't like I had a calling--there was a major recession in our area--I'd lost my job when National Homes closed down--around the same time the firetruck companies Ward Lafrance and American Lafrance went out, the Westinghouse plant went down and the A & P food processing plant as well and there were others. Our area isn't super populated and that was thousands of jobs. There were almost no jobs to be found and I was living off my parents. I liked a lot of people in the Coast Guard but I didn't really like it. 95% or more of its mission though is off our own coasts and waterways. That was important to me because I wasn't planning on getting killed or killing anyone else. I also never rose in rank--I got out of boot camp as a seaman apprentice (E-2) and stubbornly stayed there despite numerous efforts to get me up to even E-3. Once you hit E-4 you're a petty officer or kind of like a corporal. Just because of that there was no way I could have re-enlisted. I was just too contrary for the whole thing. I took positives away though. It took me places for one--got me out of the hometown and I needed that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for Buttigieg I don't like or trust him--he's too sneaky and the McKinsey thing is really really creepy. He's not being altogether truthful there. Watching him stump you can see how carefully prepped he is and he comes off robotic to me. He reminds me of the guy from Mad magazine only in his grown up version. It's like we are being presented with a white and gay Obama and Obama was Obama--let it be and stop trying to replicate things from the past. The mayor was for medicare for all when he started his campaign--so he obviously knows all the arguments and then he changes abruptly and mainly it's because it's to his own personal advantage which is what taking money from billionaires and corporations to fund his campaign is about. But 'medicare for all who want it' is just bullshit parsing--trying to play to all sides at once. It's not really a choice and never will be--he intends to leave the same health care conglomerates running our health care that we have now. He's just playing it cute--people will still continue to not be able to afford the care they need and avoid getting help or be bankrupted when they do. One way or another lives will continue to be destroyed. He's not going to be great for the environment either. When you take large sums of campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies----they're giving you that for a reason. Would I vote for him if he were the nominee? I suppose--nobody could be worse than Trump but 4 or 8 years worth of Buttigieg is not going to be good.

Bern It All Down
Richard North Patterson | February 6, 2020

Bernie Sanders leaves Iowa with the best of all worlds: As both victor and victim.

...Balkanization benefits Bernie.

...the vituperative attacks on Warren by Bernie’s rabid online army of political arsonists augurs ills to come. Among its highlights were snake emojis aimed at Warren; an image depicting her as a mask for Hillary Clinton; another showing her in a dark wig bearing the caption, “with Booker gone, I’m the only black candidate;” still another depicting Warren stabbing Sanders in the back. And, of course, various embellishments on Trump’s Pocahontas theme. Why traffic in ideas when metastasizing slime slakes ones shriveled, starving soul?
...“Some Warren backers have suggested that liberal groups are afraid of raising the ire of Sanders’ fiercest online defenders by endorsing Warren, making Sanders a safer choice.” The Globe quotes the head of a prominent progressive group: “It takes extra boldness to endorse Warren because of the vitriol from Bernie Twitter…”

...the power of his internet army has also alarmed Democrats who are familiar with its underside, experienced in ways large and small...

https://thebulwark.com/bern-it-all-down/

#79---for me a lot of this is ridiculous. There are people on all sides taking potshots at their opponents because of perceived slights all the time and it's part and parcel of an election for a candidate to undermine their opponents--it's almost always why someone wins a nomination or an election. You point out the others' flaws and try to defend your weaknesses. I really don't know how one can control what one of their supporters has to say on twitter or facebook about anything?--those social media sites give carte blanche to their users to say whatever...whenever they feel like---and people write or say shit about Bernard all the time. I mean Chris Matthews on MSNBC with his---'ask yourself...if you're lying out in the middle of the road injured which of the democratic candidates do you think would stop their car and get out to help you?' shit---to which he thinks it would be Joe Biden and that Bernard would just drive on by and leave you to die. He's come out with this crap several times already and he's a MSNBC host watched by millions every day. Matthews admits then that there's nothing to prove his claim---it's just his gut feeling. How nice? and how is that a fair representation? He's said that a few times anyway and like the twitter/facebook crowd no one can stop him either. A more honest way he could have explained his thinking is 'I think Bernard is an evil piece of shit--don't vote for him'. I could respect that a bit more than his little mind game. Meanwhile we have Joy-Ann Reid and her body language expert which was a joke as well. I mean 78 year olds sometimes stoop.

I can see people making arguments over what they think about issues and/or maybe even electability because Trump has to go. The twitter/facebook back and forth to me is just noise that you're better off ignoring.

Back to Iowa (and the NY Times has run an article on this--I'm not a subscriber)--the second alignment voting is for people changing their votes from their initial choice. The problem here is that they have higher vote counts in the second alignment in at least 70 of the 99 counties and they're not supposed to be adding additional new voters. So if you had 100 voters the first go through and 20 of them changed their vote from A to B, C or D it changes what B, C or D get of that total but it's still not more than 100 votes. It's a pretty big mess and I don't think it's going to be figured out for a while and IMO it's premature to declare anyone a winner--though it's pretty certain that Biden did poorly.

Time to stop with all this caucus bullshit and also time to kick Iowa to the back of the line.

Iowa's legislature sets the date of the state's primaries or, in this case, its caucuses. If Iowa is "first", that's because no other states currently choose to schedule their primaries earlier than Iowa's.

>79 margd:

That's a blatant attempt at manipulation. Women are gone from this contest and it's clear that Sanders' designated rival for the nomination, now that Biden is down, is that creepy twerp in camo, not Warren. (Who, last I checked, was also getting Wall Street types peeing in their shorts, so it's not like the liberals prefer her to Sanders.) So this "reminding" us of what shit Berniebros dish out to women, even bringing up Clinton again!--obviously has no other point but to damn Sanders by association.

>81 lriley:

So Sanders got most votes in Iowa but STILL there's some bullshit system in place that would negate this?! What a sick joke the whole thing is.

Chaos Continues in Iowa as Democrats Mistakenly Award Delegates for Bernie Sanders to Deval Patrick

>83 LolaWalser: Trump won my state by fraction of a percent in 2016. I am overhearing online Bernie Bro talk, and I am worried.
It's just the kind of division that was fanned last time by Facebook, Twitter bots....not to mention ilk and minions.

#83--I agree. There have been frame shots of one the one of the largest counties Polk I think where both Sanders (somewhere around 4000) and Warren (2500 or so) lost votes in the second alignment which doesn't make sense. Both wouldn't have lost supporters when they were comfortably over the 15% threshold. As well Deval Patrick picks up almost 500 in the same county and that's really fucked up---I guess technically he's running for president but there's no support for him anywhere. Lot of weird stuff.

If this is the way caucuses are---that's just too fucked up as is how they determine delegates--something almost similar to an electoral college thing and IMO the electoral college is the most anti-democratic device for deciding elections. Trump lost by almost 3 million votes and yet he ends up with about 60% of the electoral college votes. He won the 2016 election by losing the vote count badly and we have the gall to go all around the world yammering to people about fair elections.

(from Politico.com) the new rules
An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter | Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win 2020? | By DAVID FREEDLANDER | 02/06/2020 05:09 AM EST

"What if everything you think you know about politics is wrong? What if there aren’t really American swing voters—or not enough, anyway, to pick the next president? What if it doesn’t matter much who the Democratic nominee is? What if there is no such thing as 'the center,' and the party in power can govern however it wants for two years, because the results of that first midterm are going to be bad regardless? What if the Democrats' big 41-seat midterm victory in 2018 didn’t happen because candidates focused on health care and kitchen-table issues, but simply because they were running against the party in the White House? What if the outcome in 2020 is pretty much foreordained, too?

"To the political scientist Rachel Bitecofer, all of that is almost certainly true, and that has made her one of the most intriguing new figures in political forecasting this year.

"Bitecofer, a 42-year-old professor at Christopher Newport University in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, was little known in the extremely online, extremely male-dominated world of political forecasting until November 2018. That’s when she nailed almost to the number the nature and size of the Democrats’ win in the House, even as other forecasters went wobbly in the race’s final days. Not only that, but she put out her forecast back in July, and then stuck by it while polling shifted throughout the summer and fall.

"And today her model tells her the Democrats are a near lock for the presidency in 2020, and are likely to gain House seats and have a decent shot at retaking the Senate. If she’s right, we are now in a post-economy, post-incumbency, post record-while-in-office era of politics. Her analysis, as Bitecofer puts it with characteristic immodesty, amounts to nothing less than 'flipping giant paradigms of electoral theory upside down.' " ...

... ...

What if journalists were generally better thinkers? What if they could write well? What if they spent more time thinking clearly about stuff and less time writing up idiotic pseudo-journalism that is filled with sentences that begin with “What if”...?

What if this so-called 'New Theory' about there being no such thing as a 'swing-voter' is a load of laughable hooey? What if the supposed 'fact'—even if it were true— that the “world of political forecasting” is “extremely male-dominated” is in itself indicative of nothing at all which is either interesting or revelatory? What if said-world's being male-dominated is no more important a point than is the fact that this theory is the product of a woman, or of a professor, or of a professor who is a woman? What if everything didn't have to be filtered through a fucking Politically-correct “test-filter”? What if so many people weren't so fucking obsessed with whether a theory is a man's or a woman's and were most concerned with the intrinsic merits or lack of them of the theory itself?
What if we could get beyond much of this current inane nonsense?

What if … ?

What if … ?

What if … ?

What if … ?

What if … ?

“What if the outcome in 2020 is pretty much foreordained (that is to say, 'as the property of the Democratic Party'), too?”

Or, much more importantly, “What if it's not?"

Prox

Are you Rudy or are you Lindsey?

Found this from the Intercept:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tD4w0KZZ-Q

GOPers in Congress are giving Trump 24/7 drug fixes. He gets
the pleasure of watching them twist themselves into human
pretzels defending his actions all day every day! How much more
fun can a 5th grader have? It's the equivalent of rally moments
every hour of the day.

No better than the Charlottesville car attack... :(
Nobody hurt, thank goodness.
Hope this kind of behavior doesn't become a thing this election.

Florida man arrested after van driven through GOP voter registration tent
Tim Stelloh | Feb. 9, 2020

A Florida man was arrested Saturday and accused of driving his van through a tent where a local Republican group was registering voters...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/floirda-man-arrested-after-drivin...

When asked if she wondered: "Who is gonna be my Mike Pence? Who is gonna look at me with adoring eyes?" Elizabeth Warren: "I already have a dog."

"I hear a lot of Republicans tomorrow will vote for the weakest candidate possible, of the Democrats. Does that make sense? You people wouldn't do that" --
Trump encourages Republicans to ratf*ck the Democratic primary in New Hampshire
0:20 ( https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1227026092806082560 )

- Aaron Rupar @atrupar | 7:26 PM · Feb 10, 2020

Striking findings in new Quinnipiac poll:

By 55-40, voters say acquittal *did not* clear Trump of wrongdoing.
Among independents, that's 54-40 (!!)
Also, Trump's approval is 43%, and has not budged since mid-Dec. Mass hyping of Gallup poll was absurd.
Image ( https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1227188043125264384/photo/1 , https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1227188043125264384/photo/2 )

- Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS | 6:10 AM · Feb 11, 2020

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Latest Quinnipiac poll has Trump losing to everyone:

Bloomberg beats Trump 51-42
Sanders beats Trump 51-43
Biden beats Trump 50-43
Klobuchar beats Trump 49-43
Warren beats Trump 48-44
Buttigieg beats Trump 47-43

Let's be done this "Dems are weak, who can beat Trump" narrative.

- Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule | 3:34 PM · Feb 10, 2020

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Primary As Biden Falls, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Bloomberg Rises In Primary, Runs Strong Against Trump
February 10, 2020
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail

#93--which is why Trump needs to play as dirty as he can just to have a chance......and he's going to do it against whoever is the nominee. I really didn't think Biden was going to hold up in the end but his precipitous fall has much to do with the thing that got Trump impeached and Biden looks done already. If Trump plays it straight up he'll get killed.

Frankly glad Biden is dropping, though not if it shows Trump's power to take someone down. He lacks substance, running on his Obama connection. He also doesn't present well.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about how Democratic voters are so anxious about beating Trump that they're second-guessing who other people will vote for. If you're preferred candidate is a woman, or gay, or is a democratic socialist, and you don't vote for them because you think someone else might not vote for them in the general election, that's just wrong. You don't know who other people might accept and you might just be surprised.

ETA: To put it another way. If you're saying that you won't vote for a woman because someone else won't vote for a woman, you're just importing their misogyny into your decision. But it's still a misogynistic decision and you're just as responsible for it as if you were the one who is a misogynist.

The more turnout the better. I know the Sanders campaign has been working really hard on the Latino vote. The Iowa caucus was not great as far as turnout but all the satellite stuff that was set up for newer working class voters who were predominately Hispanic or African immigrant voters worked pretty well and it almost all went to Sanders. The democratic nominee needs to work these new voter bases and so far apart from the Sanders campaign none of them are. That's what my video link in #88 was about. The Sanders people were the only ones there when it was time for them to caucus. People then are astounded that he's getting 95% of their vote. Time for the other candidates to get real. The same thing might happen again in Nevada--another caucus state but a much much larger Hispanic population and % of vote. Ground game is important and you either get up to speed with how things work or you lose.

Can old-man Sanders beat old-man Trump?

Can he do it when the Democrat Party's own national leadership is prepared to lie, cheat and steal in order to ensure that Sanders either doesn't get the party's nomination, or, if he does, that he's defeated by Trump?

Iin other words, Can old-man Sanders beat old-man Trump when the national Dem. Party leadership would prefer to see Trump win if he's facing Sanders in the November election?

We may get to find out.

_____________________

... "and Biden has not been new and inspiring for nearly 30 years."®
_________
—Ben Domenech, The New York Post

The official head-quote of

The Joe Biden Pulse-&-Respiration Monitor


_______________________

As of this writing, Joe Biden is still alive.

(dated, 12 February, 2020)

(up-dated, ___ February, 2020)

Sanders squeaks out a narrow victory. A much narrower victory than in 2016. But more candidates ='s more choices. Hillary wasn't popular with a lot of people. Bernie has somewhat the same problem. New Hampshire is the most conservative of New England states as well with maybe Maine coming in second.

Buttigieg and Klobuchar were the beneficiaries of Biden's fall. Joe continues to be in serious trouble---not just the drop in support the lack of campaign cash goes with it. If he doesn't win South Carolina it's all over for him. I find Klobuchar the centrist a lot more tolerable than Buttigieg the hybrid centrist/fake progressive. He reminds me so much of Tony Blair. Just saying.Warren's also got to get it back together. I think she has more time than Biden but she's going to have to win something on super Tuesday even if it's only her own Massachusetts and that goes for Klobuchar--she'll have to at least win her own Minnesota. I think Klobuchar's chances are better. She has almost all of the major Minnesota democrats behind her with the exception of Keith Ellison.

Matthew Yglesias—a moron who writes for the site, Vox, an opinion blog of, by and for morons—thinks that "Amy Klobuchar Is the Thinking Moderate Dem's Candidate"

Rather, Klobuchar is the pseudo-thinking moron's Dem candidate. She's an idiot, cannot reason well and shows herself to have judgment which is not just poor, it's shockingly bad. I have yet to see any good evidence that there is even something at which she can be justifiably described as "competent." To think that a fool like Klobuchar could occupy a U.S. senate seat from the state which sent Paul Wellstone to the senate is enough to beak one's heart.

Andrew Yang showed some political good sense when he decided to drop out. Though I think that a guaranteed basic income for all who fail to obtain it through their own means is feasible and, if done right, ought to be standard operating procedure, Yang's ambition to give all Americans a basic income of $ 1000 (USD) would have left many (perhaps most or nearly all) currently poor, unemployed and homeless people with no savings still living on the street in virtually all of the nation's major metropolitan areas because, in these places, $250 (USD) is not by itself enough to secure weekiy food, clothing, shelter and other basic needs. The majority of this income would quickly be absorbed by the rental-landlords and their rents would rise as a consequence of many more people coming almost within shouting distance of the minimum deposit & first one or two month's rent. Much of the rest—where the most needy are concerned—would go to the benefit (incomes) of tobacco companies, distilleries, wine-makers, beer-brewers and manufacturers and distributors of illegal drugs of all kinds.

Then there's the matter of those who very clearly do not need an extra $1k per month. Do they, too, get this money? Well, then, it's going to be gambled in the equities markets or simply lumped in with their other investments—hedge-funds (or added to their travel, dining and entertainment budgets) for the wealthiest of them--or 401(k) plans for others on the low end.

Like Yang, Michael Bennet produced his first sound and laudable gesture by dropping out of the race. Bennet was born into privilege and has lived in it all his life. He's been part of the national Democrat party's scandalous and disastrous idiocy. He had nothing to offer that wasn't quite readily available from any number of moderate Republicans.

If only Klobuchar and Warren had as much sense as these two men, they'd also drop out of the race.

I think they need to start meeting in the back rooms planning team assignments - president/vice president/cabinet positions to really be able to show the power of a Democratic bench.

LOL!

the Democrats' "bench" truly sucks.

#100--'not (being) able to reason well' is still a huge leap from and better than not being able to reason at all which is what he have in the white house right now.

Apart from being many other things as well, what is an election-campaign if it's not a very challenging reasoning-problem?

In every presidential election campaign, a candidate is faced with understanding his or her own strengths and weaknesses correctly, understanding how these help or harm the prospects of success (here, we mean getting elected) and understanding what best to do about them--and understanding all of this, and much more of course, with relation to a very wide and dynamic (shifting) set of circumstances; the candidate has to either grapple with these matters directly or else be adept at recognizing and recruiting others who can do this well in his or her place. But, one way or the other, the candidate has to have the sense to do at least one or the other and, as is often the actual cae, some of both at different times.

Before this case-example, we can consider Trump and his 2016 presidential election campaign (understood in the context as described in the foregoing) and, if one is just honest enough (and, really, extremely few critics of Trump can pass that test) one has to notice that Trump (or his appointed management) didn't merely beat up on his opposition, he (they) made them look hopelessly stupid and incompetent. It's too easy to dismiss this as being the result of these opponents simply being easy-prey to anyone.

Trump's critics here have really no place to argue this:

"'not (being) able to reason well' is still a huge leap from and better than not being able to reason at all which is what he have in the white house right now."

It's also quite interesting that someone who asserts this exhibits at the same time his own striking reasoning deficit.

When one has been so spectacularly steam-rolled as have been Trump's opposition by him, they really ought to notice that. When they fail to, when they don't and, apparently, they can't notice how Trump & Co. have repeatedly made them look hopelessly incompentent and stupid, then observations like the ones cited above are really very unimpressive to me.

I'm reminded to cite the Bible's text of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

If Trump is so damn stupid (such a failure at reasoning well), then of course he's got no chance of being re-elected in 2020; that's because, obviously, this claimed exquisite stupidity of his should logically leave his shrewder opponents an open path to defeating him at this reasoning-problem known as a presidential election. In which case, these opponents also obviously have nothing to worry about.


Why, then, are so many of them so obviously so very worried?

I suspect it's because, whatever they may like to chant aloud, they're anything but convinced that their wits and political shrewdness puts Trump's in the shade.

I know the bien-pensants here will damn as no better than Twittler but Pete is such a ratfaced little capitalist shill... and GI Joeing his bland "I can be whatever you pay me to be" image doesn't help in the least, au contraire.

I met a bunch of Log Cabin Republicans when I was dating a, urgh, libertarian once... Creepiest people ever. Being gay is no prophylaxis against utter douchebaggery.

What's with the supposed Klobuchar "surge"? Is it that people find her surname less difficult than Pete's? :)

#105--the NYTimes, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN do not want Sanders is more or less what it is. They're putting their thumb down hard on the scale. Chris Matthews (MSNBC host) one day tells his audience that if they happened to be lying in the street injured Joe Biden would stop his car and get out and help them and Bernie Sanders wouldn't. He's repeated that on several other occasions. About a week ago he's wondering aloud to his audience what kind of socialist Sanders is--he's not sure it's the Denmark kind--he's thinking it might be the Stalinist/Castro-ist kind (and this is his misrepresentation not mine--Stalin, Castro and maybe Bernie are all of the same ilk) who would be executing the likes of people like himself in Central Park---meanwhile Chuck Todd who just got done with a more than less cordial interview of Bernie turns around a couple days later and is talking about Bernie and his brownshirt army and it's kind of like forgetting that Bernie lost relatives in the holocaust and grew up in a neighborhood where it wasn't unusual to find people with Auschwitz numbered tattoos on their wrists. Then we have Jason Jackson who's been nicer lately but does not like Bernie talking about oligarchs. There's some logic here that equates someone who's net worth is approx. $2 million (mainly from recently published books) with the likes of Jeff Bezos. If you're a millionaire or billionaire you are an oligarch. All this kind of nonsense has been going on for a while. It would be nice if they just critiqued his issues instead. Even when they do they tend to misrepresent them though--for instance they turn medicare for all into taking away people's hard fought for health insurance. They talk about the trillions it will cost--they don't talk at all about the fact that it will save more than it will cost....and the idea that it will cover everyone doesn't seem to matter at all.

There's dirty money all over Washington D.C.--the major media has a part in the game and Sanders is a real threat to all that. He's a threat to energy companies and a threat to insurance and pharmaceutical interests. He's a threat to Wall St. and the war machine. I think that's more than less what this is all about.

Buttigieg is a creation---Rhodes Scholar--Navy Service kind of in a war zone but really a paper pusher and out of harm's way--it makes a good story though. The thing with McKinsey stinks so does his time as mayor of South Bend--his relationship with black people in that city not good--a gentrifier and a guy who will let his cops run roughshod and a good number of them were racist. That's where his issues with black voters start--all over the country they know. Still the media talk of him sometimes as another Obama. I find him evasive in answering questions--a guy who strings out bunches of platitudes. Not a big fan of Obama but I don't like the comparison and this guy is more of a minor leaguer. I can't believe so many people in Iowa and New Hampshire voted for him but then again they're mainly white states.

Michael Bloomberg the oligarch former republican mayor of New York City is on the horizon. They'll get behind him next. It can get discouraging. You have to go away---take a breath---do other things---get your head back in a better place.

>97 lriley:
Agree that the more turnout the better. That's how the Dems can win, whoever emerges as their nominee. They've got the numbers if they can moblize them. But among the various facets of the Iowa debacle is--alarmingly--a bad turnout, which was somewhat obscured in the coverage about problems with reporting results. Something like 176,000 came out to caucus this time around--this, after all of Trump's awfulness, which ought to moblize people!--compared to 240,000 in 2008 when they helped launch Obama.

Shows how much the electorate has been Trumpified. I say this with regret, as someone who grew up in Iowa and still has many ties there and wanted this particular circus to matter. But it was fucked up in so many ways, all around, and is irredeemable, as a process. I can only hope that the page gets turned and things move on to something better.

>105 LolaWalser:
Klobuchar is a popular choice for many Clinton-centrist-type voters who think Sanders and Warren are too much to the left and Buttigieg is still too young and untested (or simply a media creation) to be credible. If the eclipse of Biden is confirmed, then the internal debate about the immediate future of the party might come down to a Sanders/Klobuchar. That's one version, at least, maybe valid for the next ten minutes, of the current family argument.

>107 krolik: There may have been a relatively poor turnout in Iowa but I'm not sure how favorable caucuses are to those new voters that Bernie wants to turn out. A lot of younger people or minorities may be working multiple jobs or have hours were they wouldn't be able to attend a caucus. And apparently they had record turnout in New Hampshire.

>106 lriley:

Matthews (MSNBC host)

I haven't watched anything MSNBC for over a year but I saw some clips of that on DN. That stinking mummified vampire is to vomit. That whole outfit.

If Bloomberg gets picked... I just can't. Trumpo's nomination and election marked, to me, the nadir of American politics (admittedly I felt this way about Dubya as well... it's been a very LONG existence on the bottom.) We had almost four years of an incomparable shitshow where we saw and experienced things no sane person could have imagined being said and done only five years earlier.

But if Bloomberg buys the nomination, and if that buying the nomination is crowned by a win, meaning that this obscenely rich bastard BOUGHT, in view of the whole world, the American presidency, bought it single-handedly, because he's rich enough not to need to scrounge for money and lobby, bought it more brazenly, openly, definitively than Trump did!!!-- Trumpo cheated, Trumpo got lucky, but Trumpo HAS a base and didn't just come and slap down billions on the counter--well then fuck it all to hell, that's still a country lost and politics besmirched without repair in our lifetimes.

#109---the stuff from Matthews is just bizarre. It's not analysis and it's almost as if he really believes it. It makes me wonder if he has dementia. When someone is getting that stupid it's time to take the car keys away.

Anyway Bloomberg's being looked at as a savior by the media at the moment. All the TV ad buys he's doing as well. They're making a mint from it. He's a right winger. Seems to be at least semi-serious about the climate though. This business about him making the economy work for everybody is bull. His ads about making health care more affordable--more bull. He's bought an army of operatives but even an army of operatives needs several armies of volunteers in sneakers or at least it's very helpful. He doesn't have that and I don't see him getting it. That calls for a lot of younger people. March 3rd is a big day--14 states including California and Texas.

>105 LolaWalser: Thank you for your bluntness. Much appreciated.

Thinking of Bloomberg some more---it's what you get when you allow billionaires and corporations and hire bundlers to set up PAC's to influence policy decisions and elections. Biden and Buttigieg and Klobuchar all have their hands out for campaign contributions from wherever. Warren was only going to take small contributions but if she became the nominee then was going to take corporate and bundled money too. It's like Bloomberg saying to himself 'what do I need politicians for? when I can do all this myself'. Inevitably someone like Bloomberg was going to come along and do this. And fact is he has more political gravitas than either Biden or Buttigieg who are more like shucksters. Bloomberg's just attempting to game what everyone already knows to be a corrupt election system and is like the poker player with more cash on hand than any of his rivals--intent on blowing them all out of the water.

I mean really though particularly Biden and Buttigieg have been defending oligarchs and corporations and PAC's every step of the way and neither of them have any gripe IMO if Bloomberg ends up eating their lunch. People like him paid for it.

See below.

#BloombergIsRacist, briefly explained
Mike Bloomberg is being asked to account for his past defenses of stop-and-frisk.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/11/21133200/bloomberg-racist-accu...

And from a Columbia law and epidemiology professor--
https://youtu.be/vynuUJWrjv4?t=2964

I received my (California) ballot last weekend. My wife already sent it back with a vote for Warren and my son will probably spend his first presidential vote for Sanders. I prefer Warren but my understanding of the process is that if she doesn't get over 15% in my district then my vote is effectively wasted, which might be fine if I didn't like any other candidates but I very much would prefer Sanders to any of the other likely remaining candidates. I could make my decision based on the latest state polls just before the primary date of 3/3 but those polls don't report on the district level.

Since this is Katie Porter's district, I think I'll make the bet that Warren will do relatively well here and go with her. I hate that we don't have a way to record our second choice if the first choice isn't viable, the way Nevada is doing with its early voting.

Bernie was counting on Latino support in NV. Now Bros may have endangered union support--and not just Culinary Union's.
Sounds like MAGA lowlifes to me.

Culinary Union condemns ‘vicious attacks’ by Sanders supporters after receiving hostile calls, tweets
Megan Messerly | February 12th, 2020
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/culinary-union-condemns-vicious-attacks...

_____________________________________________________________________________

These Bros could lose election for SANDERS, never mind a moderate candidate!
Sanders plead to being busy after sexual harassment complaints in his 2016 campaign. 2020, too?
Elsewhere I heard Cenk Uygur wants to be elected to Congress so he can be Sanders' "enforcer" I think of NHL goons--YIKES!

When will Bernie Sanders call out the sexism and homophobia of his top supporters?
John Aravosis | 2/13/20 7:35pm
https://elections.americablog.com/2020/02/bernie-sanders-homophobia-sexism-extre...

Kim Zetter @KimZetter | 12:52 PM · Feb 13, 2020
Researchers find that Voatz mobile voting app used in several states has flaws
that would let attackers intercept and alter votes and doesn't use blockchain as claimed.
Here's my story with technical details about the findings:

'Sloppy' Mobile Voting App Used in Four States Has 'Elementary' Security Flaws
Kim Zetter | Feb 13 2020

MIT researchers say an attacker could intercept and alter votes, while making voters think their votes have been cast correctly, or trick the votes server into accepting connections from an attacker.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akw7mp/sloppy-mobile-voting-app-used-in-four-...

>112 lriley:
I think Bloomberg makes sense...

...as a Republican candidate. He fits a certain pre-Reagan mould for the party, and could actually be a plausible representative of those interests.

How he winds up parachuting into the Democratic fray is a bizarre and unfortunate turn of events. I wish he'd spend his dough challenging Trump from within the other camp.

#119--Bloomberg would do just fine if it were the Republican Party of 2007 before the banking collapse. When it moved even further right because of its opposition to a black president it kind of left people like him behind even with all the baggage he has with the stop and frisk. Part of what's going on is the neo-con/neo-libs failed economic policies and those people were left deciding between getting in line behind Trump or becoming an opposition that would try to turn the Democratic Party into becoming what they use to be pre-tea party pre-Trump. Trying to accomodate them is not going to work well for democrats IMO and extreme partisanship started with the tea party but has been adapted by their rank and file and by their leadership in both houses even before Trump. McConnell was gleeful about not giving Merrick Garland a chance to become a Supreme Court Justice and he was a conservative first identified as a SC prospect by the Bush administration and chosen by Obama kind to appease the Republicans.

All that's to say at least from my perspective any Democrat who says he can work across the aisle with House or Senate Republicans is lying out of his ass.

Whether or not Bloomberg is Dem candidate, sure glad his staff's contracts run though November!

Tim O'Brien @TimOBrien | 2:01 PM · Feb 15, 2020

The bully is as the bully does.
0:47 ( https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1228756210909925383 )
From Mike Bloomberg

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trump’s words, bullied kids, scarred schools
The president’s rhetoric has changed the way hundreds of children are harassed in American classrooms, The Post found
Hannah Natanson, John Woodrow Cox and Perry Stein | Feb. 13, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/school-bullying-trump-words/

If Bloomberg can win the democratic nomination there is no opposition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucnCZI3Q4ms

....and what he's saying here is to realize that Bloomberg is not on our side. He's just a smarter oligarch than the current one.

In 2020, I'm a one-issue voter (climate change), and am reviewing my options as our state's primary looms... Below Natural Resources Defense Council provides overview of presidential candidates on the issue, without analyses.

Bloomberg, Sanders and Warren all sound good? Steyer not too bad. Only Gabbard and the R candidates had no climate plans.

My impression was that Bloomberg was most likely to bend the nation to the task, given his record and organizational skills. Though they talk the talk, Sanders and Warren have so many other time-and-money consuming priorities... Warren did deliver on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she seems to have twigged to Jay Inslee, so might bring him in, but I'm not sure how capable Inslee is of making nation/global wide revolution. All depends who they bring in...

I'm not saying you can't make progress toward M4A, free tuition, guns, but with climate change there can be no delay or errors. And it is a massive task.

(ETA: Sure hope DNC at least is vetting health and financial records of candidates. Don't want any surprises! Age is a concern. Trust-but-verify that there are no financial red flags... NYC isn't South Bend or MN... https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/michael-bloomberg-women/ ...)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Climate Change and the 2020 Presidential Candidates: Where Do They Stand?
NRDC Action Fund Jan 9, 2020

Climate plans released by candidates (if any);
Overview of how the candidate’s website talks about climate change;
Public statements by the candidate on climate change; and
Candidate’s history on climate action.

https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/climate-change-and-the-2020-presidential-candidat...

I'm basically against the B's--Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg.

Reading an article about Biden today talking to Chuck Todd at MSNBC sometime this week reiterating once again that he can't believe Lindsay Graham who used to be Hunter's friend---how he could turn on both him and his son. It's like he's completely detached from reality here and it's not just since his poor Iowa and New Hampshire showings. He's completely lost the thread. He thought of Lindsay as a friend--he's the guy running on electability that could make deals with the Republicans. Any deals the democrats would make with them would be fucked up deals.

Bloomberg is a republican and I've never voted for a republican in my life--not even for dogcatcher. That doesn't mean I've always voted for a democrat but I'd rather die than vote for a republican. Yeah--he does seem interested in climate issues and might even do something about that but that's where the good stuff ends IMO. He's a big reason why we have so much wealth disparity. He makes good television ads but so far he hasn't really put any policy out---his ads come down to two things really---Trump is a bum--and he's a good guy. Well the negatives are just starting to show so he's going to need at least some policy proposals to offset all that because right now his ads and the negative stories coming out are what people have to work with. He's put out nothing of any real substance on anything. I'm also thinking black turnout will be low with him.

......and black turnout will be low with Buttigieg too. The gentrification king of South Bend and enabler of police brutality against minorities and wannabe friend of billionaires everywhere. What strikes me about Pete is he just wants the job. He really doesn't have any concrete policy proposals about anything. Medicare for all who want it---is not anything more than what he thinks is a catchy phrase. It's total bullshit. He's not even clear on climate--he's taking money from oil and gas companies. How is he going to fight these fuckers later?

Even if one of these goofballs got the nomination and defeated Trump--they're not going to take us forward and they'll very possibly breathe life into a more and more right wing-y Republican party that seems headed for self destruction.

>121 lriley:

Bloomberg and Trump are identical in their cynicism and contempt for democracy. The Republican nomination of Trump damned that party forever, but the Democrat nomination of Bloomberg would finally damn your entire system and the republic.

The Democrats, with all their weakness and faults, are what functions on the political scene as the last guardians of any notions of American probity and grandeur--whether anyone thinks of those as historic and factual or still only potential. Bloomberg, the mere fact of Bloomberg and his shameless bid is turning the party into a Republican surrogate.

This is not a repetition of 2016. Clinton was a standard politician qualified for the position she sought according to the standard rules of the game. She lost but the Democrats have no reason to be ashamed she ran. She didn't destroy what the party stood for. (If anything, thanks to Sanders' competition she was pushed to reassert the more progressive side the party had in the past, to affirm its core values.)

Bloomberg is destroying the very meaning of the "Democratic" party, Bloomberg is corroding its every last real value.

Should he win, the party will be dead and buried anyway. The young won't forgive nor forget. The GOP is over, and maybe it's really inevitable that the Dems get finished too, maybe the conjoined twins simply can't exist separated.

On a more cheerful note, it's great to see the tremendous support Sanders has on such channels as the Colbert show--ETA: I mean in the comments! Not IN the show. (I dislike Colbert very much but I know he's a darling of the liberals). It's just a detail, but to me very telling, as I remember very well how much the support for Clinton ruled there in 2016.

Sanders really has the people's votes.

Everyone would profit from listening to this--and shutting up forever about "identity politics" "ruining" this or that.

Feminist Scholar Barbara Smith on Identity Politics & Why She Supports Bernie Sanders for President (Democracy Now)

I helped coin the term 'identity politics'. I'm endorsing Bernie Sanders (Smith's article in The Guardian)

Polling shows Sanders extending lead among Hispanic voters ahead of Nevada caucuses (The Salon)

"Bernie Sanders is building the most diverse movement in America."

>124 LolaWalser:

... "Bloomberg, the mere fact of Bloomberg and his shameless bid is turning the party into a Republican surrogate.

"This is not a repetition of 2016. Clinton was a standard politician qualified for the position she sought according to the standard rules of the game. She lost but the Democrats have no reason to be ashamed she ran. She didn't destroy what the party stood for." ...

LMAO!

#124--Bloomberg is the candidate of the racist stop and frisk and he's often made racist and sexist comments. He's had to answer to none of that stuff until now. He is the one who sent cops into Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night to beat up and jail hundreds if not thousands of Occupy protesters destroying their encampment at the same time.

Bloomberg's intent is to buy the White House and so far he's only spent money and has not stuck his neck out at all. The substance of his ads are pretty much this 'I'm better than Trump' and behind the scenes he's been buying up every bit of ad time that's available and has deluged television, the internet--everywhere he can with this narrative and he's faced no real scrutiny. He's done very little as far as getting out any kind of platform that could be critiqued--most all of which would be conservative and corporation friendly anyway.

Bill De Blasio--Bloomberg's successor as mayor of NYC was in Nevada stumping for Sanders yesterday and he talked a bit about Bloomberg and stop and frisk. To me Bloomberg is a step towards a democratic schism and also towards fascism.

It is interesting to note that the Trump era, a killer virus and
locusts swarming are all happening simultaneously!!!

#125--Amy gets on the best guests and she's a top notch interviewer. IMO you build just societies from the bottom up--not from the top down. You have to raise the bottom--not let those at the top float off into the clouds with all the wealth. I'm glad Barbara pointed out the Iowa caucus Mosque thing that the Intercept put out footage of. Black people are a minority but so are hispanics and it's important to reach both groups and not just in states where their populations are high but everywhere. The Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren campaigns did not bother going to the mosques. They were not there. Only the Sanders campaign were there and to me that's kind of incredible. You don't put the work in--you take people for granted then you lose those people and we're going to need as many as possible to beat Trump in November. We're going to need new voters and to engage or reengage people who have lost faith in our democracy. Those who would run a campaign using a past standardized template--this is the way it's always been done have missed the point. The Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg idea that money is the main thing you need to win are missing the point too.

Bernie can raise enough money from millions of people like me who aren't rich but who will steadily drop in their $20 to $50 every month or two or three and it adds up to enough financial real support. So are all the people he has on the ground. Thankfully his network from 2016 stayed intact because judging by the other major candidates they haven't set up much ground game at all and you need to go into the diverse communities around the country--to engage people and give them reason to believe that they matter and have a real part to play in society. Like you build societies you build political movements from the ground up too. Billionaires sprinkling their largesse down on a favored few lackeys to run the country for them is not a movement and it corrupts the political process.

>128 Molly3028: No their not!!! Don't you know that's fake news??? :-)

I am not a USA'er and by some peoples assumptions I am NOT allowed to comment on USA politics.

But...but... what the USA does, does affect the rest of the world.

Assuming, hopefully the orange buffoon The current president of the USA Donald J Trump is NOT re-elected,

what is involved in undoing the EVIL that that man has done and how soon can it be undone?

Guido.

A new President can make some quick changes on his/her own authority, e.g., re-enter Paris Agreement, rescind/re-instate executive orders (Dreamers).

Reinstating regulation takes more time due to public hearings, etc.
Big legislation, such as changes in tax structure, would likewise take a while due to lobbying and the size of the task.

~24% of judges were appointed by Trump: lifetime appointments, so death or impeachment only outs for the clearly unqualified. Could pack the Supreme Court, although I doubt Dems would do so unless another justice is appointed before Inauguration Day.

Among the priorities will be reaching out to allies. You tell US--how long will it take to rebuild trust? I fear that may take the longest...

p.s. The only sheriff on LT is Tim (with his deputies), though, some self-appointing occurs? ;-)

Not always a fan of John Oliver but this needs watching:

https://slate.com/culture/2020/02/last-week-tonight-john-oliver-medicare-for-all...

There is so much misinformation and disinformation on this issue. People are dying or continuing to be sick without getting treatment and our health system is a trainwreck and there are people getting very wealthy off of that fact.

On the subject of Unions and their health care plans. As much as you cannot let health insurance workers jobs leverage us from going forward--we should not let Unions become the spanner in the works either. This has recently come up with the Culinary Union in Nevada. What Union members will have if Bernie's medicare for all were to become law is much better than what they have now--it will be good for their employers and it will be good for them and it will be good for non-union workers and everyone else too. I was a member of two unions by the way (Carpenters and Joiners and APWU) and I'm very supportive of them and I'm still in APWU after retiring. But anyway this idea that only some people deserve because they belong to a Union that negotiated health care is not a good reason to deny those who do not belong to Unions. I think Sanders is right that Health Care is a right and people should get the care they need without the worry of how to pay for it.

>133 lriley: Rick Wartzman writes, in The End of Loyalty, about how some of the major corporations chose. after WW2, to take on the role of health care insurance provider, instead of having government take on that role. And how they've subsequently perverted themselves away from their commitment to assuring employee wellbeing to focus solely on investor profits.

#134--an insurance company is really a middleman that profits off of making health care decisions not really for those it insures (or its customers) but for a corporate bottom line. As Oliver says people living in the United States pretty universally have horror stories about dealing with their insurance companies. One thing the Michigander Michael Moore has been bringing up that pertains to your comment though is the recent Ford automobile strike where Ford used taking away the strikers health insurance benefits as a negotiation tactic--something that opened the eyes of UAW members. Ford was saying to them we can take this thing that you think is yours away from you and for a period Ford did exactly that.

On the subject of Union negotiated health care plans though--there are a lot of variables from one Union/Industry to another as far as what they were individually able to negotiate and some are a lot better than others. But really it would be good for a lot of those same corporations and businesses. That's a major overhead cost as well as a negotiation issue off the table and that they won't have to deal with anymore. For the consumer who cannot afford insulin or even an epi-pen now you have the government cost controlling medication and it's right that our government does that anyway when Big Pharma always has its hands out for federal R & D money which comes from taxpayers. Pharma is for socialism when it's to their benefit--not otherwise.

>135 lriley: Oh, I agree with you entirely and I'm so glad that Oliver did that piece; I've been hoping he would. And I hope he crunched the numbers of the industry profits as opposed to the cost of medicare for all. It's not that it would be a free program for all citizens, but the costs would be proportional to the ability to pay. In my old age, I'm leaning more strongly toward democratic socialism. We can and should build the system to help all. As someone who happens to be comfortably off, I'd be glad to pay more than what I do now.

Also, Ironworker, Local 5.

#136--I'm pretty much in the same place age wise and I'm not starving. I have a son and a daughter who in a few years will cross over 30 and they would struggle a lot without us and they are hardly unique--that is a norm around here. So we have to redefine what working class is and it's much more diverse than some on both the republican and democratic sides would have it.

Medicare for all would take the burden off of a lot of people and it would be a gift to future generations and our current generation hasn't been leaving gifts so it's time we contribute something.

I think Unions are very important and we need more of them and more unionized labor. The ironworkers thing sounds like fun. My wife's nephew was a welder and use to repair bridges.

Three(?) Dem candidates would turn 80 during a first term as president. Our current President apparently directed his own MDs' reports.
We need full transparency on mental and physical health, as well as tax records for presidential candidates--before the general election at least!!
Preferably at some point before Convention! (With escape clause.)

Bernie Sanders says he won't release full medical records
Savannah Behrmann | Feb 18, 2020
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/02/18/bernie-sanders...

>137 lriley:

"I have a son and a daughter who in a few years will cross over 30 and they would struggle a lot without us and they are hardly unique--"

Well, unless they're very 'unlucky,' one day they shall be "without you" and, unless something changes significantly in their circumstances (or yours) for the better in the meantime, when that time comes they're going to struggle and that shall be as you say, without you.

When that day comes--and then again and again long after-- they'll have ample occasion and opportunity to curse and damn the names and the memories of Barack & Michelle Obama--whose own kids, we can be sure, are not going to be struggling --and Obama's many fuck-head appointees, chief among them, Hillary Clinton, the supremely conceited, arrogant idiot whose long public life in politics has been a disaster for American justice and economic progress, his part-time Secretary of State and full-time multi-millionaire influence-pedlar; and Tom Perez, dumb-shit, sycophant and moral-zero, now the Democrat Party's chairman, and Obama's one-time Assistant Attorney-General for Civil Rights and one-time Secretary of Labor; or, equally dumb-fuck, and morally-weightless, his Attorney Generals, Eric Holder and, later, Loretta Lynch.

None of these former officials--or many others like them--none of their children, if they have any, are going to have to struggle as yours may have to when their parents are gone.

But you've been a vocal defender of this crowd in general and a vocal critic of the political opposition which replaced it. In that capacity, you've been, in this site's political-discussion threads, a prominent actor in defending and advocating the work of others who, in official capacities, made themselves what I learn is, in the truest sense of the term, well-described by the classical Greek term, the original meaning of the word that came to be our rather differently-defined term, "sycophant" :

to the Greeks of classical Athens, a sycophant was one who brought unjustified prosecutions

" Ancient Greek word συκοφάντης (sykophántēs)"

"By the fifth century BCE this practice had given rise to abuse by 'sycophants': litigants who brought unjustified prosecutions."

_______________

(Wikipedia) (emphasis added)

your children and those of millions of other Americans will inherit from the useless Obama administration its stupid and empty politically-correct sound-bites.

When they're cold and hungry they can practice recalling Obama's "The arc of history is long but bends ...." bullshit.

______________________________

The Spectator (USA) | Democrat blues: the leadership fears and loathes the grassroots |
Party bosses appear to espouse the betrayal of their base as a core value | by Andrew Cockburn

… “And truly, my Lord, I hear of those things wherewith he (i.e. this letter's bearer) is charged, and I can assure you, wrongfully and slanderously. But the world is so cunning, as of a shadow they can make a substance, and of a likelihood a truth.” ...

—Edward, Earl of Oxford, July, 1581, to his father-in-law, William Cecil, Lord Burghley. (p. 284; William Plumer Fowler, (1986))

A climate voter trying not to be played by ilk and minions, I was pleased to find climate and energy highlights from transcript of Dem's Nevada debate.
Useful to get a feel for candidates' positions, priority, and ability to deliver on the primary issue of our age.
A complete transcript is available from NBC News here ( https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/full-transcript-ninth-democratic-... ).

National Security (Climate & Energy, Immigration) Highlights from the Ninth Democratic Debate
Vishnu Kannan | February 20, 2020

...Climate Change and Energy

RALSTON: I'm going to start with you, Mr. Vice President. What specific policies would you implement that would keep Las Vegas and Reno livable, but also not hurt those economies?

BIDEN: It is the existential threat humanity faces, global warming. …

And what I would do is, number one, work on providing the $47 billion we have for tech and for—to making sure we find answers is to find a way to transmit that wind and solar energy across the network in the United States. Invest in battery technology.

I would immediately reinstate all of the elimination of—of what Trump has eliminated in terms of the EPA. I would secondly make sure that we had 500,000 new charging stations in every new highway we built in the United States of America or repaired. I would make sure that we once again made sure that we got the mileage standards back up which would have saved over 12 billion barrels of oil, had he not walked away from it. And I would invest in rail, in rail. Rail can take hundreds of thousands, millions of cars off the road if we have high-speed rail.

RALSTON: Mayor Bloomberg, let me read—let me read what you've said about this issue. You said you want to intensify U.S. and international actions to stop the expansion of coal. How exactly are you going to do that?

BLOOMBERG: Well, already we've closed 304 out of the 530 coal-fired power plants in the United States, and we've closed 80 out of the 200 or 300 that are in Europe, Bloomberg Philanthropies, working with the Sierra Club, that's one of the things you do.

But let's just start at the beginning. If you're president, the first thing you do the first day is you rejoin the Paris Agreement. This is just ridiculous for us to drop out.

Two, America's responsibility is to be the leader in the world. And if we don't, we're the ones that are going to get hurt just as much as anybody else. And that's why I don't want to have us cut off all relationships with China, because you will never solve this problem without China and India, Western Europe, and America. That's where most of the greenhouse…(APPLAUSE AND INTERRUPTION) …

I believe—and you can tell my whether this is right—but the solar array that the vice president is talking about is being closed because it's not economic, that you can put solar panels in into modern technology even more modern than that.

RALSTON: I want to let Senator Warren jump in here, just because you've said something that's really specific to Nevada. And the tension here in this state is between people who want renewable energy and people who want conservation on public lands.

Eighty-five percent of Nevada is managed by the federal government. You have said that you were going to have an executive order that would stop drilling on public lands, stop mining, which is a huge industry here. You've got to have lithium, you've got to have copper for renewable energy. How do you do that?

WARREN: So, look, I think we should stop all new drilling and mining on public lands and all offshore drilling. If we need to make exceptions because there are specific minerals that we've got to have access to, then we locate those and we do it not in a way that just is about the profits of giant industries, but in a way that is sustainable for the environment. We cannot continue to let our public lands be used for profits by those who don't care about our environment and are not making it better. …

And I believe that the way that we're going to deal with this problem is that we are going to increase by tenfold our investment in science.

There's an upcoming $27 trillion market worldwide for green. And much of what is needed has not yet been invented. My proposal is, let's invent it here in the United States and then say, we invent it in the U.S., you've got to build it in the U.S.

TODD: We're going to stick to this topic. But, Senator Sanders, I'm going to move to fracking. You want a total ban on natural gas extraction, fracking, in the next five years. The industry, obviously, supports a lot of jobs around the country, including thousands in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

What do you tell fracking workers, it's supporting a big industry right now, sir?

SANDERS: What I tell these workers is that the scientists are telling us that if we don't act incredibly boldly within the next six, seven years, there will be irreparable damage done not just in Nevada, not just to Vermont or Massachusetts, but to the entire world.

Joe said it right: This is an existential threat. You know what that means, Chuck? That means we're fighting for the future of this planet....

And the Green New Deal that I support, by the way, will create up to 20 million good-paying jobs as we move our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

TODD: Senator Klobuchar, you're not on the same page on a total ban of fracking. You call it a transitional fuel. But scientists are sounding this alarm now. Do you take these warnings that maybe fracking is a step backwards, not a step forward, not a transition?

KLOBUCHAR: I have made it very clear that we have to review all of the permits that are out there right now for natural gas and then make decisions on each one of them and then not grant new ones until we make sure that it's safe. But it is a transitional fuel.…

This is a crisis, and a lot of our plans are very similar to get to carbon neutral by 2045, 2050, something like that. But we're not going to be able to pass this unless we bring people with us.

And you can do this in a smart way. One, get back into that international climate change agreement. Two, clean power rules, bring those back. And the president can do this herself without Congress, as well as the gas mileage standard.…

HAUC: Vice President Biden, you have said that you want to hold oil and gas executives accountable for their role in harming our planet. You have even suggested that you might put them in jail. Which companies are you talking about? And how far are you willing to go?

BIDEN: I'm willing to go as far as we have to. First of all, I would eliminate all the subsidies we have for oil and gas, eliminate it, period. That would save millions and millions—billions of dollars.…

On day one, when I'm elected president, I'm going to invite all of the members of the Paris Accord to Washington, D.C. They make up 85 percent of the problem. They know me. I'm used to dealing with international relations. I will get them to up the ante in a big way.…

HAUC: What would you do with these companies that are responsible for the destruction of our planet?

BIDEN: What would I do with them? I would make sure they, number one, stop. Number two, if you demonstrate that they, in fact, have done things already that are bad and they've been lying, they should be able to be sued, they should be able to be held personally accountable, and they should—and not only the company, not the stockholders, but the CEOs of those companies. They should be engaged.

And it's a little bit like—look, this is the industries we should be able to sue. We should go after—just like we did the drug companies, just like we did with the tobacco companies....

HOLT: Mayor Bloomberg, your business is heavily invested in China. I think you mentioned that a few questions back. The number one producer in the world of carbon emissions. How far would you go to force China to reduce those emissions and tackle the climate crisis?

BLOOMBERG: Well, you're not going to go to war with them. You have to negotiate with them and try to—and we've seen how well that works with tariffs that are hurting us. What you have to do is convince the Chinese that it is in their interest, as well. Their people are going to die just as our people are going to die. And we'll work together.

In all fairness, the China sic has slowed down. It's India that is an even bigger problem. But it is an enormous problem. Nobody's doing anything about it. We could right here in America make a big difference. We're closing the coal-fired power plants. If we could enforce some of the rules on fracking so that they don't release methane into the air and into the water, you'll make a big difference.

But we're not going to get rid of fracking for a while. And we, incidentally not just natural gas. You frack oil, as well. It is a technique, and when it's done poorly, like they're doing in too many places where the methane gets out into the air, it is very damaging. But it's a transition fuel, I think the senator said it right.

We want to go to all renewables. But that's still many years from now. And we—before I think the senator mentioned 2050 for some data. No scientist thinks the numbers for 2050 are 2050 anymore. They're 2040, 2035. The world is coming apart faster than any scientific study had predicted. We've just got to do something now.

HOLT: Mayor Buttigieg, your thoughts.

BUTTIGIEG: … Now, I've got a plan to get us carbon neutral by 2050. And I think everybody up here has a plan that more or less does the same. So the real question is, how are we going to actually get it done?

We need leadership to make this a national project that breaks down the partisan and political tug of war that prevents anything from getting done. How do you do it? Well, first of all, making sure that those jobs are available quickly.

Secondly, ensuring that we are pulling in those very sectors who have been made to feel like they're part of the problem, from farming to industry, and fund as well as urge them to do the right thing.

And then global climate diplomacy. I'm a little skeptical of the idea that convincing is going to do the trick when it comes to working with China. America has repeatedly overestimated our ability to shape Chinese ambitions. But what we can do is ensure that we use the hard tools … to enforce what has to happen……

BIDEN: And lastly I want to say, look, the idea of China, China is—and their Belt and Road proposal, they're taking the dirtiest coal in the world mostly out of Mongolia and spreading it all around the world. It's clear. Make it clear when you call them to Washington in the first 100 days, if you continue, you will suffer severe consequences because the rest of the world will impose tariffs on everything you're selling because you are undercutting the entire economy.…

https://www.lawfareblog.com/national-security-highlights-ninth-democratic-debate

NEW VIDEO: What do you call @ThomTillis?
#NC deserves a senator who doesn't enable @realDonaldTrump and his unprincipled policies.
0:55 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1230871934512041989 )

@SteveSchmidtSES
@gtconway3d
@reedgalen
@TheRickWilson
@RonSteslow
@jwgop
@NHJennifer
@madrid_mike

- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln |10:08 AM · Feb 21, 2020

Bloomberg’s massive Vegas Strip ad campaign is impossible to miss
0:16 ( https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1230916268359684103 )

- Marc Caputo @MarcACaputo |1:04 PM · Feb 21, 2020

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Brings to mind a certain song lyric-- "Money-HUH! What is it good for?" :D

Wonder if Trump rally to be in vicinity...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/02/21/trump-vegas-pr...

Bloomberg would be wise to stay away from debates and even with Donald if he managed to buy the nomination. The thing with his ads is for the most part they're well done apart from there is not a lot of substance really--they come down to 'I'm a good guy--donald's a shitbird'. They're really both shitbirds. His Obama ads are crap--you'd think he'd at least get an endorsement from Obama first--though Biden's done the same though with Joe he can at least say he was Obama's VP. Bloomberg crapped all over Obamacare--now he's trying to link himself so there is a lot of disengunity from Michael the oligarch.

My opinion Bloomberg will be a disaster of a nominee. He moves the democrats even further to the right but I don't see him handling Trump well other than outspending him. I think Bloomberg depresses the black and the millenial vote. Whoever thinks of themself as really left would rather jump off a bridge than vote for a billionaire---as well there are racist, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ overtones and Trump can as easily play that on Bloomberg as vice-versa and I very much suspect that he will. Bloomberg would be super easy to troll.

Let's not be played.

Russia Is Said to Be Interfering to Aid Sanders in Democratic Primaries
Julian E. Barnes and Sydney Ember | Feb. 21, 2020

...Mr. Sanders denounced Russia in a statement, calling President Vladimir V. Putin an “autocratic thug” and warning Moscow to stay out of the election. Drawing a contrast with Mr. Trump, he said he would stand against any efforts by Russia or another foreign power to interfere in the vote. “The intelligence community is telling us they are interfering in this campaign right now in 2020...And what I say to Mr. Putin: ‘If elected president, trust me, you are not going to be interfering in American elections.’”

...Russia’s interference on behalf of both Mr. Trump, the dominant force in the Republican Party, and Mr. Sanders, a stalwart of the left, underscores its efforts to sow chaos across the political spectrum. Undermining the democratic system remains at the core of Russia’s effort to raise its own stature by weakening the United States, according to current and former officials.

...the intelligence officers presenting the material said, in response to questions from lawmakers, that Russia was trying to get Mr. Trump re-elected.

Republicans have disputed that Russia supports Mr. Trump, insisting that Mr. Putin simply wants to broadly spread chaos and undermine the democratic system. They have also argued that Mr. Sanders’s gestures of peace toward the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War might make him appealing to Mr. Putin.

But some current and former officials expressed doubt that Russian officials think that Mr. Sanders has a hidden affinity for Moscow. Instead, they said that a Russian campaign to support Mr. Sanders might ultimately be aimed at aiding Mr. Trump. Moscow could potentially consider Mr. Sanders a weaker general election opponent for the president than a more moderate Democratic nominee, according to two people familiar with the matter....

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/us/politics/bernie-sanders-russia.html

_____________________________________________________________

Why the Russians still prefer Trump
Max Boot | Feb. 21, 2020

...Trump sent anti-tank missiles to Ukraine — but only under conditions that make them useless against Russia. Trump has made clear that Russia’s enemy, Ukraine, is no friend of his.

...Trump’s sanctions on Iran...indirectly help Russia by boosting the price of oil.

...Trump has strengthened Russia’s longtime ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad....ended a covert program of training and supplying moderate Syrian rebels...moving U.S. forces out of northern Syria...

...Russian-backed strongman Khalifa Hifter is trying to overthrow a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli...Trump called Hifter and gave him a green light for his offensive....

...the United States has tightened sanctions on Russia since Trump came to office...over Trump’s opposition...fighting efforts in Congress to strengthen sanctions, even while lifting sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who worked with Trump’s crooked former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

...Trump has weakened (NATO) by relentlessly criticizing the alliance and portraying it as a bunch of deadbeats...raised doubts in 2018 about whether the United States would fight to defend a small nation like Montenegro. That undermines the whole basis of collective security.

...spreading chaos in the U.S. government and division in U.S. politics....denigrates dedicated FBI agents, intelligence officers and diplomats — all on the front lines of combating Russian aggression — as “deep state,” “traitors” and “human scum.”

...never has a negative word to say about Putin....never calls Putin “mini Vlad” or any other derogatory nickname

Republicans should hardly be surprised to learn that the Russians are working in secret to reelect Trump...all the sweeter for Russia is that the Republican Party, which stood on the front lines of fighting Russia from 1917 to 2017, blindly backs Trump as he pursues pro-Russia policies at odds with U.S. interests.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/21/why-russians-still-prefer-tru...

>144 margd: Indeed, let's not be played. I also hear Corbyn is an anti-semite...

Trump and McConnell and other Republican party official are inviting the Russians into our election process. Later if Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee they're going to point to Sanders as a Democratic Socialist---will call him a Socialist, call him a Communist but it's still because of Trump's and McConnell's efforts or lack thereof that the Russian govt. has been allowed in and meanwhile the so-called 'anti-Communists' in the Republican Party are proving anything but anti. It's pure cynicism and has one goal and that's to maintain power.

....and it's not just the Russians that have this invitation. It could easily be the Israelis, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Saudis. We have an electoral that is entirely open to corruption.

This week of President's Day, we should remember George Washington (stepped down as Prez after 2nd term) and Al Gore (“While I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it.”) If necessary for the good of the country, hopefully one or more Dem candidates will find it in themselves to put country over ambition.

And I'm not thinking of anyone in particular, really!

There is so much on Tulsi Gabbard that she has her own page on the RT website. Dozens of friendly stories, focusing intently on her lawsuit against Clinton, highlighting stories about her supporters getting harassed, etc.
- Marshall Cohen (CNN) @MarshallCohen | 11:27 PM · Feb 21, 2020

Tulsi Gabbard news — RT
Check out RT for news on Tulsi Gabbard, an American politician running for the presidency in 2020.
Visit RT for stories on her relations with other US politicians, including the current president...
https://www.rt.com/trends/tulsi-gabbard-hawaii-us/

ETA---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And here's an example of RT defending Jill Stein. (On a related note, Stein attended a 2015 gala in Moscow honoring the 10th anniversary of RT. Putin was there as well. So was Flynn.)
- Marshall Cohen (CNN) @MarshallCohen | 11:27 PM · Feb 21, 2020

Media attacks US Green candidate Stein over her non-existent collusion with Russia — RT USA News
1 May, 2018 21:36 / Updated 1 year ago
It’s a rare occasion that mainstream media turns its attention to a third party presidential candidate and gets them on-air. Attacking them over ‘collusion’ with Russia? In this case, an exception...
https://www.rt.com/usa/425612-jill-stein-cnn-attack/

_________________________________________________________________

Democrats resurrect ‘Russiagate’ to go after both Trump and Bernie Sanders, hide their own election trickery
Nebojsa Malic | 22 Feb, 2020 01:33 / Updated 8 hours ago

Establishment Democrats have now used the claims of ‘Russian meddling’ to go after their own progressive wing as well as President Donald Trump. The bogus accusation seems to be nothing more than cover for their own wrongdoing.

Moscow is now supposedly helping Bernie Sanders in the 2020 US presidential election – that is, if you believe the anonymously sourced Washington Post “bombshell.” This follows a New York Times claim on Thursday that the Kremlin is “again” betting on Trump, written by known partisan hacks and likewise based on anonymous sources...

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/481445-democrats-trump-sanders-russiagate/

Mike Bloomberg under fire for using 'snazzy ads' to mask weak climate plan
Emily Holden | Sat 22 Feb 2020

Candidate has offered few details on how he would he achieve goals as climate plan lags behind Democratic rivals

...the Center for Biological Diversity’s Action Fund, ranks Bloomberg’s plan last out of six contenders – tied with the Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar. By comparison, the group gives the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders a perfect score. Sanders would declare a national climate emergency, end fossil fuel production and exports, ban fracking for fossil gas, prosecute oil companies for their role in the crisis and give the public – rather than private companies – control of the power system.9$16 trillion)

...A high-profile philanthropist, Bloomberg is hugely influential in environmental advocacy, having spent big on many groups, including the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign which funded lawyers to bring legal battles against coal plants at the state level.

Last summer Bloomberg pledged $500m to a new program called Beyond Carbon, aimed at closing every coal plant in the country and halting the growth of gas-powered electricity.

...Julian Brave NoiseCat, director of Green New Deal strategy for the thinktank Data for Progress, said...“We need a more substantive conversation about what the difference is between what looks like the two frontrunners”...On the other hand, he added, “having someone who could spend basically unlimited money on paid media and could leverage his massive philanthropy and political network to just mobilize the gears on climate and make something happen is worth sitting with for a minute”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/22/mike-bloomberg-climate-plan-camp...

Sanders has been strong on climate for a long time. There are video clips of him talking about this issue going back into the 80's. Back in 2015 when the question 'what is the biggest existential threat to the planet?' was asked of all the democratic and republican candidates for POTUS--everyone of them but Sanders answered ISIS--Sanders answered climate change. It's not an accident that he got the Sunrise movement's endorsement. NYS and Vermont as far as I know are the only two states to have banned fracking. California has been battling the Trump administration over fossil fuel issues. The Republicans are almost useless on this issue. They don't think a dirty, polluted planet matters at all and put profit over everything. I think a Sanders administration would speed up the transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric/battery energized cars. IMO mass transit would be something to focus on too---high speed rail as well. We need to modernize to more clean and more efficient. A large part of the investor class aren't for any of that or will want all kinds of compromising.

Sanders does say the right things on climate, but he's got so many other (expensive) priorities and he hasn't exactly delivered in past.
Doesn't play well with others.

Bloomberg may not have a climate plan (I'm surprised), but he's put his money and support out there during this long Trumpian night.

Elizabeth Warren might balance planning with ability to produce. Bonus point for not turning 80 in first term as president.

Our primary is March 10...

The expensive priorities that we have and we don't need starts with our war machine---specifically the regime changing part of it. So much of our budget goes into the military industrial complex. It's not just Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria either----we have over 1000 military bases around the globe and 99% of them are unnecessary. That's a big issue. Another big issue is how nice we are to corporations and the wealthy. They don't pay their fair share--they got a big tax break from George W. that Obama made permanent and then Trump gave them another big tax break. And the rich are the biggest squawkers and babies about taxes. They don't really give a shit about roads or schools.

If we stopped interfering in the internal affairs of other countries---if we shut down all or at least a lot of the unnecessary military bases. If we made corporations and the wealthy pay taxes commensurate with their wealth then things like medicare for all, tuition free college and climate solutions become much more possible and really some of these things will cost more in the long run if you don't make expensive choices now. To go back to the Lancet medical journal---their study which is peer reviewed said that it would save 68,000 lives a year (how much is that worth?) and save the American taxpayer $450 billion a year---that is from wiping out the health insurance industry and all the red tape that goes with it--that's from the govt. negotiating drug prices with pharmaceuticals and etc. etc. into other areas of cost and payment. That would cover every single person in the country including dental, including eye care.

Bloomberg -
lifelong Democrat
2001 Republican
2007 independent
2018 (Oct) Democrat

Sanders-
1981 independent
2015 Democrat
2017 independent
2019 Democrat.

Warren-
Republican
1996 Democrat
( https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/12/elizabeth-warren-profile-youn... )

>153 margd:

It's really horrific that you're cheerleading for Bloomberg. Is it really nothing to you that he's literally BUYING his way into the nomination? Forget the parties--how does that BEGIN to square with any American's, those who are not outright fascists, basic ideal of the US as a democracy? How is behaving exactly like Trump better if the person isn't actually Trump?

And no, it's not being "lifelong" something when you quit it for 20 years. That's just another proof of the stark naked opportunism and treating politics as nothing more than a private game for own enrichment and power. But here's what Bloomberg IS his whole life long--a racist and misogynistic shit same as Trump.

Who said it – Trump or Bloomberg? Take our revealing quiz

A few quotes that weren’t considered “too outrageous to include” in the booklet:

“If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdales.”

“What do I want? I want an exclusive, 10-year contract … And I want oral sex from Jane Fonda. Have you seen Jane Fonda? Not bad for 50.”

“I know for a fact that any self-respecting woman who walks past a construction site and doesn’t get a whistle will turn around and walk past again and again until she does get one.”

“The British Royal family – what a bunch of misfits – a gay, an architect, that horsey faced lesbian and a kid who gave up Koo Stark for some fat broad.”

Bloomberg computer terminals “will do everything, including give you oral sex. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business”.

On being asked to name a sport that doesn’t use balls: “Lesbian sex.”

“I like theater, dining and chasing women. Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. What do you think? It’s a wet dream.”

“There’s this enormous cohort of black and Latino males, age, let’s say, 16 to 25, that don’t have jobs, don’t have any prospects … don’t know how to behave in the workplace where they have to work collaboratively and collectively.”

“I think the police disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little.”
Obamacare is a “disgrace”.

Trans rights are about “some guy wearing a dress and whether he, she, or it can go to the locker room with their daughter”.

THIS is the person whose bid you're justifying.

He's as disgusting and as dangerous as Trump.

>146 lriley:

"Trump and McConnell and other Republican party official are inviting the Russians into our election process."

_________________________

REALLY? Inviting Russians into our election process(es) ? How?

And, As a practical matter, How, supposing Pelosi, or Schumer or you wanted to get them the fuck out of those processes --- in whatever manner you imagine that the Russians are in them--- is that even possible, hmmm?

Answer those questions.

You won't answer them. The reason is simple: you can't.

>154 LolaWalser:

... "THIS is the person whose bid you're justifying.
He's as disgusting and as dangerous as Trump."

__________________

No, in fact, he's much, much worse than Trump.

Try to imagine "worse than Trump." You probably can't.

>154 LolaWalser: >156 proximity1: Good call. I've always respected Warren, but if she wasn't my second choice before that debate, she is now. Destruction of Bloomberg's campaign is service to mankind.

>154 LolaWalser: Maybe as disgusting as fellow NYer Trump in that respect. It was pretty bad per my brother-in-law, a banker in NYC in that era. Diff is what Bloomberg has done since on climate and guns and 2018 election and US Virgin Islands after the hurricanes, etc. Anyway, my priority is climate emergency, not an individual, except as it affects ability to deliver.

#158--Sanders introduced a bill in the Senate last month to ban fracking nation wide--I know that Sen. Merkley of Oregon has signed on to that bill and I believe AOC has introduced a similar bill in the House . Warren has also said she would do it. I'm wondering if Sanders became POTUS if he could outlaw fracking by executive order. I'd expect that to be challenged in the courts but I'm also thinking he'd have a good shot at winning and maybe thanks to our current numbskull POTUS who has expanded presidential powers. He might also declare a national emergency--future of the country and planet is at stake and he wouldn't be wrong. He has all kinds of scientists and evidence on his side. This is particularly a weak area for Klobuchar by the way and Wall St. types will shit bricks but I've always been of the mind of fuck them anyway.