The Commentariat -- February 3, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "President Obama reached out to Muslims in the United States on Wednesday in an impassioned speech, embracing them as part of 'one American family,' implicitly criticizing the Republican presidential candidates and warning citizens not to be 'bystanders to bigotry":
Oliver Milman & Ryan Felton of the Guardian: "The Environmental Protection Agency warned of an unfolding toxic water crisis in Flint but was 'met with resistance' by Michigan authorities, a fiery congressional hearing into the city's public health disaster has heard.... Congress was also told that flawed water testing practices, now eliminated in Flint, are happening unchecked across the US, risking a much wider public health crisis in other cities."
Greg Sargent: "The campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have agreed on a rough schedule for four new debates over the next few months, according to various sources, a move that shows the Democratic primary is now set to shift into a higher gear and signals we may be headed for a long, drawn-out battle. The four debates will be sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, a spokesman for the DNC, Luis Miranda, confirms to me."
You know, I get accused of being kind of moderate and center. I plead guilty. -- Hillary Clinton, ca. September 10, 2015 ...
... Amber Jamieson of the Guardian: "At a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire on Wednesday, [Hillary] Clinton accused [Bernie] Sanders of a 'low blow' for saying that the former secretary of state was only a progressive on 'some days'. 'I hope we keep it on the issues,' Clinton said, 'because if it's about our records, hey, I'm going to win by a landslide.' A reporter had questioned the Vermont senator on Tuesday about whether his Democratic opponent was a truly progressive liberal. 'Some days, yes. Except when she announces that she is a proud moderate, and then I guess she is not a progressive,' replied Sanders."
Ashley Parker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania plans two major announcements on Wednesday night about his candidacy amid speculation that he is pulling out of the race." CW: Darn! I was sure Santorum was going to win.
Simon Romero of the New York Times: "The surging medical reports of babies being born with unusually small heads during the Zika epidemic in Brazil are igniting a fierce debate over the country's abortion laws, which make the procedure illegal under most circumstances. Prominent legal scholars in Brasília, the capital, are preparing a case to go before Brazil's highest court, arguing that pregnant women should be permitted to have abortions when their fetuses are found to have abnormally small heads, a condition known as microcephaly that Brazilian researchers say is linked to the virus.
*****
Presidential Race
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Presidential candidates flew through the night to hit the New Hampshire campaign trail running on Tuesday morning, eager to capitalize on a race that has been reordered by surprising finishes in the Iowa caucuses." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Frank Rich reflects on the Iowa results & what may happen going forward. As we noted here a few days ago, Rich's predictions haven't been too great. (Have you heard anybody outside of the Paul household saying "President Paul.") Nonetheless, Rich always offers an interesting perspective. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... AND Charles Pierce reflects on the Iowa results. Something, something, inequality, Epistle of James. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
Annals of Journalsim," Ctd. Break.
... ** Part 1. Paul Waldman in the Week: "Since it is obviously impossible for you to understand what happened in Iowa on Monday night by simply looking at the numbers, you must find an analysis to make sense of it all. So I'm here to offer you not one but two hot takes for each party's race, to help you make sense of it all...." ...
... Part 2. Steve M. finds a lovely example of Jeb!-spin, masquerading as ABC News reporting or analysis or something. ...
... Part 3. Paul Krugman has a theory on why Iowa "matters." ...
... Part 4. AND then there's MSNBC's Chris Matthews, whose ostensible interview of Hillary Clinton included a running diatribe that required Charles Pierce to write, "Bernie Sanders is running a campaign completely within what can reasonably be called the mainstream of his party and of our politics. Discreet red-baiting and disingenuous scaremongering helps nobody." CW: What makes Matthews' rant particularly weird is that Matthews is (or was) supposedly working on a book about fawning biography of Bobby Kennedy, whose politics then were not so much different in content & tone from what Sanders says today. Not much news on the bio-in-progress, so maybe Bobby (or "Bob," as Matthews is won't to call him) & his radical views put off the author. Anyway, there's a reason "journalist" & "joke" begin with the same letters, & I think that has less to do with etymology than with Matthews School of Bull.
Jason Horowitz & Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders, who came within half a percentage point of defeating Hillary Clinton in Iowa, will spend the next week trying to maintain a significant advantage in New Hampshire, where he has been leading in polls for months. His campaign will stage rallies in the more populous southern parts of the state, where he also will air more than $1 million worth of television ads."
Amy Chozick, et al., of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton is digging in for a tough fight against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in next week's primary in New Hampshire, her advisers said Tuesday, trying to spark political momentum and fund-raising energy after only a razor-thin victory in the Iowa caucuses."
Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday after final vote counts showed her narrowly beating Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, according to The Associated Press and other news organizations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Here are the official vote tally percentages, according to the Iowa Democratic party's Website: Clinton 49.8, Sanders 49.6, O'Malley 0.5. ...
... Kevin Hardy of the Des Moines Register: "Sen. Bernie Sanders Iowa campaign is questioning the results of Monday's caucuses. After all precincts were reported Tuesday morning, the Iowa Democratic Party reported Hillary Clinton won 49.8 percent of state delegate equivalents in the Democratic Iowa caucuses. Bernie Sanders took 49.6 percent of delegate equivalents. Sanders' campaign staff believes there may be discrepancies between the paper vote tallies at the precinct level and numbers that were reported to the state party." ...
... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post has a longish piece on how Clinton nearly got Berned in Iowa. Here's my favorite bit: Sanders "was headed to a May 31 rally at the American Indian Center in Minneapolis, his first big campaign event outside his New England home turf. But Sanders was still blocks away -- and the car he was in was not moving. 'Is there a wreck ahead?' Sanders anxiously asked his field director, Phil Fiermonte. 'No,' Fiermonte replied, 'they're here to see you.' More than 3,000 of them, many standing outside because the hall was full. 'It never occurred to me in a million years that line was for us,' Sanders recalled in a telephone interview Sunday.... 'I said, "Whoa." That was the first inkling that I had that this campaign was catching on.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
... CW: This post, in which Michael Stern briefly discusses recent legal news coverage of Ted Cruz's citizenship & Hillary Clinton's e-mails, made me wonder when we're going to hear the following theory emerge from the bowels of Right Wing World: Hillary Clinton is running for president to postpone her otherwise inevitable conviction for treason on accounta carelessly (or purposely!) sharing top-secret U.S. documents with Vladimir Putin & Kim Jong-Un via her Facebook page personal e-mail account.
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky ended his presidential campaign Wednesday, after a disappointing fifth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses this week." ...
... Ed Kilgore assesses what went wrong for Li'l Randy.
Killer Sharks! "Smelling Blood, Rivals Circle Trump." Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Emboldened by ’s defeat in the Iowa caucuses, his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination are preparing to challenge him aggressively in the New Hampshire primary — and perhaps even to aim a fatal blow at his campaign by seeking to deny him victory in a second consecutive state.... The sense of urgency about taking on Mr. Trump transcends the different political camps on the Republican side in New Hampshire." ...
Maybe he'll do more than 40 minutes on a little stage telling everybody his canned speech that he's memorized. This isn't a student council election, everybody. This is an election for president of the United States. Let's get the boy in the bubble out of the bubble. -- Chris Christie, on Marco Rubio, to reporters Tuesday
... Killer Sharks 2.0. Philip Rucker & Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Marco Rubio's surprisingly strong showing in the Iowa caucuses reshuffled the already intense competition here in New Hampshire among the Republican establishment candidates, leading some to sharpen their attacks on the freshman senator from Florida ahead of next week's primary."
If we are attacked, somebody attacks us, wouldn't you rather have Trump as president if we're attacked? We'll beat the shit out of them. -- Donald Trump, at a New Hampshire rally Tuesday
CW Translation: If some Muslim guy attacks an American, I'll order the Pentagon to start World War III at the same time I'm yelling at the decorators for not painting vermeil on every baroque detail in the Trump White House ballroom
... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump acknowledged on Tuesday night that his voter turnout operation in Iowa was weak, despite boasts from his team for weeks of a secret plan to get his supporters to the polls." ...
... Robert Costa & Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump returned to New Hampshire on Tuesday night with the stakes as high as ever for his presidential campaign, determined to showcase his political resilience after his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and rouse his supporters with a rally that was a raucous return to form. There was swagger, curses and confidence, and thousands of people packed into an athletic center, all bundled up in winter coats and many toting signs." ...
... Also, former handsome short-term Sen. Scott Brown endorsed Trump at the rally. Relatedly, Scott Brown is still handsome. ...
... MEANWHILE, Trump wishes to remind us ungrateful voters that we aren't worthy of the generosity he has bestowed upon us by (partially) self-funding his vanity vaudeville act.
Betsy Klein, et al., of CNN: "One day after winning the Iowa caucuses, [Ted] Cruz issued an apology to [Ben] Carson after his staff falsely told Iowa caucusgoers that Carson planned to quit the race, calling it a 'mistake.' Cruz said in a statement Tuesday that his campaign staff saw a CNN report that Carson was dropping out, although CNN had not characterized Carson's actions that way.... Carson said Tuesday he accepted the apology, but questioned whether there was a deeper 'cultural issue' with Cruz's campaign. 'As a Christian I will accept the apology but it doesn't correct the problem,' Carson told CNN. 'This is a cultural issue when people in your campaign feel that it's ok to distort the issues to their political advantage and to tell absolute lies. And the question really is will there be any consequences for that.'" ...
... CW: Carson is right. Cruz's staff didn't idly spread a false story. They did so during the caucus process, to lure Carson's evangelical base voters over to Ted's camp. Cruz won the Iowa caucus vote by several points, so the lie, shot out to "grassroots leaders" as voters were participating in the caucuses, probably didn't materially change the final rankings, but hearing that their preferred candidate was leaving the race certainly could have made some voters switch from Carson to Cruz. Cruz is a snake. ...
Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified. -- Donald Trump tweet, Wednesday ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Donald Trump used Cruz's phony e-mail claim that Carson was quitting the race, along with the phony voter mailers to accuse Cruz of stealing the caucus vote. ...
... Marvin S. highlights this New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial titled "President Cruz: Still America's Worst Nightmare." If you want to daydream about this nightmare, the editors reprise some of what Ted Cruz has already done & said to help you along. Also, too, Cruz has already condemned our winger Chief Justice as a liberal; I doubt even Alito, Scalia & Thomas are extreme enough for him.
Marco Has a New Black Friend. Andrew Shane of the (South Carolina) State: "U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who came close to winning second in the Iowa caucus, won a coveted endorsement Tuesday in South Carolina from U.S Sen. Tim Scott.... After the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9, Scott could help Rubio in South Carolina. The only African-American Republican in the U.S. Senate is one of the Palmetto State's most popular politicians in polls." ...
... CW: Six other sitting U.S. Senators have endorsed Rubio. Expect more to follow.
Other News
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "President Obama will make his first visit to a mosque in the United States on Wednesday, traveling to a suburb of Baltimore to meet with Muslim leaders and to speak out against hostility and discrimination against Islam."
Alan Fram of the AP: "Republicans failed in their latest futile attempt Tuesday to kill President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a Groundhog Day vote by the House that was solely an exercise in election-year political messaging. Tuesday's near party-line vote to override Obama's January veto of legislation gutting much of the law was 241-186, but that fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to reverse a veto. House Speaker Paul Ryan said the effort to force enactment of the bill, which would have also ended federal payments to Planned Parenthood, would send an important signal." CW: Important signal received.
Donald McNeil & Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "A case of Zika virus infection transmitted by sex, rather than mosquito bite, was discovered in Texas on Tuesday, a development sure to complicate plans to contain a global epidemic.... The Dallas County Health and Human Services Department reported that a patient with the Zika virus was infected after having sex with someone who had returned from Venezuela, where Zika is circulating. After the report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its advice to Americans visiting regions in which the Zika virus is spreading. Men having sex after traveling to these areas should consider wearing condoms, officials said.... Pregnant women should avoid contact with semen from men recently exposed to the virus, federal officials also said."
Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press: "While acknowledging mistakes made by the state in the handling of Flint's water crisis, Gov. Rick Snyder's hand-picked appointee to run the state Department of Environmental Quality faults the federal EPA for contributing to the public health catastrophe, saying it 'did not display the sense of urgency that the situation demanded.' In testimony to be delivered Wednesday before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, new DEQ Director Keith Creagh takes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to task, insisting that the federal agency dragged its feet for months before providing a legal opinion making it clear that DEQ should have required Flint to have corrosion-control treatments before it switched to using water from the Flint River in 2014."
Voter Suppression Laws Are Working! Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "... the first study has been released showing that the proliferation of voter ID laws in recent years has indeed driven down minority voter turnout, and by a significant amount.... The researchers found that in primary elections, 'a strict ID law could be expected to depress Latino turnout by 9.3 points, Black turnout by 8.6 points, and Asian American turnout by 12.5 points.' The impact of strict voter ID was also evident in general elections, where minority turnout plummeted in relation to the white vote. 'For Latinos in the general election, the predicted gap more than doubles from 4.9 points in states without strict ID laws to 13.5 points in states with strict photo ID laws,' the study found. That gap increased by 2.2 points for African Americans and by 5 points for Asian Americans. The effect was even more pronounced in primary elections." CW: Now, please, can't we bring back the poll tax? Oh, wait, in most states these laws do constitute at least a partial poll tax, as they often require voters to pay for forms of identification they don't have on hand. In some cases, they require voters to come up with documents that don't exist, like birth certificates for older voters born at home and/or in other countries.
David Streitfeld of the New York Times: "Whether it is sold or survives, Yahoo is getting smaller. It said on Tuesday it would lay off about 15 percent of its 11,000 employees. By the end of the cuts, the company said its work force would be about 42 percent smaller than it was in 2012. In addition to being smaller, [Yahoo CEO Marissa] Mayer said, the company would be simpler. Yahoo will shed assets, cut expenses and focus on the areas of the company that are growing."
Brian Feldman of New York: "Amazon is apparently opening hundreds of bookstores in malls around the country. According to Sandeep Mathrani, the CEO of mall operator General Growth Properties, Amazon is planning on opening '300 to 400' bookstores this year." CW: Support your local bookstore.
Beyond the Beltway
Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Georgia executed its oldest death row inmate early Wednesday morning, moving ahead with the scheduled lethal injection after courts and a state pardon board rejected his requests for stays. Brandon Astor Jones, 72, was first sentenced to death in 1979 for the death of Roger Tackett, who managed a convenience store."
Jeremy Roebuck & Laura McCrystal of the Philadelphia Inquirer: Bill "Cosby's lawyers contend that the aggravated indecent assault charge filed in December against the 78-year-old entertainer violates a 'non-prosecution' agreement [tnen Montgomery County D.A. Bruce] Castor made with their client a decade ago. Prosecutors, led by current District Attorney Kevin Steele, say no such deal existed."
Anh Do & Christopher Goffard of the Los Angeles Times: An Orange County cab driver says three fugitives who escaped from the Orange County jail, held him captive for a week, forcing him to drive them around in his cab, using his driver's license to get a hotel room & arguing about whether or not to kill him. ...
... Keystone Kops, Ctd. Joseph Serna, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: And in other Southern California manhunt news, L.A. County Sheriffs accidentally released a murder suspect awaiting sentencing on an attempted murder conviction. CW: Shit happens, you know. Lock your doors, people.
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Reader Comments (28)
Amusing, isn't it! The man who yells "Loser" at everyone else just picked up endorsements from: Sarah Palin. LOSER! and Scott Brown. LOSER!!
Now in NH the spotlight is shining on second runner up, Marco Rubio who some have likened to the guy in high school as the one running for class president because he's so perfect, tho' most classmates can't stand him!—becomes the GOP next best, (sorta) hope!
Marco as President? Class President? Mmmmm, maybe more like King of the Prom.
@MAG: Turns out Marco actively ran for the equivalent of prom king at South Miami High. He finished second-to-last, according to Marco himself. But that wasn't his fault. The judges just didn't get the humor when he "adopted an obnoxiously braggadocio personality."
Oh, I think they got it. As a matter of fact, he's still in character.
Marie
"DES MOINES — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, powered by a surge of support from evangelical Christians, dealt a humbling loss to Donald J. Trump in the Iowa caucuses on Monday..." NYTimes
Wonderful. The most egregious liar in a pack of liars wins with the support of people who vote for the candidate they feel has the best Invisible Friend.
I love it -- every day another reason to be glad I'm not young.
Good news, 72.4% of Republican voters in Iowa voted against Cruz.
Bad news, someone voted for Carson.
Anyway the focus now is on three, the most hated man in Washington, the most mentally ill 'politician' and the 15 year old running for POTUS.
And the NJ Star Ledger has an excellent editorial about the only person who makes Adolf look good.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/02/president_cruz_americas_worst_nightmare_editorial.html
I didn't know much about James Garfield, our 20th President––knew he got shot four months into office (1881) by a disgruntled, deranged office seeker, but that's about it. Last night PBS "American Experience" featured the life and short reign of Garfield. One could say he was our 19th century Bernie Sanders, but that may be a stretch, except I learned how dedicated he was to the equality of races–- "There has been no black man that has turned his back on any Union soldier––our black citizens need to be treated with honor, respect and with equal treatment". This of course was anathema to Southern ears, but he was determined to change the system. He was also the buster of the political machine which Chester Arthur was part of. Garfield made him his vice President and when he took over the presidency he continued taking down the political machine in N.Y. (for how long? Not long!)
I also learned that Garfield lived for many months after the assassination and could have lived except for botched medical care from a doctor who refused to listen to anyone else. Sad that this man's life and Presidency was cut short––he might have made a big difference. You would have thought that after the killing of Lincoln a President would be protected, but no, that was not the case. Today as many screw-ups as our Secret Service have been involved in, they have protected Obama (some close calls, however)––something I worried about right from the start. Anyway–––cheers for Garfield who coulda been a real contender!
How was it Cruz won in Iowa with his negative Ethanol message? How could you possibly win in Iowa without bowing to King Corn? I can only assume God was looking after Ted in the best way possible.
P.S. We all know that Presidents tend to turn gray toward the end of their term except for Reagan who continued to dye his hair. Got a peek last night of Carson on O'Reilly and by George, the dude already has gray specks, even on his beard. Was it the light, I wondered? Does Ben do the dye like the dude from yesteryear? Just hadn't had the time for a fresher-upper? He said he was leaving for a bit to get clean clothes so maybe... But if the gray has actually graced this surgeon's hair, can you imagine how white it would be after only four years in that White House. If I were Ben, I'd give it a thought.
PD Pepe, the Cruz 'win' needs a further review. First he won with a serious minority of the votes. Second, his vote total was 51,666. These numbers remind me of something I have been thinking about the Iowa version of primaries. The media goes nuts over this vote (not election). Yet it represents a very small image of America and historically has not been a great image of the final nomination.
And you are right that Cruz won from the work of his god. I will bet that 51,665 of his voters picked the person that they believed was the most 'evangelical'. Nothing about policy or plans played a role.
And I would venture to guess that out of those 51,666 caucus
voters for Cruz, some, or many now have health insurance thanks
to Obama. And who is it that declared on his first day in office
he would repeal every single word of the ACA? So what is wrong
with these people? I guess if you get sick in Iowa you just pray
real hard that you won't lose your house or whatever.
PD,
Thanks very much for the review of the PBS Garfield documentary. I wasn't sure whether I would watch it, now I will.
Re President Garfield, I highly recommend Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. Great read about what kind of President James Garfield would have been had he had the chance - but even more so a great read about the horrific way he died. Spoiler alert: he died not from the gunshot wound but from the incredibly inept medical "treatment" he received.
PD--beards generally go gray before the hair does. At any rate, gray hair in a presidential candidate doesn't bother me as much as men (yes, I know it's sexist) like Walker, Cruz, and probably Rubio who dye their hair to emphasize their supposed youth and virility. Women who dye their hair are more forgivable to me because it is more of a cosmetic effort than a lie. This opinion is probably highly colored (!) by my working in geriatrics, having dyed hair, and being eligible for Medicare this month.
I have been quite thrown by the Iowa caucuses. Not so much the results on the Republican side, but the media spin, even though it was predictable. I never believed either Trump or Cruz could be president, but I would have been thrilled to see either be the nominee. If Rubio comes out of this as the Republican Savior, I worry we are in huuuuge trouble. Can we imagine President Rubio and Speaker Ryan working together to implement their vision? Very, very scary.
So it becomes imperative that Democrats eventually come together to elect their nominee, and I'm apprehensive. My biggest problem with Bernie has always been electability, informed by my experiences with McCarthy, McGovern, and the past few elections for governor in Wisconsin. If Bernie and the kids can pull off the nomination, more power to them and I'm all aboard. What I'm reading, though, is that there isn't a corresponding sentiment from Bernie supporters to support Hillary if she's the candidate. My fears are that we either have an unelectable candidate or a candidate who would be very good but is suffering from being smeared by her own side with Republican talking points about unlikability, corporate shill, and so on.
After Iowa, it seems more likely to me that we'll be handing the presidency to an extreme Republican which will determine the direction of the country for the remainder of my life.
I know, it sounds dark and apocalyptic. Remember, I've experienced the last five years in Wisconsin.
Can anyone talk me down from the ledge?
@Nadd2. I agree that Trump and Cruz will not be the nominee. From the jump I thought it would be Jeb or Rubio. Jeb self immolated in a puff of smoke.
Trump has sucked up all the air in the room with his buffoonery and the media has more than obliged in covering the train wreck that is Trump. Other candidates have spent much time impotently swatting at Trump, giving him even more coverage.
Once a nominee is chosen and I do think it will be Rubio. He will get the entire spotlight. I suspect he won't stand up well, the warts and wing nuttery will become evident. Clinton will have a tougher fight and her choice for VP will be more important than usual. Rubio's stance on immigration, in addition to the fact that he is Cuban, means he won't have the Hispanic voters locked up.
There is much too unfold in the next months and I don't think Rubio will fare that well. I'd put one of the Castro brothers in the VP spot against him any day in terms of being smart, well spoken and having a better "story".
Perspective sometimes weighs a bit too much to be entirely comfortable.
Am currently reading a looong biography of FDR, "Traitor to his Class," which I would strongly recommend were it not for its massive heft.
Packed in its many pages are acres of words uttered by both Roosevelt and other American contemporaries that make Sander's criticisms of capitalism seem as tepid from a historical perspective as they in fact are.
The amusing--one searches rather desperately for amusement these days--thing about all the anti-socialist ignorance on the Right is the reason the most Americans live relatively comfortable and healthy lives is that we've been swaddled in socialism since birth, thanks to the history they don't want to know and stupidly wish to reject.
Capitalism certainly hasn't changed in the last eighty years. Today its appetite is just as large or larger than it was in the 1930's. It still wants it all.
Nadd2 wrote: "Can we imagine President Rubio and Speaker Ryan working together to implement their vision?"
No we can't. Mostly because it wouldn't be their vision. It would be the vision of unelected dark money string pullers. Neither Ryan nor certainly Rubio, have a single original (or decent--in all senses of that word) idea in their heads. They do either what they've been told to do or what Republican/Confederate ideology requires of them. The rich get richer, and fuck the poor. That's about it. All that's required to see the truth of this assertion is to look at the joke budgets proposed year after year by Lyin' Ryan. Then look at how much Marco Rubio wants soooo much to be one of the rich kids. He lives far above his means and his personal finances are a shamble. If either of these guys got a chance to really implement the economic ideas being put forward by ALEC white papers, AEI and Heritage proposals, and Koch style schemes, the country's economy would look just like Rubio's. Only worse.
And about Bernie supporters not voting for Hillary: they damn well better, if she's the nominee. Republicans may shoot themselves in the foot every four years by running someone largely unacceptable to the general pool of voters and not just Confederates, but Democrats will shoot themselves in the head by refusing to vote at all for someone who could actually win in the general. We are still digging out from fallout in the wake of purists who decided to cast a "protest" vote for Ralph fucking Nader in 2000, thereby opening the door for a gibbering idiot and a murdering sociopath to drop the country into the famous hand basket headed for hell.
I was once an idealistic kid, so I get it. I voted for McGovern and I appreciate that rush of feeling like you can change things, like you need to change things. And I'm not going to say that the stakes are greater now--they were pretty high back then--but we are already so far to the right and slipping further into darkness; the next president will likely be appointing two Supreme Court justices. Just imagine who will be put forward by a President Rubio, Cruz, or Trump. They'll make Alito and Scalia look like Thurgood Marshall if he had joined the communist party, announced that he was gay and married Saul Alinsky wearing a pink tutu.
If you want to vote for Bernie in the primaries, knock yourself out, but you better get your ass in gear and support Clinton if she's the nominee.
Oh! The agita!
A Mainer weighing in heah, been thinking of a slogan to prod Progressives who say "...if it ain't Bernie, I'm staying home."
R E M E M B E R T H E N A D E R!
I see where the House is going to "investigate" the cluster fuck in Flint.
Ha. That'll be something. I also see where they have decided there's no need to speak with the guy who caused the problem in the first place, Rick Snyder (R-natch). Neither are they calling on Snyder's Emergency Mangler, another Republican ideologue. And I further see that said Snyder is now braying that it was all the fault of the Department of Environmental Quality for not fixing the problem sooner.
This is like a guy who burns down a school after locking kids and parents inside then blames the fire department for not getting there quickly enough to save everyone. And not for nothin' but wasn't the guy in charge of the DEQ one of Snyder's guys??
Furthermore, the additional hypocrisy of the Confederate controlled House declining to ask the arsonist about the school fire he set, concentrating instead on low level local people, points to their desired outcome, SOP for the GOP: blame the victims.
I hope Justice and the FBI have better luck.
Re Graybeards:
When I was 30 I grew a mustache because I thought it made me look older. When I was 50 I shaved it off for the same reason.
Diane,
I tend to agree with you about Rubio. Once he's center stage under the hot lights, the warts will take the shine off the class president facade. I hope. But a further concern is that Clinton is not without problems herself. The most important being that so many people hate her.
There might be plenty of Bernie supporters who have already decided never to vote for her no matter what. And those elusive independents (let me again question the intellectual capacity of these odd creatures--if you're not sure at this point, when will you be? You mean to say that you're still considering siding with people who want to drag us all back to the dark ages, offer prayers for the weekly victims of mass shootings, carpet bomb countries we don't particularly care for, and hand our collective life savings over to shadowy wingnut billionaires?) may decide that Marco might not be that great, but all those nasty things they hear on Fox about Hillary Clinton is SUCH a turnoff that they might cast their lot with the class president, warts and all.
I'd feel better about it if Clinton was able to present a view that wasn't so--beholden is the word, I suppose--to big banks and other entrenched power centers. I realize you have to deal with these centers if you're president or vying to be, but...
Plus, add in the elephant in the room that no one has seen fit to worry about, vote suppression, election rigging, and electoral tampering by Republicans, and stress levels begin to soar. (Speaking of that vote suppression problem, isn't this something Wasserman-Schultz and the DNC should have been keeping front and center for the last, oh, decade or more and working to do something about?)
I dunno. The whole thing scares the bejesus out of me.
The circus has landed in the Granite State which means we'll be hearing from that intimate of kings, queens, potentates, and nabobs, former world historical figure, Scott (Racist Beefcake Boy) Brown. That is, if he can get a word in edgewise once the Trumpet starts blowing. Speaking of which, we haven't heard much in the last couple of days from the Orange Headed Clown.
As MAG put it, associating with so many losers may have rubbed off.
Okay, one more then I'm done.
It's with a heavy heart we bid farewell to the Littlest Candidate, he of fifth place and the bad toupée--no, I mean it. Really bad. Wicked bad toupée.
It's back to the State of Kentucky for Aqua Buddha, there to explain how he was done in--stabbed in the back, dammit!--by libr'uls and the media.
I'd say "Randy, we hardly knew ye" but that's the problem. We do know him.
As my mother used to say, "Here's your hat. What's your hurry?"
Heh-heh.
Akhilleus: Or as my mom would have said, "Write if you get work!"
Thoughts on Lil' Randy and walls.
Aside from his less than prepossessing public image, Randy's main problem is that the majority of Americans don't really want smaller government. Many just say they do, because it makes them feel free and independent, when in fact they want a government big enough hand out large bags of goodies to them (not to the blah people, of course) and to make them feel safe from all those (the blah people again) who want to take from them everything they know is rightfully theirs.
As for walls, I expect at any moment the Trumpet will call for an impermeable Zika virus barrier along our southern border, no doubt to be paid for by millions of willing mosquitoes.
Diane--good point about Rubio wilting under the glare of the spotlight. I wonder if the media will really shine it on him, though. They want to see a race. And for Hillary, with friends like half the dems, she doesn't need enemies.
Somebody has to be elected. If democrats don't get their act together, it will be a republican.
So the Trump(et) wants a re-caucus in Iowa because another
republican pol lied and cheated. He should be used to this by
now since it seems that's what they all are good at. Would love
to see another caucus and he gets maybe half as many votes.
At least he's closer to Manhattan now and in that big gold-plated
bed tossing and turning and crying.
I know I said I was done, but I this is just too good.
Jeb(!), in New Hampshire, tries out his stemwinding abilities, relating what a macho president he'll be and comes up with a total fail. So bad he has to beg stony faced Granite Staters to please, please, clap for him.
I am not even kidding.
The former Phillips Andover bully who lorded it over smaller, less connected students,and the asshole who used the comatose Terry Schiavo to cynically burnish his Confederate bona fides by trading on this woman's tragedy in callous and uncaring defiance of her and her husband's wishes, the privileged scumbag who sniffed that 2016 was his turn to rule, is now reduced to begging audiences to please applaud whenever he mewls something vaguely wingnutty.
I knew guys like Jeb Bush (and his douchebag war criminal brother) in college, privileged rich kids who never had to work for their place in life, never had to worry about anyone asking them to defend their most outrageous statements or actions. I always felt that most of these guys (they were always guys), if ever forced to fend for themselves in an environment they couldn't control, would come apart like cheap, wet paper towels.
And now here he is, begging for people to like him and clap for him.
Brawny, he's not.
Maybe The Decider can teach him how to paint pictures of his piggy-toes and cute little puppies.
Anyone got thoughts about Drumpf's eventual exit strategy?
You bet he's got an excuse lined up & ready for the press release. Ahhhh, maybe he gets bit by one of those dang Zika mosquitos down in South Carolina. Or, he's got an ingrown toenail that doctors can only remove by taking his foot out of his mouth...recovery might takes months! Or, years!
I am curious, oh yellow pompadour!
One more thing from me, too:
The Democratic result in Iowa was a tie. I'm not sure of the significance of this. However, for the media or anyone else to perpetuate the story that someone won and someone lost is ludicrous.
Clearly, everyone is on point about the Clinton negatives. They are old negatives, no new news. I'm not sure continuous rehashing is effective. Rubio doesnt have the chops to compete with her in a debate, either based on his experience, his temperament nor his demeanor. Clinton is a known entity and one of the reasons why the Clinton VP is so important. Sanders might bring the youth and the progressives who can't bring themselves to hold their noses, but a young hispanic could also sew up an important constituency. It will be a decision based on who can bring the most votes. Unfortunately, Sanders may well decline a VP nomination.
The Dems main focus has to be the Supreme Court. That reminder should be front and center in the campaign.