Live Blog: Democratic Debate from Flint
Posted: March 6, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Live, Live Blog | Tags: CNN, live blog, Michigan Democratic Primary 2016 Debate 105 Comments
Good Evening!
Last night, Louisiana went big for Hillary! I was so proud to be part of a really good campaign effort by the Hillary Field Team and Louisiana Democrats. We managed to overwhelm the results of the caucuses in both Kansas and Nebraska given our state has a much higher delegate count. I will let the Republicans argue about the benefits of size. However, the next few weeks some of the really big important states will vote. This Tuesday, it will be the important state of Michigan. Tonight, there is a Democratic Debate from Flint, Michigan.
On Sunday night, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will face off in their seventh debate, less than a week after Clinton expanded her delegate lead on Super Tuesday and in-between additional primaries and caucuses on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday.
CNN will host the debate, which begins at 8 p.m. ET, from the Frances Wilson Library on the University of Michigan’s campus in Flint.
Both candidates have repeatedly highlighted the water crisis in Flint during the campaign. Clinton has said that “what happened in Flint is immoral,” and Sanders called on Gov. Rick Snyder to resign a while ago. The crisis dates all the way back to 2014 when a state-appointed emergency manager decided to switch Flint’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River to save money. But the water from that river was corrosive and caused lead to seep into old pipes, which has left many Flint residents with long-term health effects associated with lead exposure and might have caused deadly cases of Legionnaires’ disease.
The debate will come just a day after voters headed to the polls or caucus sites in the Democratic race in Kansas, Louisiana and Nebraska, the same day as the Maine Democratic caucuses, and just two days before Michigan and Mississippi hold their primaries.
Clinton racked up a win in Louisiana’s primary Saturday by wide margins, 71 percent to Sanders’ 23 percent. But she also lost Nebraska and Kansas to her rival by several points in each contest.
Michigan has plenty of problems. Flint situation with the water and Detroit’s deterioration will likely be topics. We may also hear about the Auto bailout by the President.
It will be the last time the two will get to argue policy before the Michigan primary Tuesday, and it could possibly be a chance for the two to address the water crisis in Flint, where city residents suffered lead poisoning from the city’s water supply. Ahead of the highly anticipated debate, here are the latest poll numbers showing who is ahead in the race to the national convention.
Hillary Clinton
The former secretary of state has maintained a commanding lead over her main opponent, Sanders, throughout the election cycle. A recent CNN/ORC International conducted Feb. 24-27, found Clinton polling at 55 percent. A poll from Rasmussen Reports had her polling at 53 percent, still at a commanding lead over Sanders among likely voting Democrats. Clinton has won most of the primaries and caucuses so far, and going into the debates Sunday she also has more delegates than Sanders. Clinton has 601 pledged delegates so far, and with 457 superdelegates, that brings her total delegate count to 1,058.
Sanders is making a big play for Michigan because he’s falling farther and farther behind.
A win in a big industrial state could upend the race, they say — and Michigan figured to be especially receptive to the Vermont senator’s economic message.
But with just two days before the state’s delegate-rich primary, Sanders hasn’t yet made the sale. He has trailed by double-digits in each of the nine public polls taken since the beginning of February. Hillary Clinton’s got the backing of both of Detroit’s newspapers, the state’s top Democrats, and the mayor of hard-hit Flint. While there are signs of tightening as Sanders floods the airwaves with ads, Clinton’s big margins among African-Americans elsewhere raise questions about whether the senator can break through in a state where 14 percent of the population is black.
Hillary Clinton is polling strong in Michigan.
In the Democratic contest, Clinton leads Sanders among likely primary voters by 17 points, 57 percent to 40 percent. But the race is closer among the larger potential Democratic electorate — Clinton at 52 percent and Sanders at 44 percent.
Sanders continues to play loose with facts as shown with this NPR Fact-Check on Michigan’s abandoned buildings and NAFTA.
On Thursday, Sanders tweeted, “The people of Detroit know the real cost of Hillary Clinton’s free trade policies,” along with five photos of dilapidated buildings. Shortly after that initial tweet, he added: “43,000 Michiganders lost their jobs due to NAFTA. I opposed that bad deal, @HillaryClinton did not.”
The Big Question:
There’s a lot going on here, so we’re going to break this into two parts:
1. What does free trade (and especially NAFTA) have to do with the devastation Sanders’ tweet depicted?
2. How big of a proponent of NAFTA was Hillary Clinton?
The Short Answers:
1. Probably not much (though it did cost some people their jobs), and
2. She supported it, though she expressed reservations sometimes. (Either way, importantly, it was signed under her husband’s administration.)
I’ve included some pictures of State Senator Karen Carter Peterson who is also doing a great job with the Louisiana Democratic Party and of some of the volunteers who phone banked yesterday to bring the win!
I can hear Bernie spinning tales right now. Tell us what you think!!!
Additionally, there are two primaries today. The Democrats held one in Maine. The Republicans had a primary in Puerto Rico.
We’ve got some preliminary results.
The Associated Press projects Bernie Sanders the victor of the Maine Democratic caucuses. With 85 percent of caucus sites reporting, Sanders led, 64 to 36 percent.
And on the Republican side:
CNN and the Associated Press are projecting Puerto Rico for Marco Rubio, who was widely expected to win the territory. As Vann has noted, if he wins more than half the vote, he’ll take home all of Puerto Rico’s delegates. Right now, CNN has him at roughly 74 percent, with 32 percent of votes counted.
As you can see, my little Hill Dawg Tempe and I are relaxing today! I always wear my Pikachu socks when life’s giving me smiles! We’ve got more work coming up. You can make calls for Hillary from your home if you’d like. I did it in 2007 and I will be trying to call out just as soon as I get my voice back!!
Wednesday NH Townhall (CNN) Live Blog
Posted: February 3, 2016 Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Live, Live Blog | Tags: Anderson Cooper, Clinton, CNN townhall, New Hampshire, Sanders 51 Comments
Clinton and Sanders have their first townhall in New Hampshire without O’Malley right now on CNN. This event comes fresh on heels the historic Clinton win of the Iowa Caucuses. The margin was small, but a win is a win is a win. Sanders is expected to win New Hampshire because of the neighbor effect. They always vote for fellow New Englanders and Sanders is no stranger. CNN has a list of five things to watch. I found this one pretty interesting.
In a similar CNN town hall in Iowa, Sanders absolutely unloaded on Clinton, hammering her as a newcomer to the progressive movement on income inequality, trade, energy and other issues.
Since then, the man who talks about never running a negative ad in his life has approved one that ripped into Goldman Sachs for paying politicians speaking fees — a crystal-clear shot at Clinton who has received that money.
He has complained about the Democratic establishment, complaining about the Democratic National Committee’s decision to hold debates often on weekends and against playoff football games and other high-profile events.
Is Sanders ready to really rip into Clinton?
His winks and nods toward the liberal base are impossible to miss.
On Tuesday in Keene, New Hampshire, Sanders launched into an attack on the Walmart-owning Walton family, saying that “the major welfare abuser in America is the wealthiest family in America.”
No wonder: Walmart is headquartered in Arkansas. Clinton once served on its board. And Alice Walton gave Clinton’s Democratic National Committee Victory Fund $353,000 in December — a contribution just made public in filings Sunday.
Sanders has the podium first. You can watch it live on CNN or here at Raw Story.
This event and the MSNBC debate scheduled for tomorrow night were thrown together rather hastily. Here’s variety’s take on the first part of the Sanders questions.
Ever since they left Iowa, Clinton and Sanders have gotten more pointed, particularly on Twitter, over who can better carry out a set of progressive priorities. Clinton has called herself a “progressive who gets things done,” while Sanders posted a series of tweets suggesting she has shifted her positions on such things as the Keystone pipeline and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well as on the question of whether she is a centrist or a liberal.
“You can be a moderate. You can be a progressive. But you cannot be a moderate and a progressive,” Sanders tweeted on Wednesday.
9:10 pm ET: Sanders slams expectations. Bernie Sanders criticized the media for focusing so much on expectations in New Hampshire, where he leads some polls by a significant margin. “That is the media game. That is what the media talks about. Who cares?” he says. Clinton’s campaign has downplayed the state, in hopes of delivering a better-then-expected result. But Sanders, too, cautions that he expects the results to be “close.”
9:15 p.m. ET: How do you pay for it? In the last debate, Clinton pointedly said that she would not raise taxes on the middle class. Sanders has said there will be tax hikes. Sanders said that his proposal for a “medicare for all,” single-payer health care program would raise taxes on those in the “middle of the economy” by about $500 annually. But he tells a questioner that the switch to single payer will reduce medical costs by $5,000.
9:23 p.m. ET: On faith. Cooper asks Sanders about something the Vermont senator rarely talks about on the stump: His faith. “Everybody practices religion in a different way,” says Sanders, who is Jewish. “I would not be running for president of the United States if I did not have very strong religious and spiritual feelings.” He added that on the stump rarely gets that personal, but he did say he worried about a society “where some people say, ‘I don’t care,’” when spirituality to him is a recognition that “we are in this together.”
So, here we go again! Join us!!!
State of the Union Live Blog
Posted: January 20, 2015 Filed under: Live, Live Blog, SOTU | Tags: 2015 State of the Union Live Blog 105 Comments
Tonight we’re watching the State of the Union address to see exactly what the last two years of the Obama presidency may bring. It will be a tough few years given the group that was sent to Congress last fall. We’re about to see a bunch of whackadoodle dandies go wild. There are several rumors up on the internet concerning possible executive orders that will be announced to tonight. Here is one of the more interesting ones.
It is being reported that one of President Obama’s surprises at the State Of The Union will be an announcement of an executive order that will take on the Koch Brothers and Citizens United.
Eleanor Clift of The Daily Beast reported:
Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of Citizens United, and reformers have been told that the president may announce executive action in his SOTU speech that would require businesses contracting with the government to disclose political contributions after contracts have been awarded. This would ensure that the contracting process is blind, but also give the public (and the media) the information needed to connect the dots to look for backroom deals or conflicts of interest.
Guess who happens to have multi-million dollar contracts with the Department of Defense? The federal government hatingKoch Brothers have tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts with the federal government. Rush Limbaugh also has a federal government contract that allows his showto be broadcast on the American Forces Network.
It is possible that the president will announce this executive order tonight, but he may also decide to wait and make a separate announcement. When/if the president does decide to make this announcement it will be a huge boost to transparency. The Koch brothers have a web of secret organizations that they route their money through, so most of their campaign spending will remain a secret, but it will become a bit easier to connect the dots and figure how much direct influence campaign donations are having on public policy decisions.
Ron Fournier of the National Journal suggests we just the President’s agenda with this set of criteria. Progress or Politics?
Republicans just seized control of Congress. President Obama’s job-approval ratings just jumped. Gas prices and the unemployment rate are down. The gross domestic product is up. Now what? Democratic and Republican leaders face a choice: Begin governing together, or treat this moment like just another stop on a perpetual campaign.
Unfortunately, both the White House and the GOP-led Congress seem focused prematurely on 2016. Republicans are sending to the White House legislation they know Obama will veto. The president is pushing an agenda he knows Congress won’t pass. It’s a recipe for more gridlock, more fighting, more courting of donors and ignoring the needs of a country in transition.
In other words: The state of the union is the status quo.
If you’re OK with that, stop reading. If you’d rather see progress than partisan gains, consider this: The State of the Union address is an opportunity for the president to chart a path toward consensus on issues like jobs, social mobility, education, infrastructure, energy, the debt, the environment, and terrorism.
Is Obama more interested in politics or progress? Here are five ways to tell from his address tonight.
Isn’t Obama a lame duck? After all, this speech comes after Republicans won control of both chambers for the first time this presidency. Here’s a trivia question: When was the last time a President gave his seventh year State of the Union to a Congress that wasn’t controlled by the other party? Answer: Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. Every other two termer had lost control of Congress by the last lap of his presidency. They all faced a steeper political terrain than Obama does. Dwight Eisenhower faced Cold War setbacks. Ronald Reagan spoke in 1987 right after the Iran-Contra scandal broke, and he had to lead the speech with a discussion and apology. Bill Clinton was in the middle of his Senate impeachment trial in 1999. And George W. Bush spoke at a time when we were losing in Iraq. He faced withering controversy over the “surge” of troops, which proved a good policy, but made for a challenging speech environment. Some of them had productive last two years; some didn’t. But there is much room for a creative president and Congress to achieve things, even by fighting.
For President Obama, the new party balance offers some unexpected benefits. In recent years, Congress has been paralyzed, polarized, and entirely dysfunctional. Now conservatives control it, but at least it might actually pass legislation. Obama suddenly will be more central, more relevant than he has been in domestic politics over the past year. His veto pen will be all that stands between the Republican agenda and enactment. He can draw lines, pick fights, or choose cooperation. In so doing, too, he will have the ability to make broad public arguments in the context of a real debate—on the economy, on the role of government, on contentious long-term issues such as climate change.
How can the President use this diminished but still potent platform?
So, grab the popcorn and let’s see if this year’s hostile audience pulls any big tricks.
President Obama is courting controversy with his decision to address a group that has become dominated in recent years by extremists.
Some have questioned the appropriateness of the President speaking to such an extremist group, especially because in the past it has issued threats against the United States government.
The SOTU will be streaming at CSPAN and on the White House Website if you want to avoid the District Puppetry errrrr Punditry.
Presidential Speech on Immigration Reform Live Blog
Posted: November 20, 2014 Filed under: immigration, Live, Live Blog 12 Comments
The three major networks will not be showing the President’s speech tonight. We will be doing this tonight on our blog because it’s an extremely important issue. You will be able to watch it on the cable news networks and of course, Univision who will be delaying its live telecast of the Latin Grammys to give airtime to Obama at 8 p.m. EST.
Here’s some background information.
How does America feel about Immigration and immigration reform? Here’s seven charts that break out poll results.
He then opened up the program to callers, including “Steve” – who asked the Republican elected official what typically happens in history “when one culture or one race or one religion overwhelms another culture or race.”
“When one race or culture overwhelms another culture, they run them out or they kill them,” the caller said, warning that immigrant groups sought the return of former Spanish territories in the U.S.
Kobach initially threw cold water on the caller’s suggestion before implying President Barack Obama was tacitly endorsing violence against whites.
“What protects us in America from any kind of ethnic cleansing is the rule of law, of course,” Kobach said. “The rule of law used to be unassailable, used to be taken for granted in America, and now, of course, we have a president who disregards the law when it suits his interests.”
“So while I normally would answer that by saying, ‘Steve, of course we have the rule of law, that could never happen in America,’” Kobach continued, “I wonder what could happen. I still don’t think it’s going to happen in America, but I have to admit, things are strange and they are happening.”
There’s some interesting analysis out there on what all the reactions by Republicans will do to the next two years.
Republican leaders who had hoped to focus on corporate tax reform, fast-track trade pacts, repealing the president’s healthcare law and loosening environmental restrictions on coal are instead being dragged into an immigration skirmish that they’ve tried studiously to avoid for most of the last year.
That’s largely because the question of how to handle the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. bitterly divides Republicans, and the party has been unable to agree on an alternative to the president’s plan.
To many, stark warnings from Boehner and McConnell sound more like pleas to the president to avoid reenergizing the GOP’s conservative wing, whose leaders are already threatening to link the president’s immigration plan to upcoming budget talks.
Another government shutdown is not what McConnell and Boehner had in mind when their party won control of Congress this month.
In fact, McConnell said flatly a day after the election that another shutdown would not happen. But calls by firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to use “all procedural means necessary” during Congress’ lame-duck session to block the White House’s immigration plans have left leaders scrambling to tame their rebellious ranks.
Republican leaders are increasingly concerned that if Obama follows through, the anti-immigrant fervor in their party will rise to an unappealing crescendo and the rank-and-file’s desire to confront the president will overtake other party priorities.
So, hang on until it’s all announced at 8:00 pm EST and we’ll see if all hell breaks loose like Crazy Tom Coburn is projecting.
Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn warns there could be not only a political firestorm but acts of civil disobedience and even violence in reaction to President Obama’s executive order on immigration Thursday.
“The country’s going to go nuts, because they’re going to see it as a move outside the authority of the president, and it’s going to be a very serious situation,” Coburn said on Capital Download. “You’re going to see — hopefully not — but you could see instances of anarchy. … You could see violence.”
State of the Union Address 2014 (Live Blog)
Posted: January 28, 2014 Filed under: Live 93 Comments
We will be live blogging the SOTU tonight at 9 pm EST. Look for Live Updates and more as we get closer to the time!!!
With Minimum Wage as Start, Obama to Press Past Congress
President Obama plans to sign an executive order requiring that janitors, construction workers and others working for federal contractors be paid at least $10.10 an hour in the future, using his own power to enact a more limited version of a policy that he has yet to push through Congress.
The order, which Mr. Obama will highlight in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday night, is meant to underscore an increased willingness by the president to bypass Congress if lawmakers continue to resist his agenda, aides said. After a year in which most of his legislative priorities went nowhere, Mr. Obama is seeking ways to make progress despite a lack of cooperation on Capitol Hill.
The minimum wage plan provides an example of what he has in mind. Mr. Obama called on Congress during last year’s State of the Union address to raise the minimum wage for workers across the board, only to watch the proposal languish on Capitol Hill, where opponents argued it would hurt businesses and stifle job creation. With prospects for congressional action still slim, Mr. Obama is using the executive order covering federal contractors to go as far as he can on his own.
Democrats hope Obama’s State of Union speech will be start of populist agenda
In recent weeks, some Democratic lawmakers and strategists have urged the White House to focus less on academic-sounding discussions of income inequality and to simplify Obama’s message to reflect the everyday concerns of Americans. White House officials say they have long planned to emphasize such issues.
The approach is notable because raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for domestic initiatives was a centerpiece of Obama’s first-term economic agenda — a move aimed squarely at shrinking income inequality. In speeches over the past year, the president has bounced between wonky discussions about inequality and practical speeches on helping the middle class.
“My view is that the party that taps into the decline in middle-class incomes and the lack of good jobs and figures out a satisfying answer will dominate the 2014 election,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
But, he added, “the American people are more concerned about how they are doing as opposed to how someone else is doing. So simply saying ‘We’re going to raise taxes on the wealthy’ is not going to be the kind of answer that satisfies the middle class.”
GOP Lawmakers Can’t Get Enough Of ‘Duck Dynasty’ At SOTU (PHOTOS)
“Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson was a ubiquitous presence Tuesday night in Republican lawmakers’ pre-State of the Union photos.
Robertson, the son of controversial “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson, was invited to the address by Rep. Vance McAllister (R-LA). Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) tweeted that he gave his spare ticket to Robertson’s wife, Korie.At least four lawmakers snapped a photo with Robertson
Duck Duck ASSSSSShat!!!!
Campaign cash used to pay for some State of the Union guests
Members of Congress are given one seat to fill with an invited guest – and nearly everyone uses the coveted invitation to help make a political point.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has invited Catholic school children and a business owner from his Ohio district. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has asked an immigration reform activist to attend. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) found a St. Cloud, Minn., physician who reached out with concerns about the new Affordable Care Act. (Departing from the political theme, aides said that Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) is giving his extra seat to his wife, Mikey.)
Several members greeted their invited guests Tuesday, and some even attended news conferences with their “plus one” in tow. But what they probably failed to mention is that several guests are enjoying a trip to Washington paid for with campaign cash.
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