Posted: April 5, 2016 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: historical photos, Wisconsin primary |
Hubert Humphrey and John Kennedy as votes are counted in the Wisconsin Primary, 1960
Good Morning!!
I hate to keep complaining about my health issues, but I’m moving so slowly this morning that I thought I’d give you guys a quick update so you’d know why it has been taking me so to get my posts written. I have been struggling with a cold and sinus infection that just won’t go away. It’s been weeks–maybe close to 2 months. I haven’t really kept track. For about 10 days, my sinuses were so swollen that my upper and lower teeth ached on the left side.
Last Tuesday, I went to a hospital walk-in clinic. It turned out that my blood pressure was very high, and I ended up having to stay in the hospital overnight while they tried to stabilize it and figure out what was going on with my sinuses. I had every test you could imagine–a chest X-ray, EKG, blood and oxygen tests for heart function, an echocardiogram, a CAT scan of my sinuses, and I wore a heart monitor while I was there.
The doctors were reluctant to give me an antibiotic, but they finally decided to give me a Z-pack because I had been sick for so long. They also gave me some blood pressure medication. I came home on Wednesday evening and by Thursday afternoon I felt dramatically better. On Friday and Saturday I felt great–I felt like me again for the first time in a long time. But on Sunday the symptoms started coming back. It hasn’t gotten to the point that my teeth hurt yet, but I obviously need more antibiotics.
I’m seeing a physician’s assistant tomorrow, and I hope I can convince her to give me a prescription. Of course the main focus is going to be on my blood pressure, so I’m trying to prepare myself to be assertive enough to get the help I need.
On top of all that, it snowed here on Sunday and Monday! I’m just hoping the snow will melt today. The sun is out, but it isn’t going to get much above freezing. If it doesn’t melt, I plan to go out this afternoon and try to back the car out of the driveway without shoveling it.
Anyway, I hope you guys don’t mind my sharing this. It has actually made me feel a little better to put it into words. Now on to today’s reads.
George Wallace won 1/3 of the Democratic primary votes in Wisconsin in 1964.
Yesterday we got exciting news from the Supreme Court on voting rights. Here’s some background from The Atlantic: One Person, One Vote, Eight Justices.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously turned back a legal effort to reinterpret the “one person, one vote” constitutional rule Monday, ruling that states may rely on total population when drawing their legislative districts.
The case, Evenwel v. Abbott, was brought by two Texas voters, Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger, who challenged the apportionment of Texas Senate districts. With the exception of the U.S. Senate, every American legislative body is apportioned by total population under the “one person, one vote” rule first outlined by the Court in the 1960s.
Evenwel and Pfenninger argued that counting non-voters—children, the mentally disabled, disenfranchised prisoners, and non-citizens—broke that rule and diluted their political power in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Cause. Many observers, including my colleague Garrett Epps, notedthat Evenwel’s interpretation would redraw the American political map in favor of a whiter, older, and more conservative electorate.
“In agreement with Texas and the United States, we reject appellants’ attempt to locate a voter-equality mandate in the Equal Protection Clause,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. “As history, precedent, and practice demonstrate, it is plainly permissible for jurisdictions to measure equalization by the total population of state and local legislative districts.”
The Supreme Court first forced states to draw their legislative districts with roughly equal populations inside them in two landmark decisions: Baker v. Carr in 1962 andReynolds v. Sims in 1964. The two decisions enshrined the one-person, one-vote rule in American constitutional law.
More at the link.
Eugene McCarthy after winning the Wisconsin primary in 1968
Analysis by Rick Hasan at the Election Law Blog: Breaking/Analysis: Big Victory for Voting Rights as #SCOTUS Rejects Plaintiffs’ Claim in Evenwel One Person, One Vote Case.
Justice Ginsburg wrote the opinion for the Court, and it is clear (as I had been saying) that Justice Scalia’s death did not affect the outcome of this case. It was clear from the oral argument that, despite what some said, this was not a case where the Court was likely to divide 4-4. Ed Blum’s position in this case to require voter population was not only at odds with historical practice, it was not practically possible given the data that we have, and it would have led to terrible outcomes, including making it basically impossible to also comply with Voting Rights Act requirements for districts.
Justice Ginsburg’s opinion holds that districting using total population was consistent with constitutional history, the Court’s own decisions, and longstanding practice. A long section of Justice Ginsburg’s opinion recounts constitutional history, and relies on the fact that for purposes of apportioning Congressional seats among states, total population, not total voters, must be used. Plaintiffs’ argument in Evenwel was inconsistent with this practice. As to the Court’s own precedents, Justice Ginsburg acknowledged language supporting both total voters and total population as possible bases, but Court’s practice has been to look at total population in its cases. Further, that is the practice that states uniformly use, despite the occasional case such as Burns v. Richardson, allowing Hawaii to use a registered voter level.
Finally, Justice Ginsburg gives a sound policy reason for a total population rule. In key language, she writes that “Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates—children,, their parents, even their grandparents, for example, have a stake in a strong public-education system—and in receiving constituent services, such as help navigating public-benefits bureaucracies. By ensuring that each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the same number of constituents, total population apportionment promotes equitable and effective representation.” A footnote following this states that even though constituents “have no constitutional right to equal access to the their elected representatives,” a state “certainly has an interest in taking reasonable, nondiscriminatory steps to facilitate access for all its residents.”
Perhaps the most important aspect of Justice Ginsburg’s opinion, and especially notable because it attracted the votes of not just the liberals but also Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy, is the Court’s refusal to give Texas the green light to use total voters if it wants in the next round of redistricting. The Court simply put the issue off for another day. It is hard to stress enough what a victory this is for liberal supporters of voting rights. Many of us thought Burns already gave Texas this power. The fact that the Court leaves that issue open will serve as a deterrent for states like Texas to try to use total voters in the next round of redistricting, because it will guarantee major litigation on the question.
Much more at the link.
George McGovern after winning the Wisconsin primary in 1972.
Today is the Wisconsin primary, and Bernie Sanders is expected to win. FiveThirtyEight gives him a 72 percent chance of winning and only a 28 percent chance for Hillary Clinton to pull an upset. Of course those are probabilities and the few polls that have been taken show a somewhat closer race. The Real Clear Politics poll average is 47.9 for Bernie, 45.3 for Hillary. Al Giordano is projecting a 16 point win for Bernie, but even if he does that well, he won’t get enough pledged delegates out of Wisconsin to cut Hillary’s lead by much.
After today, there won’t be another primary until New York votes on April 19. There is a caucus in Wyoing on April 9, and Sanders will probably win that.
Yesterday, the Clinton and Sanders campaign settled on a date for the Brooklyn debate that Bernie has been demanding since New Hampshire. It will be on April 14 on CNN with {gag} Wolf Blitzer as moderator.
As I’m sure you’re aware, there has been a silly dispute about this completely unnecessary “debate.” The Sanders campaign played games for several days, first accusing Clinton of being afraid to to debate him and then turning down four different dates and times offered by her campaign. But yesterday, NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio played the trump card (pun intended) by offering to smooth the way for Sanders to arrange his oh so busy schedule. The Daily Mail reports:
The Brooklyn debate that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been squabbling over for the last week is finally a go.
The Sanders campaign announced this evening that it had accepted an offer from CNN to debate on the evening of April 14 – a date that Clinton had been pushing for but the senator rejected.
CNN separately announced that the primetime smackdown would be held from 9-11 PM next Thursday at the Duggal Greenhouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard….
Sanders’ campaign said this morning it could not do April 14, though it originally said would be acceptable, because it was the only evening it could secure a permit for a Washington Square rally in New York City.
Clinton backer and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio then offered to wield his power to settle the boiling dispute between the Democratic presidential candidates today.
De Blasio said on Twitter: ‘Let’s make @NY1 4/14 BKLYN debate happen. @BernieSanders: I’ll help you secure any permit you need to ensure your NYC rally can happen too.’
Hahahahaha! It was an offer Bernie couldn’t refuse.
Jimmy Carter, winner of the Wisconsin primary, 1976
More from Dana Millbank: Sanders is losing the pillow fight with Clinton.
This particular rhetorical showdown was not a back-and-forth about issues, appropriately enough, but an argument about whether to debate — and when, and where. It began Jan. 30, when the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign challenged Hillary Clinton to debate him in Brooklyn on April 14.
Clinton suggested the Democrats instead debate in Pennsylvania, on Long Island or in Upstate New York. Sanders accused Clinton of ducking.
Clinton proposed a New York debate on the evening of April 4 — but the Sanders campaign rejected the idea as “ludicrous” because the NCAA basketball championship would be later that night and Syracuse might be playing.
Clinton proposed they debate on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on April 15, but Sanders rejected that, too.
Clinton even acquiesced to the original Sanders demand and offered to debate April 14 in Brooklyn. Sorry, Sanders said. He now had a rally scheduled for that night — and the permit, his campaign said, had been hard to get.
The Sanders campaign countered Sunday by suggesting four other nights — one of them on a weekend, which it previously had said was unacceptable. Clinton summarily rejected those days.
But then Bill de Blasio stepped in, and made Bernie look like a dope.
Sanders late Monday acquiesced to debate on the very day and in the very place he proposed two months ago. He could rally another time at his preferred venue, New York’s Washington Square Park — which, by coincidence, was the site Saturday of the International Pillow Fight, in which hundreds of strangers playfully thumped each other with feather-filled sacks.
This is oddly appropriate, because the Democratic nominating contest generally, like the Great Debate Debate, has come to resemble a pillow fight — a lot of commotion and feathers flying, but the blows don’t have much impact. Sanders long ago ceased to have a meaningful chance of winning the nomination; he would need to win 57 percent of the remaining delegates (or 67 percent, if you include uncommitted superdelegates), which, under the Democrats’ system of assigning delegates in proportion to the vote, simply isn’t going to happen.
Millbank claims that in order to win, Sanders would have to attack Clinton’s character and that Sanders “refuses” to do that. Of course he has been doing just that by insinuation for a very long time; but that doesn’t fit the media narrative, so Millbank can’t admit that Bernie’s personal attacks are not working.
Michael Dukakis, winner of the Wisconsin Primary, 1988.
The Sanders campaign is still failing badly in its choice of official surrogates. Again and again we’ve seen Bernie’s celebrity supporters put their feet in their mouths while doing their best to help win him votes. Cornell West, Killer Mike, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry, they’ve all managed to insult African American voters by minimizing their importance and attacking President Obama, and discounting all Southern Democrats as part of “the Confederacy.
Yesterday, Susan Sarandon’s former partner Tim Robbins weighed in when he introduced Sanders at the Wisconsin Rally. Philip Bump at The Washington Post: Tim Robbins’s very bad take on why Bernie Sanders is undersold.
After the Southern primaries,” he said, “you had called the election” — apparently referring to the media. “And who’s fooling who? Winning South Carolina in the Democratic primary is about as significant as winning Guam. No Democrat is going to win in the general election. Why do these victories have so much significance?”
This is a not-uncommon argument among supporters of Sanders. Yes, Hillary Clinton is winning. But she’s winning largely because she ran up big margins in Southern states. That, the argument goes, bodes poorly for the general, since those Southern states usually vote Republican.
This is a bad argument that borders on insulting.
First of all, South Carolina has a lot more people than Guam. Among the other bits of data one can point out about the 2016 Democratic primary is that Clinton has received far more votes than Sanders — 2.5 million more. Among those is a margin of about 175,000 more votes in the state of South Carolina, a margin that by itself is larger than the population of Guam.
Which means that Clinton came away from South Carolina with a net delegate haul of plus-25 — she earned 25 more delegates than did Sanders. In the Democrats’ proportional system, that’s a big margin. It’s a margin that Sanders has only managed once, in the Washington caucuses late last month. So in that sense, South Carolina matters a lot more than Guam.
More at the link. It’s not just a stupid and insulting argument; it’s a racist argument. There, I’ve said it. It’s what I believe.
Bill Clinton, winner of the 1990 Wisconsin primary
I have more links that I want to share; I’ll put some in the comment thread. What stories are you following today?
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Posted: April 2, 2016 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, New York primary, Wisconsin primary |
Frida Kahlo: Me and My Parrots
Good Afternoon!!
Bernie Sanders sure turned out to be a nasty piece of work. His campaign has devolved into non-stop character attacks on Hillary Clinton, jabs at President Obama, and endless whining about supposed unfair treatment by the media and the Democratic Party.
The latest is Sanders’ outright false claim that the the Clinton campaign has received millions in donations from “the fossil fuel industry.” He may have finally gone too far for the media to keep shielding him.
This time, instead of turning the other cheek, Hillary hit back when a Greenpeace organizer asked her a question based on Sanders’ lies. I’m sure you’ve seen the video of Hillary saying she’s “sick of it.”
Painting by Candido Portinari
Melissa McEwan at Blue Nation Review: THE MOMENT: Why Hillary’s Visible Anger at Being Smeared Spells Big Trouble for Bernie.
The video of Hillary saying, “I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I’m sick of it,” is embedded in news stories and is being played all over cable news and the internet. While we take absolutely no issue with the activist’s right to ask the question, we see this as an important inflection point in the 2016 campaign.
There are two ways the story is being covered. In some places, the video (or just Hillary’s quote) is being shared with little commentary beyond some description of her being angry, usually accompanied by the note that she “jabbed” her finger. This coverage treats the fact of Hillary’s demonstrable anger as the entire story.
And, in the sense that Hillary has been pressured to conceal her emotion—indeed her very humanity—by a media and commentariat who have, for decades, unscrupulously policed her every expression and every turn of phrase, the fact that she refused to abide the unwinnable rules they’ve set for her, is newsworthy all on its own.
But, of course, that is not the real story.
Other media outlets, more responsible ones, are using the incident to actually research and report on Hillary’s statement that Bernie, his staff, his surrogates, and his supporters have lied about her. Repeatedly.
These journalists are digging into the numbers, and finding that, in fact, the insinuation that she has accepted money from the “fossil fuel industry” (or any other industry for that matter) has no justification. It is a smear by innuendo.
Monica Bellucci in Dolce & Gabbana Photography by Signe Vilstrup Harper’s Bazaar Ukraine
There have been a number of stories about this, some of which McEwan cites in her post.
From Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler:
Who’s right in the Democratic spat over oil-industry contributions? A lot depends on what is counted –and how it is counted. Clinton made a strong accusation that the Sanders campaign is “lying” about the issue. Let’s see whether the Sanders campaign’s math hold up.
This all started when a Greenpeace activist approached Clinton on a rope line to ask her to “reject fossil-fuel money in the future” in her campaign. As a matter of law, campaigns are prohibited from taking money directly from corporations, though the Clinton campaign has not received money from oil-industry PACs either.
As Clinton noted in her angry response, she does get money from people who work at oil companies. (These calculations involve people who contribute at least $200 and provide an occupation or employer.) According to the Center for Responsive Politics, as of March 21, the Clinton campaign has received nearly $308,000 for individuals in the oil and gas industry. The Sanders campaign has received nearly $54,000.
In you include contributions from outside groups supporting a candidate, Clinton’s total increases slightly to $333,000, compared to Sanders’ $54,000. Compared to Republicans, Democrats have received just a pittance from the fossil-fuel industry: 2.3 percent of oil and gas contributions in this election cycle. That should be no surprise, given that both Clinton and Sanders have been critical of the oil and gas industry — and have targeted it for higher taxes or reduced loopholes.
Painting by Meghan Howland
You can read more details at the WaPo link, but the conclusion is:
The Sanders campaign is exaggerating the contributions that Clinton has received from the oil and gas industry. In the context of her overall campaign, the contributions are hardly significant. It’s especially misleading to count all of the funds raised by lobbyists with multiple clients as money “given” by the fossil-fuel industry.
Some substantive media responses to check out:
Philip Bump: Why Hillary Clinton is justifiably annoyed by criticism of her Big Oil fundraising.
Steve Benen: Money from Big Oil isn’t always what it appears to be.
John Aravosis: Factchecker: 3 Pinocchios for Sanders over Clinton oil & gas donations.
And can you believe that Sanders actually had the timerity to demand an apology from Clinton? Danny Freeman and Monica Alba at MSNBC: Bernie Sanders: Hillary Clinton owes me an apology over ‘lies’ claim.
That was before the fact checker article came out. But the Clinton campaign said they weren’t about to apologize for calling out Sanders’ lies.
Sanders was also upset that Clinton criticized him for dismissing reproductive rights as a side issue when compared to income inequality, the minimum wage, and his other preferred (in an interview with Rachel Maddow). So in a speech in Wisconsin yesterday, he claimed to be listening to women.
Whoops! This man is no feminist folks, no matter what he and his supporters think.
For Frida, by Sheri Howe
The Wisconsin primary is on Tuesday, and tonight both Democratic candidates will speak at the Democratic Founders Day Dinner in Milwaukee tonight at 7PM. I wonder if there will be fireworks? C-Span is going to live stream it, and maybe other cable networks will too. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that early voting in the state has been heavy.
Of course the big prize will be the New York primary on April 19. Remember when Bernie’s campaign claimed that Hillary was refusing to debate him in New York? It turns out he’s the one dodging a debate there.
CBS News reports, Clinton campaign: Bernie Sanders is delaying scheduling New York debate.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign said Saturday that it has suggested three potential dates for an additional Democratic debate in New York, but all of those dates were rejected by Bernie Sanders and his aides….
Sanders’ campaign has been publicly challenging Clinton to agree to a debate in New York ahead of the state’s primary, which both candidates are eager to win as they compete for the Democratic nomination. According to Fallon, in the past week, the Clinton campaign offered the night of April 4, the night of April 14 and the morning of April 15 as potential dates to meet for a debate.
Past debates this cycle have been nighttime events, but Fallon said the morning option was offered after Sanders agreed to debate on that day on Good Morning America.
“That, too, was rejected,” Fallon said.
The night of April 14 and the morning of April 15 are still on the table.
“The Sanders campaign needs to stop using the New York primary as a playground for political games and negative attacks against Hillary Clinton,” Fallon said. “The voters of New York deserve better. Senator Sanders and his team should stop the delays and accept a debate on April 14 or the morning of April 15th.”
Little Green Bee Eaters of Upper Egypt, by Sushila Burgess
The Sanders campaign rejected the April 4th date because of competition from the NCAA basketball championship, but
In a tweet Saturday, Fallon said the Clinton campaign had “offered a time” that ensured the debate would end “before tipoff.”
Does Bernie want to debate or not? It’s not clear. If he does, Hillary will come out on top, so maybe he’s afraid.
Speaking of journalists finally beginning to vet Bernie Sanders, check out this AP piece by Ken Thomas: Clinton, Sanders had opposing views on biomedical research.
Clinton has pointed to her advocacy for groundbreaking medical research, from her push for more dollars as a New York senator for the National Institutes of Health to her long support for stem cell research that could eventually lead to regenerative medicine.
Sanders, a Vermont senator, has supported stem cell research in the Senate. But advocates within the scientific community cite his voting record in the early 2000s in the House when he repeatedly supported a ban on all forms of human cloning, including one called therapeutic cloning intended to create customized cells to treat disease.
“We were looking for signs that he is going to be a supporter of what science and technology can do and I think everyone in the country ought to be worried about that,” said Dr. Harold Varmus, the Nobel Prize-winning former NIH director under President Bill Clinton.
“I am quite concerned about his stance on these issues,” Varmus said. “This is a litmus test. It was 10 years ago — it’s still a test that he failed in the view of many of us….”
While serving in the House, Sanders voted to ban therapeutic cloning in 2001, 2003 and 2005 as Congress grappled with the ethics of biotechnology and scientific advances. Patient advocacy groups note that Sanders co-sponsored bans in 2003 and 2005 that included criminal penalties for conducting the research and opposed alternatives that would have allowed the cloning of embryos solely for medical research.
Clinton, meanwhile, co-sponsored legislation in 2001 and 2002 in the Senate that would have expanded stem cell research and co-sponsored a bill in 2005 that would have banned human cloning while protecting the right of scientists to conduct stem cell research.
Sanders said following a vote in 2001 that he had “very serious concerns about the long-term goals of an increasingly powerful and profit-motivated biotechnology industry.” In a later vote, he warned of the dangers of “owners of technology” who are “primarily interested in how much money they can make rather than the betterment of society.”
Oil painting by Indian artist Ilayaraja
For Sanders, it’s always about corporations not people. And guess who was on Bernie’s side on this issue?
“Sanders and (then Republican House Majority Leader Tom) DeLay…were just unyielding and they were part of the religious right’s attempt to shut down this whole critical new frontier of therapy for chronic disease,” said Robert Klein, chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
“It’s fine to say you’re for stem cell research but you vote against it and you vote against all therapeutic application, it doesn’t mean anything to say you’re for it,” Klein said. “Fine, he votes for it years later when it’s more popular and the pressure is off. We needed leadership then.”
Bernie did say in his Young Turks interview that “I’m not that big into being a “leader”… I’d much rather prefer to see a lot of leaders and a lot of grassroots activism.” Well, the President of the United States has to be a leader. He or she can’t just respond to the dictates of the “grassroots.”
Finally, here’s a good piece at The Atlantic on why voting for Hillary isn’t just about her being a woman.
Stoke by Nayland Church, by Sir Cedric Morris
Li Zhou: More Than Just a Symbol. Millennial women resent being told to vote for Clinton because she’s a woman. That’s why they should look at her career fighting for women.
At a February rally for Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, actress Emily Ratajkowski said just that when explaining her support for the Vermont senator: “I want my first female president to be more than a symbol. I want her to have politics that can revolutionize.” In a piece by my colleague Molly Ball, one woman interviewed about Sanders took this position one step further, saying Sanders is “‘more pro-woman’ than Clinton.” And in a recent Politico article, Molly Roberts lamented that, for Millennials, Clinton’s gender is “simply not enough to make her a groundbreaker.” ….
But are Millennials really being asked to support Clinton for no reason other than to shatter the glass ceiling? Unfortunately, because that message has been repeatedly linked to Clinton’s campaign—yet never directly espoused by it—its noise obscures the deeper reasons that young women should support Clinton. It’s not just that she’s a woman; it’s that she has fought for women her whole career.
For decades, Clinton has prioritized bills and policies promoting reproductive rights, equal pay, and family leave—far more so than Sanders. This is not to say that Sanders has not supported such legislation or practices. The key difference is that, for him, they simply haven’t been as much of a priority.
Read the rest at the link.
What stories are you following today? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great weekend!
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Posted: March 31, 2016 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: abortion, Bernie Sanders, Birth Control, Donald Trump, freedom of choice, Hillary Clinton, reproductive freedom |
Good Afternoon!!
The political issue that is most on my mind today is the reactions of the candidates to remarks Donald Trump made on abortion in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews yesterday. You can read the full transcript at The Guardian. An excerpt:
MATTHEWS: If you say abortion is a crime or abortion is murder, you have to deal with it under law. Should abortion be punished?
TRUMP: Well, people in certain parts of the Republican Party and Conservative Republicans would say, “yes, they should be punished.”
MATTHEWS: How about you?
TRUMP: I would say that it’s a very serious problem. And it’s a problem that we have to decide on. It’s very hard.
MATTHEWS: But you’re for banning it?
TRUMP: I’m going to say — well, wait. Are you going to say, put them in jail? Are you — is that the (inaudible) you’re talking about?
MATTHEWS: Well, no, I’m asking you because you say you want to ban it. What does that mean?
TRUMP: I would — I am against — I am pro-life, yes.
MATTHEWS: What is ban — how do you ban abortion? How do you actually do it?
TRUMP: Well, you know, you will go back to a position like they had where people will perhaps go to illegal places
MATTHEWS: Yes?
TRUMP: But you have to ban it
MATTHEWS: You banning, they go to somebody who flunked out of medical school….
Trump begins talking about the Catholic Church’s position, interrogating Matthews on whether he agrees (Matthews is a Catholic).
MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no as a principle?
TRUMP: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment
MATTHEWS: For the woman
TRUMP: Yes, there has to be some form
MATTHEWS: Ten cents? Ten years? What?
TRUMP: Let me just tell you — I don’t know. That I don’t know. That I don’t know.
MATTHEWS: Why not
TRUMP: I don’t know.
MATTHEWS: You take positions on everything else.
TRUMP: Because I don’t want to — I frankly, I do take positions on everything else. It’s a very complicated position.
MATTHEWS: But you say, one, that you’re pro-life meaning that you want to ban it
More efforts by Trump to deflect to the fact that Matthews is a Catholic.
MATTHEWS: I’m asking you, what should a woman face if she chooses to have an abortion?
TRUMP: I’m not going to do that.
MATTHEWS: Why not?
TRUMP: I’m not going to play that game.
MATTHEWS: Game?
TRUMP: You have…
MATTHEWS: You said you’re pro-life.
TRUMP: I am pro-life.
MATTHEWS: That means banning abortion
TRUMP: And so is the Catholic Church pro-life.
MATTHEWS: But they don’t control the — this isn’t Spain, the Church doesn’t control the government
TRUMP: What is the punishment under the Catholic Church? What is the…
MATTHEWS: Let me give something from the New Testament, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Don’t ask me about my religion.
TRUMP: No, no…
MATTHEWS: I’m asking you. You want to be president of the United States.
TRUMP: You told me that…
MATTHEWS: You tell me what the law should be.
TRUMP: I have — I have not determined…
MATTHEWS: Just tell me what the law should be. You say you’re pro-life.
TRUMP: I am pro-life.
MATTHEWS: What does that mean
TRUMP: With exceptions. I am pro-life.
I have not determined what the punishment would be.
MATTHEWS: Why not?
TRUMP: Because I haven’t determined it
MATTHEWS: When you decide to be pro-life, you should have thought of it. Because…
TRUMP: No, you could ask anybody who is pro-life…
MATTHEWS: OK, here’s the problem — here’s my problem with this, if you don’t have a punishment for abortion — I don’t believe in it, of course — people are going to find a way to have an abortion.
TRUMP: You don’t believe in what?
MATTHEWS: I don’t believe in punishing anybody for having an abortion
TRUMP: OK, fine. OK, (inaudible)/
MATTHEWS: Of course not. I think it’s a woman’s choice.
TRUMP: So you’re against the teachings of your Church?
MATTHEWS: I have a view — a moral view — but I believe we live in a free country, and I don’t want to live in a country so fascistic that it could stop a person from making that decision.
TRUMP: But then you are…
MATTHEWS: That would be so invasive.
TRUMP: I know but I’ve heard you speaking…
MATTHEWS: So determined of a society that I wouldn’t able — one we are familiar with. And Donald Trump, you wouldn’t be familiar with.
TRUMP: But I’ve heard you speaking so highly about your religion and your Church.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
TRUMP: Your Church is very, very strongly as you know, pro-life.
MATTHEWS: I know.
TRUMP: What do you say to your Church?
MATTHEWS: I say, I accept your moral authority. In the United States, the people make the decision, the courts rule on what’s in the Constitution, and we live by that. That’s why I say.
TRUMP: Yes, but you don’t live by it because you don’t accept it. You can’t accept it. You can’t accept it. You can’t accept it.
MATTHEWS: Can we go back to matters of the law and running for president because matters of law, what I’m talking about, and this is the difficult situation you’ve placed yourself in.
By saying you’re pro-life, you mean you want to ban abortion. How do you ban abortion without some kind of sanction? Then you get in that very tricky question of a sanction, a fine on human life which you call murder?
TRUMP: It will have to be determined.
MATTHEWS: A fine, imprisonment for a young woman who finds herself pregnant?
TRUMP: It will have to be determined.
MATTHEWS: What about the guy that gets her pregnant? Is he responsible under the law for these abortions? Or is he not responsible for an abortion?
TRUMP: Well, it hasn’t — it hasn’t — different feelings, different people. I would say no.
MATTHEWS: Well, they’re usually involved.
I applaud Chris Matthews on forcing Trump to demonstrate some of the problems with banning abortion. Trump actually said that we would go back to the time when women had to get illegal abortions, and that they should be punished if they made that choice. But the men who were also involved in the creating unwanted or dangerous pregnancies and in making the decision to end those pregnancies should not be punished.
Matthews could have been talking to any “pro-life” candidate, and if he or she were pushed on the practical results of their policies they might be similarly confused. Because that might mean sending women to jail. As Matthews pointed out, the Church does not control the U.S. government, and candidates who think abortion is a crime should not make decisions about women’s bodies and their choices. These choices are complex and they should be private.
How did the Democratic candidates respond to Trump’s remarks?
From CNN:
Hours later, Trump reversed his initial position — criticized as extreme by both supporters and opponents of abortion rights — saying only the doctors should be held liable.
“The Republicans all line up together,” Clinton said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“Now maybe they aren’t quite as open about it as Donald Trump was earlier today, but they all have the same position,” she said, noting anti-abortion positions taken by both John Kasich and Ted Cruz. “If you make abortion a crime — you make it illegal — then you make women and doctors criminals.”
“Why is it, I ask myself, Republicans want limited government, except when it comes to women’s health?” she said.
Many Trump’s critics have sought to paint him as hostile to women, and Clinton said she largely agreed with that assessment.
You can watch Clinton’s full interview with Anderson Cooper at the link. I couldn’t find a full interview with Sanders on this other than the one he did with Rachel Maddow. He apparently sent out a tweet calling Trump’s remarks shameful. This is what he told Maddow in a lengthy interview yesterday.
MADDOW: After, uh, the word spread that Donald Trump had made those remarks today about abortion, that a woman needs to be punished, uh, if she seeks an abortion and abortion should be banned, you said today that was shameful.
What is shameful about it?
SANDERS: Well, I think it is — shameful is probably understating that position. First of all, to me, and I think to most Americans, women have the right to control their own bodies and they have the right to make those personal decisions themselves.
But to punish a woman for having an abortion is beyond comprehension. I — I just — you know, one would say what is in Donald Trump’s mind except we’re tired of saying that?
I don’t know what world this person lives in. So obviously, from my perspective, and if elected president, I will do everybody that I can to allow women to make that choice and have access to clinics all over this country so that if they choose to have an abortion, they will be able to do so.
The idea of punishing a woman, that is just, you know, beyond comprehension.
Maddow tried to press Sanders, asking if Cruz may be even worse on the abortion issue than Trump.
Uh, look, they have nothing to say. All they can appeal is to a small number of people who feel very rabid, very rabid about a particular issue, whether it’s abortion or maybe whether it’s gay marriage. That is their constituency. They have nothing of substance.
You know, you mentioned a moment ago, Rachel, that the media is paying attention to Donald Trump.
Duh?
No kidding. Once again, every stupid remark will be broadcast, you know, for the next five days.
But what is Donald Trump’s position on raising the minimum wage?
Well, he doesn’t think so.
What is Donald Trump’s position on wages in America?
Well, he said in a Republican debate he thinks wages are too high.
What’s Donald Trump’s position on taxes?
Well, he wants to give billionaire families like himself hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks.
What is Donald Trump’s position on climate change?
Oh, he thinks it’s a hoax perpetrated, shock of all shock, by the Chinese. You know, on and on it goes.
But because media is what media is today, any stupid, absurd remark made by Donald Trump becomes the story of the week. Maybe, just maybe, we might want to have a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America. Donald Trump will not look quite so interesting in that context.
MADDOW: Are you suggesting, though, that the media shouldn’t be focusing on his call to potentially jail women who have abortions? Because that’s another stupid —
SANDERS: I am saying that every day he comes up with another stupid remark, absurd remark, of course it should be mentioned. But so should Trump’s overall positions. How much talk do we hear about climate change, Rachel? And Trump? Any?
I heard that as exactly what Maddow suggested: To Sanders, the issue of women’s reproductive rights is just another “stupid” social issue–nowhere near as important as income inequality, increasing the minimum wage, and the other economic issues that Sanders focuses on.
And here is what Hillary Clinton told Rachel Maddow last night, from Politicus USA.
“What Donald Trump said today was outrageous and dangerous. And you know I am just constantly taken aback by the kinds of things that he advocates for. Maya Angelou said, ‘When someone show you who they are, believe them.’ And once again he has showed us who he is. The idea that he and all of the Republicans espouse that abortion should be illegal is one that is not embraced by the vast majority of Americans. And in fact as he pointed out, if it were illegal, then women and doctors would be criminals.”
“I think not only women, men, but all Americans need to understand that this kind of inflammatory, destructive rhetoric is on the outer edges of what is permitted under our Constitution, what we believe in, and people should reject it.”
“Women in particular must know that this right which we have guaranteed under the Constitution could be taken away, and that’s why the stakes in this election couldn’t be higher.”
Maddow explained that Trump walked it back and then wanted to punish doctors. Clinton made the point that women have the right to their own autonomy. Criminalizing doctors for helping women have medical authority over their own bodies doesn’t make this better.
Maddow said that she spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s 2016 primary opponent, and that Sanders was critical of Trump’s remark but he also thinks it’s another “Donald Trump stupid” remark that will be covered by the media ad nauseam as opposed to issues like taxes, climate change, minimum wage that might be more deserving of extended attention.
Maddow asked Clinton if she agreed, and Clinton said she doesn’t think the media is making too much of this, “No, absolutely not. I’ve been on the front lines of the fight to preserve a woman’s choice and ability to make these difficult decisions… I’ve been a leader in trying to make sure that our rights as women were not in any way eroded.”
“To think that this is an issue that is not deserving of reaction just demonstrates a lack of appreciation for how serious this is,” Clinton said. “This goes to the heart of who we are as women, what kinds of rights and choices we have, it certainly is as important as any economic issue because when it’s all stripped away so much of the Republican agenda is to turn the clock back on women.”
It is easy for even liberals and progressives to forget that without legal and safe abortion, women die. This is no small issue. This is one of the issues of 2016. It is economic, it is about personal freedom, it is a matter of life and death. Hillary Clinton punches back even when others will not. She sees this issue for what it is.
This is why we need a woman POTUS. This is why we need Hillary. These interviews by Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow represent the first time anyone at a debate or “town hall” has seriously asked candidates to talk about women’s reproductive rights.
Donald Trump showed us why putting a Republican in the White House in 2016 would be dangerous for women.
Bernie Sanders showed us that he “supports” abortion rights, but doesn’t think this issue rises to the importance of his rants on economic issues like income inequality, Wall Street corruption, and the minimum wage. He clearly doesn’t understand that abortion and birth control are also important economic issues.
Hillary Clinton is the only presidential candidate who understands the important of these so-called “women’s issues.” She is the only one who will speak for women and girls in a serious way if she is elected to the presidency.
What do you think? Please discuss this post or any other topic you wish in the comment thread, and have a terrific Thursday.
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Posted: March 29, 2016 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics |
Old barn and blue sky in North Dakota
Good Morning!!
What I’ve got for you this morning is mostly a link dump. There is so much interesting news today that it’s difficult to pick and choose. So here we go.
Ancient History
The “fossilized remains” of a real unicorn have been discovered, according to CNN.
New research has revealed the ‘Siberian unicorn’ roamed the planet far more recently than we originally thought….This real unicorn, or ‘Elasmotherium sibiricu’, was originally thought to have gone extinct 350,000 years ago.
But a well-preserved fossilized skull found in Kazakhstan reveals the shaggy creature was still alive and walking this earth a mere 29,000 years ago, according to a study published this month in the
American Journal of Applied Sciences….
The team are hoping the find will help them understand what environmental factors played a part in the eventual extinction of the species, and what role migration played in its survival up until that point.
Something they think might come in useful considering our current
climate change situation.
Check out the drawing of what this animal may have looked like at the link.
Unlike getting an esa, emotional support animals, including cats, can be pets that people already own.
Kansas barn and windmill, by Dan Heddon
Apple vs. FBI Battle
After a months-long legal battle, the “FBI has accessed San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help.” Washington Post:
In a three-sentence filing, prosecutors wrote that they had “now successfully accessed the data” stored on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone and that they consequently no longer needed Apple’s court-ordered help getting in. The stunning move averts a courtroom showdown pitting Apple against the government — and privacy interests against security concerns — that many in the tech community had warned might set dangerous precedents.
It is unclear how, precisely, investigators got into the phone, or what FBI agents learned about the plot from the materials they were able to review. On the eve of a hearing in the case last week, the FBI had signaled that it might have found a way into Farook’s device, writing in a court filing that “an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method.” But government officials said they wanted to test that method further before employing it in Farook’s case, and they did not offer details about who proposed it or how it would work.
I’m glad this happened, because I don’t think technology companies should be able to make their devices completely inaccessible to law enforcement. Of course a warrant should be required; but if cell phones and other portable devices are made completely secure—-it will be nearly impossible to catch terrorists, child pornographers, and other such vicious criminals who attempt to conceal their crimes with encryption.
And making their phones inaccessible even to hacking by Apple itself is what this company is working toward, according to a story I heard on Radio Boston (NPR) last week. They eventually hope to design encryption such that only the user has access to the data on his or her phone–even Apple would not be able to break in. Farook’s phone was an iPhone 5. If it had been an iPhone 6, it would have been even more difficult to hack.
More links:
Fortune: FBI Might Not Tell Apple How It Cracked the iPhone.
This one is from a privacy obsessive. Trevor Timm: The FBI may have dropped one case against Apple, but the battle is far from over.
LA Times: FBI hacks iPhone: Does this make your phone less private?
Barn in Southhampton, by Ellsworth Kelly
Stalker Hijacks Plane to Get to Ex-Wife
USA Today: Hijacker arrested after EgyptAir plane diverted to Cyprus airport.
CAIRO — An Egyptian man hijacked a passenger plane and forced it to land at Larnaca airport in Cyprus on Tuesday in an incident that Cyprus’ president said was related to a woman, not terrorism….
Egyptian authorities told a news conference that little more than a half hour after takeoff, a passenger confronted the pilot with a bomb threat. The man originally wanted to land in either Turkey or Cyprus, and after some negotiation they agreed on Larnaca. The plane touched down at 7:50 a.m.
The man did not have a gun, but there was still a danger to passengers and crew because officials were unsure if the bomb was real or fake, authorities said. Officials reached out to the families of the hostages to let them know what happened….
Cyprus’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs named the suspected hijacker as Seif Eldin Mustafa. The Egyptian government apologized to a man it earlier wrongly named as the hijacker, Al Arabiya reported.
Cypriot state media reported that the hijacker’s ex-wife was taken from Larnaca to the airport to talk with the man, who was asking authorities deliver a 4-page-letter to her or he would detonate explosives strapped to his body.
More info fromCyprus Mail: Hijacker used mobile phone covers in fake suicide belt.
Falling Barn, by Dana Middleton
Washington DC Shooting
Washington Post: Alleged Capitol gunman charged in shooting incident.
A man who authorities said took out a gun and pointed it at officers as he tried to enter the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center on Monday was shot by police, prompting a scramble by law enforcement amid heightened security after terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris.
Authorities identified the wounded suspect as Larry Russell Dawson, a minister from Tennessee. The 66-year-old Dawson previously was arrested in October in the District after he allegedly disrupted Congress by shouting that he was a “prophet of God.”
Police said Dawson walked into the visitor center about 2:40 p.m. Monday and was going through security screening when at least one officer opened fire. In the chaotic moments that followed, loudspeaker alerts warned tourists in the center of an “active shooter,” and officers yelled at people to get down.
Police swarmed the Capitol grounds, raised barricades and put the Capitol building and, briefly, the White House under lockdown, upending an otherwise tranquil day when Congress was in recess and tourists were flocking to the cherry blossoms and the White House Easter Egg Roll. Officers with long rifles stood guard at District intersections.
Two hours later, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Matthew R. Verderosa calmed nerves by saying that investigators “believe this is an act of a single person who has frequented the Capitol grounds before. There is no reason to believe this is anything more than a criminal act.”
Monday night, police said Dawson had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon and assault on a police officer while armed. They said he was in stable but critical condition and would appear in D.C. Superior Court after his release from the hospital. Two officials familiar with the case said Dawson was shot in the chest and thigh.
Washington Post this morning: Streets around U.S. Capital Visitor Center reopened after suspicious packages.
Old barn in Nebraska
Politics News
Thankfully, we’re in the midst of a break from the presidential primaries, but here’s today’s news on the political front. First up, fallout from Bernie Sanders surrogate Susan Sarandon’s bizarre interview on Chris Hayes MSNBC show last night. The Daily Beast quotes the gist of it:
“I think, in certain quarters, there’s growing concern that the folks that are into Bernie Sanders have come to despise Hillary Clinton or reject Hillary Clinton and that should she be the nominee, which is as yet undetermined, they will walk away,” Hayes said.
“That’s a legitimate concern,” Sarandon replied. “Because they’re very passionate and principled.”
“But isn’t that crazy?” the host asked. “If you believe in what he believes in?”
“Yeah but she doesn’t,” Sarandon shot back. “She accepted money for all of those people. She doesn’t even want to fight for a $15 minimum wage. So these are people that have not come out before. So why would we think they’re going to come out now for her, you know?”
…Hayes pressed Sarandon to see the election as potentially a choice between Clinton and Trump, arguing that Sanders himself would “probably” urge his supporters to vote for her.
“I think Bernie would probably encourage people, because he doesn’t have any ego in this thing,” Sarandon told him. “But I think a lot of people are, ‘Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to [vote for Clinton].’”
“How about you personally?” Hayes asked.
“I don’t know. I’m going to see what happens,” Sarandon said.
That bit of honesty prompted Hayes to stop in his tracks. “Really?” he asked incredulously.
But this is the most incredible statement from Sarandon.
“Well, you know, some people feel Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately,” Sarandon said. “If he gets in, then things will really explode.”
Old barn near Yorktown, Indiana
Jonathan Capehart: What Susan Sarandon said about Trump was out of this world.
When Hayes asked Sarandon if she didn’t think that argument was “dangerous,” she said, “The status quo is not working, and I think it’s dangerous to think that we can continue the way we are with the militarized police force, with privatized prisons, with the death penalty, with the low minimum wage, with threats to women’s rights and think that you can’t do something huge to turn that around.” ….
But the Academy Award-winning actress displayed the downside of such fervent participation: the inability or unwillingness of too many to see that their insistence on political purity could lead to calamity.
This is not Sarandon’s first time making the perfect the enemy of the good. In the 2000 presidential campaign, when misguided progressives believed that a vote for Vice President Al Gore was the same as voting for then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, she was an active supporter of Ralph Nader. And we all know how that turned out.
It defies logic that a progressive would find anything redeeming about the Trump candidacy. Sure, the Republican presidential front-runner “will bring the revolution immediately” if, God help us, he’s elected. But that revolution would be fueled by a campaign that thrived on racism, xenophobia and misogyny. And, as far as we know, that revolution would involve deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, restricting all Muslims from entering the United States and alternately treating women like pretty prized possessions or objects of ridicule.
Clinton is not perfect. We all know it. And she would be the first to admit it. But it is monumentally insane to argue that a Trump in the White House would be preferable to a Clinton in the Oval Office.
No kidding. Both MSNBC and Chris Hayes own this now. MSNBC has been allowing Trump and Sanders to dominate their airwaves throughout this campaign. The Morning Joe Show has acted as cheerleader for Trump, and the prime time programs have run numerous Trump speeches in full. Hayes and Rachel Maddow have been openly backing Sanders. And now Hayes has invited this freak onto his show to spout her vile idiocy. Sarandon is worth $50 million. She would do just fine under a Trump presidency, and clearly she doesn’t give a shit what happens to the rest of us.
Old barn in Northern California
More politics stories:
NBC News: Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski Charged With Battery for Incident With Reporter.
Politico: Obama scolds media for enabling Trump. The job of a political reporter, Obama said, is ‘more than just handing someone a microphone.’
Nate Cohn at the NYT: Bernie Sanders Faces Tougher Terrain After a Big Week.
Politico: Clinton camp on Sanders: ‘What kind of a campaign is that?’
XOJane: An Open Letter to Trump Supporters From His Top Strategist Turned Defector.
Bloomberg: Trump Struggles With Presidential Demeanor Ahead of Wisconsin Primary.
Politico NJ: Heidi Cruz cancels N.J. campaign events.
The Atlantic: A Narrow Escape for Public-Sector Unions. The justices split 4-4 in Friedrichs v. CTA, leaving a pro-union ruling in the lower courts intact.
What stories are you following today?
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Posted: March 26, 2016 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Alaska caucuses, Amal and George Clooney, Bernie Sanders, conspiracy theories, Hawaii caucuses, Hillary Clinton, Jeff Weaver, New York primary, Tad Devine, Washington caucuses |
Good Afternoon!!
Today should be a big day for Bernie Sanders supporters. Get ready to hear about how Sanders now has the “momentum.” There are caucuses today in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington, and he could win all three. There hasn’t been much polling so we still don’t know for sure; but most likely Sanders will cut into Clinton’s pledged delegate lead after today, possible by as much as 50 delegates, according to Al Giordano.
Interestingly, it least writer in Hawaii, Anthony Pignataro, thinks Hillary could win in Hawaii. Kate Bradshaw at “Political Animal” in Tampa Bay: A different bird: Saturday’s Hawaii Democratic caucus might not turn out the way you expect.
Anthony Pignataro, editor of Maui Time Weekly (and one-time mentor to this reporter, who cut her teeth at said publication), says Maui’s strong progressive community, which packed the house at Maui Plantation to see Sanders’ wife, Jane, speak, in recent years has had enough of a voice to get voters to sign off on a GMO ban, but he’s not sure the same can be said for Sanders. Speaking of teeth, we have teeth whitening products along with Teeth whitening tips.
“He’s definitely riding the same wave of supporters who fueled a recent ballot measure that attempted to ban GMO cultivation in the county (though successful at the ballot box, the measure was later thrown out by the courts),” Pignataro said in an email. “At the same time, though, Clinton is generally favored to win the state.”
He said while there’s no real polling being done, (Hawaii is not exactly a high stakes state), but UH Political Science professor Colin Moore, who “makes the rounds” at election time and correctly forecast Trump’s win in the states caucus, has predicted a win for Clinton.
We’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow to find out, since it’s 6 hours earlier in Hawaii than on the East Coast.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Here’s another take on today’s contests from CNN’s Chris Moody:
Democrats will hold presidential contests in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington state on Saturday, three states expected to be friendlier to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But with Clinton leading Sanders by more than 300 pledged delegates, and because none of the contests are winner-take-all, Sanders needs stunning wins in each state to give the Clinton campaign any real anxiety about the outcome of the race.
In the run-up to the votes, Sanders has left nothing to chance. His campaign has spent millions on ads in Washington, Alaska and Hawaii, including a
powerful television spot featuring Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned her position with the Democratic National Committee earlier this year to endorse Sanders.
Going into Saturday’s contests, Sanders needs to net an estimated 75% of the remaining delegates, while Clinton only needs 35%.
Read what Moody thinks we should watch for at the link.
Anchorage, Alaska
Anyway, if today goes very well for Bernie, Hillary’s lead could fall a bit below 300 delegates. Then there will be a break in the primary schedule until April 5 when Wisconsin holds its primary. The two candidates are close in the polls there, and Bernie thinks he could win the state. On April 9, Sanders will most likely win the Wyoming caucus.
Bernie supporters will be in ecstasy until the New York primary on April 19. New York will go big for Hillary. Then there there will be another break until Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island vote on April 26. Each of those states looks very good for Hillary, although I don’t think there’s been much polling in tiny Rhode Island.
Basically, there’s close to zero chance that Sanders will catch up to Clinton, but I still expect him to stay in until the convention. It’s really unfair to many of his young followers, because he’s taking money from them knowing he can’t win the nomination.
Meanwhile, the Hillary hate on blogs and social media is getting more unhinged than ever before. It’s hard to know how much worse it can get, but I expect it will get worse.
Bernie supporters are claiming election fraud in every state that Hillary has won, except possibly the Deep South states that they call “the Confederacy.”
Seattle, Washington
Yesterday Dakinikat wrote about scandals and conspiracy theories. Here’s one the Sanders folks dreamed up. I can’t believe Booman Tribune actually published this:
Ryan Hughes, MI and PA Bernie State Director, Accused of Accepting Hillary Super Pac Money
I have been holding onto this information, but since Niko House has posted a video regarding this allegation, I’ve decided to lay out for you what I know.
Ryan Hughes was the Sanders campaign’s state director for Michigan, and is now the state director for Bernie’s Pennsylvania campaign, as well. Mark Craig, the founder of a grassroots volunteer group in Michigan that supports Bernie Sanders, Flint4Bernie.org, had many dealings with Ryan Hughes after Hughes came to Michigan. Mark Craig also said he was one of the principle [sic] organizers for Bernie’s March 2nd rally and speech to thousands of people at the Breslin Center on the campus of Michigan State University. His grassroots organization was started in 2015, long before Ryan Hughes showed up as the paid director for Bernie’s campaign in Michigan.
Mr. Craig stated to me that knows a a senior employee who works for Priorities USA Action (“Priorities USA”), a Hillary Super Pac. In late February, after Craig casually mentioned to her that Ryan Hughes was running the Sanders’ campaign, that person told him Hughes was receiving direct payments from Priorities USA, all while Ryan Hughes worked as the Sanders’ campaign’s state director for Michigan, along with several other paid Sanders’ Michigan staffers….
Priotities USA Action is a Super Pac, to which unlimited contributions may be made, that supports one candidate in this election cycle: Hillary Clinton. As noted in my post yesterday about Mayor Weaver of Flint MI endorsement of Hillary, thetop donors to Priorities USA Action include many of Hillary’s wealthiest and most prominent supporters, including billionaires such as the J.B Pritzker and his wife, George Soros, James Simon (hedge fund manager worth over $15 Billion), Steven Spielberg, and many other wealthy individuals in the finance and entertainment industries.
Does that make any sense? Not to me. Why would a superpac that supports Hillary waste money on paying Bernie’s employees to sabatage him? If it happened, why are these people still working for Bernie’s campaign? Furthermore, Priorities USA has to report all expenditures to the FEC, and there were no such payments. From the managing editor of Crooks and Liars:
But this conspiracy theory is all over Twitter and the Bernie reddit page. Sigh . . .
MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald explains Sanders’ path forward: Why Bernie Sanders Isn’t Dropping Out Despite Hillary’s Lead.
Even though Sanders came up short in Arizona, where his campaign invested most heavily, the Vermont senator ended up netting 17 delegates over Clinton Tuesday, thanks to lopsided wins in the Idaho and Utah caucuses.
He ended up taking away a tidy 57 percent of the pledged delegates up for grabs that day. And as it happens, 58 is the percentage of outstanding pledged delegates Sanders needs to win from now on in order to finish the primary calendar with more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton, according to an NBC News analysis.
On Saturday, Sanders is hoping to win an even larger portion of the delegates in Washington state, which holds the largest caucus of the entire year, with 101 delegates at stake. Alaska and Hawaii will also hold caucuses, which Sanders also hopes to win Saturday.
Tad Devine and Jeff Weaver
Seitz-Wald says the Sanders Campaign admits this is a “tall order.”
But it’s at least doable. “We’re trying to win more pledged delegates by the end,” Sanders senior strategist Tad Devine told MSNBC Friday. “If we can demonstrate that he is the strongest candidate by defeating her in these states, a lot of superdelegates are going to take a step back and say, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ And that’s when we will try to persuade them.”
Good luck with that after Bernie has repeatedly attacked President Obama and the DNC and after he admitted he only ran as a Democrat so he could get media attention and raise money.
And then there’s the Sanders campaign’s attack on Hillary Clinton, Amal Clooney, and George Clooney for holding a fundraiser from which most of the money collected will go to downticket Democrats.
The Hill reprints part of the text from a Sanders campaign email:
“In the movie Oceans 11, a gang of lovable thieves successfully heist $150 million from a vault in the basement of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas,” Sanders’s campaign manager Jeff Weaver said in an email to supporters.
“Fueled primarily from high-dollar donations, Hillary Clinton has raised more than that in this campaign, and is now enlisting the support of George Clooney (Danny Ocean) to pad that total at a dinner event that will cost people up to $353,400 to attend.”
Weaver added that the price of admission an “obscene amount of money.”
“It’s a sum that would require an employee making the federal minimum wage to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for more than 5 years,” he said.
Weaver included a fundraising pitch, saying that the Sanders campaign was relying on small donations from “working Americans.”
Amal and George Clooney
Again, the Clooney fundraiser is to support Democrats, not just Hillary Clinton. Apparently raising money for Democrats running for the House and Senate is problematic for Bernie, which explains why he hasn’t been raising money for them. Hillary has been doing it all along.
And then there are the demands Bernie is making before he’ll consider supporting the Democratic nominee. Huffpo: Bernie Sanders Lays Out His Requirements For Endorsing Hillary Clinton.
“If I can’t make it — and we’re going to try as hard as we can until the last vote is cast — we want to completely revitalize the Democratic Party and make it a party of the people rather than one of large campaign contributors,” Sanders said in an interview on the progressive Web show “The Young Turks.”
Sanders also listed policy demands he would make of Clinton, including a single-payer health care system, a $15 an hour minimum wage, tougher regulation of the finance industry, closing corporate tax loopholes and “a vigorous effort to address climate change.”
“I am very worried. I mean, I talk to these scientists. This planet is in serious danger. You can’t cuddle up to the fossil fuel industry — you’ve got to take them on,” Sanders said, alluding to Clinton’s ties to oil and gas companies.
He also expressed concern about Clinton’s consistency on policy issues.
“What we need is to create a movement which holds elected officials accountable and not let them flip” on issues, Sanders said.
Because Bernie has been very consistent. He’s been calling for a revolution for 40 years with zero results. From the NYT:
On the night of the New Hampshire primary, the high-water mark of his presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called his rout of Hillary Clinton “nothing short of the beginning of a political revolution” and vowed to stop the “billionaire class” from buying elections.
It was barely different from the speech he gave March 15, the day he lost five of five primaries, when he asked thousands of his adoring fans: “Are you ready for a political revolution? Are you tired of a handful of billionaires running our economy?”
Nor, for that matter, was it much changed from his address to a spaghetti dinner of the Addison County Community Action Group in 1984, when he called for a “political revolution” and urged working people to take power from a “very small group of wealthy people.”
It is a political score Mr. Sanders has been singing for the last 40 years, and he does not seem ready to stop anytime soon. Regardless of the results on the scoreboard, the state on the map, the year or even the decade, Mr. Sanders has talked with clockwork consistency about an economy rigged against the working class, a campaign finance system that corrupts politicians and a corporate media that obscures the truth.
While politicians constantly try to stay on message, Mr. Sanders is the king of message discipline. While other candidates have been lampooned for robotic redundancies or caricatured as cut-and-paste campaigners, Mr. Sanders has made oratorical consistency his calling card.
His young and loyal fans practically sing along with his timeless refrains: “the richest one-half of 1 percent” in 1971, the “richest 1 percent of the population” in 1991 and “the top one-tenth of 1 percent” in 2015. Last year, the MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow began a segment on Mr. Sanders’s hyperconsistency by playing an audio clip of Mr. Sanders lamenting “the two-party system dominated by big money,” and asking viewers when he said it. The answer: 1989.
In other words, Sanders has not grown and changed at all over the past 40 years. Is that really supposed to be a good thing?
That’s all I have for you today. What stories are you following?
UPDATE: Please send good vibes to NW Luna, who is braving the Washington Caucuses today!
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