Thursday Reads: Only One Presidential Candidate Understands The Full Significance of Reproductive Rights
Posted: March 31, 2016 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 55 Comments
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:
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton pounced on Donald Trump’s comment Wednesday on MSNBC that abortion should be banned and women who receive one should should face “some form of punishment,” seeking to tie it the entire GOP field.
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.
Tuesday Reads: Today’s News and Old Barns
Posted: March 29, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics 35 Comments
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.
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.
What stories are you following today?
Lazy Saturday Reads
Posted: March 26, 2016 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 196 Comments
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%.
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!
Thursday Reads: “The Other Candidate is the Ralph Nader…”
Posted: March 24, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 primaries, Bernie Sanders, Delores Huerta, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Nader, Rosario Dawson, spoilers 125 Comments
Two sides of the “populist” coin?
Good Morning!!
For some time now, I’ve thought that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are very similar in terms of their style and their approaches to politics.
Each of these men offers a vague platform based on simplistic policies with little detail to back them up. Each argues that he and he alone can lead the country to some mythical promised land in which every American will have an equal opportunity to achieve some hypothetical “American dream.”
Each of these candidates claims to be an outsider who is fighting “the establishment” and each holds up a boogeyman that he blames for all our problems. For Trump, it is immigrants, protesters, and the media. For Sanders, it is millionaires and billionaires, Wall Street, and, frankly, the Democratic Party.
Finally, Sanders and Trump are both focused on the needs and anxieties of white men; yet both claim to be friends to African Americans, Latinos, women, and other groups who so far have mostly been supporting Hillary Clinton.
Both Trump and Sanders have been referred to in the media as populists. Dakinikat has made that argument to me as well. They certainly are both demagogues, and they both are damaging the political parties they aspire to represent.
Here are a few of reads on the populist question.
Margaret Talbot at The New Yorker: The Populist Prophet.
Isaac Chotiner at Slate: Is Donald Trump a Populist?
Michael Kazin: How Can Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Both Be “Populist?”
Rosario Dawson makes a heart sign at Sanders rally in San Diego
Anyway, what brought this on was something I saw last night on Twitter. On Tuesday night Bernie Sanders gave a speech in San Diego. He was introduced by actress Rosario Dawson. I had never heard of her before, but she’s a movie and TV star who played the role of Delores Huerta in a movie about Cesar Chavez.
I saw a clip of Dawson’s speech on twitter and then I went and watched the whole thing on YouTube. It was shocking to me. See the video below.
I transcribed a small part of the video, beginning around 5:00. I’ve highlighted two sections.
We need someone who has bold leadership to understand that with climate change, with health care, with education, with our future at stake, that we need bold leadership from someone we can trust, someone who has stood up for justice his entire life.
They haven’t listened to him but we are. And we need to keep spreading that message because people are voting against themselves. They are hurting themselves and their future, and we need to help them. Because we need to help each other. Because this is about us. Not me. Not one person. It’s not just a party. This isn’t the GOP vs. the DNC. This is about the 99 percent that is too big to fail against the 1 percent.
So when I hear someone ask me, well well well if it comes down to it, will you vote for the other candidate if it’s Trump? (shaking head) I say if you want to beat Trump, vote Bernie. We’re playing chicken here, and we can’t pull back. They are going to have to turn. That candidate is the Ralph Nader, not Bernie Sanders.
As an Independent, he is doing a service to the Democratic Party right now. Democratic Party hasn’t– we haven’t left them; they’ve left us. This is an opportunity to turn the tides and change history. Do we really want someone who encour- who condones mass incarceration, who thinks that the death penalty is OK, who hesitates on environmental injustices and issues, who thinks that regime change is an idea for foreign policy?
No. What we need is bold leadership from a great leader whose time has come. Truly this is a future to believe in. It is not a dream; it is a vision and it is worth going for with all of our might.
To say I was stunned by Dawson’s claim that Hillary Clinton is “the Ralph Nader” of this election is putting it mildly. She–and I assume Sanders and his followers–actually see Hillary Clinton as the spoiler who is preventing the “grass roots” voters from making Sanders President of the United States. They a play a game of “chicken” says Dawson, and the other side must be made to turn aside.
Think about that for a minute. The winning candidate in the primaries is somehow preventing the candidate with much fewer primary victories, pledged delegates, and popular votes from becoming the Democratic nominee.
Apparently these folks have convinced themselves that Hillary’s wins are the result of conspiracies against Bernie. You can see this all over the internet where Sanders supporters are claiming there has been “voter suppression” and fraud in Iowa, Nevada, Arizona, and who knows where else. They believe that the DNC is somehow manipulating the primaries to give Hillary the nomination and they are convinced that the only candidate who can win in November is Bernie Sanders. Based on what? Don’t bother to ask. Their answers don’t make any more sense than those of Donald Trump’s supporters.
Ralph Nader
In Dawson’s speech, she also claimed that Hillary is in favor of mass incarceration and regime change and that she doesn’t care about environmental justice. Does she even know that Hillary is the one who reached out to the mayor of Flint and sent staff members to find out what she could do to help? Does she know that Hillary’s first speech as a candidate was reforming the criminal justice system and ending mass incarceration? Probably not.
The people who follow Bernie Sanders are every bit as much “low-information voters” as those who follow Donald Trump. If they do know anything about Hillary’s real policies, they probably don’t care. They want Bernie to be president and if minority voters, women, and other groups don’t vote for Bernie, it’s because they don’t know what’s good for them.
I can’t believe this crazy philosophy isn’t coming from the top. From the things I’ve heard said by Jeff Weaver and Tad Devine, I have to believe this is coming from them and from Bernie Sanders himself. Maybe they even wrote Dawson’s speech for her.
If all these weren’t bad enough, Dawson also posted a piece in Huffington Post today in which she attacks Delores Huerta! It’s written in the form of an “open letter” to in response to a post Huerta wrote on Medium in February.
Basically, Huerta’s post argues that Bernie is a “Johnny come lately” on immigration reform.
Bernie Sanders has positioned himself as a champion of the immigrant community. From the letter he sent to Barack Obama last week, to the work he, his campaign, and surrogates have done attacking other candidates’ positions, you would think that he has been a lifelong champion on issues that matter to Latinos and immigrants. But here’s the truth: Candidate Bernie Sanders, advocate for immigrants, is not the same as Senator Bernie Sanders.
Let’s start with the letter he sent to President Obama. Bernie, candidate, decried the deportation raids — which he should. But in 2006, Bernie, congressman, actually voted…to create and fund two of the programs he criticizes in the letter.
Furthermore, in 2006, he voted for a bill pushed by James Sensenbrenner, one of the most anti-immigrant members of Congress, that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to be detained indefinitely pending deportation. This bill was widely viewed as a desperate attempt by Republicans to boost their reelection prospects that year by cracking down on immigrants, and the ACLU called it “inhumane.” Bernie voted for it anyway. (You’ll note that he was running for Senate — as an independent.)
In fact, in 2011, Harry Reid, and other Senators sent a letter to President Obama urging him to end the deportation of DREAMers. You can probably guess who didn’t sign that letter.…
In 2007, he voted against Senator Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform bill.
Heck, here’s how much of a johnny-come-lately he is. During this campaign, he defended the vote with the same talking points.
“What I think [Wall Street is] interested in is seeing a process by which we can bring low-wage labor of all levels into this country to depress wages in America, and I strongly disagree with that.” -7/30/15
Militia members “guarding” the Texas border.
Huerta also notes that Sanders supported a bill to protect the militia members who took it upon themselves to patrol the Mexican boarder.
Perhaps you’re familiar with the Minutemen. You know — the anti-immigrant militias who patrol the border trying to stop undocumented people from coming to do their jobs. You would think that such a self-appointed lifelong advocate for the community would vote against anti-immigrant vigilantes. You would be thinking wrong. Bernie voted to protect them — and provided a weak excuse as to why. This point is especially egregious. Anyone claiming to be an advocate for the community shouldn’t have voted for this. Period.
That’s all true. Even though Sanders claims the militia amendment was part of a much larger bill, it did actually pass on a stand-alone vote.
Remember Dawson is well aware of Huerta’s long history of work for the rights of immigrant workers, because she actually portrayed Huerta in a film. In her open letter, she begins by praising Huerta’s work. Then she writes:
I, too, believe in the American ideal of reasonable and robust debate between opposing viewpoints in order to move a discussion forward and ultimately arrive at a sensible resolution. This becomes impossible, or at least unnecessarily difficult, when one of the parties involved is purposefully trying to obfuscate the facts. I recognized that very same tactic that the mainstream media has been using when I read your opinion piece, where the details of Bernie Sanders’ voting record and positions were misrepresented and, again, when you and America Ferrera spread the false story on Twitter that Bernie supporters chanted “English only” at a Nevada caucus. Though it was debunked by multiple media outlets and video evidence, neither of you have corrected, apologized for, or taken down the posts. It’s race baiting, misleading, divisive and inaccurate and I hope you both will rectify that immediately. Regardless of either your interpretations of the event, the guidelines strictly prohibited any form of communication with caucus participants by campaigners once the caucus was called to order!
The democratic process, as it was intended, is quite simple: Present your facts, track records and plans, move forward honestly and openly, debate, call out discrepancies, explain and educate, then let the American people decide whom they would like to lead the country based on such answers. By distorting and omitting facts you do not give us, the American people, a transparent picture. You cheat us out of making an educated and well-informed decision and dishonor our voting process and democracy itself.
Rosario Dawson, right, and Dolores Huerta arrive at the north american premiere of the film “Cesar Chavez” during the SXSW Film Festival on Monday, March 10, 2014 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP)
Wow! So now Huerta is a liar who is deliberately trying to “obfuscate the facts.” Dawson then goes on to argue with each of Huerta’s points, she wraps it all up by attacking Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton’s track record goes directly against what you and every other activist before and after you has fought for: the rights of the people based on the Declaration of Independence and the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are principles that Hillary did not uphold when taking away American citizens’ freedom by voting for the Patriot Act, twice; by not treating all men as equal when going against same-sex marriage until 2013; and when she sold out her own citizens by taking money from lobbyists and promoting the rise of the private prison complex. This has led to modern-day slavery for the impoverished, and especially for Latino and African American communities. She has put corporations and special interest groups before the people of this great country by voting to bail out banks and not her constituents. She does not uphold the sanctity of life when endorsing wars, condoning fracking or the death penalty.
Yet these same communities are voting in large numbers for Clinton. Why. I guess we know, because Dawson explained in her San Diego speech that people who vote for Hillary are voting against their own interests and they need “help” from Sanders supporters.
And then there’s this condescending bit:
Dolores, I am surprised, dismayed, and concerned that you would do your legacy such a disservice by becoming an instrument of the establishment, rather than joining this movement to create a better America like you once inspired us to do.
I write this letter in the hopes that we can continue to have a robust and honest conversation based on the facts and on the actions that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have taken during their legislative careers.
Somehow I don’t think Delores Huerta is going to respond to Dawson’s lecture all that well.
Now, I saw on Twitter this morning that Al Giordano and Tom Watson believe the “open letter” was written by someone from the Sanders campaign, and that makes sense to me.
https://twitter.com/AlGiordano/status/713033322591432704
But still, this sort of thing is not doing Sanders or the Democratic Party any good at all. Someone with some serious power needs to get Bernie under control. He should stay in the primary fight as long as he wants, but he should not be attacking the integrity of the leading candidate and her surrogates.
Let me know what you think. And remember this is an open thread. Feel free to post your thoughts and links on any topic below.
Tuesday Reads
Posted: March 22, 2016 Filed under: Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Arizona primary, Bernie Sanders, Brussels attacks, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Idaho caucuses, ISIS, Mitt Romney, Mormon women, Mormonism, Obama in Cuba, Salah Abdeslam, Ted Cruz, terrorism, Utah caucuses 53 Comments
Good Morning!!
A series of terrorist bombings took place in Brussels, Belgium early this morning just days after the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the last surviving member of the group that perpetrated the attacks in Paris last November. This is a breaking story.
NPR: Terrorist Bombings Strike Brussels: What We Know.
At least 26 people are dead and more than 100 wounded, after explosions struck Brussels during the Tuesday morning rush hour, Belgian officials say. Two blasts hit the international airport; another struck a metro station. Belgium has issued a Level 4 alert, denoting “serious and imminent attack.”
“What we feared has happened, we were hit by blind attacks,” Prime Minister Charles Michel said at a midday news conference Tuesday. He added that there were many dead and many injured.
Citing Minister of Social Affairs and Health Maggie De Block, Belgian media say 11 people died in the airport attack. Transit and other officials say 15 people died at the metro station. Those same sources say there were 81 injured at the airport and 55 hurt in an attack on a train near the Maelbeek station.
French President Francois Hollande says, “terrorists struck Brussels, but it was Europe that was targeted — and all the world that is concerned.”
Obviously, the number of dead and injured could go up as authorities learn more. See live tweets with photos at the link.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – MARCH 22: Passengers are evacuated from Zaventem Bruxelles International Airport after a terrorist attack on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. At least 13 people are though to have been killed after Brussels airport was hit by two explosions whilst a Metro station was also targeted. The attacks come just days after a key suspect in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was captured in Brussels. (Photo by Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)
Slate is posting updates on a live blog.
Three explosions rocked Brussels on Tuesday morning, killing more than two dozen people and injuring an untold number of others, according to local authorities and reports from the ground. While the cause of the blasts—two at the city’s airport and then one in its subway system about an hour later—remain unknown, officials are treating them as acts of terrorism. The carnage comes only days after Belgium police arrested Salah Abdeslam, the man believed to be the sole remaining survivor of the 10 men who carried out the terrorist attacks in Paris this past November that killed 130 people.
The latest update says “several of the apparent attackers may still at large.”
Metro train after Brussels attack
CNN reports: Brussels eyewitness: ‘A lot of people were on the floor.’
Jef Versele, from the Belgian city of Ghent, was making his way to check-in for a flight to Rome at Brussels Airport Tuesday morning when he heard a loud noise emanating from several floors below him.
“At first I was not aware that it was a bomb,” he told CNN. “I had the idea that an accident had happened in a food court or something like that.”
The explosion set off a panic, with people screaming and running through the terminal, before it was followed by a second explosion, “which was in my eyes much more powerful than the first one.”
The second blast, which blew out windows at the airport and brought ceiling panels down, left people collapsed on the floor and triggered even greater panic.
“It was quite a mess,” he told CNN.
He said although he was two floors above the source of the explosions — at least one of which was a suicide bombing, according to Belgian prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw — many people around him were injured by the blast. He said there about 50 to 60 injured on his level of the airport, while the scenes on the lower levels were worse.
“A lot of people were on the floor. They were injured,” Versele said. “I think I was lucky, I was very lucky. I think I have a guardian angel somewhere.”
More eyewitness accounts at the link. Brussels is now on lockdown, according to the Boston Globe, which is also posting live updates.
U.S. President Barack Obama tours Old Havana with his family at the start of a three-day visit to Cuba, in Havana March 20, 2016. Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters
President Obama is still in Cuba with his family, but he has been briefed on the attacks in Brussels. The Washington Post: Obama to address the Cuban nation in historic Havana visit.
President Obama will address the Cuban people directly Tuesday, delivering a speech that will be televised live on state television.
The address in Havana’s newly renovated Gran Teatro, before an audience of invited guests of the U.S. and Cuban government, is the keystone event in Obama’s two-and-a-half-day visit to the island. His top advisers said it represented his best chance to outline his vision of the future to ordinary citizens here, and to Cuban Americans at home.
White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters Monday the speech was “important because it’s the one chance to step back and to speak to the Cuban people, and all of the Cuban people,” including “Cubans in the United States.”
One of Obama’s overarching goals in fostering a diplomatic thaw with America’s longtime adversary, Rhodes said, was “reconciliation of the Cuban American community to Cubans here on the island.”
Still, even the speech’s setting spoke to the ongoing challenge the United States faces when it comes to engaging in a public dialogue in Cuba. American officials had originally hoped to do the address in an open-air setting, which would have allowed more ordinary citizens to attend. Instead, the national theater accommodates roughly 1,000 people, and the two governments evenly divided the tickets.
And even as the president seeks to highlight how his approach to Latin America has paid dividends, a series of blasts at Brussels’s airport and a metro station Tuesday served as a powerful reminder that terrorism overseas continues to threaten global stability. The apparently coordinated strikes have killed at least 26 people.
Back in the USA, Arizona is holding a presidential primary today and there will be caucuses in Idaho and Utah. (In Idaho, the Republicans have already voted.) On the Democratic side, Arizona, with 75 delegates, is the biggest prize.
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie with supporters at a campaign rally at Carl Hayden Community High School in Phoenix, Arizona March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni MARIO ANZUONI / Reuters
NBC News: Clinton, Sanders in Primary Showdown for Arizona’s Latino Vote.
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Guadalupe Arreola can’t vote in the Arizona primary Tuesday because she is undocumented, so she has spent the last few weeks encouraging Latinos who can to vote for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. On Sunday, she hosted a phone bank at her house. More than 50 people showed up.
“There are people who still don’t know Bernie Sanders, and I want to raise awareness of who he is,” said Arreola, whose daughter Erika Andiola is Sanders’ Latino media spokeswoman.
Martin Hernandez said he likes Clinton’s stance on a number of issues important to Latinos, including healthcare and immigration. An organizing director for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 99, hesaid he especially likes that that she seems to understands the needs of Latino workers.
“I want somebody in the presidency who is going to help workers, especially those in our immigrant community,” he said. “They are the ones who face the most abuse. Many of them are underpaid and their rights are violated by their employers.”
Arreola and Hernandez represent the split that exists among Latino Democrats in Arizona on whether Sanders or Clinton should be the Democratic nominee for president. Both candidates have the backing of prominent Latino leaders, some of whom have appeared in television and radio ads being broadcasted across the state.
I’m not sure if NBC is just trying to make the primary look close or not. According to the Real Clear Politics average, Clinton is leading Sanders in Arizona 53-23, but FiveThirtyEight says there hasn’t been enough polling for them to project a winner. From everything I’ve heard, I think Hillary will win Arizona, and Sanders could win the Iowa and Utah caucuses.
Horrifying photo of Donald Trump at a rally in Salt Lake City.
However, there’s a wild card in Utah, according to Al Giordano (from privately distributed newsletter). He says that more and more Mormon women are voting Democratic, and it’s possible they could caucus for Clinton. Mormons absolutely hateand fear Donald Trump, so Giordano argues that it’s even possible that Utah could turn blue in November if Trump is the GOP nominee.
From McKay Coppins (who is a Mormon) at Buzzfeed: Mormon Voters Really Don’t Like Donald Trump — Here’s Why.
So far in 2016, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have proven to be one of the most stubbornly anti-Trump constituencies in the Republican Party — a dynamic that will likely manifest itself in Utah’s presidential caucuses next week.
National polling data focused on Mormon voters is hard to come by, but the election results speak for themselves. Even as Trump has steamrollered his way through the GOP primaries, he has repeatedly been trounced in places with large LDS populations.
In Wyoming, the third-most-heavily Mormon state in the country, Trump was able to muster just 70 votes in the low-turnout Republican caucuses there — losing to Ted Cruz by a whopping 59 points.
In Idaho, the country’s second most Mormon state, Trump lost the primary by 18 points.
And in the Mormon mecca of Utah, the most recent primary poll has Trump in third place — more than 40 points behind Cruz and 18 points behind Kasich.
The pattern holds at the county level as well. As New York Times data journalist Nate Cohn illustrated, the larger the proportion of Mormons in a given county, the worse Trump has generally performed in the primary contest there.
Much more at the link.
Mitt Romney will caucus for Ted Cruz in Utah.
Philip Bump at The Washington Post: Why Utah hates Donald Trump (Hint: it’s not just about Mormonism).
Donald Trump is getting crushed in Utah.
First, the state’s adopted son, Mitt Romney, went gunning for Trump for weeks on end, and eventually revealed that he was backing Ted Cruz in the upcoming caucuses. Utah is adjacent to Idaho and Wyoming, where Trump has seen two of his biggest losses so far, both to Cruz. In a poll from Y2 Analytics released over the weekend, Trump comes in third, 42 points behind Cruz. (If Cruz wins more than half of the votes in the state, he gets all of the state’s 40 delegates.)
What’s even more remarkable, though, is that another poll suggested that Trump would lose to either Democrat in Utah in the general election. Utah is, of course, one of the reddest states — if not the reddest state — in the country. “Any matchup in which Democrats are competitive in the state of Utah is shocking,” Brigham Young University’s Christopher Karpowitz said to the Deseret News about that result.
Why? Mormon voters, of course; but polling (see lots of graphics at the link) show that people of any religion who are regular church-goers are more likely to be anti-Trump.
What may be prompting the stiff resistance to Trump, then, isn’t just that Utah is home to a lot of Mormons — it’s that those Mormons are more religious and that religious voters are more likely to view Trump with hostility.
The good news for Trump is that most of the states with the largest groups of regular churchgoers have already voted. Most are in the Bible Belt, as you might expect — a region where Trump did very well. Political beliefs are more complicated than they might appear at first glance. Sort of like religious ones.
It’s an interesting wild card, and something to keep an eye on. I’d certainly expect Jewish voters to be frightened by Trump’s strong-man campaign.
So . . . lots of things happening around the world today. What stories are you following? Dakinikat will post a live blog this evening for us to discuss primary and caucus results.
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