Lazy Saturday Reads

New York: Blizzard Of 1888.

Good Afternoon!!

I’m really being lazy this Saturday. I’m sitting here drinking hot tea and wondering how all the piano lessons are doing. So far it doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything more than an inch of two of snow from the “monster blizzard;” but if you’re getting hit, I definitely feel for you. After the winter we went through in Boston last year, I’m very happy to miss this one (I hope).

NBC News on the storm so far: Monster Snowstorm Leaves At Least 10 Dead As It Pummels East Coast.

A killer snowstorm that battered the South and the nation’s capital turned its sights on greater New York City on Saturday, packing gale-force winds, heavy snow and coastal flooding as it churned up the East Coast.

The weekend winter wallop has already knocked out power to hundreds of thousands, led to more than 8,300 canceled flights and been blamed for at least 10 deaths.

By the time the storm is over Sunday, one in seven Americans from Kentucky to Connecticut could be under at least half a foot of snow. Washington, D.C., and New York City each could flirt with record snow totals.

The storm paralyzed major cities: Public transportation in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington was shut down, and hundreds of drivers in various states were stranded on icy roadways.

In D.C., which was forecast to be in the crosshairs of the potentially historic storm, snow was falling at a rate of up to 2 inches an hour early Saturday, The Weather Channel said. The north lawn of the White House was blanketed by 20.5 inches of snow.

In Silver Spring, Maryland, which already had 20 inches of snow by morning, lighting and thundersnow lit up the skies, the Associated Press said.

Wow! I guess this storm is for real. I hope you all are safe and warm.

Frederick Childe-Hassam, A New York Blizzard

ABC News has a report on a different kind of storm.

ANALYSIS: The Storm That’s Hit the GOP.

As voting is set to start, Republicans have a dozen choices in front of them. Yet polls show more than half of the vote going to two candidates who combined do not have a single governor or senator behind them.

The conservative National Review has taken the unprecedented step of publishing an entire issue aimed at blocking the party’s leading candidate. Generations of prominent conservative journalists, tea party activists, and former administration officials are uniting to say that Donald Trump should not even be considered a true conservative.

Meanwhile, in the halls of Congress, Republican lawmakers are coming together to argue that one of their own, Sen. Ted Cruz, is the candidate who must be blocked. Their argument is that Cruz would not just lose but damage the party brand for years to come.

Cruz and Trump are holding up such opposition as the predictable gasps of a wheezing establishment. In a sign of the constantly changing face of the party, the party’s 2008 former vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, is backing Trump and complaining about an establishment that’s trying to bring him down.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, himself a former candidate who’s now backing Jeb Bush, summed up the Cruz vs. Trump frustration succinctly: “It’s like being shot or poisoned.”

Nothing the GOP leadership does seems to work. The National Review article doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the populist uprising.

Sudden Blizzard, Robert Bateman

Jeet Heer at The New Republic: National Review Fails to Kill Its Monster.

…when National Review launched its special issue “Against Trump” last night, it was keeping to a venerable tradition of policing the right. The magazine has been fiercely skeptical of Trump since he announced his candidacy last summer, but the special issue, which boasts an array of right-wing media personalities and pundits as well as a feature editorial, seems designed to be its definitive statement, a historical milestone on par with William F. Buckley’s denunciation of the John Birch Society in 1965 or the magazine’s rejection of Pat Buchanan’s anti-Semitism in 1991.

Yet, despite some good polemics, “Against Trump” is a weak-tea effort. Too much time is spent trying to prove that Trump is not a real conservative, while ignoring the fact that the racist nationalism he is espousing has its origins on the right. Trump, the editors argue, is “a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.” There’s much that can be questioned here: After all, National Review didn’t have a problem with “free-floating populism” in 2008 when it celebrated Sarah Palin (now an enthusiastic Trump cheerleader), and historically the magazine has loved strongmen dictators like Mussolini and Franco.

Read all about it at the link.

Winter Forest, Walter L. Palmer

Ever reliable concern troll Joe Klein has a piece at Time about socialism and the Democratic party. Unfortunately, while I find much of what Klein writes distasteful, I can’t really disagree with him that “socialism” is still a dirty word in American politics; but I disagree that Hillary should use it to attack Bernie. As Dakinikat wrote yesterday, there is a populist impulse among some voters on both sides of the aisle in 2016.

The Democrats Stumble Toward 50 Shades of Socialism.

A specter is haunting the Democratic Party–the specter of socialism. A question is being asked, mostly by Republicans, but also by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: What is the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist? Debbie Wasserman Schultz got it last July and, ever the robotic partisan, answered by saying the more important difference was between Democrats and Republicans. Senator Chuck Schumer said it depended on how you define the two, and then refused to define the two. And, most significantly, Hillary Clinton said, “Well, I can tell you what I am … I’m a progressive Democrat.”

Now this is not a difficult question to answer. Webster’s says socialism is “a social system or theory in which the government owns and controls the means of production.” Democrats tend to believe in free enterprise. They think government should regulate the means of production, not own it. They have taken great pains to separate themselves from socialism, which has always been a poison word in American politics. And yet, according to a recent Des Moines Register poll, 43% of Iowa Democrats describe themselves as socialists. What gives?

Well, they’re not really socialists. They’re European-style social democrats, who believe in a robust redistribution of wealth (“from each according to her ability, to each according to his need”) and government control of some of the means of production–like the health care system. The question of how much government should redistribute has been the central argument in American politics since the passage of the graduated income tax in 1913. Even the vast majority of Republicans believe in Social Security and Medicare.

So we’re talking about 50 shades of socialism here, but the gradations are still important.

Klein writes that Bernie Sanders’ ideas are not really socialist, “but even Bernie should worry about his party strolling into the general election unwilling to distinguish itself from socialism.” I don’t completely agree with Klein–I never do–but I do think the GOP is salivating at the notion of the Democrats running a candidate who calls himself a socialist.

Packis I Stranden, August Strindberg

I also want to call attention to this piece by Jonathan Capehart, because it’s about something that is indicative of Sanders’ tone-deafness:

How Cornel West hurts Bernie Sanders.

Much has been written about the Vermont independent’s appeal to blackvoters and whether he can pry them away from Hillary Clinton. And all I can say is good luck with that. I and plenty of other African Americans won’t soon forget the deranged ravings of the revered Ivy League professor against President Obama.

During a November 2012 interview with Democracy Now, West branded Obama “a Republican, a Rockefeller Republican in blackface.” Then there was that May 2011 interview with Truthdig where West called the nation’s first African American president “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” In that same sitdown, West talked about his 2010 run-in with the president. “I wanted to slap him on the side of his head,” West said, who took his significant policy disagreements with the president down an ugly path zealously cut by birthers….

Joining West on the Sanders campaign is another African American who has thrown brick bats at Obama, the rapper Killer Mike. In “That’s life II,” the Atlanta-based musician denigrates the president as a “house slave” when he raps, “We know that House got air conditioning and the sweetest lemonade, but don’t forget your color, brother, we still mutha——- slaves.” No doubt his endorsement surely earned Sanders cool points with some.

I have little patience for the “Blacker than thou” crowd under normal circumstances. So you better believe I have zero patience for it on the presidential campaign trail. That’s why I can’t possibly take Sanders’s outreach to African American voters seriously. Adding to that sense was his “when the African American community becomes familiar with my congressional record” response to a question at the Charleston, S.C., debate about his lack of black support.

Bluebird Blizzard, Robyn Ryan

I have quite a few more stories to share, so I’m just going to give you the links and let you choose the ones you want to check out.

Jamelle Bouie: Bernie Sanders Is Right That Reparations Would Be Divisive.

MSNBC: Sanders walks back Planned Parenthood, Clinton ‘establishment’ comments.

Consequence of Sound: Donald Trump’s father was Woody Guthrie’s landlord, and also a racist asshole.

Think Progress: Why Bernie Sanders’ Misinformed Supreme Court Tweet Matters.

Imani Gandy: I Don’t Know What Dr. King Would Have Thought About Abortion and Neither Do You.

Emily’s List: 43 Years After Roe v. Wade.

Ilyse Hogue at HuffPo: It’s Now or Never for Reproductive Rights.

Eric Boelert at Media Matters: For Clinton, Good News Is No News When It Comes To Polling.

Dissenting Justice: The Voices: Why Do White Male Progressives Hear Things That No One Else Can?

The Cook Political Report: For Clinton, It’s Time to Stay Cool in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Daily Beast: Gillian Anderson: I Was Offered Half Duchovny’s Pay for ‘The X-Files’ Revival.

I hope you find something here to your liking. Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread, and have a great weekend!

Thursday Reads: Bernie Bros Hop on “That Old Volkswagon Bus” Back to 1972

Good Morning!!

After 24 hours of discussion of Bernie Sanders’ attacks on Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the the Human Rights Campaign,  we have a response from the Bernie bro camp at MSNBC. Rachel Maddow addressed what he had said on her show on Tuesday night. She invited Bernie himself to come on the show again, but he declined.

So Maddow did her best to clean up Bernie’s horrendous remarks. She Bernie-splained that there is that there Hillary herself started the backlash (not true, people were tweeting about it while the show was still going on). Next she quoted the Human Rights Campaigns’ statement that they had been fighting for LGBT rights for more than 30 years and then implied that the fact that they have been around that long indicates they are in fact part of the establishment. Then she argued that in terms of support for reproductive rights and gay rights there is no real difference between Clinton and Sanders.

Maddow went on to claim that this is the first big disagreement in the Democratic campaign for the nomination. Seriously? She hasn’t noticed the vast differences on and arguments about gun control and health care? Did she watch the last debate? Anyway, you can watch the entire 10-minute segment at the above link.

This morning the issue was even addressed on the front page of DailyKos by David Nir:

Sanders camp confirms it thinks Planned Parenthood is part of the establishment out to beat Bernie.

On Tuesday night, Bernie Sanders alarmed many liberals when he appeared to include Planned Parenthood among groups belonging to the “political establishment” that he says he’s “taking on”:

“What we are doing in this campaign—and it just blows my mind every day, because I see it clearly—we’re taking on not only Wall Street and the economic establishment, we’re taking on the political establishment.

“And so I have friends and supporters in the Human Rights Fund, in Planned Parenthood. But you know what, Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time and some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment.”

In response, some Sanders supporters argued that Sanders was not including Planned Parenthood among “establishment” groups, pointing out that he spoke only of “some” groups without specifically naming Planned Parenthood.

However, in an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Wednesday afternoon, Sanders’ top strategist, Tad Devine, confirmed that the campaign does indeed view Planned Parenthood as part of a Democratic establishment that’s actively opposing Sanders:

Todd: Do you believe that Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign—that these are part of the Democratic establishment that’s trying to defeat you?

Devine: I do, Chuck. I think the leadership of Washington-based groups—and it’s not just those two—are part of a political establishment here in Washington.

Don’t bother reading the comments. They’re filled with Bernie bros shrieking that the leadership of DailyKos, which supports Hillary Clinton, is also part of the “establishment.”

The other news the Bernie bros were pushing yesterday was a poll by CNN and WMUR that found Clinton trailing Sanders in New Hampshire 60% to 33%.   Sorry, but that has to be an outlier. I don’t doubt that Bernie is leading in New Hampshire, but the folks up there have a tendency to switch back and forth and makes up their minds at the last minute–sometimes as they arrive at their polling places. WBUR Boston poll independent New Hampshire voters:

WBUR Poll: Large Share Of N.H.’s Undeclared Voters Yet To Settle On A Candidate Or A Party.

A new WBUR poll out Thursday (topline, crosstabs) finds that with less than three weeks before primary day, a large share of New Hampshire’s undeclared voters have yet to make up their minds about who to vote for — or even which party to support.

New Hampshire’s undeclared voters — those who aren’t registered as Democrats or Republicans and can choose either ballot on Election Day — represent over 44 percent of the state’s voters, more than either political party. They are notoriously independent and play a crucial role in picking the winners.

“And a lot of them, about a third, still haven’t made up their mind,” said Steve Koczela, president of The MassINC Polling Group, which conducted our survey. “That to me is the thing that could still cause the biggest change.”

So 44% of the states’ voters could still affect the outcome of the primary.

Sadly for the Bernie bros, there’s a new Iowa poll out today showing Clinton leading Sanders 9 points. From TPM:

The poll showed support for Clinton at 48 percent, compared to 39 percent for Sanders. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley also registered an unusually high level of support at 7 percent.

Though substantial, Clinton’s lead is narrower than in the previous iteration of the Monmouth/KBUR Iowa poll, which showed her leading Sanders 46 percent to 32 percent.

Several major polls lately have shown Sanders leading in Iowa, and some others have put Clinton’s lead within the margin of error, suggesting a collapse in support for Clinton in a state where she previously had been in a strong position. This poll contradicts that narrative.

The Monmouth/KBUR poll, conducted by Douglas Fulmer & Associates from Jan. 18-19, surveyed 570 Democratic voters in Iowa by phone. It had a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.

Lots can happen between now and the vote counting in Iowa and New Hampshire. In fact, CNN announced yesterday that they will hold a town hall for Democratic candidates on Monday night.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will field questions from Iowa Democrats in this prime-time event hosted by the Iowa Democratic Party and Drake University.

“We are honored to partner with CNN on their town hall with our three fantastic Democratic candidates,” said Dr. Andy McGuire, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. “With this event airing just one week before the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, it’s an incredible opportunity for Iowans to see our candidates detail their plans to move our country forward and their vision for Iowa and the nation.”

The town hall, which will be moderated by CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, will air from 9 p.m.-11 p.m. ET, the network announced. A CNN spokesperson added that it will make the town hall available to its Iowa affiliates to air live.

That should be really interesting! Of course we’ll be posting a live blog to discuss what happens.

Simon and Garfunkel at a benefit for George McGovern in 1972

Today the Bernie bros are all talking about Sanders’ new ad set to Simon and Garfunkle’s 1972 classic “America.” To me that’s a reminder that if Sanders were to get the nomination he’d go the way of George McGovern. But what do I know. I’m just a clueless old fogy who doesn’t want history to repeat itself this year. I only voted for George McGovern in 1972 and felt my heart break when he lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide. The networks called the election before 7PM.

Greg Sargent is one of the younger journalists who is thrilled with the new ad.

Bernie Sanders wants to be this year’s hope and change candidate.

As Iowa comes down to the wire, the parallels to the 2008 battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are striking. Clinton has reverted to a hard-boiled message about the need for experience and toughness to confront a dangerous, complicated world.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is increasingly sounding an optimistic, inspirational message that promises a bright, progressive future that can, and will, be secured through mobilizing the masses, particularly younger voters, a vision that Clinton surely sees (just as she saw Barack Obama’s vision) as vague, airy, and naive.

Sanders is up with this remarkable new ad in Iowa whose tagline — “a future you can believe in” — conspicuously echoes Obama’s 2008 “change you can believe in” formulation.

In a way, this ad perfectly captures Bernie Sanders’ theory of change, or at least, a version of it that has had its more pessimistic or even apocalyptic edges airbrushed away to make it easier on the eyes and ears. Hence the dulcet tones of Simon and Garfunkel’s “America,” which tells a tale of young lovers on a road trip, suffusing this ad with an odd mix of nostalgia (this song was recorded in the late 1960s, when Sanders and Clinton were both in their twenties) and idealism about the future.

The Sanders argument, to put it simply, has essentially been that America is in deep, deep trouble — it faces structural challenges so pressing and urgent, from climate change to soaring inequality, that the failure to meet them with proportionately outsize solutions risks a slow motion slide into disaster that could prove irreversible. Sanders’ message has been that the version of progressive change that we’ve seen during the Obama years — from Dodd Frank to Obamacare to the global climate deal — is basically small beer compared to the epic problems we face. That’s what makes this new ad so striking: it doesn’t detail these challenges, instead suggesting vaguely that inspiration and mobilization can secure America’s future.

That sounds kind of negative to me. He’s essentially running against Obama’s legacy. How will that go over with Iowa Democrats who overwhelming support President Obama.

Here’s something from an older and wiser journalist, Gene Lyons: In That Old Volkswagen Bus With Bernie, Rolling Toward 1972.

Unpack your old tie-dyed T-shirts, roll yourself a fat doobie, and warm up the ancient VW bus. We’re going to do Woodstock and the 1972 presidential election all over again. And this time, the hippies are going to win! Four years of peace, love, and single-payer health care.

But do take care to clear the path for Bernie Sanders. Because if he steps in something the dog left behind, he’s going to blame Wall Street and start yelling and waving his arms around.

And you know how much that upsets Republican congressmen who are otherwise so eager to oblige his plans to soak the rich and give everybody free college, free health care, free bubble-up and rainbow stew—as the old Merle Haggard song had it.

OK, so I’m being a smart-aleck. I was moved to satire by a couple of moments from last week’s Democratic and Republican presidential debates. First, Sen. Sanders, boasting about a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that shows him beating Donald Trump by 15 points—54 to 39. Hillary Clinton tops Trump only 51-41.

Both would be huge landslides. In 1972, Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern 61-38. The Democrat won only Massachusetts.

The part Sanders left out and that Hillary was also wise enough to leave unmentioned is that the same poll shows her leading him 59 to 34 percent in the Democratic primary contest nationally. Twenty-five points.

There’s lots of other news, and I’ll add some links in the comments. What stories are you following today?

Tuesday Reads: RIP Glen Frey and Martin Luther King Events

Winter landscape by Pieter De Hooch

Good Morning!!

We lost another 1970s music legend yesterday. The Eagles’ Glen Frey is dead. The LA Times writes:

The Eagles’ Glenn Frey spun sun-baked SoCal ballads that will endure.

Few bands were better at distilling the vibe of Los Angeles in the 1970s than the Eagles, and as its singer and guitarist, Glenn Frey served as a sort of mellow ambassador of our city. Just as Liverpool is forever associated with the Beatles, Seattle claims Nirvana and Bruce Springsteen owns New Jersey, the Eagles embodied the bell-bottomed, feather-haired flair of Southern California.

Frey, who died Monday at age 67, co-wrote and sang some of the most commercially successful country rock ballads of the ’70s, including “Tequila Sunrise,” “Peaceful, Easy Feeling,” “Take It Easy” and “Lyin’ Eyes.”

Soft and twangy, his hits as co-founder of the Eagles defined the region like the vivid colors of orange crate art had during the city’s early boom years and as the Beach Boys had during the surf craze.

During the Eagles’ 2014 concert at the Forum, in fact, Frey compared the legacy of two uniquely Californian bands: “The Beach Boys were pioneers. The Eagles were settlers.” Which is to say, where the Beach Boys forged new sounds, the Eagles gathered up what was already there — country rock — and made it their home.

A youthful Glenn Frey

On Frey’s contributions to the group’s sound:

Frey’s best songs with the Eagles embodied that home, best known through the golden, sun-drenched silhouettes of palm trees on the cover of its classic album “Hotel California.” The dominant shade of the record sleeve is what Frey so brilliantly conveyed as “another tequila sunrise,” a muted orange, the color of the last wash of daylight or dawn’s first breath.

Where the Beach Boys reveled in a daytime spent surfing and having fun with the girls, the Eagles worked far later into the night. Frey co-wrote and sang songs about mysterious women, the loneliness of the outsider, unrequited desire and dangerous reflexes.

He did so, though, minus any hint of distortion or aggression. In “Peaceful, Easy Feeling,” Frey didn’t want to get funky or dirty. Rather, he spun visions of the simple pleasures in his adopted Southern California home as he sang of wanting to “sleep with you in the desert tonight/ With a billion stars all around.”

Take it easy corner in Winslow, Arizona

From the Washington Post: Glenn Frey and the mystery of the ‘Take It Easy’ corner in Winslow, Ariz.

[E]ach year thousands of people, usually on the way to somewhere else, make a stop in Winslow, Ariz.,about 60 miles easy of Flagstaff, thanks to Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey, whose death was reported Monday. And, thanks to the Eagles’ classic “Take It Easy,” they go to a special corner, where Old Highway 66 meets North Kinsley Avenue, and just stand, which is exactly what you’re supposed to do.

It’s called “Standin’ on the Corner Park.” There’s not much there — a statue of a guy holding a guitar and a red flatbed Ford at the curb. They say if you look hard enough, you’ll see the girl from the song, too. In fact, they’ve made sure of it.

Well, I’m a standing on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona, 
and such a fine sight to see. 
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford
slowin’ down to take a look at me. 
Come on, baby, don’t say maybe. 
I gotta know if your sweet love is
gonna save me. 
We may lose and we may win
though we will never be here again. 
So open up, I’m climbin’ in,
so take it easy.

The 1972 song “Take it Easy” preceded the park by three decades, and you have to wonder why it took Winslow so long. Perhaps it’s because the city didn’t need it in 1972, when Old 66 went through the heart of town, only to be cruelly bypassed in 1979 when Interstate 40 cut it off — “bleeding Winslow dry,” as Kevin Baxter wrote in the Los Angeles Times a year ago.

Read much more at the link.

A couple more good links on Frey:

Washington Post: How Glenn Frey and the Eagles outlasted everyone who loved to hate them.

Rolling Stone: Glenn Frey: The Voice That Launched a Million Tequila Sunrises.

Black Lives Matter protesters on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco

Yesterday on the Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday, Black Lives Matter protesters were on the streets in a number of cities. The most dramatic demonstration took place in San Francisco, where activists managed to shut down the Bay Bridge. CBS SF Bay Area reports:

Protesters announced just before 4 p.m. they had shut down Bay Bridge traffic heading into San Francisco. They posted photos of several protesters chained to cars stopped across the bridge.

Members of protest groups Black Seed and the Black Queer Liberation Collective took responsibility for the protest in a statement, citing recent police shootings.

“We are here to move towards an increase in the health and wellbeing of all Black people in Oakland & San Francisco,” the groups wrote in a statement.

They were demanding divestment of city funds in policing, investment in affordable housing, the resignation of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, the termination of San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr and Oakland police Chief Sean Whent and the termination of police officers involved in several recent shootings.

Twenty-five protesters were arrested. Another Black Lives Matter group “commandeered” a ceremony in Denver. 

In a related story, the Boston Police Department released information on “nearly 150,000 civilian encounters,” and guess which category of people got stopped most often? The Boston Globe reports:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts had been asking for the data since September 2014 and sued for it last summer….

More than half of those stopped—56 percent—were black males. White males were the next most-stopped group, at 17 percent, followed by Hispanic males at 12 percent.

In their own analysis, Boston police said “nearly 59 percent of the FIO subjects were black.” But about 4.3 percent of the total reports don’t state a race, or the officer checked “unknown.” Taking out those blanks or unknowns, the actual percentage of black people stopped among those with a known race is 61.2 percent.

Boston’s population is about 25 percent black. More than 87 percent of everyone stopped had a criminal record.

The number one reason why someone was stopped? “Investigate, person.” More than 60 percent of the stops were made for this vague reason. Behind it, at 14 percent, was “violating auto laws,” like driving without a license.

Boston police clash with protesters at City Hall Plaza in December 2014

This is interesting too:

One officer entered 2,904 reports, or nearly two out of every 100. Seventeen other officers had more than 1,000 FIO reports. Most of those officers are members of the Youth Violence Strike Force, a unit that is not on regular patrol but is tasked with preventing violence, which includes gang activity.

Boston police said that about 30 percent of the total reports were from the Youth Violence Strike Force. Of the 50 officers who generated the most number of reports, including the officer who had the highest number, 64 percent were Youth Violence Strike Force officers.

It sounds like they might need to take a look at the one officer who was so prolific in stopping citizens.

Hillary Clinton appeared at a Martin Luther King Day ceremony in Charleston, South Carolina yesterday. HuffPo:

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton praised South Carolina for removing the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds in Columbia as roughly 1,000 gathered to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy.

Monday’s “King Day at the Dome” celebration marked the first time the state has officially honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day without the racist symbol flying above the crowd. Civil rights activists had previously used the holiday to call for the flag’s removal.

“How wonderful it is to be here together without the Confederate flag overhead,” Clinton said. “That flag always belonged in a museum, not at the statehouse.”

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during ‘King Day at the Dome 2016’ ceremonies in front of the South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina, Monday. | REUTERS

Hillary called attention to the roles of Gov. Nikki Haley and protester Bree Newsome in the decision to remove the Confederate flag.

Clinton praised Haley and the state legislature for taking swift action on the flag, but also credited activist Bree Newsome for taking the matter into her own hands and “shimmying up that flagpole.”

“Every year, you’ve gathered right here and said that that symbol of division and racism went against everything Dr. King stood for,” Clinton continued. “We couldn’t celebrate him and the Confederacy, we had to choose. And South Carolina finally made the right choice.”

That was the only article I could find on Hillary’s speech, but Bernie Sanders got quite a bit of media coverage for his appearance in Alabama. AP via ABC News: Bernie Sanders Courts Voters in Alabama on King Day.

With polls showing him running well in Iowa and New Hampshire, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders took aim at what might be unusual territory for a self-described democratic socialist: the Deep South.

Yet a crowd of more than 5,000 packed into Boutwell Auditorium in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, Monday night to hear the Vermont senator, while nearly 1,000 milled outside in freezing temperatures.

“There must be some mistake, I heard Alabama was a conservative state,” Sanders said to an enthusiastic welcome.

Sanders said his message of raising the minimum wage, free college tuition and paid family medical leave cuts across regional lines but acknowledged that the work to get that message across was harder in a state like Alabama.

“We’ve got to go out to our white, working-class friends. We’ve got to go out to our brothers and sisters and say, ‘Stop voting against your own self-interests,'” Sanders said.

“Our brothers and sisters?” I guess that means black people. I wonder how many “brothers and sisters” were in the crowd. The article doesn’t say. The story says Sanders mentioned Dr. King and emphasized King’s activism on economic issues.

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., Monday, Jan. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Donald Trump chose to give a speech at Liberty University on Martin Luther King Day, and he made some biblical boo boos while speaking to the packed “Christian” audience (Liberty U. students are required to attend appearances by guest speakers). Most disconcerting for the religious nuts was that he referred to “2 Corinthians” instead of the correct usage “second Corinthians.” Here’s Molly Ball at The Atlantic:

The Religious Right’s Donald Trump Dilemma.

Read the rest at the link.

What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great Tuesday!

Thursday Reads

Henri Matisse: Winter Landscape on the Banks of the Seine

Good Morning!!

There’s a Republican debate tonight on the Fox Business Channel. We’ll have a live blog as usual. The kid’s table section will start at 6PM and the main event will be at 9PM. I don’t know why they don’t just let all the candidates on the main stage. Actually, I don’t know why the also rans don’t just drop out. Anyway, there could be some fireworks tonight between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. We’ll find out later tonight.

Time Magazine: The Stage Is Getting Smaller at GOP Debates.

The stage is set for Thursday night’s debate in Charleston, South Carolina, and only seven podiums remain for the top-tier candidates.

With the lead-off nominating contests starting in less than a month, it’s fast becoming clear which candidates have a credible shot at winning the Republicans’ presidential nomination and, perhaps more tellingly, which do not.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and former tech executive07 Carly Fiorina were bumped from the primetime lineup, and Paul says he’s skipping the earlier undercard debate. Fiorina will face former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, two darlings of Christian conservatives.

Remaining on the main stage are frontrunner Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

With Iowa having the first nominating contests on Feb. 1, the dynamics of the race are incredibly fluid and the candidates’ attacks are getting sharper….

At this moment in the campaign, the biggest question for Republicans is what happens in Iowa. Will the thrice-married Trump keep his advantage in a state ripe with Evangelicals, or will Cruz be able to claim the top spot? Trump’s unconventional campaign is betting his reality star approach can sustain him against Cruz, who has done three times as many events as Trump. If Trump falters in Iowa, can he catch himself in New Hampshire, or will he fade? And will any of it matter for his legions of supporters?

Trump may have “legions of supporters” in Iowa, but will they show up to caucus for him? The New York Times has a really good story today about Trump’s dysfunctional ground game in the state.

Donald Trump’s Iowa Ground Game Seems to Be Missing a Coach.

Mr. Trump, who Iowa polls show is neck-and-neck with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, may well win the caucuses, now less than three weeks away. But if he does, it will probably be in spite of his organizing team, which after months of scattershot efforts led by a paid staff of more than a dozen people, still seems amateurish and halting, committing basic organizing errors….

Compared with the well-oiled machines of other leading candidates in both parties, particularly that of the Cruz campaign, the Trump ground game in Iowa seems partly an afterthought, as if Mr. Trump’s strategy is to leverage his charisma — the appeal that draws thousands to his rallies — to motivate voters.

But the challenge in Iowa is that historically, caucusgoers — only a sliver of registered voters — have had to be coaxed out by a field team, rather than be counted on to show up and vote on their own. This is especially true of the demographic that supports Mr. Trump: younger voters and others with a low propensity to turn out.

As temperatures plunged to single digits over the weekend, canvassers for Hillary Clinton posted photographs of themselves on social media going door to door in the snow. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s volunteers in Davenport, a city where the campaign appears to be better organized than elsewhere, decided it was too cold to go out.

Seven volunteers worked the phones at the Iowa headquarters of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida in a Des Moines suburb one night last week. At the state headquarters of Mr. Cruz, there were 24 volunteers in a room beneath a sign proclaiming a daily goal of making 6,000 calls. The Trump state headquarters in West Des Moines were largely deserted.

Wow. If Trump’s organization is that bad in Iowa, what is he doing in later voting states? One fairly serious organizer the Times talked to is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Another said he hadn’t yet gotten any fliers from the campaign detailing Trump’s positions on issues, and besides he didn’t plan to make any calls until the last week before the caucuses. At rallies some Trump supporters say they will caucus for him, but most have never done it before and have no idea what it involves.

Yesterday the NYT reported that Ted Cruz had failed to report some large loans he used to help finance his campaign for the Senate in 2012, including one from Goldman Sachs, where Cruz’s wife Heidi was a “managing director” at the time. Cruz thinks it’s no big deal.

The Week: Ted Cruz shrugs off report that he got undisclosed Goldman Sachs loan for Senate campaign.