Live Blog: Fourth Democratic Debate
Posted: January 17, 2016 Filed under: Affordable Care Act (ACA), Democratic Politics, Live Blog, SCOTUS, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 Democratic nomination race, Background Checks, Bernie Sanders, Brady bill, Democratic debates, Federal Employees' Health Benefits Program, flip flops, gun dealers' immunity, Health care, Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Medicaid, medicare, NRA, SCHIP, single payer, TRICARE 147 Comments
Tonight’s debate is likely to feature some fireworks and a good exchange of ideas between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders–as long as the moderators can keep Martin O’Malley from constantly breaking in with his patented line “I’ve actually already done that in Maryland.”
Mediaite has the basics on how to watch the debate. It will be available on line at the NBC News website and YouTube. It begins at nine and goes for two hours.
The back and forth between Hillary and Bernie this week has been interesting, to say the least. Hillary seems to have gotten under Bernie’s skin too, because he has now partially flip flopped on his vote to immunize gun dealers from liability, his campaign has promised to release specifics on his health car plan and how he hopes to pay for it “very soon,” and they’ve also said they’ll release a “doctor’s note” on Sanders’ health.
Just a couple of days ago the Sanders campaign announced they wouldn’t release the health care tax figures and they previously pooh poohed the need to release medical records.
I’ve thought for awhile now that Sanders has begun to believe his own reviews in the media. After reading what he said on Face The Nation this morning, I’m convinced he has allowed the failure of the media to vet him and the adulation of his supporters to go to his head.
Sanders: I have a “good chance” to win 2016 election.
“I think we have a good chance to win both those states,” he said of Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to hold nominating contests. “I think we have a good chance to win this election.”
If he does win, Sanders predicted his campaign would come to be known as “one of the great political upsets in modern history.”
He is feeling so good, in fact, that the Vermont senator told “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson that while he was watching President Obama’s final State of the Union address last week, “the thought did cross my mind” that he could be delivering that address in the near future.
Then he caught himself.
“It’s a very humbling feeling,” he said, but added a moment later, “It’s a long way to go before we talk about inaugural speech, before we toss State of the Union speeches in.”
Hmmm…. he doesn’t sound so humble.
I have a few other good links for you on Bernie.
First a diary from DailyKos (!) on the health care law that Sanders has proposed multiple times in Congress: Sanders’ Health Care Plan. The diarist simply reports the contents of Senate Bill 1782, introduced in December 2013. Please go read it.
The law would end Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, the Federal Employees’ Health Benefits Program, and TRICARE. The money that was going into those programs, and use it to fund a “single payer” plan to be run and partially paid for by the states.
We already know that Supreme Court is not going to force states to accept something they don’t want from the Feds. That was their decision on the ACA Medicaid expansion. Even if Sanders could somehow get this through the Republican Congress, it would never get past SCOTUS.
I can’t even imagine what would be involved in implementing this. Right now, Medicare has low overhead costs because it turns over administration of supplemental plans to insurance companies–which would be outlawed in Sanders’ alternative universe.
I’m on Medicare and I get help paying my premiums from the government. Those premiums are more than $100 per month. Basic Medicare only pays for hospital bills, so I also have a government funded supplemental plan with very high co-pays that I get “free.” At least I can go to a doctor if it’s absolutely necessary. What would happen to people like me when all that infrastructure is demolished?
Here’s another must-read that Babama posted in a comment yesterday.
The People’s View: Chelsea Clinton was Right: Everyone’s Health Care is Threatened under Bernie’s Plan.
Recently, Chelsea Clinton got panned for saying that Bernie Sanders’ health care plan – commonly heralded as ‘Medicare for All’ by the revolution-peddlers – would give Republican governors the opportunity to dismantle publicly funded health insurance for the poor and middle class, that is, Medicaid and the health insurance exchanges. Seems absurd to accuse a self-proclaimed socialist with a proclaimed demand for single-payer universal health insurance of trying to take away health care. Politifact rated Chelsea Clinton’s claims ‘mostly false.’
Politifact got it wrong. Bernie Sanders’ plan does, in fact, allow for states to take away health care from the poor and middle-income, if not most everyone in a state. Although, that shouldn’t be a surprise, given that Sanders’ plan itself targets the economically disadvantaged for punishment. As Politifact notes, Sanders hasn’t proposed a full health care plan for his presidential campaign, instead choosing to use a bill Sanders introduced in the Senate in 2013 without a single cosponsor, titled ‘American Health Security Act of 2013’ as the template.
Poltiifact notes it is in fact true that Sanders’ plan repeals all health insurance funding from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act Health Insurance exchanges. But he would channel the revenue instead to fund the single-payer system! [….]
The problem is, what Sander’s bill “seeks to” do and what it actually does are quite different. Since Politifact helpfully pointed us to Sanders’ 2013 bill, I decided to read it. In short, it ends all funding to Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP an the ACA insurance provisions, directs it to this single-payer insurance program, raises additional revenue on the back of those who can least afford it, and charges states with the job of actually running it.
Each state, in theory, would have its own program that follows basic guidelines and the vast majority of the funding (80-90%) is provided by the federal government. Nonetheless, for states that refuse to run their own program, federal authorities – specifically, a Board – can do so instead. Sanders’ bill would also ban the sale of private health insurance.
Until I read that last night, I really didn’t understand how clueless Sanders really is. Please read the whole thing if you haven’t already, because Robert Reich is running around saying the plan makes sense.
One more Bernie link from Dean Barker at “Birch Paper.” This one has been getting retweeted a lot today. The piece takes us back to the early days of Sanders’ political career when he ran again and again for office, and always lost. Then he got smart and used guns to get into Congress.
Sanders repeatedly talks about how he lost an election because he supported a ban on assault weapons. What really happened is that Sanders did so well in a third-party run that he got Republican Peter Smith elected. After he got to Washington, Smith’s conscience bothered him and he ended up supporting a bill to ban assault weapons.
In 1990, Sanders ran for the House seat again, and defeated Smith with the help and monetary support of the NRA. So when Bernie went to Washington, he voted against the Brady bill–repeatedly.
You have to read that article! There are tons of good links in there too.
Hillary was on the morning shows today too, and she learned from George Stephanopoulos that Karl Rove’s super pac is running an ad in Iowa that supports Sanders attacks on her.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughed off a new attack ad from a Republican super PAC run by Karl Rove during an interview Sunday on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
The web spot, titled “Hillary’s Bull Market,” was launched by American Crossroads, which is run by the Republican strategist and former President George W. Bush adviser. After watching the ad for the first time during her interview on “This Week,” Clinton just smiled.
“I think it shows how desperate the Republicans are to prevent me from becoming the nominee,” Clinton said about the ad, which goes after her ties to Wall Street. “I find that, in a perverse way, an incredibly flattering comment on their anxiety, because they know that not only will I stand up for what the country needs, I will take it to the Republicans.”
CNN’s report on the morning shows: Hillary Clinton zeroes in on Bernie Sanders.
Hillary Clinton on Sunday sharpened her attacks on Bernie Sanders over the Vermont senator’s record on gun control, just hours ahead of their fourth debate as both vie for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I am very pleased that he flip-flopped on the immunity legislation,” Clinton told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” a day after Sanders, who had been hammered by her campaign for his past position, announced he would change course and back legislation to reverse a 2005 law granting firearm manufacturers legal immunity.
She then called on her rival to do the same with the so-called “Charleston loophole,” which allows licensed dealers, once they have initiated a federal background check, to complete the gun sale in question if they haven’t hears back from authorities after three days.
Good news for Hillary:
Time: Poll: Hillary Clinton Leads Bernie Sanders Nationally By 25 Points.
Hillary Clinton is leading Bernie Sanders in a new national poll ahead of Sunday’s final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucuses.
The former Secretary of State is beating Sanders by 25 points nationally, according to according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of likely Democratic primary voters. Clinton is the top pick among 59% of Democratic primary voters, while Sanders has the support of 34%, the survey shows. Third-place candidate Martin O’Malley got the support of just 2% of likely voters.
Read the rest at CNN.
And From US News: Yes, Hillary’s Still the Inevitable Democratic Nominee She can recover even if she loses the first two nominating states to Bernie Sanders. Here’s why. Read about it at the link. It’s not easy find a brief excerpt to summarize the findings.
I’m putting this up a little early so we’ll have time to discuss these articles–or anything else you want to talk about–before the debate begins at 9PM. I look forward to reading your reactions to what happens tonight. This is the most important debate yet!
Lazy Saturday Reads: Trump May Have Bitten off More than He Can Chew
Posted: January 2, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: agism, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Sexism 29 Comments
Good Morning!
In the past week or two Donald Trump has begun directing his crude and crass public attacks at Hillary Clinton rather than his Republican rivals for the presidential nomination.
Trump claimed that it was “disgusting” that Hillary went to the ladies room during a break the last Democratic debate. He said that Obama “schlonged” Hillary in the 2008 presidential primaries. He announced that it was “fair game” for him to use Bill Clinton’s infidelities in the 1990s against Hillary. Will it work?
From the NYT: Poll Show Attacks on Bill Clinton May Only Help Hillary Clinton.
Survey data from the Pew Research Center show’s [sic] Mrs. Clinton’s favorability rating jumping to 63 percent in August of 1998, four months before Mr. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives. In December of that year, as controversy about their marriage continued to swirl, her popularity climbed higher, reaching 66 percent.
“In contrast to her husband, Hillary Clinton continues to draw high marks from the public,” Pew found at the time. “Two-thirds of Americans say they admire Hillary Clinton’s decision to stand by her husband and nearly as many have a favorable opinion of the first lady.”
Figures from Gallup also showed Mrs. Clinton’s favorability rating rising as accounts of Mr. Clinton cheating dominated headlines. That rating, which was at 39 percent in 1992, remained high through 1999 before leveling off. It hovered from 40 percent to 50 percent in the 2000s and topped 60 percent again when she joined President Obama’s cabinet.
Shawn J. Parry-Giles, a communications professor at the University of Maryland, explained in her 2014 book about the role of gender in American politics that Mrs. Clinton was seen as more sympathetic and authentic as she endured the fallout from her husband’s affair.
“As she showed a clear sense of marital fortitude by staying with her cheating husband, her poll numbers would rise,” Ms. Parry-Giles wrote. “As the scorned and sad woman attracting sympathy from others, Clinton would more closely resemble the traditional ideals of authentic womanhood.”
Paul Waldman at The Week: Bill Clinton’s sexual history is fair game for Donald Trump. But it’s bad politics.
…since Hillary Clinton often mentions her husband’s presidency as an example of the kind of successful approach she would bring, that presidency — warts and all — is certainly relevant. But if Republicans want to re-litigate the Monica Lewinsky matter, they probably shouldn’t hope that things will turn out differently this time. You may recall that they were unable to remove Clinton from the presidency, and two years after being impeached he left office with approval ratings in the high 60s. In the end, the public decided that though his private behavior was deplorable, they were happy with the job he was doing as president. They also concluded that a bunch of prurient Republicans had become positively obsessed with Clinton’s sexual life and dragged the country through a needless impeachment crisis.
It’s fair game to talk about all that again (which, I must point out, members of the media would absolutely love to do). What’s much harder to figure out is why Bill Clinton’s behavior provides a reason to vote against his wife. That’s the substance of the question, which still awaits an explanation.
One might even ask what relevance Donald Trump’s obvious sexism has for the presidency. Unlike with some of the other large groups he has alienated, it’s less clear what the connection would be between Trump’s sexism and his actual policy positions. Yes, he finds women’s bodily functions “disgusting,” in the word he repeatedly uses (see here or here), and has a history of dumping his wives when they hit their 40s so he can get himself a younger model. But his positions on issues of particular concern to women are little different from those of most Republicans, even those who are perfectly polite and respectful to everyone (you can argue that things like opposing abortion rights are inherently sexist, but that doesn’t tell us anything about Trump specifically).
But it would be “fair game” now, right? Please go read the rest of the piece at the link. It’s good.
Mary Sanchez at the Chicago Tribune: Donald Trump should think twice about taking on Bill Clinton.
Donald Trump might be picking the wrong schoolyard fight. His modus operandi is to bully. And it’s proved to be an ideal strategy for tying his Republican rivals in knots. But now he’s trying it on someone whose powers of political legerdemain are legendary: Bill Clinton.
The 69-year-old former president is wilier than Trump could ever dream of being. This is the man who hung the 1995-1996 government shutdown around the neck of his chief political adversary, House Speaker Newt Gingrich. A formidable huckster in his own right, Gingrich was the It Boy of conservatism and the leader of an ascendant “Republican Revolution,” but after losing his budget showdown with Clinton, his career went into permanent eclipse.
Gingrich’s oafish understudies then mounted an ill-advised impeachment campaign against Clinton, which only burnished the president’s credentials as a victim of partisan fanaticism.
Trump, by contrast, is a cad whose vulgarity and brutishness are given cover by the fact that those very qualities are cheered by a large portion of the Republican base. He’s making the P.T. Barnum bet on the Republican electorate, and so far it’s paying off.
In recent days, Trump has pounced on Hillary Clinton’s husband, in particular his record of cheating, as a new stratagem to upend her campaign. On Twitter, he asserted: “If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s wrong!”
But this only underscores another difference between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump: The former president’s record on so-called women’s issues is stellar. He appointed the first women to become U.S. attorney general and secretary of state, added Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court and signed the Violence Against Women Act, along with other measures that benefited women.
Most recently Trump has been claiming that Hillary is “weak” and “low energy” and that she “lacks .”
From the Washington Post:
For as long as Hillary Clinton has been in the public eye, she has answered questions — and sometimes volunteered information — about how much and how hard she works to get it all done.
Few, even her political enemies, have questioned her work ethic or staying power — until Donald Trump.
“She’ll do a couple of minutes in Iowa, meaning a short period of time. And then she goes home,” the GOP presidential front-runner said in Davenport, Iowa, a few weeks ago, as his attention turned to those areas. “You don’t see her for five or six days. She goes home, goes to sleep. I’m telling you. She doesn’t have the strength. She doesn’t have the stamina.”
Ever since — and increasingly in recent days — the magnate has lobbed a barrage of insults at Clinton from onstage at his campaign rallies, on television and online. The former secretary of state is “low-energy,” Trump says. She lacks stamina. She’s physically weak.
The attacks — often coded, always personal — seem to be aimed at raising questions in voters’ minds about a factor that has long been whispered in some GOP circles: how Clinton’s age could affect her ability to serve.
Trump is older than Clinton, but I guess he thinks he’s not affected by aging. Or maybe he thinks only women are?
“I think that my words represent toughness and strength. Hillary’s not strong. Hillary’s weak, frankly. She’s got no stamina; she’s got nothing,” the billionaire said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “She couldn’t even get back on the stage last night.”
Her energy level, he has said, should disqualify her from the presidency. “Hillary is a person who doesn’t have the strength or the stamina, in my opinion, to be president,” Trump told ABC’s “This Week.” “She doesn’t have strength or stamina. She’s not a strong enough person to be president.”
Trump, who often takes credit for saddling former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) with a “low-energy” label, has lately used the same line on Clinton.
“She’s even lower-energy than Jeb Bush,” he told a South Carolina crowd on Wednesday.
Trump has looked tired by the end of every GOP debate. I’d love to see him sit through 11 hours of hostile questioning at a Congressional hearing as Hillary did not too long ago. Who know what’s in Trump’s fevered brain, but I think these are all sexist attacks designed to make people believe a woman couldn’t handle the presidency. I don’t think this line of attack is going to work for Trump either.
A few more reactions to Trump’s attacks on Hillary and Bill Clinton:
Joe Conason at The National Memo: Below Par: Donald Trump’s Ardent Courtship Of Bill And Hillary Clinton.
Janelle Ross at the WaPo: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and how sexism is now partisan.
Lanny Davis at The Hill: Thank you, Mr. Trump — keep attacking the Clintons.
What do you think? What stories are you following today?
Tuesday Reads: Fascist Misogynist Trump Spews Sexism; Media Misses the Point as Usual
Posted: December 22, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, Republican politics, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, misogyny, Sexism, Yiddish 44 CommentsBoston Common at Twilight
Good Afternoon!!
I was going to post repulsive pictures of Donald Trump, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead I decided to illustrate this post with paintings of Boston by Frederick Childe Hassam. I hope you like them and that they’ll help to ameliorate the horror of what I have to write about.
Last night Trump unleashed a sickening misogynist attack on Hillary, and many in the media are treating it like politics as usual if a little more vulgar than we’re used to. Here’s what Trump said (NBC News):
“Even her race to Obama, she was gonna beat Obama,” the GOP frontrunner told a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I don’t know who would be worse, I don’t know. How does it get worse? But she was gonna beat — she was favored to win — and she got schlonged. She lost.”
Trump also made crude references to Clinton’s bathroom break during Saturday’s Democratic debate, describing it as “disgusting.”
“What happened to her?” Trump wondered. “I’m watching the debate, and she disappeared.” He then solved his own riddle: “I know where she went. It’s disgusting. I don’t want to talk about it. No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting. We want to be very straight up, OK?”
It wasn’t the first time Trump used the term “schlonged.” In 2011, while discussing the race for New York’s 26th District, Trump characterized the loss suffered by Republican Jane Corwin as “not only” a loss but an instance of getting “schlonged by a Democrat.”
Naturally the candidate in question was a woman.
A Rainy Day in Boston 1885
Only a few media outlets described Trump’s language as misogynist, and when they did it was often when they quoted the Clinton campaign. Some writers even called Trump’s attack smart politics. However the New York Daily News did describe the attack as demeaning to women.
Donald Trump’s attack on women reached a new level Monday night, as the GOP front-runner used a vulgar term to insult Hillary Clinton and even remarked on her bathroom habits.
They also noted that Trump attacked Caroline Kennedy–in a way that was clearly sexist.
He also took aim at Caroline Kennedy, who he said was “too nice” to be the U.S. Ambassador to Japan and couldn’t keep up with the country’s “brutal, brilliant” diplomats and negotiators.
Acorn Street Boston
USA Today decided to focus on Trump’s use of a “Yiddish vulgarity.”
In New York, there’s a bit of Yiddish all around you. This is the after-effect of a stream ofEastern European Jews moving into the city at the turn of the last century, bringing their native tongue with them.
Your bagel gets a schmeer of cream cheese, the trip to Brooklyn is a schlep and the jerk on a bicycle who almost runs you over at the crosswalk is a schmuck.
But there is the problem. Shmuck is actually an obscene term for male genitalia. I have been yelled at for using that term in mixed company (mixed meaning Yiddish and non-Yiddish speakers.)
Donald Trump waded into this dangerous cultural territory Monday night at a rally Grand Rapids, saying Hillary Clinton got “schlonged” in her 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama. Here’s CNN’s coverage of the event. This has set off a bunch of politicalkvetching about whether Trump was being offensive.
Schlong means the same thing as schmuck, but I have never heard either one used as a verb. The Washington Post has a good linguistic analysis. You certainly would not say someone was “schmucked.” There are a whole bunch of other useful Yiddish words for fornication, if that is the verb you are attempting to describe, but we are not going to use them here because, well, they are rude.
Author Paul Singer said that Trump’s
timing was excellent. Starting Thursday in New York is the first ever “Yiddish New York” festival, including lectures, language workshops and dance and musical performances. There are even clarinet classes for budding Klezmermusicians — Klezemer, also known as “Jewish Jazz,” is one of the most joyful forms of music you will ever hear.
Across the Common on a Winter Evening
So Trump’s repulsive behavior provided Singer with an opportunity to promote the festival. Isn’t that convenient? No mention of the obvious sexism of Trump’s remarks.
Zachary Goldfarb at the Washington Post: Trump played a clever trick when he called Clinton’s bathroom visit ‘disgusting.’ For Goldfarb, Trump’s commenter were just “polarizing.”
On Monday night, Donald Trump made his latest polarizing comment, saying it was “too disgusting” to talk about Hillary Clinton’s use of the bathroom during the last Democratic debate and that she had got “schlonged” by Barack Obama when she lost to him in the 2008 Democratic primary.
Trump was surely talking off-the-cuff in his usual style — and the comments were criticized as offensive and sexist — but it was another example of his mastery in exploiting the psychological biases of conservatives who see much to dislike in today’s society and express support for Trump in the polls.
In fact,a growing massof academic research has shown that conservatives have a particular revulsion to “disgusting” images. In this line of thinking, Trump’s decision to describe Clinton, one of the most disliked people by conservatives, as a “disgusting” figure would have been an especially powerful way to rile up his supporters.
The research — still debated — suggests that psychological and even biological traits divide people politically, both in the United States and abroad. These are attributes that may help explain why Trump has been so popular among a segment of the electorate, confounding political and media elites.
Some of the recent research has been most pronounced evaluating the differing responses of conservatives and liberals to “disgusting” or “negative” images. Several studies have shown that conservatives are far more likely to have strong reactions to these images or situations than moderates or liberals are. Researchers have also suggested that conservatives are more likely to respond negatively to threats orbe prone to believe conspiracies, perhaps helping explain why Trump’s calls to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States or build a wall at the southern border have resonated with many voters.
Copley Square Boston
You can read more intellectualizing at the link if you’re in the mood for it. I’m not. Those studies would be interesting in another context, but today I think it’s incumbent on decent people to stand up and condemn Trump for the damage he is doing to the presidential race and to our country in the eyes of the world.
Here is the Clinton campaign’s Twitter response from CNN:
Hillary Clinton has one reaction to Donald Trump’s use of a vulgar term directed toward her: Rise above.
“We are not responding to Trump but everyone who understands the humiliation this degrading language inflicts on all women should. #imwithher,” Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri tweeted on Tuesday.
One more link to last night’s reaction from Jenna Johnson at the Washington Post:
This isn’t the first time Trump has attacked Clinton using phrases that some of her supporters have labeled as sexist. In recent weeks, he has repeatedly commented on her pantsuits, said she lacks the “stamina” and “strength” needed for the presidency, and accused her of sleeping too much. Clinton is 68, and Trump is 69.
This latest attack seems to be in response to a comment Clinton made about Trump during the Saturday night debate: She said that the Islamic State terrorist group has used video of Trump’s controversial comments on Muslims to recruit new members, a claim that has drawn questions and skepticism from fact-checkers. Trump has demanded an apology, which Clinton has refused to give.
“She’s terrible,” Trump said during the rally. He then impersonated Clinton’s comments at the debate, using a rather snotty voice: “Donald Trump is on video, and ISIS is using him on the video to recruit.”
“And it turned out to be a lie — she’s a liar!” Trump said to roaring cheers. “And the last person she wants to run against is me.”
Johnson points out that Trump attacked two other women, Caroline Kennedy and Angela Merkel.
Trump also said that Caroline Kennedy is too “nice” to be the ambassador to Japan and is no match for their “brutal, brilliant” negotiators. And he questioned why Time picked German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its “Person of the Year” instead of him.
“They gave it to a woman who has not done the right thing for Germany,” Trump said, as the crowd booed Merkel. “Nice woman. I like her, I like her. I better like her — I may have to deal with her. Look, hey, Putin likes me, I want her to like me, too.”
Johnson also describes Trump’s attacks on reporters. If you watch the video, you’ll see that he even implies he’d like to kill some of them.
“I hate some of these people, but I would never kill them,” Trump said of the journalists who cover him. “I would never kill them. I would never kill them… I would never kill them, but I do hate them. And some of them are such lying, disgusting people.”
Maybe that will light a fire under some of the dudebro reporters.
What stories are you following today?
Monday Reads: Farewell my Lovely!
Posted: December 21, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Datagate, Flint Michigan, Hillary Clinton, impact of poverty on intellectual development, lead poisoning, Lindsey Graham, PottyGate 20 Comments
Good Morning and Happy Solstice!
It is a very gloomy Monday here in New Orleans. It’s supposed to be 71 degrees Fahrenheit but I think the dampness has taken the warmth away. I’m sitting at my desk in my thick and sloppy chenille sweater that I slept in last night. It does double duty over sweats and flannel pajamas when it gets like this. Yes, the word for it is bone-chilling cold. Some times I’m glad for the breeze off the mighty Mississippi–blocks from my door–but it’s not July so I’m shivering while watching the big green leaves of my avocado tree flutter in the wind. I’m most fortunate that Temple is an excellent hot water bottle because the cold, damp, and age are taking a toll on me. My fingers ache and don’t seem to want to type as fast as usual.
There are some interesting tids and bits in the morning news. Lady Lindsey has given up on the Republican nomination having gained just about as much traction as pig on ice. I’m actually going to miss him because he sounded reasonable and actually less of a war monger than the rest of the slate as impossible as that sounds! All of us are very aware of the Lady’s love of the manly pursuit of war. Oh, and his last words were inkled to Hillary Clinton. Back to the quiet of your closet m’lady!! You sashayed mightily across the stage of the kiddie debate.
Senator Lindsey Graham is ending his presidential campaign, he told CNN during an exclusive interview airing Monday.
“I’m going to suspend my campaign. I’m not going to suspend my desire to help the country,” the South Carolina senator said in a wide-ranging and candid discussion in which he acknowledged: “I’ve hit a wall here.”
He made the official announcement in an email to supporters and Youtube video posted Monday morning.
Graham is known for his quick wit and famous for his one-liners (just ask Princess Buttercup about his retort from the last debate), but he was sober, serious and emotional as he described his decision to leave the race just weeks before the voting begins.
One thing is clear: Graham still wants his voice heard on the direction his party is headed, especially with regard to the Middle East.
“Here’s what I predict. I think the nominee of our party is going to adopt my plan when it comes time to articulate how to destroy ISIL,” he said. “We’ve fallen short here, but the fight continues. To those who are doing the fighting, I want to be your voice. To those in the Republican Party who want to win, check my plan out. Hillary, if you get to be President, I’ll help you where I can. I hope you’re not. But if you are, I’ll be there to help you win a war we can’t afford to lose.”
One of the most frustrating things about the inability of life to accommodate women is your basic restroom visit. Bathrooms are generally inadequate for women in all ways. They are too small and badly placed probably by design or male architectural ignorance. I knew exactly why Hillary was a bit late to the 
stage during one of those breaks. It had to be the shortness of time and the hassle of using a public restroom. I guess it was inevitable given the scout work Huma did prior to Saturday’s shindig. But, here we go women, I give you Pottygate.
The reason is one many women are familiar with: An unexpected line for the loo. While Clinton waited for the ladies’ room to clear out, time ticked down, and the debate organizers allowed the show to go on without her.
What viewers didn’t know was the sole women’s bathroom was a little further than the men’s room from the stage. And when the debate went to a long commercial break Clinton lost out to Lis Smith, the caffeine-guzzling deputy campaign manager for former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who beat her to the restroom. Smith declined to comment for the story.
A top Clinton staffer who was strategically posted outside the bathroom (presumably to avoid these kinds of situations) gave Smith a verbal OK to make a quick pit stop, according to one person familiar with the ladies’ line.
Meanwhile, we continue to see the fallout from Datagate. Bernie Sanders has suspended two staffers.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign suspended two more staffers directly involved in the data breach that has roiled the party, a Sanders aide confirmed to POLITICO after the Democratic debate on Saturday night.
Pending an investigation, the two aides join data director Josh Uretsky in leaving the campaign following the revelation that they accessed and downloaded voter information from Hillary Clinton’s team during a technology glitch on Wednesday
Sanders did apologize for the breach at the debate. An independent investigation into the incident has been agreed to by both Clinton and Sanders. The Clinton campaign is assessing the damage.
Clinton’s top strategist and pollster-in-chief Joel Benenson, who oversaw two successful Obama campaign operations that set records for maximizing core-voter turnout, says his staff is eagerly awaiting the results of a third-party audit into the hack of the Democratic National Committee-housed lists. The DNC said it is just beginning the process of securing an independent audit by a data security firm.
The Clinton campaign also wants to learn basic details of the narrative — like why, for instance, Sanders’ campaign manager didn’t tell his candidate when he learned of the breach last Wednesday; Sanders was only looped in a day later, after DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called him personally with the news. Weaver told POLITICO on Saturday he withheld the information from Sanders because he at first believed the breach was a staff-level concern that could be dealt with in-house. “My field director informed me,” he recalled. “I said, ‘let everyone know that no one is to do anything with the Clinton data.’ It was not clear immediately there was any problem on our side.”
On Saturday, it was still not clear to the Clinton campaign how much damage had been done. “I don’t think any of us will know until this audit is completed how serious this all is,” Benenson said after the debate at St. Anselm’s College — adding that the value of the information is less about the specific voters being targeted than hints about how Clinton’s campaign plans to deploy its resources.
“All of [the data] is extremely valuable, it is work produced by tens of thousands of volunteers. … it is part of a roadmap to how we are running and strategizing in our campaign and how we get to the totals we need to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, especially,” he said, his voice rising with exasperation.
I have a few other links for you today. First, a new study shows the impact 
of Poverty on intellectual development. This should concern us given the number of US children living in poverty and their treatment by states like Kansas, Wisconsin, etc.
Whether intelligence is more the product of nature or nurture has long fascinated American social scientists and the general public alike. Typically the result is explained as some balance of genetics and environment, but since the early 1970s, researchers have noticed that this scale tends to shift dramatically across social classes. It’s as if nature and nurture play by different rules for rich and poor.
Generally speakingthiswork has found that genetic variance tends to explain the bulk of IQ scores for advantaged groups, whereas environmental variance plays a larger role for disadvantaged ones. (This line of research draws its results from comparative analyses of identical twins, who share a complete genetic makeup, and fraternal twins or siblings.) In other words, when it comes to intelligence, a comfortable upbringing seems to help nature reach its potential, but an impoverished one seems to interfere at every turn.
Still, other studies have failed to confirm these findings, enough so that scholars continue to wonder. But a strong new analysis published in the journalPsychological Science suggests that the role of genetics in intelligence indeed varies with socioeconomic status—at least in the United States. The data reveal no such pattern in other parts of the developed world, a finding the researchers attribute to “more uniform access” to social programs such as strong education and health care.
“The differences observed across nations might be explained by weaker social safety nets in the U.S. compared to Western Europe and Australia,” the psychologist Elliot Tucker-Drob of the University of Texas at Austin, the paper’s lead author, tells CityLab via email. “While this study did not investigate specific policies or services that might explain the differences … I think that it is fair to say that the causes of the difference are likely to be manifold.”
If that isn’t cause enough for concern, consider the impact of increased lead in the water in Flint, Michigan due to their wicked stupid Governor and his administration. This has put nearly every child in the city in extreme danger. Rachel Maddow has done some excellent shows on this disaster. Here’s an in depth article from AJ.
In October, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced that the city of Flint would change its water source. This was in response to the discovery that temporarily pulling water from a local river produced high levels of lead in the water supply for Flint, an economically struggling community of 100,000 residents roughly an hour northwest of Detroit.
It was a crisis months in the making. Problems began as soon as officials decided in April 2014 to have Flint stop using Detroit’s water system and begin drawing water from the Flint River.
This was billed as a measure that would save millions of dollars. But residents almost immediately raised concerns about the discolored and smelly water that was flowing from their taps. Tests revealed high levels of chemicals that could cause liver or kidney problems, and some complained of losing hair and getting rashes after drinking the water.
In response to the growing backlash and the evidence that residents were drinking poisoned water, state and city officials sought to quell concerns, insisting the water was safe to drink and continually disputing local studies published this fall that showed lead levels sharply increased in the bloodstreams of Flint residents, including children. (Research suggests that lead can cause irreversible cognitive and developmental damage to children.)
But even as Snyder and other state officials relented, a question has continued to linger among activists and residents with children who could face life-altering circumstances as a result of lead poisoning: Who’s to blame for this mess?
At the October announcement that Flint would switch back to Detroit’s water system, Snyder made clear that he was interested solely in finding a solution to fix the problem, not in revisiting mistakes. Nonprofit donations, along with appropriations from the state and city, would pay for the $12 million transition back to Detroit’s system, he said.
The impact on Flint’s children is devastating and may be permanent.
Research published by Flint pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha in September showed levels of lead in children’s blood spiked at the same time as the water switch. Elevated blood lead levels are especially harmful for children, who can suffer stunted growth and irreversible brain damage. In October, after denying any problem, state officials acknowledged they failed to treat the water to adjust for its corrosiveness, and Snyder signed legislation switching Flint back to Detroit’s water.
The city has told residents it could take as long as six months for the water lead levels to decline. A Dec. 11 report from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality said the state found elevated blood lead in 39 of 1,836 Flint residents who had testing done since early October. Blood lead levels can decline in a matter of weeks after a person is exposed to lead.
This week, in response to Weaver’s new disaster declaration, a spokesman for Snyder referred HuffPost to previous statements from the governor’s office outlining actions already taken, including an Oct. 2 action plan and the Oct. 21 creation of a special task force to investigate what went wrong and recommend solutions.
Well, that’s it for me today. Hope your week goes well and that you get to spend some relaxing and fun time with family and friends! On to the celebration of Festivus for the rest of us!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Extra Lazy Saturday Reads: Bernie v. DNC and Tonight’s Democratic Debate
Posted: December 19, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 Democratic nomination race, Bernie Sanders, campaign voter data, Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton 33 Comments
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton at the Oct. 13 CNN debate
Good Afternoon!
I really didn’t want to look at the headlines this morning after the embarrassing dust-up between the Bernie Sanders campaign and the DNC. Reading and listening to the media coverage last night was depressing as hell for me as a supporter of Hillary Clinton for President and more generally, the effort to elect women to high political offices.
The media generally treated the Sanders campaign as the victim, even though one of their high level staffers and at least three other campaign workers took advantage of a software glitch to run 25 searches, download proprietary data and save it to their personal files. Here is what they did, according to Bloomberg Politics:
According to an audit obtained by Bloomberg, Sanders staffers exploited a temporary glitch in the DNC’s voter database on Wednesday to save lists created by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told reporter there were “24 intrusion attempts” by the Sanders campaign. He and Mook insisted that the Clinton campaign did not take advantage of the bug to look at Sanders’ data.
The database logs created by NGP VAN show that four accounts associated with the Sanders team took advantage of the Wednesday morning breach. Staffers conducted searches that would be especially advantageous to the campaign, including lists of its likeliest supporters in 10 early voting states, including Iowa and New Hampshire. Campaigns rent access to a master file of DNC voter information from the party, and update the files with their own data culled from field work and other investments.
After one Sanders account gained access to the Clinton data, the audits show, that user began sharing permissions with other Sanders users. The staffers who secured access to the Clinton data included Uretsky and his deputy, Russell Drapkin. The two other usernames that viewed Clinton information were “talani” and “csmith_bernie,” created by Uretsky’s account after the breach began.
The logs show that the Vermont senator’s team created at least 24 lists during the 40-minute breach, which started at 10:40 a.m., and saved those lists to their personal folders. The Sanders searches included New Hampshire lists related to likely voters, “HFA Turnout 60-100” and “HFA Support 50-100,” that were conducted and saved by Uretsky. Drapkin’s account searched for and saved lists including less likely Clinton voters, “HFA Support <30” in Iowa, and “HFA Turnout 30-70″‘ in New Hampshire.
After the news broke, Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver blamed the DNC for essentially tempting their workers and did not apologize for or even admit stealing voter information from Clinton.
Josh Uretsky
The Sanders campaign fired its “data director” Josh Uretsky, and then Uretzky proceeded to claim in interviews that they took Clinton data in order to “prove” there was a “breach” in the software. From TPM:
The former data director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)’s presidential campaign said Friday that staffers for the campaign accessed and saved voter information from opponent Hillary Clinton in order to prove to the Democratic National Committee that their voter information system had been breached.
In a phone interview, Josh Uretsky told MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki that the Sanders staffers “wanted to document and understand the scope of the problem so that we could report it accurately.” Uretsky was fired Friday after news of the breach broke.
He said that he and other staffers accused of accessing the confidential information “knew that what we were doing was trackable” and they did not “use it for anything valuable.”
Come on. Why didn’t Uretsky just call the DNC or the IT provider and let them handle it? Alternatively, they could have informed the Clinton campaign directly. The fact is they stole information they weren’t entitled to and then became outraged when they were caught.
Jeff Weaver
Next, the Sanders campaign actually filed suit against the DNC in Federal court. The dispute was supposedly settled after midnight last night, but there obviously is still bad blood, and BTW the Sanders campaign had to agree to cooperate with an independent audit.
We have to assume that if Sanders is willing to allow his staff to steal data and not even come forward with an apology, we probably can’t trust his promise not to run a third party campaign and stick us with one of the insane GOP candidates as POTUS.
And tonight Sanders and Clinton will meet in the latest Democratic debate.
The Sanders campaign has whined repeatedly about the number of debates, claiming the DNC is putting its finger on the scale for Clinton by having only six debates and schedule some of them on weekends. I really don’t understand why they would do that, since Clinton performs very well in debates. As one of her supporters, I wish there were more of them to showcase her knowledge and experience.
Will Bernie go negative tonight, despite his many promises to run a positive campaign? How will Hillary handle the situation? I hope she’ll be magnanimous, as suggested by the Associated Press:
In the first debate of the Democratic presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders dismissed concerns about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account and server while she was secretary of state. Americans, he said, were tired of talking about her “damn emails.”
Will Clinton return the favor in Saturday night’s debate in New Hampshire?
The disclosure on Friday that four members of Sanders’ team improperly accessed voter information compiled by Clinton’s campaign shook up what had been a relatively civil race. The development has the potential to transform the debate – the third of the race and the last of the year – into something far livelier.
For Clinton, the question was how forcefully to confront the Vermont senator about the matter and whether to defend the reaction of the Democratic National Committee, which cut off Sanders’ access to the party’s voter database after learning of the breach. Sanders’ campaign said its access was restored Saturday morning….
During the debate, Clinton could choose to play down the issue in the way that Sanders did with his dismissal of questions about Clinton’s email use.
If Clinton did that, she probably would avoid alienating Sanders supporters – the passionate liberal voters she will need to win the general election should she capture the Democratic nomination.
I’m not sure I agree with that last paragraph. Bernie’s most passionate supporters are unlikely to come around to supporting Clinton in the general election. They are a pretty immature group. But these dudebro “progressives” and the media would love to have Hillary attack poor Bernie so they can really pound her. After all, they’ve already been doing it for months.
I saw numerous “liberals” attacking Hillary in very ugly terms on Twitter last night, and many of them said they would never vote for her under any circumstances. These are the same people who freaked out when some Hillary supporters refused to vote for Obama in 2008.
The AP article also notes that the Sanders campaign rushed to take advantage of the “dustup” by raising money on their unethical conduct and the resulting punishment.
Even before the suit, Sanders’ campaign was trying for a political edge, sending a fundraising email to supporters that said the DNC had placed “its thumb on the scales in support of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
The email made no mention of the campaign’s decision to fire a worker involved in the data breach or the admission from campaign manager Jeff Weaver that the worker’s actions were “unacceptable.”
That’s simply shameful in my opinion. This story is still developing, so I’ll post more links in the comment thread, and I hope you’ll do the same.
We’re less than a week from Christmas and it’s been slow as usual at this time of year. Unless we get really busy, let’s use this post as a live blog for tonight’s debate. If we get a lot of comments this afternoon, I’ll put up another post tonight. I’ll definitely be watching the entire debate.
The debate will be on ABC, and the network is providing a live stream for people who want to watch on line.
What are your thoughts on all this? What other stories are you following? Please share in the comment thread, if you have a minute free today.
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