Wednesday Open Thread [1.27.2016]
NATIONAL—ABC News/Wash Post: Clinton 55, Sanders 36, O’Malley 4
IOWA—QuinnipiacSanders 49, Clinton 45, O’Malley 4
The First Read says Monday’s forum was a good sign that Clinton is ahead in Iowa: “On the Democratic side, last night’s CNN town hall in Iowa appeared to confirm a Fox News poll of the Hawkeye State showing Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by six points among likely caucus-goers, 48%-42%. Sanders looked and sounded like a candidate who was slightly behind — he was defensive and very aggressive. When shown a recent Clinton TV ad, Sanders used it to criticize her record. On the other hand, Clinton looked and sounded like the candidate who was narrowly ahead — she stated her case, deflected questions, and didn’t aggressively attack Sanders.”
The pathetic coward who is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination said yesterday that he would not attend tomorrow’s day because one of the moderators, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, asked him a fair and legitimate question in last summer’s debate that revealed him to be sexist pig. Well, the Donald could not have that, so he proceeded to act out after the August debate by being a sexist pig. I hope Fox News stands their ground and refuses to budge. Let his podium stand empty.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, for some inexplicable reason, does not want to attend a new debate that is being scheduled by MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader. The debate is not sanctioned by the DNC, but Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton have agreed to attend the debate, which will take place in the week before the New Hampshire primary. Everyone all campaign long have complained about the minimal number of debates the Democrats have scheduled, including Bernie Sanders. And now Bernie doesn’t want to show up. Bernie, stop acting like Donald Trump.
Another big news story is that the traitors out in Oregon got some justice thrown at them yesterday. One traitor was killed and another was injured when they refused to surrender to authorities and proceeded to engage in a gun battle with the FBI and the Oregon state authorities. Here is the statement from the FBI:
At approximately 4:25 p.m. (PST) on Tuesday, January 26, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Oregon State Police (OSP) began an enforcement action to bring into custody a number of individuals associated with the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. During that arrest, there were shots fired.
One individual who was a subject of a federal probable cause arrest is deceased. We will not be releasing any information about that person pending identification by the medical examiner’s office.
One individual suffered non-life threatening injuries and was transported to a local hospital for treatment. He was arrested and is currently in custody.
The arrested individuals include:
Ammon Edward Bundy, age 40, of Emmett, Idaho Ryan C. Bundy, age 43, of Bunkerville, Nevada Brian Cavalier, age 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada Shawna Cox, age 59, Kanab, Utah Ryan Waylen Payne, age 32, of Anaconda, Montana These probable cause arrests occurred along Highway 235.
In a separate event in Burns, Oregon, at approximately 5:50 pm, Oregon State Police arrested the following individual:
Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, age 45, Cottonwood, Arizona
All of the named defendants face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372.
This might be the first time I have embedded a clip of Fox News here:
John Edwards, not Barack Obama, was the Bernie Sanders of 2008.
The main candidate of self-conscious anti-corporate inequality-focused progressives at this point in the 2008 cycle wasn’t Barack Obama but John Edwards. Ralph Nader said of him before his campaign fell short in Iowa: “Edwards now has the most progressive message across a broad spectrum of any leading candidate I’ve seen in years.” He was the darling of the progressive “netroots.” Pressed by his wife, the late Elizabeth Edwards, and advised by Dean ’04 guru Joe Trippi, Edwards in turn pushed the entire field to the left. Had he won in Iowa (and he, not Hillary Clinton, led in early polls), there’s no telling what might have been, or how quickly the bizarre drama of his personal life would or would not have come out. But he, not Obama, w0uld likely have been the progressive champion in the race.
Bryon York of the Washington Examiner says a lot of Republicans up in New Hampshire have never met any Trump supporters.
In one of my first conversations at the Radisson, with two Republican activists, I asked a simple what’s-up question about Trump. Both immediately responded in exactly the same way: “I don’t know anybody who supports him.” They’re politically active and aware, but they said they have no contact in their daily lives with even a single person who supports their party’s front-runner.
After that conversation, I began to ask everyone I met: Do you know anyone who supports Donald Trump? In more cases than not — actually, in nearly all the cases — the answer was no. I asked one woman Friday night, and she said she hadn’t thought about it. I ran into her the next morning at breakfast, and she said, “That was a good question you asked me last night, and I’ve given it some thought.” And no, she didn’t know any Trump supporters.
Ed Kilgore says that both the right and the left want radical change, but only the right is very close to getting it.
Bernie Sanders implicitly accuses the last two Democratic presidents and the Democratic Establishment candidate for 2016, Hillary Clinton, of excessive timidity and an insufficient commitment to thoroughgoing economic and political change. Ted Cruz explicitly accuses his Republican Senate colleagues and presidential rivals of surrendering to liberalism without a fight. [Paul] Krugman asks the right question to advocates of Big Change: How, exactly, is it supposed to occur? […]
[T]here are “hidden majority” theories that hold that “bold” proposals can mobilize vast majorities of Americans to support radical action and break down gridlock. Few are as easy to explode as Ted Cruz’s “54 million missing Evangelicals” hypothesis, but the belief of some Sanders supporters that Trump voters (and many millions of nonvoters) would gravitate to Bernie in a general election is not far behind as the product of a fantasy factory.
You could go on all day with left-right parallelisms on the subject of radical change, but progressives should internalize this fact of life: The right is a lot closer to the left in possessing the practical means for a policy revolution (or counterrevolution, as the case might be). Whereas the left needs constitutional amendments and overwhelming congressional majorities to break the political power of wealthy corporations and other reactionary interests, the right only needs the presidency to reverse most of President Obama’s policy breakthroughs. And assuming a GOP presidential victory would almost certainly be accompanied by Republican control of both parties in Congress (which is not at all the case for Democrats), a budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered could briskly revolutionize health care, tax, and social policy without a single Democratic vote.
Matthew Yglesias says Bernie Sanders is right, the Fed should and could do more to help working people:
Politicians rarely talk about the Federal Reserve even though it’s the main agency that regulates the pace of job creation. It’s true that the Fed operates independently of elected officials’ views, but so does the Supreme Court — and elected officials are perfectly aware that it makes no sense to talk about abortion rights without mentioning the Supreme Court.
Sanders’s core insight, which he laid out in a New York Times op-ed that ran on December 23, is that if you want to talk about jobs and the economy, you need to talk about the Fed. And if you want to understand sluggish wage growth over the past 15 years, it’s important to note the Fed’s structural biases in favor of Wall Street preoccupations with financial stability and inflation control.
Ruby Cramer has one of the better Hillary articles I’ve seen:
Here is how Hillary Clinton sees herself: radically consistent, motivated by a core philosophy — voiced now through two words rarely associated with her. “Love and kindness.” If this sounds unlikely, she knows it. For 50 years, she’s struggled to explain the values that motivate her — in public life, as a candidate, as a person. The one time she really tried to, in the early 1990s, she was brutally mocked. In the view of some of her closest aides, Clinton never fully recovered from the critical backlash.
Now, Clinton doesn’t talk about this much, not like she did then. On this particular day, after a routine campaign event at a college in Manchester, New Hampshire — after taking photos and giving a speech, after getting a question from the audience about the women who’ve alleged they were sexually assaulted by her husband and answering it without hesitation or alarm, after moving onto the noise and chaos of a crowded rope line —Clinton is shepherded away to the quiet of an available room: the building’s industrial-style kitchen. And it’s in this setting, seated in a fold-out chair at a small table, that Clinton seems almost surprised by the most basic line of questioning: why she runs.
“I think most people who interview me never ask me,” she says. “They nibble a little bit around the edges but there’s very—” Clinton turns to the one aide present, her press secretary, also seated at the table, and asks him to think back: “I don’t know of very many instances in the last 14 years that we’ve had these kinds of conversations.”
She has been asked every day, for decades, what she thinks, but rarely why. And here, next to a dishwasher, Clinton slides right back into the subject. Her words are slow and deliberate and she takes the conversation to this discussion she’s been trying to talk about, to bring up on the trail, as she is again ensnared in a campaign that’s more difficult than expected, in an election dominated by the language of anger and fear.
“I am talking about love and kindness,” she says.
Charlie Cook: “Iowa should winnow the more conservative half of the GOP field, likely ending the campaigns of Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum and allowing Ted Cruz to consolidate the more strongly ideological wing of the party. Conversely, New Hampshire is likely to cull the herd of conventional Republican candidates—Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Marco Rubio. All are not likely to remain contenders after the Granite State votes.”
“The only question is whether New Hampshire will push one or two of the conventional candidates from the race, or even three if there is a big gap between the first-place establishment candidate and the runner-up. Thus the results and fallout from Iowa and New Hampshire should provide a lot more clarity to a race in which Republicans were faced with a dizzying array of choices, much like a kid walking into Baskin-Robbins for the first time.”
In the unlikely event that Cruz wins the nomination, he will find it difficult to gain the loyalty of other elected officials and Party leaders, and he will make a poor opponent for Hillary Clinton. His nomination will be akin to Barry Goldwater’s victory in 1964, or, on the Democratic side, McGovern’s victory in 1972. Both Senators were too far outside the mainstream to win in a general election. Cruz would likely lose, but he wouldn’t necessarily destroy the G.O.P. in the process. However much his colleagues dislike him, he’s still one of them.
Trump is not. Some prominent Republicans fear that a Trump nomination would fundamentally alter the identity of the Republican Party, even if he goes on to lose the general election, which seems likely.
Greg Sargent: “If the GOP nominee tries to win primarily by increasing the white vote, it would not only require a very large mobilization of whites, and/or very high levels of support among them, but it would also require the minority share of the vote to remain somewhat depressed relative to what demographic trends dictate. But the very rhetoric and proposals needed to mobilize and/or win over whites in that fashion would probably energize minorities in opposition and potentially drive away some college educated whites — both of which would work against the overarching goal of the strategy in the first place.”
Rick Klein: “Republicans are coming around to the idea of Donald Trump as their nominee, with two-thirds of voters saying they think that will happen, and a similar portion saying they’ll accept him in that role, according to the new ABC News/Washington Post poll. But while Ted Cruz warns that an Iowa win for Trump could make Trump ‘unstoppable,’ other sentiments still point to a longer fight ahead.”
“That could make Marco Rubio’s voting results the ones to watch in the coming contests. He’s third in the new poll, behind Trump and Cruz. But asked for their second choice, respondents made Rubio No. 1 – the selection of 23 percent of GOP voters. That’s up 9 points since last month, despite an onslaught that’s made him the target of basically all of his rivals. Trump has consolidated his lead and shows strengthened support, across demographics and issue areas. All of his rivals are craving a one-on-one opportunity against Trump, whose conservative credentials are only now being aggressively questioned on the airwaves. Such a matchup may be most favorable to Rubio, who has stayed in the mix without a breakout moment that would take him from top prospect to all-star.”
Politico has a profile of Ted Cruz when he was still an insider, and an alumnus of the Bush 2000 campaign and Administration: “In a never-before-reported meeting in [former President] Bush’s Dallas office [prior to his 2012 Senate campaign], Cruz began to outline his 2012 campaign playbook for the former president… Cruz explained how he would consolidate conservatives yearning for a political outsider, how he would outflank the front-runner on the right, how he would proudly carry the mantle of the ascendant tea party to victory over entrenched elites.”
“It was impressive foreshadowing. But Bush cut Cruz off before he could finish.”
Said Bush: “I guess you don’t want my support. Ted, what the hell do you think I am?”
Since I’m a spectator on the Dem side this year, I wonder if I should register as a Republican in order to vote for Cruz in the Republican primary?
It isn’t up to Bernie; it is up to the DNC. The DNC will ban any participants from DNC-sanctioned debates if they participate in unsanctioned debates. Bernie likely and justifiably suspects a trap such as he shows up and Hilliary doesn’t, so the DNC bans him but not her from future sanctioned debates.
The DNC and Debbie Water-Sports aren’t to be trusted.
Please.
“Democratic Party candidates are not allowed to participate in non-sanctioned debates if they want to participate in the official DNC debates.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_debates,_2016#Criticism_and_controversy
You’re welcome.
Ooooooo… Someone provided Wikipedia as a resource! How very millennial of them!
So, Disappointed, if all three Presidential candidates agree to debate, the DNC is going to forbid all of them? Please.
The only thing missing from your comment is a VINE of Admiral Ackbar saying “It’s a Trap”! Pretty ludicrous to suggest that the addition of the proposed debate is nothing more than a dastardly plot orchestrated by DWS and HRC… As if Bernie shows up and right as the debate starts, Hillary’s media folks tweet out a video of her going “Haha, Motherf*****! You just got played!”
If all three candidates say they want to do a debate, the DNC sure as hell can’t stand in the way of them doing the debate. And even if they did punish all three candidates by banning them from the next DNC-sanctioned debate, how the hell would that serve their purpose?
I can’t even wrap my head around this conspiracy theory. How would it work? Hillary announces she will attend the unsanctioned debate and then she says, “Psyche!” which then results in no blow back for her but hurts Sanders? Flesh this out for me, cause I’m not seeing how this goes down.
The newly minted “Democrat” in the race suddenly how fealty to the Democratic Party’s rules and decorum.
Earth to Bernie – get a better excuse ASAP.
Bernie *has* agreed to participate in the debate if the DNC sanctions it, so he isn’t trying to dodge it as you and the post above suggest. He has asked for more debates for months.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/clinton-sanders-unsanctioned-debate
Who is trying to play by the DNC rules here? Not Hillary.
It is up to the DNC to sanction more debates as all the candidates have asked.
It is clear that Debbie Water-Sports and the DNC are trying to coronate Hillary by limiting the number and the scheduling of the debates.
Besides, they have already burned Bernie once by denying him access to his campaign data for 24 hours. Why should he trust them?
You’re welcome.
Thank you.
I get all of that. Sanders has legitimate grounds for paranoia, but the scenario you have contrived is bonkers. If all three agree to an unsanctioned debate, how can the DNC punish them? They can.
I think this is the reason I’m not feeling the Bern. I love Sanders and everything he says, but the conspiracy theories put forth by a lot of his supporters makes me uncomfortable and do Sanders a disservice.
I will happily vote for either Sanders or Clinton. Two good choices, imo – and exactly what I said in 2008.
Listening to Al’s show right now and Liz Allen just went on a rant about she can’t stand Hillary’s voice or laugh. Nice. Way to feed into the misogyny, Liz.
You love Bernie. Congratulations. You can’t understand why other people aren’t as in love with him as you are, frustrated that they are blind to his engrossing, messianic ability to restore America to greatness. Worried that they don’t see how he’s the only possible candidate to bring bi-partisanship/cooperation between political parties back to Washington and to finally end Wall Street’s stranglehold on wealth and, once and for all, bring income equality to our fair nation. You’re so pissed that everyone doesn’t “Feel the Bern” like you do that you’re inventing these fantastical notions of the DNC and HRC conspiring to hold Bernie down.
And, since I’ve run amuk with dime-store psychoanalysis of you in this comment, I suspect that if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination, you will one of those “Berners” who either stays home on general election day or, better yet, casts a protest vote for whomever the GOP nominee is, just to get back at HRC and the DNC in some way.
[### end condescending psychoanalysis ###]
Much like Pandora has said above, this is partly why I don’t “Feel the Bern” either: The asinine conspiracy theories against Bernie offered by his supporters and the seeming utter lack of pragmatism they display in analyzing what the next president will encounter and need to do.
I think you need to ask the DNC, not me, what happens if all the candidates break their rules.
I am simply pointing out that Bernie has been asking for more debates for months, has been told “no” by the DNC for months, and has been told that if he participates in unsanctioned debates, he will be banned from sanctioned ones. Those are all indisputable facts.
Note that Hillary coyly said “happy to participate in a debate in New Hampshire if the other candidates agree, which would allow the DNC to sanction the debate” so she has not agreed to participate in an unsanctioned debate, either.
So it is totally up the the DNC.
@Pandora, I agree. We are lucky to have our choice of two great candidates, either one of whom can win in November. But nothing is automatic. The country needs Clinton and Sanders supporters to turn out in large numbers. I’m sure everyone here will do their part.
@prop joe
Your “condescending psychoanalysis” is wrong.
I am just pointing out that Bernie isn’t dodging a debate as the article posted here implies.
Robert Reich on Trump’s Chickening Out:
“I’m glad Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and his organization had the courage not to succumb to Donald Trump’s demand that Megyn Kelly not be one of the moderators for Thursday night’s Republican debate. Trump’s threat not to attend if she were moderating because he thought she treated him unfairly at last August’s debate – and Trump’s subsequent decision not to attend the debate because Fox didn’t back down – are the clearest signs yet that Donald Trump is the most unqualified person ever to run for president of the United States. It is an office that requires, at the very least, a profound respect for an independent press willing to critically scrutinize whomever occupies the Oval Office.”
I bet I’m way closer to “right” than I am to “wrong”, but we’ll never know, I guess.
Thank goodness the Clinton camp isn’t conspiratorial at all!
I don’t Feel the Hill because her supporters are arrogant, pretentious and want to tell every liberal what to do.
@prop joe,
You can know: Your “condescending psychoanalysis” is utterly wrong.
I have voted Democratic in every presidential election since I turned 18 in the 70’s (except I voted for the DE Green Party in the last one.) I switched from independent to Dem so I could support Jessie Jackson in the Delaware Caucuses (when DE had caucuses). I have worked GOTV for the Dems in PA (not DE) because it is a swing state in many elections.
I have no plans to sit out this one.
You might consider sticking to discussing facts and opinions presented rather than offering purely speculative “condescending psychoanalysis.” They tell us much more about the person you are than about the commenter.
Friends again?
The problem with her voice isn’t how it sounds, it’s how much she charges Goldman Sachs executives to listen to it. Objectively, though, it’s not a mellifluous voice. Nobody is knocking down her door asking her to read audiobooks.
On the other front, the problem isn’t with her laugh, it’s with her fake laugh. Everyone can tell it’s fake.
Dorian, no offense, but “arrogant, pretentious and want to tell every liberal what to do” would describe many folks on DL, both of us included. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
@ Disappointed: Sure… Let’s be friends. Given the previous level of conspiratorial assertions, your Democratic bonafides were not readily apparent. As for my condescending psychoanalysis, it’s a undignified byproduct of what happens being in my job and around the folks I’m forced to be around on a regular basis. Hopefully I will grow up soon and shed its shackles.
That being said, Bernie may well make a fine president. I’ll will pull the lever for him as easily as I will for Hillary. To vote for anyone other than whomever is the Dem nominee is to embrace a complete reversal of all the progressive/liberal progress that has been made over the past eight years. I’m just scared that folks who are so invested in Bern or HRC will feel so aggrieved that they either do not vote for the Dem nominee or cast a vote for Independent/GOP.
Celebrity status translates into votes and this particular election is the greatest reality show ever witnessed by the public. Who is can beat the media’s darling Trump? Cruz can’t. No one likes Cruz and as a Canadian he is tainted.
The downside to voting for Trump is that he will be a national embarrassment. The upside is that he is a moderate. But whatever else he is, he is entertaining and ratings gold. So in this reality show, someone is going to get voted off the island. Who do the Democrats have that can beat Trump? Are you willing to bet on Sanders against Trump? Not a good bet in my opinion.
Joe – No offense taken. If you’ve noticed (and there’s honestly no reason you should have) I’ve excused myself from nearly all of the recent discussions here. I probably should have continued my self imposed ban. While I agree I have an arrogant streak I’ve never told anyone how to vote. And I abhor pretense. If you can find an example of that I’d be interested to read it.
I’ve challenged stupid ideas (which are rampant), but now I’m finding the entire enterprise increasingly boring.
I do like popping in every few days to have a nice laugh. So I’ll just get back to it.
“Disappointed” The Delaware Democratic Party still elects delegates to the National Convention by caucus. In March there will be regional and/or representative district caucuses whose purpose is to elect delegates to the state caucus in May. Elected will be 4 delegates from every representative district- 2 men and 2 women.
At the state caucus delegates to the national convention will be elected in proportion to the results from the April Presidential Primary. Anyone registered as a Democrat as of 1/1/16 is eligible to vote at the regional and RD caucuses as well as run to be delegates to the state caucus and/or national convention. Forms for those wishing to be delegates can be found on http://www.deldems.org
I’m not heavily invested in either candidate and will happily support either in the general; that said, it seems like perhaps Hillary only wants this debate now because she is behind in NH and has nothing to lose. When she was the “shoe in,” she didn’t want as many debates and the DNC complied. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, Bernie feels no need to accommodate and I don’t really blame him. Debates are tiring affairs with ample opportunities for damaging gaffes.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-2016-213560
Fuck Politico. I’m not clicking on that because I don;t want to be pushed into disliking Hillary if those numbnuts like her.
I agree that Politico’s “reporting” is to be disregarded, but this is analysis by the redoubtable Paul Starr.
Or as Krugthulu has observed, “As far as I can tell, every serious progressive policy expert on either health care or financial reform who has weighed in on the primary seems to lean Hillary.”
It’s “shoo-in,” not shoe-in.
Minimum wage hike stalled in Senate.
@puck…good call, but it doesn’t take away from my clever repetition of the same sounding word, dagnabit. 🙂
Minimum wage earners don’t vote, so fuck those guys. …is, I guess what they are thinking. And I suppose they have a point.
Tricky move hrc, propose a non-sanctioned event at a date and time of your choosing. Maybe dws waits until Bernie says ok and then hrs says I never really agreed to that so the dumb national committee wants to sanction him to hobble the campaign. But, Bernie proposes additional debates instead at reasonable times for the rest of the campaign. Just not when Hillary needs a quick boost to help her run.
Check; let’s see what Dws comes up with some time tomorrow. Oooh, desperate times require desperate actions. Plan your move carefully, grasshopper
Do we need more debates? Each candidate has a public record and have stated their positions and views during countless forums.
The entire process is beyond tedious.
And right wingers continuously push the canard that Democratic votes are from poor people who don’t actually vote