A Big Day for Biden

 Posted by at 10:29 am  Politics
Mar 182020
 

As a Bernie supporter, I hate to say it, but barring some completely unexpected miracle, Bernie has virtually no chance to win.

0318BigDayBiden

Joseph R. Biden Jr. easily defeated Senator Bernie Sanders in three major primaries on Tuesday, all but extinguishing Mr. Sanders’s chances for a comeback, as anxious Americans turned out to vote amid a series of cascading disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Biden, the former vice president, won by wide margins in Florida and Illinois and also carried Arizona, sweeping the night and achieving a nearly insurmountable delegate lead. The emphatic outcome could greatly intensify pressure on Mr. Sanders to end his campaign and allow Democrats to unify behind Mr. Biden as their presumptive nominee.

The routs in Florida and Illinois, two of the biggest prizes on the national map, represented both a vote of confidence in Mr. Biden from most Democrats, and a blunt rejection of Mr. Sanders’s candidacy by the kind of large, diverse states he would have needed to capture to broaden his appeal beyond the ideological left…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Biden Sweeps Sanders In 3 States On One Of The Strangest Primary Days In Recent History


At this point, two things are self-evident. First, all primaries (and the general, if need be) must be vote by mail, like Oregon. Second, Bernie’s hope is virtually a pipe dream. Progressives like me need to commit to vote Blue, no matter who, top to bottom!

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Biden vs Sanders Debate

 Posted by at 11:18 am  Politics
Mar 162020
 

I watched the debate last night.  I could tell that both candidates were uncomfortable, as they are so accustomed to working a crowd.  With tough contests coming up, Bernie needed a strong win to overcome Joe’s lead and momentum.  Here are the opinions of a group pf panelists from The Guardian.

1016BidenSanders

Jessa Crispin: ‘Sanders was too gentle on Biden’

Throughout this primary, I’ve heard supporters of other candidates complain about Bernie Sanders’ tendency to raise his voice. Where the hell was that yelling Bernie on Sunday night? His tendency to try to keep an undignified process dignified and his discomfort with going for Joe Biden’s throat were on clear display. If Biden wins the nomination, he’s going to have to debate the least classy man ever to appear in World Wrestling Entertainment. Bernie would have been doing us – and frankly, Joe as well – a favor by channeling gay rights king Stone Cold Steve Austin and pinning Biden on issues like how the 2008 bank bailout was disastrous for homeowners, or how his warmongering has stuck us in an endless war, or how the Violence Against Women Act that he loves to brag about did basically nothing to prevent violence in relationships…

Art Cullen: ‘The debate was a first step to bringing the Democratic party together’

Bernie Sanders did Joe Biden and the nation a great favor by serving as an amiable sparring partner on Sunday evening, exposing the former vice-president’s weaknesses as this race is about to turn to the general election. On healthcare, the Middle East and the power of corporate influence, Sanders tried to help Biden open himself up to the progressive wing – while at the same time showing Biden the areas where he may be vulnerable to the Trump assault…

Benjamin Dixon: ‘The coronavirus crisis was the question above all others’

Coronavirus weighed heavily on the entirety of the Democratic debate this evening. Both Biden and Sanders gave their best suggestions for fighting the pandemic. The approach of each candidate shows you why their campaigns are fundamentally different, even though both candidates are running under the banner of the Democratic party…

Jill Filipovic: ‘Americans deserve leadership. Instead they got an embarrassing squabble’

Well, that was possibly the worst debate of the entire Democratic primary.

The United States is experiencing an unprecedented crisis. We are facing down a pandemic that could kill more than a million Americans. A great many of us are self-isolating at home, made even more anxious by the fact that our current government has totally botched the coronavirus response, putting us all at tremendous and unnecessary risk. We don’t have the most basic faith that, despite living in one of the most prosperous societies in the history of the world, our leaders will keep us safe. We have a president who has failed us at every turn, and then throws up his hands and says he does not take responsibility…

Lloyd Green: ‘Sanders’ luster is gone. The Democrats must rally around Biden’

On Sunday, America caught a glimpse of the coming campaign: two septuagenarians battling each other without a live audience applauding and goading. The debate changed nothing, but at the end of the evening Joe Biden was sitting on the cusp of the Democratic nomination. Come Tuesday, the former vice-president is poised for lopsided wins in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio…

I urge you to click through and read the rest, as there is so much more great material there.

My opinion was closest to Dixon’s and furthest from Filipovic’s.  I thought the debate was dead even, until this happened.

Joe Biden commits to having woman as vice president

This is what won the debate for Joe. That’s a hard statement for me, because I want Bernie to win. Not only should Bernie have already committed to nominating a woman for VP, but worse, he appeared unprepared for Joe’s commitment.

Given Bernie’s failure to win this debate, Joe’s 21% lead in the polls, and Joe’s significant lead, barring a major unforeseen development, Joe is on track to win the nomination.

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Primary Update–3/11/2020

 Posted by at 11:01 am  Politics
Mar 112020
 

Yesterday, there were Democratic primaries in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington.  It was a very good night for Joe Biden, and sadly, a very bad night for Bernie Sanders.  Unless he can turn it around quickly and dramatically, a VERY tall order, it’s over.

0311Delegates

Joe Biden is marching to the Democratic presidential nomination.

The former vice president handily defeated Bernie Sanders on Tuesday in Michigan’s primary — halting the Vermont senator’s hopes of a comeback in the state where he’d stunned Hillary Clinton four years ago.

Biden also notched massive wins in Idaho, Mississippi and Missouri. Sanders won in North Dakota. Washington hadn’t been called yet, but as of Wednesday morning, Biden was in a tight race there with Sanders, another state Sanders needed to win.

Tuesday marked a clear turning point in the Democratic race. Biden is building a powerful coalition of African Americans, suburbanites and rural white voters who previously backed Sanders, while Sanders is failing to produce the electorate-changing turnout of young voters that he’s promised. Democratic figures, from one-time 2020 candidate Andrew Yang to the party’s biggest super PAC, Priorities USA, lined up behind Biden after his Michigan win.

Biden and Sanders are scheduled to debate Sunday night in Arizona. But Sanders is entering a brutal stretch, with primaries next week in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio — all states he lost in 2016. There’s also the reality that coronavirus could crowd Sanders out of national headlines and make it impossible for him to leverage something that separates him from Biden: his ability to turn out massive crowds at rallies. It all makes a comeback even more difficult…  [emphasis added]

Inserted from CNN:

Here is the delegate count, as of early this morning.

Democratic Pledged Delegate
Count

Sanders

Biden

Iowa

12

6

New Hampshire

9

0

Nevada

24

9

South Carolina

15

39

Alabama

8

44

American Samoa

0

0

Arkansas

9

17

California

186

150

Colorado

20

12

Maine

9

11

Massachusetts

29

37

Minnesota

27

38

North Carolina

37

67

Oklahoma

13

21

Tennessee

19

33

Texas

111

102

Vermont

11

5

Virginia

31

66

Utah

13

a

Democrats Abroad

0

0

Idaho

11

9

Michigan

51

71

Mississippi

2

29

Missouri

23

40

North Dakota

5

3

Washington

17

17

Totals

692

826

How Joe Biden’s wins differ from Hillary Clinton’s in 2016

Credit where credit is due. Joe has built his coalition well beyond Hillary’s in 2016.

With Biden’s Big Wins, What’s Next For Sanders?

This is not the news I wanted to hear, but I have to admit that it looks mighty bleak for Bernie. As I see it, his only hope is a overwhelming win in Sunday’s debate.  If Joe does win the nomination and wants to unify the party, he needs to choose a progressive running mate, preferably a woman, ideally a non-white progressive woman.  I’d love AOC, but it won’t happen in my lifetime.

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Mar 062020
 

It’s a tired day here in the CatBox.  It has been so muggy that I have slept poorly.  The powdered pills in apple sauce is working well, as long as I add a Splenda packet.  Thank God it’s Friday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:10 (average 4:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: As former Vice President Joe Biden won state after state on Tuesday night, the accusations flew: The Establishment stole the election from Sen. Bernie Sanders. Former rival and current campaign surrogate Marianne Williamson called it “a coup,” in a now-deleted tweet. Another prominent Sanders booster said the “party brass” “wants to foist Biden on the party.” This disrespect for voters needs to stop.

It’s pretty clear that large chunks of the Democratic establishment, however you define it, didn’t want to see Bernie win. But whatever those chunks of that establishment did to block him wasn’t done in some back room conspiracy. It was done out in the open by the most basic, routine of means: in the wake of a big win in South Carolina that suggested Biden was the strongest non-Bernie candidate, two of his competitors dropped out and endorsed him. Some other prominent people endorsed him. And then the voters in 14 states had their say, and it wasn’t good for Sanders—and the fact that that’s all it took to give Biden a surge of this magnitude is something that all of us who were supporting other candidates have to reckon with, seriously.

The real engine for Biden’s comeback was built from voters. That started with the overwhelmingly black voters of South Carolina—people too many Sanders supporters have been eager to dismiss and denigrate, now as in 2016, but certainly not billionaires buying an election or shadowy operatives rigging, well, anything—but it didn’t stop there. While Sanders had built admirable strength among Latino voters and younger voters, he didn’t expand his support enough.

I have to agree with this author with one caveat. What drove voters on Super Tuesday to what they considered a “safe” choice is fear of a Trump second term far too intense to take a chance the more beneficial, but more radical policies of Bernie and Liz. Furthermore, Bernie has done little to broaden his base beyond the coalition that he lost with in 2016, so even though I support him, now that  Liz has withdrawn, I do not consider him the likely nominee.  RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: A resident of Washington, D.C., has been identified as the source of the community spread of coronavirus misinformation throughout the United States.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday that the man had ignored the advice of public-health experts and spewed a toxic strain of ignorance, potentially infecting millions.

The man, believed to be a fact-resistant organism, travelled last week to South Carolina, where he came in contact with thousands of people who, as a result of community spread, now believe that coronavirus is a hoax.

The epidemic of cluelessness expanded last night, when the man called in to a Fox News television program to encourage people with coronavirus to go to work rather than stay at home, as scientists have urged.

Andy is reporting straight news again. Would anyone like to guess the identity of this idiot?  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): The Shirelles Will you still love me tomorrow (Top Quality + Lyrics)

Ah… the memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

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Super Tuesday or Pooper Tuesday

 Posted by at 10:31 am  Politics
Mar 042020
 

Well, I trust you have already surmised that I am are not Happy with the Super Tuesday primary results.  I have come to the same conclusion about most of you.  I blame Jim Clyburn, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Beto O’Rourke for the size of Biden’s win.  I also blame young Americans who sat out the primaries en masse.  I guess they had something better to do, like playing on social media.  Shame!

0304Delegates

Well, it’ll still be days or weeks before we have the full vote total in California, and it’s still too close to call in Maine, but with Texas now in the win column for Biden, this evening’s top-line takeaway is even clearer: Biden mounted a comeback and won Super Tuesday.

In total, Biden won nine of the 15 primary contests at stake tonight, pulling off a number of upset victories, including a win in Minnesota (we’d projected Sanders would win there), a win in Massachusetts (Sanders again), and a win in Texas (that was more of a toss-up going into tonight), but basically Biden cleaned up across the board. He performed well in states where he wasn’t even really competing, and he proved he’s more than a regional candidate.

Sanders, on the other hand, did not have a great evening. He won just three states outright (Colorado, Utah and Vermont) and underperformed expectations. So far, he does seem on track to win delegate-rich California, though we won’t know the exact margin for a while yet.

Once all the Super Tuesday results are fully counted, 38 percent of delegates will have been awarded in the primary race, but this nomination fight is far from over, and there’s a real question about where it will go from here…

Inserted from <fivethirtyeight.com>

Map source: Real Clear Politics

Here’s the count:









Democratic Pledged
Delegate Count

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sanders

Buttigieg*

Biden

Warren

Klobichar*

BloomBarf*

Iowa

12

14

6

8

1

0

New
Hampshire

9

9

0

0

6

0

Nevada

24

3

9

0

0

0

South
Carolina

15

0

39

0

0

0

Alabama

7

 

40

0

 

1

American
Samoa

0

 

0

0

 

5

Arkansas

8

 

16

0

 

4

California

72

 

21

7

 

8

Colorado

20

 

9

1

 

9

Maine

8

 

8

2

 

0

Massachusetts

26

 

34

10

 

0

Minnesota

26

 

38

17

 

0

North
Carolina

26

 

56

2

 

1

Oklahoma

13

 

21

0

 

3

Tennessee

15

 

28

1

 

7

Texas

60

 

70

1

 

4

Vermont

11

 

5

0

 

0

Virginia

31

 

66

2

 

0

Utah

9

 

1

0

 

2

Totals


392


26


467


51


7


44


Spreadsheet data source: Real Clear Politics

The Big Winner was Joe, but the Biggest loser wasn’t Bernie.  It was Billionaire Bloombarf, who spent all those $millions for nothing.  When California delegates are fully allocated, it will pull Bernie closer, but I would be surprised if Joe does not lead when done.

Liz Warren’s results were also very disappointing.  At this point, I see no viable way for her to win the nomination.  I think it’s time for her to drop out, as much as I hate to say it.  The biggest irony here, is that either Liz or Bernie would do far more for the Black Community than Joe would.

Nevertheless, whoever wins the Democratic nomination, even if it’s Joe, is MY candidate.

I’ll post another sheet when all the delegates from Pooper Tuesday states are allocated.

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Mar 032020
 

It’s a very busy day here in the CatBox.  I had to prepare and send my grocery order.  I spent over an hour on the phone trying to line up the oncologist for my cancer treatments.  I think I have, but I still have no results from my PET Scan.  I’m hoping for a call tomorrow.  I’ll keep you posted.  I still have to do the prep work for covering Super Tuesday.  I am experimenting with mi diet and found that I’m not plugging the passageway as badly, when I eat a soft solid food and goop together.  Yesterday for lunch I had a small portion of ground turkey sandwich.  That was borderline.  For supper, I had chili goop over rice.  That worked great.  For breakfast, I had New England clam chowder goop with a bite of  saltine with each bite of goop.  That worked well too.  May Liz and Bernie kick ass today!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:36 (average 5:10):  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From Alternet: A former Justice Department attorney compared her service under President Donald Trump as somewhere in between Nazi Germany and “The Apprentice.”

Erica Newland went to work at the Department of Justice in the summer before the 2016 election, and stayed under Trump because she liked her colleagues and believed she could make a difference — but soon learned an uncomfortable truth about herself, reported The Atlantic.

“I guess I know what kind [of German bureaucrat] I would have been,” Newland said, imagining how she might have served in the 1930s. “I would have stayed in the Nazi administration initially and then fled.”

She lasted in Trump’s government until October 2018, when an anti-Semitic extremist killed 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, and that same week her colleagues at the Office of Legal Counsel were tasked with justifying Trump’s order to refuse all asylum claims at the southern border — mirroring language the gunman had used against foreign “invaders.”

Newland, who is Jewish, recalled an exchange she had with a supervisor who often reminded staffers they worked for the president by saying, “We’re just following orders.

The bureaucrats under Hitler were “just following orders” too. What’s the difference? Fuhrer Hitler’s Nazi Reich was the Third Reich. Criminal Fuhrer Trump’s* Republican Reich is the Fifth Reich. The similarities are undeniable.  RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is under intense pressure to drop out of the 2020 race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, her nine supporters announced on Monday.

The announcement from Gabbard’s nine followers surprised many Democrats, who had been unaware that the Hawaii congresswoman was still running.

In a conference call after the South Carolina primary, the nine members of Team Tulsi concluded that Gabbard’s path to the nomination had grown “dauntingly narrow.”

“We believe that Tulsi would be an amazing President of the United States,” Harland Dorrinson, a spokesman for the other eight Gabbard supporters, said. “But we have regretfully come to the conclusion that this is not her time.”

Andy, is that a good idea? The nine fools stupid enough to vote for Tulsi should still vote for her. That way, they won’t damage the nation by voting for Bloombarf or criminal Fuhrer Trump*.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Robert Reich Channel): What Bernie Skeptics Need to Know Before Super Tuesday


Of course the Reich on the left, Robert Reich, is right, and the Reich on the Right, the evil Republican Reich, in addition to corporate Democrats, have their heads up their asses. 1. Amen! FDR was a democratic socialist. Amen! Trump promised reform and delivered National Socialism. 3. Amen! A Wall Street speculation tax to pay for public needs is far better for America than Republican welfare for billionaires. 4. Amen! Congress will pass progressive legislation, if we get off our asses, flush the Republican Reich, and replace DINOs in the primaries. 5. Amen! Bernie acts younger than Biden. 6. Amen! With criminal Fuhrer Trump* in power, the Democrats will unite behind any candidate, who wins the nomination, as long as they win it fairly!  However, if DNC Superdelegates take the nomination from the voters’ choice and land it to another, they will destroy the party and the nation.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): The Monkees – Last Train To Clarksville 1966

Ah… the memories! RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

 

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Mar 022020
 

Please pardon my brevity.  I’ve made five six trips to the throne since 2 AM, and my  breakfast experiment went into the sink, leaving screaming heartburn.  Oh God, it’s Monday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took  me 5:26 (average 5:28).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From Alternet: Radio personality and CNN weekend host Michael Smerconish came under fire Saturday morning—along with the network—for “casually” portraying the surging prospects of Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders as comparable to the threat of the infectious coronavirus which continues to spread in the United States and around the world.

He should be fired immediately.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Buttigieg Suspends 2020 Race To ‘Bring Our Party And Country Together’

I think he’s a good VP choice.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): Del Shannon – Runaway (Rare Stereo Version)

Ah… the memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

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The SC Debate

 Posted by at 9:47 am  Politics
Feb 262020
 

The performance that I liked best in the SC debate was that of Elizabeth Warren, but I’m sure my own bias enters into that.  I think that Bernie, Joe and Liz did well.  Amy and Pete barely held their own, at best.  Bloomberg was weak, and Steyer did not belong on the stage at all.  Other losers were the boo birds that the Biden campaign planted in the audience to scream BOO every time Bernie opened his mouth.

0226democraticdebate

Seven Democratic presidential candidates took the stage Tuesday night in Charleston, S.C., for a fiery debate days before the state’s primary on Saturday.

The showdown in the Palmetto State also marked the final debate before Democrats battle in the biggest day on the primary calendar — Super Tuesday — next week.

Who won and lost in the latest debate?

WINNERS

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Biden kept his hopes alive with one of his strongest debate performances.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

Warren is the most consistent debater left in the race.

She went after former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg once again in this debate. She did not eviscerate him as thoroughly as she did last week in Las Vegas, but she again raised questions about his treatment of women in the workplace….

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

Sanders won on Tuesday by not obviously losing.

He came under the kind of sustained attack that any front-runner faces…

Inserted from <The Hill>

The biggest loser in the debate was CBS News.  Here’s an excerpt from an email from Marcos Moulitsas of Daily Kos.

0226markosWe went from perhaps the best debate ever, last week, to one of the worst ever, Tuesday night. What a disaster, from the questions, to the moderation, to the way they shoehorned one last commercial break at the end, without nothing but a “goodbye!” on the other side, Taking ad money from both Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer for commercials was an added insult.

It was insulting that in a DEMOCRATIC debate, moderators spent valuable time asking about North Korea, China, Syria, and other issues that fail to inform the vote of a single Democratic primary voter. As a result, climate change, choice, unions, and other key progressive priorities were ignored.

This was the worst moderation and production of any debate this season.

South Carolina debate wrap: Rivals take aim at Sanders

I disagree that Liz’ statement that she would be a better President was an attack.  She was saying something good about herself, not something bad about Bernie. Everyone else on the stage attacked Bernie. Bernie’s honest statement that, over his long career, he has made some bad votes was honest. Kudos. He defused all the attacks well.

Elizabeth Warren: People Want to Hear From the Women Who Worked for Mayor Bloomberg


Mike “Kill It” Bloomberg [R-NY] had to buy that woman’s silence with an out of court settlement. The establishment media attacked Liz for attacking Bloomberg. They said she should have gone after Bernie, because Bloomberg isn’t even on the SC ballot. I disagree. That debate may have in SC, but it was also the debate for Super Tuesday, where Bloomberg hopes to excel and replace Biden as the establishment alternative to Bernie.

I look forward to Saturday and Tuesday with fingers crossed

RESIST!!

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