Shutdown Countdown, Armageddon Edition, Con't

Senate Dems are calling on President Biden to take the debt ceiling default time bomb and unilaterally disarm it using the 14th Amendment's Public Debt Clause.

 

A group of Senate Democrats is circulating a letter urging President Biden to prepare to invoke the 14th Amendment to unilaterally resolve the debt ceiling standoff without involving Congress, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release.

The letter, signed by five senators so far, reflects building unease among White House allies over the direction of negotiations between the president and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on an agreement expected to cut the deficit and raise the debt limit. Liberal lawmakers have balked as Biden entertains spending cuts and new work requirements on federal aid programs — fueling interest in a solution to the standoff that does not require a deal with McCarthy. The effort comes as House Democrats start to collect signatures for a discharge petition to move legislation that would raise the debt ceiling without any other policy changes, a long-shot procedural move aimed at bypassing the chamber’s Republican leaders.

The senators’ letter reminds Biden that the 14th Amendment says “the validity of the public debt, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” Lawmakers have just days before a possible June 1 deadline to raise the nation’s borrowing limit. If the cap isn’t raised by the time the Treasury Department runs out of available cash, the nation risks default, which would likely prompt a global economic shock that could send the U.S. into a recession.

“Republicans have made it clear that they are prepared to hold our entire economy hostage unless you accede to their demands to reduce the deficit on the backs of working families. That is simply unacceptable,” the letter states. “We write to urgently request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Using this authority would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on-time, without delay, preventing a global economic catastrophe.”

The letter has been signed thus far by Democratic Sens. Tina Smith (Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Edward J. Markey (Mass.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (Oregon). Those lawmakers met in the Capitol Tuesday to discuss their plans. More signatures are expected before its release, with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), for instance, also calling for the president to invoke the 14th Amendment on Twitter.

“We are in a situation where these extreme Republicans in the House are demanding completely untenable policies in exchange for not driving the country’s economy off a cliff,” Smith said. “I think it’s important we understand there is another option.”

Despite growing support among Democrats, any attempt to solve the problem without GOP involvement faces enormous obstacles. The Biden administration appears eager for a deal with House Republicans, and White House aides believe there could be huge economic and legal risks in pursuing the 14th Amendment strategy of ignoring Congress. It’s also unclear that the discharge process, which is cumbersome, could be completed before the nation defaults.

 

To his enduring credit, President Biden has already pushed back on those work requirements, once again demanding a clean debt ceiling bill like the GOP voted for three times under Trump.

It's good to see the Senate Dems in the Bernie camp agreeing with Biden on this. More of actually treating the President and leader of the Democratic party as such, thanks.

 

 

Last Call For The Convoy's Long Haul

 The conventional wisdom on "The People's Convoy" is that the event earlier this month was an unmitigated disaster, a rolling tire fire of a failure, and a cosmic joke that shows that the only people the far-right rabid Trumpies can ever really own are themselves.

But the vehicle convoy part was never the actual goal, it was the street fair aura of "come check us out" for Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem™ and on that lone premise, it was one of the most successful recruiting events in the post-Capitol attack era, as UMBC history professor Terry Bouton reports.

It’s hard to take the "People’s Convoy" trucker caravan seriously. Starting as a protest against Covid mask and vaccine restrictions, it launched after most mandates had been lifted. Many of the convoy’s big rigs, pickups and SUVs are covered with QAnon conspiracy references. Convoy organizers promised to shut down Washington D.C. Instead, they parked their trucks at a stock-car racetrack in western Maryland and then did a few gaffe-filled laps around the D.C. Beltway. The convoy has been lampooned in late-night talk show monologues and newspaper op-eds, and parodied in countless memes. The consensus is that it has been a complete failure.

That’s the wrong conclusion. I spent four hours walking around the convoy’s Hagerstown, Maryland, encampment last Saturday. Make no mistake: the "People’s Convoy" has been a great success as a movement-building event for the far-right. And it should be taken seriously, despite its absurdities.

The far-right was well represented at the convoy. Members of white supremacist and anti-government groups that were at the center of the Capitol insurrection have been heavily involved in its planning. Erik Rohde, a national leader of Three Percenters, was a “consultant” to the "People’s Convoy." (In return the "People’s Convoy" official Telegram account urged supporters to donate to a protest march on the Washington state capitol that Rohde was organizing). Three Percenter and Proud Boy Telegram channels have organized support and raised money for the "People’s Convoy." In Wisconsin, convoy organizers called on the Oath Keepers to provide security.

When I visited the Hagerstown encampment, numerous people wore Proud Boys sweatshirts or had Three Percenter patches on their jackets. I was told that other members of both groups were there in street clothes. One guy I spoke to claimed to have entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The Hagerstown encampment soft-pedaled the hate and the convoy’s far-right ties, camouflaging them in a carnival-like atmosphere that drew thousands of people from the surrounding region. Entire families turned out to see the trucks and walk around the giant Speedway parking lot. There was free food and drinks, DJs, a band, quality fireworks, a ceremony with headlights and giant flags. Drivers let kids pull their horns, rev their engines and sign trucks with Sharpies. There was even funnel cake.

The convoy’s entire journey has had a similar festive feel, drawing large crowds across the heartland. People flocked to overpasses to hold signs and wave as the convoys passed. Homeschooling mothers brought their kids as part of civics lessons. Convoy stops were often mobbed with visitors and were inundated with food and drink donations.

Meanwhile, membership in dozens of public and private Convoy Facebook groups and Telegram channels has exploded. Convoy drivers upload reports, sometimes with videos shot as their trucks pass cheering crowds. Supporters post pictures and video taken from overpasses and roadsides along the route. Most people just write messages of support and thanks.

This is how social movements are built. The glue that binds people together is events just like the convoy, where strangers unite through a shared sense of belonging and purpose. They reinforce commitments and forge new bonds as people talk, share contact information, network and recruit. The man I spoke to who claimed to have entered the Capitol became emotional just talking about the convoy’s arrival in Hagerstown, comparing it to a joyous July Fourth parade.

Politicians on the right have also been moved — at least enough to get their pictures taken with the truckers. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita spoke at a large convoy rally. The main convoy organizers met with members of Congress and Sens. Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson. Cruz later went to the Hagerstown Speedway, flanked by national media, and rode in the passenger seat of the lead truck, giving convoy organizers exactly the media win they wanted.

 

And I know the first thing I'll see in the comments is "stop giving these assholes credit by pushing their propaganda, they didn't recruit anyone" to which I reply "You're not the Black guy in Kentucky who removed his Biden magnet from his car the day he won, either."

 

They're not going to be a danger to most folks right off the bat. It's always folks like me who have to deal with the first wave of movements like this, and having seen this coming in 2015 when Matt Bevin won here in KY and it only getting worse from there, I can tell you this feels like 2015 all over again.

 

Liberals weren't the target audience. Never Trump Republicans and independents were, and on that point, it brought some into the extremist fold.

 

That's not a good thing.

 

 

 

That's The Sound Of...No Police?

Remember when angry Trump cultists nearly ran a Biden bus off the road in Texas last year without a police car in sight? Turns out the police told Biden campaign officials on the bus to handle the road rage problem themselves, because the police weren't going to lift a finger to stop the attack from potentially killing people.

 

As supporters of then-President Donald Trump surrounded and harassed a Joe Biden campaign bus on a Central Texas highway last year, San Marcos police officials and 911 dispatchers fielded multiple requests for assistance from Democratic campaigners and bus passengers who said they feared for their safety from a pack of motorists, known as a “Trump Train,” allegedly driving in dangerously aggressive ways.

“San Marcos refused to help,” an amended federal lawsuit over the 2020 freeway skirmish claims.

Transcribed 911 audio recordings and documents that reveal behind-the-scenes communications among law enforcement and dispatchers were included in the amended lawsuit, filed late Friday.

The transcribed recordings were filed in an attempt to show that San Marcos law enforcement leaders chose not to provide the bus with a police escort multiple times, even though police departments in other nearby cities did. In one transcribed recording, Matthew Daenzer, a San Marcos police corporal on duty the day of the incident, refused to provide an escort when recommended by another jurisdiction.

“No, we’re not going to do it,” Daenzer told a 911 dispatcher, according to the amended filing. “We will ‘close patrol’ that, but we’re not going to escort a bus.”

The amended filing also states that in those audio recordings, law enforcement officers “privately laughed” and “joked about the victims and their distress.”

Former state Sen. Wendy Davis, who was running for Congress at the time, is among the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The new complaint also expands the number of people and entities being sued to include Daenzer, San Marcos assistant police chief Brandon Winkenwerder and the city itself. A spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday. Daenzer and Winkenwerder could not immediately be reached.

 

And without the police escort, the bus was attacked and nearly forced off the highway.  I don't expect Texas courts to do much of anything, but remember, if 911 dispatchers and police can openly refuse to serve you because of your political affiliation, you live in an authoritarian state.

Last Call Fot The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

 President Joe Biden Manchin doesn't want to seem like villain in the Good Package's public execution, so he's willing to come up a bit on his bottom line number, but he's still going to singlehandedly cut close to two trillion off the Biden Build Back Better plan.

Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Tuesday signaled he is open to a budget reconciliation bill in the ballpark of $1.9 trillion to $2.2 trillion, above the limit he set just last week of $1.5 trillion.

Manchin and his fellow moderate Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are still far apart from liberals such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who thought the upper chamber had a deal to spend $3.5 trillion on President Biden’s human infrastructure package, but the two sides are inching closer.“ 

I’m not ruling anything out, but the bottom line is I want to make sure that we’re strategic and we do the right job and we don’t basically add more to the concerns we have right now,” Manchin told reporters Tuesday.

It was a small departure from his position last week when he announced: “My top-line has been $1.5 [trillion].”

He also told reporters last week that he doesn’t want “to change our whole society to an entitlement mentality.”

Manchin’s comments last week sparked a backlash from progressives, though his Democratic Senate colleagues have been careful not to criticize him for fear of angering a key vote.

But while Manchin has signaled some flexibility on the top-line number, there are a number of significant disagreements still to resolve with fellow Democrats.

One major sticking point is his insistence that the reconciliation bill include the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using federal funds for abortion expenses.

Warren has criticized the Hyde Amendment as disproportionately affecting low-income women since it prohibits Medicaid from funding abortion.

Another major difference is Manchin’s insistence that natural gas be eligible for grants under the $150 billion Clean Electricity Performance Program, a core component of the reconciliation bill’s attempt to combat climate change.

Environmentalists and congressional Democrats have slammed electricity production from natural gas without the use of carbon-capture technology as wholly unproductive to the goal of stopping global warming.

Manchin has also balked at a carbon tax, an idea being pushed hard by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and other Democrats. The West Virginia senator is worried it could be used to eliminate jobs in the coal industry, which historically has been a major employer in his state.

 

It's these details where Manchin will score a complete victory, and it'll be up to the rest of the Dems to take what he allows to be offered, or get nothing, because it's very clear Manchin is willing to scrap the entire package. He can retire if he wants to rather than deal with any primary attempts, and it's not like any other Democrat could win his seat back in my lifetime. 

He knows he's holding 100% of the cards, and it's Democrats who allowed him to have this power.

There's a lesson to be learned here.

Last Call For Eating The Rich

Sen. Liz Warren is taking aim at the pandemic billionaires with a new tax proposal that would levy taxes on people with more than $50 million in wealth.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced legislation on Monday that would tax the net worth of the wealthiest people in America, a proposal aimed at persuading President Biden and other Democrats to fund sweeping new federal spending programs by taxing the richest Americans.

Ms. Warren’s wealth tax would apply a 2 percent tax to individual net worth — including the value of stocks, houses, boats and anything else a person owns, after subtracting out any debts — above $50 million. It would add an additional 1 percent surcharge for net worth above $1 billion. It is co-sponsored in the House by two Democratic representatives, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, a moderate.

The proposal, which mirrors the plan Ms. Warren unveiled while seeking the 2020 presidential nomination, is not among the top revenue-raisers that Democratic leaders are considering to help offset Mr. Biden’s campaign proposals to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure, education, child care, clean energy deployment, health care and other domestic initiatives. Unlike Ms. Warren, Mr. Biden pointedly did not endorse a wealth tax in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

But Ms. Warren is pushing colleagues to pursue such a plan, which has gained popularity with the public as the richest Americans reap huge gains while 10 million Americans remain out of work as a result of the pandemic.

Polls have consistently shown Ms. Warren’s proposal winning the support of more than three in five Americans, including a majority of Republican voters.

“A wealth tax is popular among voters on both sides for good reason: because they understand the system is rigged to benefit the wealthy and large corporations,” Ms. Warren said. “As Congress develops additional plans to help our economy, the wealth tax should be at the top of the list to help pay for these plans because of the huge amounts of revenue it would generate.”

 

It's a popular plan.

 

It also has no chance whatsoever of even passing the House, let alone the Senate, and even if it did, it would never survive the Roberts Court. 

So, like universal firearms background checks, raising the means testing limit on Social Security checks, and Election day as a holiday, this too will never pass until Republicans actually start losing elections because of these things.

And right now, the GOP is all Trump, all day.

Convention Connection, Day 3

Barack Obama and Kamala Harris took center stage at the Democratic National Convention day 3, with a message of warning from Joe Biden's running mate, and some brutally hard truths from Trump's predecessor. Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren also made it clear that the Democrats cannot fix anything without getting rid of Donald Trump and the GOP enablers who made him possible.

It was a night steeped in history -- a celebration of diversity where the nation's first Black president set the stage for the first Black woman and first Asian American to appear on a presidential ticket.

The third night of the Democratic National Convention, though, was really about the urgency of the present moment -- and not letting the party's feelings now fade. It was an acknowledgment that, for all the self-congratulatory tributes and gauzy messaging a convention makes possible, Democrats' visions of the future matter almost not at all if they don't defeat President Donald Trump.

That has become the true theme of this convention -- a theme that has grown, if virtually, as the week has gone on and the Democrats' bigger stars have spoken.

"Donald Trump's failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods," Sen. Kamala Harris said, in accepting the spot on former Vice President Joe Biden's ticket. "We're at an inflection point. The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone."

Former President Barack Obama used a backdrop featuring a copy of the Constitution in Philadelphia to argue that democracy itself is at stake if his successor wins a second term – as stark a warning as any member of the presidents' club has ever issued about the current occupant of the Oval Office.

"Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't," the former president said, in a measured tone that belied how stunning his actual words were. "The consequences of that failure are severe."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who lost to Trump four years ago despite winning the popular vote -- warned that Trump could "sneak or steal his way to victory." She said the nation won't get a third chance if it elects Trump twice.

"Remember back in 2016 when Trump asked, 'What do you have to lose?' Well, now we know: our health, our jobs, even our lives," Clinton said.

Said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also laid the nation's COVID-19 toll at the president's feet: "This crisis is on Donald Trump and the Republicans who enabled him."

Republicans are howling at these attacks, none more so than Trump himself, who had yet another Twitter meltdown online last night in response to the thousand cuts he obviously bled from.  Trump hates criticism, and he loathes Barack Obama, but to have intelligent, unafraid women line up to slag him last night was more than he could handle.

But it was Barack Obama who unloaded on the man who succeeded him in a devastating, unprecedented and long-overdue broadside on Trump's massive record of abject failure.

I'm in Philadelphia, where our Constitution was drafted and signed. It wasn't a perfect document. It allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women -- and even men who didn't own property -- the right to participate in the political process. But embedded in this document was a North Star that would guide future generations; a system of representative government -- a democracy -- through which we could better realize our highest ideals. Through civil war and bitter struggles, we improved this Constitution to include the voices of those who'd once been left out. And gradually, we made this country more just, more equal, and more free. 

The one Constitutional office elected by all of the people is the presidency. So at minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us -- regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have -- or who we voted for. 

But we should also expect a president to be the custodian of this democracy. We should expect that regardless of ego, ambition, or political beliefs, the president will preserve, protect, and defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for; fought for and died for. 

I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care. 

But he never did. For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. 

Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before. 

Now, I know that in times as polarized as these, most of you have already made up your mind. But maybe you're still not sure which candidate you'll vote for -- or whether you'll vote at all. Maybe you're tired of the direction we're headed, but you can't see a better path yet, or you just don't know enough about the person who wants to lead us there. 

So let me tell you about my friend Joe Biden.

For a living President to say this about the person currently in the Oval Office just doesn't happen.  It is as much of an indictment of the imperfect American system that allowed Trump to gain and remain in this office as it is of Trump himself, and that is staggering.

Kudos, then, to former President Barack Obama to say what needed to be said.

Vote like your country depends on it. Because as 44 made clear, it does.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump is not handling the Biden-Harris ticket news well.

Trump has a total meltdown, mispronounces Kamala Harris's name, accuses Obama and Joe Biden of treason, and calls Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" all in the same rant. Trump is not handling the Harris news well. pic.twitter.com/z0hePzH5oa

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 11, 2020

He wanted to run against Liz Warren so very, very badly.

Do note however that Trump is now openly accusing Barack Obama and Joe Biden of committing treason, and that he basically believes both men should be executed.

Trump will not go quietly.

We will have to rip him out like cancer come January.

Hannity made the exact same mispronunciation of Harris's name multiple times on his White Power Hour last night, too.  The attacks are that Harris isn't Desi enough, and that Harris isn't black enough, and will drive both Black and Asian-American voters to stay home.

This is being done on purpose.

Tucker Carlson loses it when a guest corrects his pronunciation of Kamala Harris's name pic.twitter.com/1fHIrPGuwN

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) August 12, 2020

If this is the right's strangest stuff against Kamala, Biden might actually win 40 states.

Biden, His Time

The race for Biden's running mate is apparently down to Sen. Kamala Harris and former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, after Rep. Karen Bass blew her shot last weekend over Cuba and Scientology and while I have to imagine both Liz Warren and Tammy Duckworth are still in play, it looks to be a two-woman race. But Republicans are especially salivating over Susan Rice so they can spend the next 90 days yelling BENGHAZI as loudly as possible.

Trump’s aides and allies accuse Rice — without delving too deeply into the evidence — of helping cover up crimes for two of the president’s favorite foils, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, making her just the kind of "deep state" villain who could fire up his MAGA base.

“She is absolutely our No. 1 draft pick,” a Trump campaign official said.
Rice, a former ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser for Obama, is accused of revealing the identities of top Trump associates in 2016 after they were picked up as part of U.S. surveillance of foreign officials.

Four years earlier, she faced allegations that she misled Americans when she announced on national TV that the fatal attacks in Benghazi, Libya, occurred after spontaneous protests in response to an anti-Muslim video. That was determined to be inaccurate.

On Monday night, Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host influential in Trump’s orbit, opened his show with a lengthy diatribe about Rice and her role in the 2012 Benghazi raid — strikingly similar to the attack Republicans lodged against Clinton in the 2016 race against Trump.

“I can’t think of anyone that is more polarizing who would fire up the base than Susan Rice,” said former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who investigated the Obama administration as chairman of the House oversight committee. “They know her, and they don’t like her.”
Biden is nearing the end of his search for a vice president, with in-person interviews expected this week. Attention has focused on Rice, Rep. Karen Bass and Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth. Aides said Biden has pushed back his planned announcement to next week. An outside Trump adviser described Rice as the "most target-rich environment."

Biden’s campaign and Rice declined to comment. But Democrats and others have dismissed the attacks against Rice as outdated and unsubstantiated, and said they won’t matter to Americans struggling with the coronavirus outbreak.

No offense, but I'm really, really, really hoping that Biden absolutely does not pick Susan Rice.  Huckleberry Graham will have her in hearings tout suite and Bill Barr is absolutely waiting for the opportunity to make his Durham investigation dog-and-pony show into the October Surprise and "Biden Running Mate Under DOJ Investigation" would be something I absolutely expect Bill Barr to do.

And it will hurt Biden down the stretch.  I'm sorry, but our media will blow it out of proportion and it will only help Trump.

Biden's call is Biden's call, whomever he picks I will support.  And all of the running mates come with built-in GOP attack angles.  Rice seems to be the largest violation of the "first do no harm with the pick" theory.

We'll see what happens.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Senate Republicans are signaling that they will have a two-thirds majority for passing this year's defense appropriation act with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren's amendment that will rename several military bases named for Confederate traitors, and will easily be able to override an expected Trump veto.

Senate Republicans were unfazed Wednesday by President Donald Trump’s threat to veto the annual defense policy bill over his opposition to the renaming of U.S. military installations honoring prominent Confederate figures.

The reactions from GOP senators reflected a political reality this week as the Senate prepares to pass the National Defense Authorization Act: That the provision is unlikely to be stripped from the final bill to placate the president.

“It was expected,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), an Armed Services Committee member who was supportive of the proposal to rename bases, said of Trump’s veto threat. “You always want to be able to show your support for our military men and women, and that’s what this is about — providing protection for them.”

In fact, most Republican senators said they had no problem at all with Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) amendment, and they said Trump should not veto a bill as vital as the National Defense Authorization Act over minor objections.

“The NDAA is so important and there are so many important elements in it that I don’t believe that alone should be a reason to even vote against it or veto it,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said.

“Ultimately, I don’t think the name of a facility should be something that’s divisive or offensive to people, especially if there are better alternatives to it,” Rubio added. “But it has to be through a process — a considered process.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) acknowledged that it might be difficult to work through the amendment process on the behemoth yearly bill, but he noted that it would be several months before the legislation actually reaches Trump’s desk, during which time it could be changed as a result of negotiations between the Senate and House.

“The veto would take place sometime probably in November,” Inhofe said. “And we have a long, long time between now and November. So we’ll see.”

The blasé responses from Senate Republicans followed a midnight tweet from the president in which he said he would veto the defense bill unless the Senate scrubs an amendment from Warren that requires the Pentagon to remove the names of Confederate military figures from all U.S. bases, aircraft and other facilities and equipment within three years.

It’s highly unlikely that Warren’s amendment will be removed from the legislation; it would take 60 votes on the Senate floor to get rid of it. And even if Trump were to veto the bill, it is expected to pass with a veto-proof majority in both chambers.

In other words, the negotiations are "this doesn't pass until the lame duck session after the election."  It saves Trump from an overridden veto showing how weak he is, but it also means Mitch McConnell will sit on the bill for another four months minimum and that it won't help Democrats until after the election, lest McConnell pull the bill entirely and leave the resulting fallout for Biden to clean up.

Which might happen anyway.

Black Lives Still Matter.  Confederate traitors, not as much.

Last Call For Primary Positions, Con't

Tulsi Gabbard is finally dropping out of the race, and good riddance.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s longshot presidential bid is over.

Gabbard’s decision to drop out, announced March 19, was long in the works. She had consistently averaged around 1 to 2 percent in national polls and performed poorly in primaries; her candidacy largely served as a single-issue protest run against American military adventurism rather than a serious bid for the presidency. Her most notable moment, a devastating attack on California Sen. Kamala Harris’s record as a prosecutor in the CNN’s July debate, didn’t move the dial much in her favor. So on Thursday, she dropped out an endorsed Joe Biden for president.

The irony is that Gabbard could have been a real contender. She’s a strong communicator with an interesting biography, an Iraq war veteran and the first Hindu member of Congress. Yet thanks to a series of choices she had made since getting elected to Congress in 2012 — most notably an inexplicable trip to Syria to meet the country’s murderous leader Bashar al-Assad — she managed to alienate herself from Democratic Party’s leadership and base. Her continued ties to a strange religious group called “Science of Identity” didn’t help matters either, nor did frequent clashes with the party elite during the 2020 campaign (including filing a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton).

The result is that Gabbard’s campaign never had much of a chance: She was unable to play a significant role in the Democratic primary, even on her single issue of opposing wars of regime change, due to her past missteps. She stayed in the race for a long time, but accomplished very little.

Gabbard is giving up her Hawaii US House seat too, not that she would have survived a primary anyway, for precisely the reasons above.  She's managed to alienate every key constituency in the Democratic party in record time and she has no future in it and knows it..and she endorsed Biden anyway.  You know, before Liz Warren did.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is supposedly "clear-eyed" about Joe Biden's presumptive nominee status and is concentrating on COVID-19 legislation along with Liz Warren.

Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign is signaling that he is clear-eyed about the road ahead, with his campaign manager saying he would use the lull in primary voting to have "conversations with supporters to assess his campaign."

But the statement goes on to say that Sanders will be focused on the national emergency around the novel coronavirus -- specifically "ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable."
It's largely an accident of the calendar that former Vice President Joe Biden is emerging as the all-but-certain Democratic nominee at the same time that American society has been upended.

That coincidence is a potential opportunity for the progressive moment, with once-in-a-lifetime-level federal responses being debated in Washington.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- still officially neutral in the presidential race -- has been taking a leadership role in crafting possible responses. She is proposing ideas like canceling student debt, boosting Social Security and forcing leadership changes at companies that accept bailout funds, as part of what she is calling "meaningful, grassroots relief directly to American families."

With the next giant bailout package being tailored largely by Senate Republicans, Sanders and Warren are likely to be go-to voices when Democrats have their say.

The Trump administration will need Democratic votes in the House as well as the Senate. Progressives could see disappointment turned into opportunity in the days ahead -- particularly if Sanders and Warren work together.

I still don't expect Sanders to suspend his campaign until the convention, and I still expect him to ruthlessly attack Joe Biden for another four months, because it's what he did to Hillary Clinton four years ago.  What I expect in fact is for Sanders to work on COVID-19 legislation that's very progressive along with Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, get it passed, and praise Donald Trump for signing it.

In fact, what I expect from Sanders is what he did four years ago: all but say that if he can't be the nominee, the best chance of getting individual policies of his platform enacted will be through Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, and that his voters should once again "vote their conscience" rather than endorse the Democratic nominee in the race, while pointing to a Trump-signed COVID-19 package as an argument.

I'm being cynical as hell.  I have the right to be, frankly, after what happened in 2016.

Last Call For Biden, Your Time

Joe Biden's win in Michigan resets the ground rules of the last four years, and shows how a whole lot of people on the left have completely misinterpreted the last several years of American politics.

Four years ago, Bernie Sanders put up a surprisingly strong fight against Hillary Clinton on the strength of his support among white working-class voters, who proceeded to desert Clinton in November. On the basis of those two elections, the left quickly formed a series of conclusions. The working class had become alienated by neoliberal economics and was searching for radical alternatives. Because the Democrats had failed to offer the kind of progressive radical alternative Sanders stood for, voters instead opted for Trump’s reactionary attack on globalism. In order to win them back and defeat Trump, Democrats needed to reorganize themselves as a radical populist party. 

On the left, this explanation was accepted so widely it became foundational, a premise progressives would work forward from without questioning its veracity. The Sanders campaign argued that its connection to the white working class would enable Bernie to compete in areas that had abandoned Democrats years ago. “Some in the Sanders camp envision possibly making a play for Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana, as well as states such as Kansas, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Montana,” reported Politico one year ago. Every left-wing indictment of the Democratic mainstream was made in explicit or implicit contrast to this imagined counterfactual of a Sanders-led party riding triumphant through the heartland of red America. 

Even before any votes were cast in the primary, cracks were opening up in this analysis. A close look at the 2016 primary data showed that many of Bernie’s white working-class supporters were the same voters who had swung to Hillary Clinton in 2008 — they were protest votes against the Democratic Party, not affirmations of socialism. Polling on economic conditions swung dramatically positive as soon as Trump was elected, and even though Trump merely continued the same growth trajectory he’d inherited, the approval of his handling of the economy has hovered well above his overall approval. Trump’s ability to rebrand the same expansion and make it popular suggests the economy itself was not the source of the electorate’s discontent in 2016. 

And then in 2018, leftists insisted Democrats were making a catastrophic error by nominating moderates to contest swing districts, rather than Sanders-style populists. The lack of a sharp left-wing economic message would surely prevent the upsurge in turnout Democrats needed to take the House. That prediction also failed. Democrats produced a wave election on behalf of moderate voters. 

The second Sanders campaign has shown conclusively how badly the left misunderstood the electorate. It is not just that Sanders has failed to inspire anything like the upsurge in youth turnout he promised, or that he has failed to make meaningful headway with black voters. White working-class and rural voters have swung heavily against him. In Missouri and Michigan, those voters turned states he closely contested four years ago into routs for his opponent. Some rural counties have swung 30 points from Sanders 2016 to Biden 2020. The candidate in the race who has forged a transracial working-class coalition is, in fact, Joe Biden.

As I said a few months ago, 2020 was going to come down to a choice.  The choice was whether the Democrats would chase working-class white voters who abandoned Obama and Clinton for Trump, or if they would strengthen the Obama coalition and turn out enough people to beat the Trump voters anyway.

Biden's rise since Nevada proves the latter is the path forward, and what do you know, it's attracting white voters back to the party too because three years of an incompetent, evil moron in charge is making people recalibrate their priorities.

Maybe you’ve never heard of Livingston County, Michigan. It’s not Oakland County, the vote-rich behemoth located next door; nor is it Macomb County, the much-mythologized home of the culturally conservative “Reagan Democrats” who began defecting to the Republican Party decades ago. It’s a lot less populated, and a little too far from Detroit, to attract much notice from journalists and pundits. And yet, as the returns rolled in Tuesday night from Michigan’s primary, it was Livingston that told the most compelling story. Not for what it said about Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, but for what it said about Donald Trump. 

Four years ago, Livingston was a safe haven for Republicans. Voters there—white, educated, upper-class commuters who head east to Detroit, south to Ann Arbor and west to Lansing—gave no hint of a coming realignment. The county’s congressional seat, property of the GOP for 15 years, was locked down. Its political culture, anchored by a love of God, guns and tax cuts, seemed uncrackable. When the presidential primaries were held, the Republican contest attracted nearly three times more voters than the Democratic counterpart. Trump carried the county by 30 points against Hillary Clinton in November 2016, arguably his most impressive pound-for-pound showing in the state.

Today, Republicans are looking over their shoulders in Livingston County—and for good reason. They’re not worried Trump is going to lose there; they’re not worried about a wholesale change in the area’s political DNA. They’re worried about the only thing that matters in Michigan: margins. The reason Livingston is now represented by a Democrat in Congress is because Elissa Slotkin, the freshman Democrat, only lost the county by 19 points, limiting the damage in a way that allowed her to eke out an upset win with strong performances elsewhere in the 8th District.

There was a temptation for Republicans to dismiss Slotkin’s victory as an outlier, to not sweat a 30-point margin slipping to a 19-point margin. But there can no longer be any doubt about the trajectory of Livingston County and the trouble it poses for the GOP: In Tuesday’s Democratic primary, there were 27,458 votes cast in the county—compared to 17,591 four years ago. For Democratic turnout to jump 56 percent in any affluent, well-educated suburb is incredible; for it to happen in a deeply, fundamentally conservative place like Livingston County is astounding. Some people might think a difference of some 10,000 votes is no big deal. But in a state that was decided by some 10,000 votes, it’s a very big deal.

The real "revelation" is people finally admitting that sexism killed Clinton's chances to win, that especially, white men were never going to vote for a woman.  And remember that admitted pussy-grabber Donald Trump won white women too.

And 2020?  Well you know what?  That's still true.  Ask Kamala Harris or Liz Warren how Democrats handled having a second shot at nominating Not An Old White Guy.

America is still in the 1950s in a lot of respects.

Last Call For Warren's Peace, Con't

The New York Times pens the obituary of Elizabeth Warren's presidential run.

Senator Elizabeth Warren entered the 2020 race with expansive plans to use the federal government to remake American society, pressing to strip power and wealth from a moneyed class that she saw as fundamentally corrupting the country’s economic and political order.

She exited on Thursday after her avalanche of progressive policy proposals, which briefly elevated her to front-runner status last fall, failed to attract a broader political coalition in a Democratic Party increasingly, if not singularly, focused on defeating President Trump.

Her departure means that a Democratic field that began as the most diverse in American history — and included six women — is now essentially down to two white men: former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders.

Ms. Warren said that from the start, she had been told there were only two true lanes in the 2020 contest: a liberal one dominated by Mr. Sanders, 78, and a moderate one led by Mr. Biden, 77.

“I thought that wasn’t right,” Ms. Warren said in front of her house in Cambridge as she suspended her campaign, “But evidently I was wrong.”

Though her vision energized many liberals — the unlikely chant of “big, structural change” rang out at her rallies — it did not find a wide enough audience among the party’s working-class and diverse base. Now her potential endorsement is highly sought, and both Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden have spoken with her in the days since Super Tuesday losses sealed her political fate, though she revealed precious little of her intentions on Thursday.

“I need some space around this,” she said.

Ms. Warren’s impact on the race was far greater than just the outcome for her own candidacy. Her policy plans drove the agenda. She effectively pushed former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, a centrist billionaire, out of the race with a dominant debate performance last month.

And her ability to raise well over $100 million and fully fund a presidential campaign without holding high-dollar fund-raisers demonstrated that other candidates, beyond Mr. Sanders and his intensely loyal small-dollar donors, could do so in the future.

Warren had the best mix of policies, temperament, and experience in my judgment of the folks left in the race.  It doesn't mean she would have won the primary or beaten Trump though.

I hate to say that beating Trump is the only thing that matters, but...beating Trump is the only thing that matters.  That and flipping the Senate.

As to who she will endorse, she is wisely keeping those cards close to her vest for now.  That may be end up being her biggest mark on this race.

Primary Positions, Con't

Joe Biden had a very good night last night on Super Tuesday, winning several Southern states (including Texas!) as well as Massachusetts and Minnesota, while Bernie Sanders won Vermont, Colorado, and Utah and the primary's biggest prize, California.  Five Thirty Eight's Sarah Frostenson recaps the Night Joe Came Back.

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.

The big story from Super Tuesday was that young Democratic voters didn't show up for Bernie's revolution.  Not even close.

Exit polls for five southern states that Biden won – Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – found that young voters did not show up at the polls in the numbers they did in 2016.

In addition, the Vermont senator has been grabbing a smaller share of them in most cases.

•  In Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
•  In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
•  In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.
•  In Tennessee, 11% of those voters showed up Tuesday versus 15% in 2016. Sanders did better among that group Tuesday winning 65% compared to 61% four years ago.
•  In Virginia, young voters comprised 13% of Tuesday’s vote compared to 16% in 2016. Sanders won 57% of those voters Tuesday compared to 69% four years ago.

Even Sanders’ home state of Vermont showed a lackluster turnout of young millennials and 'Gen Zers.' Only 10% of the state’s electorate were under 30 compared to 15% when he ran against Clinton, according to exit polls.

And a similar trend was playing out in Texas where 16% of voters were between 17 and 29 compared to 20% in 2016.

Sanders couldn't get the numbers he got from four years ago, even in his home state.  The why of that is two words: Liz Warren.  She split Sanders's votes far more than Bloomberg split Biden's haul.

And speaking of Liz Warren, she came in a distant third pretty much everywhere last night, even in her home state of Massachusetts.

Elizabeth Warren had a plan for winning. It didn't work: In 18 nomination contests, she hasn't finished above third place — including in her home state.

Now, she's facing political and financial pressures to get out.

Warren's campaign declined to comment on her next steps after her dismal Super Tuesday performance. But allies who speak regularly with the campaign say the mood was bleak. A small wave of last-minute endorsements from groups like EMILY’s List, along with late financial help from a super PAC, did not significantly move the needle.

That's left the Warren campaign to wonder whether a path forward exists. While the campaign had insisted it still saw an opening by going to the convention — she will likely collect at least several dozen delegates Tuesday — the results were far below their own publicly-released projections.

How well Bernie Sanders does from here depends on how long Liz Warren stays in the race.  As I said after Nevada, unless something happened that changed the entire trajectory of the primary race on Super Tuesday, Bernie was going to be the presumptive nominee.

That something was "Joe Biden winning in SC and both Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropping out and endorsing him."

It's a fight now.  Sanders remains ahead in national polling.  But Joe did something I thought that couldn't happen: he most likely ended up with more total delegates last night.  The resurrection of his campaign is something unprecedented. A week ago we were counting Biden out and Bernie running the table seemed all but assured.

The "all but" happened.

Let the battle commence.

[UPDATE] Bloomberg is out.

BREAKING: Michael Bloomberg suspends campaign https://t.co/yNCVUDNe1g

— Axios (@axios) March 4, 2020

Bye, Mike.

Last Call For Primary Positions, Con't

Ahead of tomorrow's Super Tuesday primary voting, Sen. Amy Klobuchar is leaving the race and endorsing Joe Biden.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar will end her presidential bid on Monday and endorse Joe Biden, a campaign aide tells CNN. 

The Klobuchar campaign confirmed that the senator is flying to Dallas to join the former vice president at his rally, where she will suspend her campaign and give her endorsement on the eve of Super Tuesday. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also will endorse Biden at the rally, a source familiar told CNN. 

Klobuchar's path to the nomination all but closed after she posted sixth-place finishes in Nevada and South Carolina, a sign that the Minnesota senator's surprising showing in New Hampshire would not be nearly enough to propel her toward the nomination. 

A Democratic official told CNN that the Klobuchar campaign was worried that the senator would lose her home state of Minnesota on Tuesday. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the race's front-runner, is holding a rally in the state on Monday night. 

The high point of Klobuchar's campaign came in mid-February, when a strong debate days before the New Hampshire primary led to a third-place finish in the state. But the showing even caught Klobuchar's campaign off guard, and a lack of organization on the ground in Nevada and South Carolina, along with the senator's inability to win over Latino and black voters, ultimately stalled her candidacy.

Former Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid also endorsed Biden today, and the timing could not be better for the former VP.

Democratic primary voters appear to be giving former Vice President Joe Biden another look after his victory in the South Carolina presidential primary and ahead of the key Super Tuesday contests.

A Morning Consult poll conducted Sunday found 26 percent of Democratic primary voters nationwide said they’d vote for Biden if the Democratic primary or caucus were held in their state today, up 7 percentage points since polling conducted ahead of Saturday’s first-in-the-South primary in the Palmetto State.

National support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) fell 3 points, to 29 percent, while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg remained in third place, with 17 percent.

Sanders saw his first-choice support shrink among black voters, leaving him in a tie with Biden, at 31 percent. Among Hispanic voters, who will play a prominent role in Tuesday’s contests in Texas and California, Biden’s first-choice support increased 9 points, to 21 percent, though he still trailed far behind Sanders, who has more than twice that share of support with the voting bloc.

With 33 percent, Sanders leads in an average of polling from the 14 Super Tuesday states, while Biden saw a 7-point boost, to 24 percent, following his South Carolina victory. Bloomberg, who’s staked his campaign on victories in Tuesday’s contests, is backed by 16 percent of Super Tuesday voters, down 4 points from the previous polling.

The latest poll of 2,656 voters who indicated they may vote in the Democratic primary or caucus in their state, which has a 2-point margin of error, was mostly conducted before former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg of Indiana ended his campaign on Sunday night. Billionaire Tom Steyer, who dropped out of the race on Saturday night, was also included in the poll, coming in with 1 percent of the vote.

The issue for Biden is now Michael Bloomberg is on the ballot in the Super Tuesday states tomorrow, Michigan and 5 other states next week, Big Tuesday states of Florida, Illinois, and Ohio in two weeks, and Georgia in three.  That will be over half the states and nearly two-thirds of delegates decided by then.

How much will Bloomberg cut into Biden's share, and will it be enough to put Bernie in the lead?  Will Warren stay in or drop out and endorse Sanders? We'll find out a big chunk of that picture this week.

Not-So-Great Expectations

Roughly two-thirds of Americans expect Trump to win in November, and that includes a healthy chunk of people who have no intention of voting for him, in a new CBS News/YouGov poll.  The poll also finds Sanders in the lead in national polling with 27% of the vote, but also sees Elizabeth Warren rocketing into second at 19% past Joe Biden, now at 17% heading into South Carolina on Saturday.

Whether or not they're voting for him, 65% of registered voters nationwide think President Trump will definitely or probably be reelected, including more than a third of Democrats who think so. Republicans are especially optimistic: more than 9 in 10 expect him to win.

Still, potential head to head matchups with all the major Democratic candidates against Mr. Trump show a tight race no matter who the Democratic nominee is, with no more than three percentage points separating the Democratic candidates from Mr. Trump in any matchup with the six top polling Democratic contenders.





Most voters have dug in. When it comes to who they will vote for in November, 6 in 10 voters say it doesn't matter who the Democratic nominee is, or what Mr. Trump might do over the next year.

Despite these close matchups, no Democratic candidate gets more than about a quarter of voters who thinks they would probably beat Mr. Trump (Bernie Sanders does best at 27%). Republicans are particularly confident of Mr. Trump's chances: large majorities think each of these potential Democratic opponents would be long shots to beat him in November. Democrats are less sure of their party's chances. They express the most confidence in Joe Biden and Sanders, but fewer than half of Democrats think any of the candidates is above a "maybe" to win.

This is a big indication that Trump won't get 50% of the popular vote in November, but with the electoral college as it is now, he doesn't need to.  A 47%-45% or 47%-44% result with the Democrat winning the popular vote is almost certainly going to turn out the same way as things did in 2016.

The big wild card is Florida, with the fight over disenfranchising the 1.5 million felons in the state (the vast majority who are black) who still may not be able to vote in November thanks to the GOP's Poll Tax 2.0 project, and how many of them who can get registered will turn out.  Don't expect every felon to flock to the Democrats, either.  The truth is I don't know how all that will play out in the state.

Democrats can win without Florida, but Trump will have a tremendously difficult time winning without it...unless he wins every other state he won in 2016.  If he does that, he still ends up with 277 without Florida, and he wins. It remains the ultimate battleground state, but we're actually in a situation where both candidates can win without it.  PA, WI, and MI combined are 46 electoral votes compared to Florida's 29, so the race is still going to come down to the those three Rust Belt states.

Here's what the 2016 map would look like with all four of those states as toss-ups:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

As you can see, it's basically even elsewhere in the US.  The killer is if Trump wins Wisconsin and the Democratic candidate wins Pennsylvania and Michigan, it would be Dems 268-Trump 241, and Florida decides the whole ball of wax.  If Florida then went for Trump, it would be a 270-268 victory.

That should be keeping everyone up at night.

Bern-ing Through The Competition

With a substantial win thanks to Hispanic voters in Nevada's caucuses yesterday, unless something dramatic changes in the next two weeks or so, Bernie Sanders will be in a commanding position position after Super Tuesday as the opposition to him is hopelessly split. That should be reminding people of Donald Trump's 2016 run in many, many more ways than just one...

Put "Bernie Bros" on the back-burner.

It's the army of sobrinos and sobrinas — the Spanish words for nephews and nieces — who should strike fear in the hearts of Bernie Sanders' rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination and party elites after he ran up the score among Latino voters in the Nevada caucuses Saturday. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other Latinx backers of Sanders refer to him fondly as their "tío," or uncle.

Sanders was the choice of 54 percent of Hispanic caucus-goers Saturday on his way to steamrolling to the most convincing victory of the primary season, according to an NBC entrance poll. His closest competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden, racked up 14 percent, with no other candidate cracking double digits.

Those results signaled that the energy Sanders has poured into building a more diverse coalition than his failed 2016 campaign is paying off at just the right time. He can now stake the first claim — less than two weeks before the "Super Tuesday" contests in 14 states — to having won a state where white, Hispanic and black voters are all represented in substantial numbers.

"If you can’t put two out of those three together, you should start figuring out your exit plan," Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said of most of Sanders' rivals — excluding Biden and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg — in a telephone interview with NBC News.

Gallego added that he is "not surprised" that Sanders performed so well because the candidate and his campaign learned from missteps in 2016 and organized early and effectively in the Latino community.

The outcome among Hispanic voters here could easily portend success for Sanders in delegate-rich California and other heavily Hispanic states and congressional districts coming up on the primary calendar. At the same time, Sanders has closed Biden's lead with African-American voters to 31 percent to 29 percent nationally, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Friday.

If things hold true, in two weeks pundits are going to start attaching "presumptive nominee" in front of "Bernie Sanders" and it's going to be true.  After tonight, it's time for the second-stringers to drop out: Steyer, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and I hate to say it, Warren.  Bloomberg won't go anywhere, but the only way anyone can stop Bernie at this point is everyone else bailing and leaving the road open for somebody, and that somebody should be Biden at this point.

It won't happen, of course.  Too much ego involved, and by splitting the opposition among five opponents, Sanders now has an open, if not easy path to Milwaukee in five months.

Sanders still isn't pulling in majorities, which means there's still a chance for somebody to rise up to challenge him.  But everyone still in the race believes they are one who will win, and all but one of them are 100% wrong...

That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

The latest Quinnipiac University national poll wrecks the notion that Trump somehow benefited from his acquittal, as he gets crushed in all the head-to-head matchups by a margin that not even the electoral college can save him from.

Among all registered voters, Democratic candidates lead President Trump in general election matchups by between 4 and 9 percentage points, with Bloomberg claiming the biggest numerical lead against Trump: 

• Bloomberg tops Trump 51 - 42 percent;
• Sanders defeats Trump 51 - 43 percent;
• Biden beats Trump 50 - 43 percent;
• Klobuchar defeats Trump 49 - 43 percent;
• Warren wins narrowly over Trump 48 - 44 percent;
• Buttigieg is also slightly ahead of Trump 47 - 43 percent. 

President Trump's favorability rating is underwater, as 42 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of him, while 55 percent have an unfavorable view of him. However, it is his best favorability rating since a March 7th, 2017 poll, when his favorability rating was a negative 43 - 53 percent.

So people hate him slightly less now, but he still loses to everybody.

Even Bloomberg.

Checking The Endorsements, Endorsing The Checks

The Des Moines Register, Iowa's largest newspaper, has endorsed Elizabeth Warren for president.

No wonder Iowa Democrats are unsettled.

Each of the remaining candidates campaigning across Iowa ahead of the caucuses could make a fine president. Each would be more inclusive and thoughtful than the current occupant of the White House. Each would treat truth as something that matters. Each would conduct foreign policy by coalition building rather than by whim and tweet.

The outstanding caliber of Democratic candidates makes it difficult to choose just one.

But ultimately Iowa caucusgoers need to do that. Who would make the best president at this point in the country’s history? At a time when the economic deck has become so stacked against working Americans that the gap between rich and poor is the highest in more than 50 years? At a time when a generation of war has stressed military families and sapped the treasury?

The Des Moines Register editorial board endorses Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses as the best leader for these times.

The senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts is not the radical some perceive her to be. She was a registered Republican until 1996. She is a capitalist. “I love what markets can do,” she said. “They are what make us rich, they are what create opportunity.”

But she wants fair markets, with rules and accountability. She wants a government that works for people, not one corrupted by cash.

A former Harvard professor and expert in bankruptcy law, she helped set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency was specifically designed to prevent a repeat of the banking crisis and look out for little guys swindled by lenders and credit card companies.

She believes government should actively work to prevent and respond to abusive practices that jeopardize individuals and the country’s economy.
Warren doesn’t measure the health of the economy by looking at the stock market or an unemployment rate that doesn’t count the longtime jobless or chronically underemployed. She measures it by how working families are doing. Many are not doing well, and Warren seeks major reforms to help them.

A qualification: Some of her ideas for “big, structural change” go too far. This board could not endorse the wholesale overhaul of corporate governance or cumulative levels of taxation she proposes. While the board has long supported single-payer health insurance, it believes a gradual transition is the more realistic approach. But Warren is pushing in the right direction.

It's a good case for Warren, and good argument for her, as well as taking note of the caveat.

Meanwhile, the Sioux City Journal not only endorses Biden but endorses a straight-up Biden/Klobuchar ticket.

In choosing a nominee for president this year, Democrats should pick the individual they believe stands the best chance of producing the support - not only within their party, but among independents and disgruntled Republicans - necessary to win the general election and deny Donald Trump a second term (yes, we anticipate the Senate will acquit him in the impeachment trial).

Because he is, in our view, the candidate best positioned to give Americans a competitive head-to-head matchup with President Trump (we remain open-minded about the November presidential election), members of The Journal editorial board today endorse the candidacy of Joe Biden, the former U.S. senator and vice president, in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation Feb. 3 Democratic Party caucuses.

Why do we believe Biden represents the best shot Democrats have within this field to get the ultimate prize they want? Three primary reasons:

* He possesses a greater breadth and depth of knowledge on issues domestic and foreign - experience forged over more than 40 years of elected office in Washington, D.C. - than his rivals.

* He articulates moderate positions on issues more in line with the nation as a whole. Unlike some candidates in this race, he doesn't guarantee a world he can't deliver and most Americans don't want. On health care, for example, he proposes to build upon the Affordable Care Act with inclusion of a public option instead of a government-run, single-payer health care system with a pricetag in the trillions and trillions of dollars at a time when the nation’s debt is more than $20 trillion. We believe many more Americans would consider the former approach than would consider the latter

* He combines respect from both sides of the aisle and the political and personal skills necessary to unite conflicting positions behind common-ground solutions to complex issues facing our country. We view Biden as a pragmatist - and we believe his pragmatism is an attribute. We refuse to believe middle-of-the-road compromise should be or is a relic of the past. This nation is too diverse for any one side to insist on everything and employ an all-or-nothing approach. We believe leaders who embrace the greater good remain important, if not essential to our national dialogue today. If the Democratic nominee emerges as the winner in November, he or she will need to work with others to meet America's challenges at home and abroad.

For some of these same reasons, we view the candidacy of Sen. Amy Klobuchar positively, as well. In fact, if Biden is the nominee, we urge him to consider Klobuchar as a running mate. We believe the two of them together would be a formidable team.

Klobuchar is the first pick however of New Hampshire's largest daily, the Union Leader.

If you are an independent or Democrat, however, yours may be one of the most consequential votes ever cast in a New Hampshire Primary. If there is to be any realistic challenge to Trump in November, the Democratic nominee needs to have a proven and substantial record of accomplishment across party lines, an ability to unite rather than divide, and the strength and stamina to go toe-to-toe with the Tweeter-in-Chief.

That would be U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She is sharp and witty, with a commanding understanding of both history and the inner workings of Capitol Hill.

Trump doesn’t want to face her. He is hoping for Bernie, Biden, Buttigieg or Warren. Each has weaknesses, whether of age, inexperience or a far-left agenda that thrills some liberals but is ripe for exploitation in a mainstream general election.

Sen. Klobuchar has none of those weaknesses and the incumbent needs to be presented a challenger who is not easily dismissed. Her work in Washington has led to the passage of an impressive number of substantive bills, even as the partisan divide has deepened. In 2018 she won reelection, taking back dozens of conservative-leaning counties that had gone for Trump two years earlier, when Hillary Clinton barely beat him in Minnesota. In fact, Sen. Klobuchar, a former prosecutor, has never lost an election.

But can a woman be elected President? We say of course, the right woman can and should be. By choosing Amy Klobuchar, New Hampshire primary voters can go a long way to proving it.

Ultimately, I still think Biden wins the primary for the three reasons the Journal lists.  The Register doesn't exactly have a stellar track record of picking Democratic winners in Iowa or the Democratic nominee overall, having picked Paul Simon in 1988, Bill Bradley in 2000, John Edwards in 2004, and Hillary Clinton in 2008, all people who didn't win Iowa and didn't win the Democratic nomination.

They at least got Clinton right in 2016, but that was like guessing the sun was hot. If you're interested in why the other Democratic candidates didn't get the endorsement, well the Register has you covered there too.

I'm going to come out and say though that a Biden/Kamala Harris ticket is far more likely than Biden/Klobuchar.

Oh, and I notice nobody in endorsement land is talking about Sanders.  The thing is though, he's ahead now in Iowa and well ahead in New Hampshire.  That may be his peak, but it's the right time for it.  February will be hotly contested and then we go into Super Tuesday on March 3.

Make sure you're ready to vote in your state's primary and general.  Double-check your voter registrations, folks.

A Case Of Government Cheese

The biggest problem that Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have with selling the grandiose plans of Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg and others to black voters especially is that in practice, government programs run headlong into systemic racism and become things that work for white America, but not for the rest.

Democratic candidates have come to understand that they need policies that target racial inequities, especially to win over black voters — a vital force in the Democratic primary. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont says single-payer health insurance will close disparities like the higher infant morality rate in black families. Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., released his Frederick Douglass Plan, which calls for overhauling the criminal justice system, health care equity, and education funding.

In addition to her proposals for black farmers, Ms. Warren has aimed to design her health care and education plans so that they take corrective steps to address historical inequality.

Still, even as the plans add up, black voters have largely not shown enthusiasm about these candidates, and the polling numbers have barely budged. According to a recent nationwide poll of black voters from The Washington Post and Ipsos, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds a significant edge, with the support of nearly 50 percent of respondents. Among black voters 65 and older, poll showed Mr. Biden ahead by 60 percentage points.

Mr. Sanders had 20 percent support, driven largely by his popularity with black voters under 35 years old. Ms. Warren was third in The Post’s poll, with 9 percent.

Over the course of her campaign, at events geared toward black voters, Ms. Warren often cites policy proposals such as investment in historically black colleges and new housing in formerly redlined communities. Crowds generally respond positively.

“I want a world where the color of your skin doesn’t matter, you get the same opportunities,” Ms. Warren said at an event over the weekend hosted with groups including the Iowa chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “We do not fix a system like this by pretending that race doesn’t matter.”

Mr. Sanders’s progress with black voters has been a mixed bag; he is beloved among younger voters and viewed with some suspicion by older ones, who largely supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and found his insurgent campaign to be harmful to her in the general election. Late last year, Mr. Sanders replaced his South Carolina state director, a sign of the campaign’s desire to shift his strategy for winning over black voters.

Mr. Biden’s candidacy is helped by several factors, including his widespread name recognition, public proximity to former President Barack Obama, and close relationship with black community leaders dating to his years in the Senate.

But in interviews with dozens of black voters in Virginia and South Carolina, another theme emerges: Mr. Biden is also ahead because his leading rivals have yet to wrestle with how their promises of structural change must overcome historical distrust of the government in black communities.

When you ask black voters like myself why we should trust Joe Biden, it's because he spent eight years as Obama's VP.  You ask me about Sanders, and I'm gonna say "the guy who spent more than 30 years in Congress and got nothing passed?"  Warren at least ran for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...and then Trump and the GOP neutered it to the point where it does nothing now precisely because it was helping black and brown folk.

Nobody in SC believe Sanders or Warren or Pete are going to get any major programs past Mitch or the Roberts Court because we all saw what happened to the ACA and to Democrats in 2010 and again when Black Lives Matter gained national attention in 2014.  Affordable health care for all Americans, not just the white ones, became a massive political liability when it threatened the careers of Democratic politicians and they ran from Obama.

We know what Sanders' supporters said and did to the ACA.

We know Warren decided the ACA was bad but she would do better.

Same with Mayor Pete.

Everyone says "We can do better."  Not one of them pointed out that the ACA was sabotaged again and again by Republicans and oh yeah, more than a few Democrats.  Well, Joe Biden did.

It's not rocket science, guys. Joe Biden has his issues, there's a reason I did not vote for him in 2008 in the primaries, in fact several reasons, all of which are pretty terrible baggage.  And he still pretends that the GOP will work with him, when they will spend every day calling him a socialist and a traitor and will sabotage him just as much as they did to Obama, if not more so.

But he is loyal to Obama, and he is loyal to the voters who put Obama in office. And frankly, the GOP will try to destroy any Democratic president, and there's no guarantee Trump will even leave office.

Right now, until somebody can make the case better than Biden that you gotta dance with the people that brung ya, he's my current choice.