Ed Man Walking

You guys didn't really think all these years that Ed Schultz really cared about anything other than his own wallet, did you?

Back when he hosted a prime-time talk show on MSNBC, Ed Schultz divided the world into heroes and villains. The heroes usually included Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The villains were most Republicans, and especially Donald J. Trump. When Trump obsessed over Obama’s birth certificate and academic credentials in 2011, Schultz branded him “a racist.” When Trump flirted with running for president the next year, Schultz ridiculed him. “Who has shown any interest in Donald Trump being the next president of the United States other than Donald Trump?” he fumed. “Mr. Trump, stop embarrassing yourself!” 

Another bad guy was Russian President Vladimir Putin. Schultz delighted in ripping conservatives for what he called their “love affair” with the Russian leader and his ability to make Obama look weak on the world stage. “They hate Obama so much they will even embrace the head of the KGB ... ‘Putie’ is their new hero!” Schultz said in one 2013 segment. In another, he smugly reminded conservatives about Putin’s “nasty human rights record” and the way his “reckless behavior” was “crippling” Russia. More generally, Schultz often framed GOP opposition to Obama as “anti-American” or “unpatriotic.”

That was all before last July, when MSNBC abruptly canceled The Ed Show after a six-year run and dumped the 62-year-old prairie populist from the network. By the time Schultz resurfaced this January, he had been reincarnated in a very different journalistic form: as a prime-time host, reporter and political analyst for RT America, the U.S. branch of the global cable network formerly known as Russia Today, funded by the Russian government. 

Gone is the praise for Obama and Clinton. Gone, too, are the mocking references to “Putie.” And gone are the judgments about others’ patriotism. Schultz’s 8 p.m. RT show, The News with Ed Schultz, now features Putin-friendly discussions about the failings of U.S. policy in the Middle East, America’s “bloated” defense budget and the futility of NATO strategy. 

Even Trump is getting a new look from Schultz. Speaking at various points on RT in recent months, Schultz has said that Trump “has tapped into an anger among working people,” is “talking about things the people care about,” and even, as Schultz recently declared, that Trump “would easily be able to function” as president. 

Those are strange words coming from an ex-MSNBC liberal better known for casting Trump as a racist lout. But RT is a strange place. It styles itself as an edgy CNN or BBC, delivering unvarnished news and commentary with a mostly hip, young cast. But just under the surface is a bought-and-paid-for propaganda vehicle trying to nudge viewers toward Russia’s side of the story at a time when Moscow has increasingly become an international pariah, estranged from the West over its military aggression in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere, its elites sanctioned and its economy struggling with isolation, decaying infrastructure and collapsing energy prices.

Yes, I know any article coming from Politico Magazine about the state of our political media is hysterical, but it doesn't mean that Schultz isn't the opportunistic, self-obsessed jackass that he always was, the same jackass who famously told liberal voters to stay home in 2010 because Obama had failed the country.

When somebody shows you who they really are, you should believe them.  And Ed Schultz going from happy liberal warrior to now taking Putin's paychecks is something you could have predicted six years ago.

After all, he still gets to trash Obama either way, and that's all that he waned to do in life.

How Bitter Will Bernie's End Be? Con't

The Sanders camp has finally moved to the acceptance stage of electoral grief and is now coming to the Clinton camp for negotiations for a unity ticket. Greg Sargent:

The signs are everywhere this morning: The Clinton and Sanders camps are now signaling how the Democratic primaries might wind down without too much noise, contentiousness, disruption, and anger. Could things still get very ugly? Yes. But at this point, that’s looking less likely than the alternative. 

In an interview with me, Rep. Keith Ellison, a top supporter of Bernie Sanders who is also the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, suggested the Clinton camp had some work to do in order to appeal to Sanders’s supporters. But he also carefully noted that Sanders would not do anything to imperil the party unity that will be required to defeat Donald Trump. 

“Young people have a set of priorities that make them want to support Bernie Sanders,” Ellison said. “If hypothetically she wins the nomination, in order to get people to support Bernie, she’s going to have to carry the banner that Bernie carried in an overt way. She’s going to have to make it clear to people who support Bernie that she gets where he’s coming from.” 

But Ellison added: “Every Bernie supporter knows that this Supreme Court issue is looming. We’ll have party unity….everybody has a responsibility to make sure there will never be a President Trump. Bernie has been around a long time….he’s not going to hand this country over to Donald Trump.”

Bernie is a lot of things, but he's not stupid.  You don't survive Congress without being able to negotiate and compromise at some level.  It's what a lot of the Tea Party stalwarts are finding out the hard way in this election cycle.  Perform or be replaced by somebody who will.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that Sanders is increasingly focused on seeking influence over the party agenda as a way to wind things down. He’s hoping for signs of genuine commitment to priorities like debt free college and a $15 minimum wage, and to reforms to the nomination process that might maximize participation among the sort of young, unaffiliated Sanders voters who were excluded from the New York primary.
On the Clinton side, the Post reports that a top Clinton backer, Senator Dianne Feinstein, is now calling for both camps to “work together, across our party, to have a platform that represents the views of Democrats.” And:

In 2008, after the divisive primary season concluded, Feinstein opened her Washington manse to host a secret unity meeting between Obama and Clinton. She said she would reprise that role for Clinton and Sanders. “I’d be very happy to offer that,” Feinstein said.

The other day, another top Clinton backer, Senator Sherrod Brown — who has great credibility among economic progressives — also offered in an interview with me to take part in any negotiating efforts to unite the camps. He even suggested that Clinton “should work with him on the platform,” and offered some areas of common ground they could reach on financial reform (an area of real disagreement), such as how to toughen up Dodd-Frank’s requirements for big banks’ plans to wind down in a crisis.

Clinton, for her part, isn't stupid either.  Sanders has definitely pushed her platform to the left on a number of issues.  The trick here is to be as gracious as possible and to share the credit (if at times to even give the credit to Sanders) in order to unify the left.

Remember, she's been through this before from Sanders's perspective.  And she ended up Secretary of State as a result.

We'll see if Bernie is that clever, but he seems to have at least surrounded himself with competent surrogates at the top end, Sherrod Brown and Keith Ellison are pretty sharp and are used to doing heavy lifting on negotiating with other large egos.

That this was the plan has been apparent for a good six to eight weeks now, with the primary essentially being over back on March 15, if not March 1. Reconciliation and unity was always going to happen, because this is what adults do in a system that requires compromise and moving forward.

Hatchets get buried, guys.

StupidiNews!

• In the second case of an American sentenced by North Korea to hard labor in as many months, a hotel businessman faces ten years for allegedly spying against the regime in Pyongyang.
• Colombia's highest court has legalized same-sex marriage, joining Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay as the fourth South American country recognizing the rights of couples to marry.
• Nearly 20 demonstrators were arrested outside a Donald Trump rally in California on Thursday night as hundreds gathered to protest Trump's stance in immigration.
• Comcast will acquire DreamWorks Animation in a nearly $4 billion deal, giving the entertainment and cable giant the largest competitor to Disney's animation empire.
• Google has officially brought its fiber service to Nashville, the fifth city in six years to get the company's low-cost high-speed service.

Last Call For Trump Cards, Con't

I know that Republicans will fall in line and that Trump will get minimum 45% of the vote in November (in a two candidate fight), the question at this point is if he gets any more than that.

I'm thinking...no. Greg Sargent argues in fact that Trump may not even get 45%.

The basic case for nominating Ted Cruz rather than Donald Trump is that, while Cruz would arguably be the most right-wing nominee in modern American history, and would probably lose to Hillary Clinton, he would not unleash the sort of blood-dimmed tide of down-ticket destruction that Trump would. 

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll lends some support to this view: It finds that Trump’s numbers are unspeakably awfulamong all the voter groups that Republican strategists had hoped to improve the party’s performance among in 2016. On the other hand, Cruz’s numbers aren’t that great among these groups either — they are certainly worse than John Kasich’s are. 

First, Trump. Marvel at these findings: Trump is viewed unfavorably by 67 percent of Americans overall; 75 percent of women; 74 percent of young voters; 91 percent of African Americans; 81 percent of Latinos; 73 percent of college-educated whites; 66 percent of white women; and 72 percent of moderates.

People dislike Hillary Clinton, surely.  But they friggin' hate Donald Trump.  Ted Cruz fares little better.

Could Trump win somehow by running up a huge margin among white voters — particularly blue collar whites and white men? Well, Trump is viewed unfavorably by 59 percent of whites overall, and he is even viewed unfavorably by majorities of non-college whites (52 percent) and white men (51 percent). And Trump’s awful numbers among college educated whites and white women (detailed above) make the run-up-the-white-vote strategy look still more far fetched. 

Now, Cruz. The Texas Senator is viewed unfavorably by 53 percent of women; 50 percent of young voters; 51 percent of blacks; 46 percent of Latinos (versus 32 percent who view him favorably); 65 percent of college educated whites; 56 percent of white women; and 55 percent of moderates. All of that is significantly better than Trump. But he’s underwater with all these groups, and Cruz’s struggles among college educated whites and women (particularly white women) lend some credence to the Democratic assessment that Cruz’s conservatism on social issues could prove crippling among key swing voter groups.

So no matter what, Hillary's 40-ish favorable numbers may be enough, compared to Cruz's worse and Trumps far more awful ones.

Drug Paraphernalia

Missouri Dem Sen. Claire McCaskill opened up a can of whoopass on executives and investors of Valeant Pharmaceuticals before a Senate hearing on Wednesday, and it was glorious.

The Senate Special Committee on Aging is one of two U.S. congressional panels investigating sky-rocketing price increases of certain decades-old drugs acquired by companies including Valeant and Turing Pharmaceuticals, a company founded by Martin Shkreli.

Ackman, a major Valeant shareholder, appeared Wednesday alongside the company's outgoing Chief Executive Michael Pearson and Howard Schiller, a board member and former chief financial officer.

Ackman joined the board last month as Valeant faced mounting scrutiny by members of Congress, prosecutors and regulators over its drug pricing, business practices and accounting - issues that have caused its share price to plummet almost 90 percent since August.

Valeant has about $30 billion of debt and has been negotiating with creditors, some of whom issued notices of default after it missed a deadline for the filing of its financial results.

Ackman said Wednesday that one of his top priorities is to protect the company from bankruptcy. Later, in response to a question from Reuters, he expressed confidence that the company will recover.

“There is not going to be any bankruptcy of Valeant,” he said. “We were in a death spiral, and we have taken steps to deal with the banks. We are going to file our 10K on time. We brought in a new CEO.”

Pearson, Ackman and Schiller all told lawmakers on Wednesday they regretted Valeant's pricing decisions.

"The company was too aggressive and I, as its leader, was too aggressive in pursuing price increases on certain drugs," he said.

But many lawmakers on the panel appeared skeptical. They questioned Valeant's business model of investing little in research and development, and the company's practice of acquiring decades-old drugs and raising the prices.

Senator Claire McCaskill, the panel's top Democrat, angrily asked each of the panelists at one point if they could recall one drug that Valeant didn't raise the price on.

"Not in the United States," Pearson responded, while Schiller was only able to come up with the name of one drug Valeant acquired after its purchase of Salix.

"That is not social good, that is social bad," McCaskill said.

Even worse, Valeant disclosed that current CEO Michael Papa will be taking a measly $1.5 million a year base salary...and stock options that could be worth tens, if not hundreds of millions.

On Wednesday evening Valeant disclosed Papa’s employment agreement. A first look at the compensation terms indicate the embattled company plans to continue offering stock awards that reward a focus on aggressively increasing the company’s share price.

Documents Valeant filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate Papa could make nearly $100 million if its stock can return to an October 2015 level of $150 a share. If Valeant’s share price hits $270, Papa will make well over $500 million in stock awards, along with cash bonus awards. The stock closed at $34.92 Wednesday.

One stipulation in the agreement, a lockup requiring Papa to own shares for a number of years, wties his rewards to sustainable growth, in theory. But Papa’s stock incentives, called performance share units, are similar to the arrangements that turned Pearson into a paper billionaire as Valeant became a stock market darling.

So yes, Mr. Papa would be a moron to pass up hundreds of millions by not jacking up prices once again on life saving drugs, because his job is to do exactly that.

That's how the game is played.

Frankly, Stein's Monster

Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein has been relatively quiet this campaign (or completely ignored, your choice) but she's definitely making some noise with this offer to Bernie Sanders.

While overly presumptive Republican presidential candidates are rushing to announce potential vice presidential running mates, one presidential candidate is openly courting the idea of a bipartisan unity ticket.

Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president, wrote an open letter to Bernie Sanders, asking the Independent Vermont senator to consider ditching his attempt to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination for a real “revolution for people, planet and peace” alongside Stein. 

Stein, who has long called on Sanders to join forces with her in the interest of their “shared goals,” wrote to Sanders over the weekend: “I invite you to join me in pushing the boundaries of that system to a place where revolution can truly take root.” 

“You’ve proven that in today’s rapidly changing America, a populist progressive agenda covered by the media and the televised debates can catch on like wildfire and shake the foundations of a political establishment that seemed invulnerable just a few short months ago,” Stein wrote to Sanders, asking if “in this wildly unpredictable election where the old rules are giving way one by one, can we think outside the box and find new and unexpected ways to synergize beyond obsolete partisan divides?”

I can't imagine Bernie's ego allowing him to consider being Jill Stein's running mate, but if he did, you could pretty much start printing out the inaugural ball invitations for President Trump the second he actually took her up on the offer.

You thought Ralph Nader was bad for the country?  A Stein/Sanders Green Party ticket would absolutely hand the White House over to the GOP and would be an unmitigated disaster.

I pray that Bernie isn't this stupid.  Signs are very, very clear that he's ignoring Stein overtures here, and that he should continue to do so.

StupidiNews!

• Sen. Bernie Sanders says he will lay off hundreds of campaign staffers and restructure his campaign towards states that haven't had primaries yet.
• Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to jumpstart his Republican campaign for president by naming former rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate should he win the nomination.
• A second North Korean missile test has failed in two weeks as South Korea's military is reporting the test missile crashed seconds after takeoff.
• Puerto Rico is now considering defaulting on its loan payments as Republicans in Congress continue to block any efforts to help it restructure its debt.
• The House has unanimously passed a bill requiring a warrant for email and heads to the Senate where it faces a far more uncertain future.

Last Call For As Callous As They Come

The city of Cleveland has settled a lawsuit with the family of Tamir Rice for $6 million over the shooting death of the then 12-year-old boy by police for the crime of carrying a toy gun in Ohio.  But the settlement isn't the awful part. The response from the Cleveland's  largest police union is.

The head of the Cleveland rank-and-file police union says the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice should use money from a $6 million settlement to educate children about the use of look-alike firearms. 

Steve Loomis, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolman's Association association, was criticized on a national scale for statements he made to the media in the weeks and months after two officers in his union were involved in Tamir's death. 

The usually talkative Loomis issued a news release that said "we can only hope the Rice family and their attorneys will use a portion of this settlement to help educate the youth of Cleveland in the dangers associated with the mishandling of both real and facsimile firearms. 

"Something positive must come from this tragic loss. That would be educating youth of the dangers of possessing a real or replica firearm," the release continues.

Now, stop and think about this.

First of all, the police union is telling the Rice family how to spend their settlement over the death of their child.

Second of all, the police union feels the need to tell the Rice family that it is their duty to educate Cleveland's kids to not play with toy guns so that Cleveland cops don't murder them in cold blood.

I have never seen anything more awfully callous, more reprehensibly disgusting than this release.

Steve Loomis, you are without a doubt a monster.

School Daze, Con't

The destruction of red state public schools continue as the Republican plan to fund white schools at the expense of black ones is creating a new era of school segregation.  Today's example: Sumter County, Alabama.

The front door at Livingston Junior High in rural Sumter County is something of an early warning system. It screeches so loudly that visitors can hear it — from the parking lot. Once inside, the scale of disrepair becomes clear. 

“In the girls restroom, they may have four or five stalls, but only one works,” says principal Tramene Maye, giving a quick walking tour. “And the funds are limited, so what do you deem necessary? If one is working, that’s what you’re going to allow to continue.” 

And Livingston’s problems don’t end with a loud door and broken toilets. One former classroom leaks when it rains. Garbage cans catch some of the water, but the moldy smell and buckled floor prove they miss plenty. Around the school, it’s a similar story: broken windows, peeling paint, cracked floor tiles. Maye insists there just isn’t enough money to fix it all. 

“We have 580 students. Everything should be functioning,” Maye says. “When you have to spread that money thin like that, it’s hard to put it in the right places. But we do the best we can.” 

Sumter Central High senior and star student Jewel Townsend’s school is in better shape than Livingston, but she says it’s still hard when she travels to schools and sports facilities outside the district. 

“I see that Sumter County doesn’t have that,” she says, her voice catching. “It’s like, ‘Wow,really? Why can’t we have that?’” 

This largely low-income, all black school district doesn’t have a baseball or soccer team. And, says superintendent Tyrone Yarbrough, “we would love to have music and art in all of our schools. We don’t have that. If we had us some kids who were interested in, say, orchestra … we don’t have that.”

In more affluent districts, local property tax revenue makes a big difference for schools. But in rural Sumter, which is mostly farms and timberland, there isn’t much to tax. It’s also hard to raise rates on what is there. 

In Alabama, local voters have final say on tax hikes. Sumter school supporters have tried and failed twice in recent years to raise local rates. While some states send extra need-based dollars to districts like Sumter that serve lots of disadvantaged students, Alabama does not.

Sumter County school board member Julene Delaine says Sumter schools have another challenge. While basically all of their students are African-American, roughly a quarter of the county’s population is white.

“They live in this county, but they will not send their children to the schools in this county,” Delaine says. Instead, many white families send their kids to a local private academy or outside the area. “We shop in the same place. We eat at the same restaurant. So why can’t our kids go to school together?”

Because you're black.  And the same questions we black folks asked in 1966 about America, well, we're still asking those same questions and looking for answers in 2016.

Welcome to third world America, where white kids go to private schools and black kids go to schools with metal detectors, broken toilets, no sports, no art, no music, and no goddamn hope. We wall kids and parents like this off from the world, chain anvils to their legs and throw them in the deep end and say "This is America, boy. If you're worth saving, you'll save yourself."

Start swimming.

Docs Caught In Oklahoma's TRAP

Hey look, Oklahoma is trying to end abortions in the state again, and this time if they can't regulate clinics out of existence, they'll just regulate abortion-providing doctors out of practicing medicine.

A bill that will revoke the license of any doctor who performs abortions has landed on the desk of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R). While the conservative governor hasn’t yet said whether or not she will sign it, the Republican-dominated state legislature is eager for this proposed law to see the light of day, saying it will “protect life.” 

However, abortion rights advocates say the legislation violates the Constitution by banning a doctor from providing a medical procedure that is entirely legal. 

“Whether this bill is signed into law or now, the fact that it’s made it to the governor’s desk is appalling and offensive,” said Dr. Pratima Gupta, a member of Physicians for Reproductive Health. 

And, Gupta added, it will force doctors to give their patients deceptive and unscientific advice — that they should not go through with a requested abortion — in hopes of keeping their medical license. Many anti-abortion state laws already put doctors in this difficult situation. For instance,Arizona passed a law forcing doctors to tell their patients that an abortion is reversible — advice that remains unproven. 

“Patients trust me to care for them and give them the best medical advice,” Gupta said. “This bill would force us, as doctors, to go against our own beliefs.” 

In response to the bill’s advancement, Dr. Mark DeFrancesco, the president of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), stressed that this legislation would only put women at further risk, as they may instead turn to unsafe, illegal methods to end their pregnancy. Politics, he emphasized, have no place in an exam room. 

“Health care decisions should be made jointly by patients and their trusted health care providers,” DeFrancesco wrote in a Monday statement. “Not by politicians who lack medical training and who clearly do not have women’s best interests in mind.”

Still, this is something of a bold new tactic and could effectively end abortions in the state, especially if the law remains in effect while it is being fought in the courts.  I'm not sure what GOP Gov. Fallin will do with this bill, but it's entirely possible a veto may be overridden.

I'll keep an eye on this one.

StupidiNews!

• Donald Trump swept all five Northeastern GOP primaries last night, on the Democratic side Hillary Clinton won four with Bernie Sanders taking Rhode Island.
• In Baltimore's mayoral primary, state Sen. Catherine Pugh narrowly defeated former Mayor Sheila Dixon, with Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson getting 12% of the vote.
• A majority of Americans believe that the presidential primary political process is "rigged" by the parties, two-thirds want to see the system changed or even scrapped altogether.
• Germany will spend $1.4 billion on electric car subsidies to boost sales and to help German automakers.
• Game giant Nintendo will launch its new console system in March of 2017, but little is known about the NX system other than the global launch target.

Last Call For That Poll-Asked Look

Over At No More Mr. Nice Blog, Steve M. calls shenanigans on that latest GWU Battleground State poll showing Clinton only head of Trump 46-43%.

That's worrisome -- but please note that the poll claims Clinton would beat Trump among Hispanics by only 17 points, 52%-35% (13% undecided). That would mean that Trump would do better among Hispanics than Mitt Romney did in 2012 (Barack Obama beat Romney71%-27%). Show of hands: Who (outside of Trump Nation) seriously thinks this will happen? (The recent Latino Decisions poll put the Clinton-Trump margin at 76%-11%, which seems realistic given the 2012 numbers and Trump's rhetoric.) 

Only 5% of Battleground Poll poll respondents were Hispanic; 77% were white and 12% black. That's a serious underrepresentation of Hispanics and overrepresentation of whites (Hispanics were 10.8% of the 2012 electorate, while whites were only 71.1%; the white portion of the electorate is expected to drop to 69% this year). 

Also, the Harvard IOP Poll has Clinton beating Trump 61%-25% among 18-to-29-year-olds. The Battleground Poll has Clinton beating Trump by only 49%-42% margin among 18-to-34-year-olds. Yes, I know about the "Trump Bros" phenomenon, but the Harvard numbers seem a lot more plausible.

Yeah, I'm not buying this either.  Trump doing that well among Millennials is highly suspect, but Trump doing better than Romney among Hispanic voters is complete and total hogwash.

If you believe this poll, Clinton would be ahead in California, New York, Florida...and is ahead in Texas 45-36% with 19% undecided, so you tell me how accurate it is.

So yeah.

Oh, and the Millenial stuff:

Again, Trump on the left column, Clinton on the third column, so unless you think Trump and Clinton are in a dead heat on white Millennial voters (and not even I think white people younger than me are that stupid) and within ten points on Hispanic Millennials when Trump literally wants to deport millions of Hispanic Millennial DREAM Act beneficiaries, then this is nonsense.

The Primary That Matters Today

One of the bigger contests today is the Democratic Maryland Senate primary race between Rep. Donna Edwards and Rep.Chris Van Hollen to replace retiring liberal Dem Sen. Barbara Mikulski, and yes for once The Hill's headline is right: one of these two is going to suffer a big loss today.

One lawmaker will see a fruitful congressional career come to a screeching halt with a primary loss and be left to face an uncertain political future. The other will be a big favorite to win a November promotion and become a fixture in the upper chamber, where Maryland hasn’t been represented by a Republican in three decades. 

The race has intensified over the last several weeks, and Monday was no exception, with the Edwards campaign calling Van Hollen “a business-as-usual Washington insider.”
The candidates, who are both 57, spent Monday on a final whirlwind campaigning blitz that brought them to schools, diners, senior centers, bustling Metro stations and sleepy neighborhood streets for a last-minute door-knocking effort. 

“You’ve got to run hard across the finish line,” Van Hollen told The Hill after meeting voters at the Harford Senior Center. 

The race has been much closer than initially expected. Van Hollen is the more prominent figure, with a longer congressional resume; he’s a budget gladiator and de facto leader who has close ties to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); and he boasts a big cash advantage, outraising Edwards by almost $5 million, according to the Federal Election Commission. 

But Edwards has been a force in her own right. She was tapped by Pelosi to co-chair the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee; she’s won endorsements from powerful groups like EMILY’s List that have spent heavily to promote her campaign; and in an election year that might send the first woman to the White House in the form of Hillary Clinton, Edwards, a single mother, is hoping to ride those coattails to become just the second African-American woman elected to the Senate in history. 

Edwards’s campaign on Monday expressed confidence that voters will side with “someone ... who understands their lives.” 

“We are making sure everyone we contact knows the choice they face, between a business-as-usual Washington insider looking for a promotion, or a bold change-maker who will fight every day for everyday Marylanders just like Barbara Mikulski,” spokesman Benjamin Gerdes said in an email. 

Several recent polls have shown Van Hollen gaining an edge, including a Monmouth University poll released last week that has him up by 16 points. But earlier surveys had Edwards ahead, and many observers expect Tuesday’s contest to be a nail-biter. 

“There’ve been all kinds of conflicting polls,” Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) told The Hill recently. “The only conclusion you can draw from the polls is that it’s a close race.” Like Mikulski, Delaney has remained neutral in the contest.

Of the two, Edwards has been the most liberal and the candidate I hope to see carry on Maryland's strong blue tradition in the Senate.  Van Hollen is somewhat too close to DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for my taste, and we all know by now how I feel about her.

Van Hollen will win unless Baltimore turns out big for Edwards.  We'll see.

How Bitter Will Bernie's End Be?

With contests in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island today and 462 delegate up for grabs for the Democrats, it looks like Hillary Clinton is about to slam the door in Bernie Sanders's face, and as Greg Sargent notes, Team Bernie is heading for the exits.

All the latest polls suggest that Hillary Clinton is heading for sizable wins in delegate-rich Pennsylvania and Maryland tomorrow, which probably means that scrutiny of Sanders’s true intentions for the endgame of the nomination process will only intensify. 

But it’s now becoming obvious that Sanders is, if anything,ratcheting down expectations for this endgame. One potentially key tell was on display in the four interviews that Sanders gave yesterday to the Sunday Shows: One on ABC, one on CBS, one on NBC, and one on CNN. 

In every one of them, Sanders repeated variations of the formulation: “We’re going to take our campaign through California.” “We intend to take the fight all the way through California.” “We’re in this race to California.” “We’re going to fight for every last vote until California and the D.C. primary.” In other words, Sanders promised to battle until the final votes are cast, which he has every reason and incentive to do. 

But this appears less ambitious than what Sanders telegraphed only a week ago. Last Sunday he was asked directly whether he would take the contest “all the way to the floor in Philadelphia,” and he replied: “Yup.” Last week Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver flatly stated: “We’re going to go to the convention.”

That's definitely a step backwards for the Sanders campaign, and it's coming from Sanders himself, in four different interviews on Sunday.  That's not accidental.

So what now?

Of course, one cannot dismiss the possibility that Sanders might still try to battle for the nomination on the convention floor. But all of the above is much more consistent with an endgame in which Sanders fights on until the voting is completed, makes one last push for super-delegates to switch, discovers they aren’t willing to do so, and then enters into serious unity talks over how he might influence the convention proceedings and the Democratic Party’s agenda in the fall campaign. 

At that point, the question of how the Clinton campaign, not just the Sanders campaign, handles the conclusion to this whole process will play a big role in influencing what happens. It’s still unclear whether the Clinton camp will see a need to make any concessions to Sanders in order to win over his supporters and unite the party. But it will be in the interests of Clinton and the Democratic Party to ensure that this process goes as smoothly as possible. They’ll likely conclude that there is greater risk in not making any meaningful gestures towards unity than in making them. What this might look like is the subject of a future post.

The polls are showing that Clinton could get as many as 250 to 300 of those 462 delegates. If we split the difference and call it 275, that would get her to over 1,700 pledged delegates and 2,200 with super delegates, which means she'd only need about 150 more to hit the 2,383 she would need to win.

She could get that with 276 delegates up for grabs in May in Indiana, West Virginia, Guam, Oregon, and yes, here in Kentucky.

In other words, Clinton could very well have the 2,383 delegates she needs before California and New Jersey on June 7.  So unless you think Bernie will somehow magically get 100% of the California vote, he's done.

Frankly, this race was over back on Super Tuesday on March 15.

So let's get on with the cleanup stage so we can take out the GOP, guys.

StupidiNews!

• Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is calling the beheading of a Canadian hostage by Abu Sayyaf militants in the Philippines "an act of cold-blooded murder".
• A federal judge has upheld North Carolina's voter ID law, saying that the state has a "legitimate interest" in requiring photo ID for voting despite the state's long history of disenfranchisement.
• Mitsubishi Motors now says it has been using faulty fuel efficiency data for it Japanese cars for 25 years, substituting higher US highway mileage data for Japanese city driving numbers.
• In the wake of new government accounting regulations, states and cities have dramatically cut tax incentives to corporations for new facilities by as much as 70% since 2013.
• The federal government has signed off on the latest cable TV mega-merger, giving blessing to Charter Communications buying out both Time Warner and Bright House with some caveats.