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US Election: 2016

Even if Sen Sanders had won every primary, the way the Dem convention rules are written makes that irrelevant, the unelected Superdelegates ultimately control who is nominated (Democracy, here? No thank you, we're Democrats). Even so, the continuing strength of Sen Sanders and the wide margins suggest that the rank and file of the party have far different views than the Party establishment and Superdelegates, something I'm sure candidate Trump is going to ruthlessly exploit (millions of dollars of potential donations, potential voters, campaign workers and volunteers being left on the table by the Dem establishment is far too tempting to pass up, and Trump's book is titled "The Art of the Deal"....):

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/democratic-primaries-2016-221256

Sanders romps in Washington, Alaska, Hawaii
The sweep offers the senator a chance to gain ground against Hillary Clinton.
By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI 03/26/16 04:49 PM EDT Updated 03/27/16 04:24 AM EDT

Bernie Sanders swept all three Democratic caucuses Saturday — scoring victories in Hawaii, Alaska and delegate-rich Washington state.

While the underdog’s West Coast wins are not nearly enough to trip up former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's path to the nomination, Sanders' wide margin of victory provides his campaign with a burst of momentum heading into a 10-day break before the next primary contest. The Vermont senator's big victories are also typically followed by a considerable fundraising bump.

Sanders was victorious in Washington state's caucuses 72.7 percent to Clinton's 27.1 percent and won Alaska's caucuses by a landslide, defeating Clinton 81.6 percent to 18.4 percent. At 4 a.m. Sunday, with 87.8 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders was declared the winner in Hawaii, leading Clinton 70.6 percent to 29.2 percent.

Sanders' win in Washington — the day's big prize with its 101 delegates — comes after Clinton's campaign worked to minimize his advantage there and tried to stop him from gaining too much ground in the delegate race. Despite his large win there, Sanders' performance is unlikely to cut too far into Clinton's overall delegate lead.

Saturday’s results figure to mark Sanders’ best moment in weeks, as he looks to turn a string of strong performances in March — starting with runaway wins in Idaho and Utah on Tuesday — into a spark that pushes him closer to Clinton, despite her lead of roughly 300 pledged delegates. Even so, his bid to gain momentum heading into April was dealt a considerable blow by Clinton's convincing win in much larger Arizona, the biggest delegate haul of the week.

While the front-runner held no public campaign events during Saturday’s voting — and had none scheduled at all for the Easter weekend — Sanders was rallying in Wisconsin, another progressive state that is set to host the next primary on April 5.

“We are on a path toward victory,” Sanders told a Saturday evening crowd in Madison, referring to his Alaska and Washington wins. “It is hard for anybody to deny that our campaign has the momentum."

Sanders held a series of last-minute rallies in Washington the night before, finishing with a 15,000-person event at Seattle’s 50,000-plus seat baseball stadium, Safeco Field.

Clinton was the underdog in Washington, a deep-blue state where her campaign opened nine offices to Sanders’ seven. He outspent her on advertisements and spent more time there, long recognizing that its liberal politics created a prime opportunity for him to pick up a significant share of its delegates, even as Clinton picked up endorsements from most of the state’s leading Democrats.

Democrats
Delegates Remaining: 2,049Delegates
Clinton H. Clinton
1,712
Sanders B. Sanders
1,004
Uncommitted Uncommitted
160
O'Malley M. O'Malley
02,383 DELEGATES NEEDED FOR NOMINATION
FULL DELEGATE TRACKER
Updated: 03/27/16 08:30 PM EDT | Source: AP | Photo Credit: AP/Getty

Seattle, the largest city in the state, has long appeared to be prime Sanders territory. In a progressive-minded city that elected a socialist to the city council last year, the Vermont senator also grabbed the endorsement of The Seattle Times — by far the biggest paper to back him — early in March.

"Don't let anybody tell you that Hillary Clinton is the strongest Democratic candidate to take on the Republicans. It is not true," he said Friday, telling the Washington crowd that the state would lead the country to Sanders' much-touted "political revolution."

Neither candidate visited Alaska prior to Sanders' win there, though Clinton had a local headquarters in Anchorage and Sanders’ wife, Jane, campaigned there on Friday. With just 16 delegates at stake and no reliable public polling in place, the 49th state’s caucuses were something of an afterthought for both campaigns. In 2008, Clinton also lost to Barack Obama by a huge margin in Alaska.

Hawaii, with its 25 delegates, was slightly more front and center: One of Sanders’ top surrogates, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, worked to swing the state in his favor with campaign appearances and television ads focused on veterans. Clinton’s camp countered by opening two offices in the state and organizing with Sen. Mazie Hirono.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/democratic-primaries-2016-221256#ixzz449YYErmu
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
 
And the NYT is starting to acknowledge that something is happening outside the narrative. Instapundit has a comment:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/230073/

THIS MAKES ME SUSPICIOUS: The NYT begins to treat Donald Trump with some respect.

Here’s one of the most up-voted comments over there: “We can quibble about details, but this approach is long overdue. Why even have a country if its citizens are not the primary concern of those in power?” And: “Have to agree that it’s time to play hardball with Saudi Arabia.”

On the other hand, since he’s basically running a 1970s Rust Belt Democrat campaign, maybe it’s not surprising that he plays well with the NYT commenters. Then there’s this:

Well, the NYT article serves to remind every Republican and Independent that Obama is a shitty negotiator. I mean, he is really, really, bad. He doesn’t even negotiate with the GOP, he just runs over them, with the help of a compliant press, or he issues ‘executive orders’ to get around congress. Bush and Clinton could find common ground with a hostile congress. Obama can’t.

Obama picked two really lousy negotiators to run the State Department as well. Hillary’s list of accomplishments as SoS looks like what a first lady’s should be.
 
The only wild card is whether DOJ will indict Hillary over her illegal private email server or let it drop.Now its been revealed that the SECDEF did the same thing to a degree.Makes you wonder what these people are hiding.
 
tomahawk6 said:
Makes you wonder what these people are hiding.
The fact that the US of A is in thrall to the most morally bankrupt political class in its history?
 
cavalryman said:
The fact that the US of A is in thrall to the most morally bankrupt political class in its history?

You need to read a lot more history before you can use a superlative like that.

I don't disagree that there are major problems but "the most morally bankrupt political class in history". Not even close.

:pop:

:cheers:
 
FJAG said:
You need to read a lot more history before you can use a superlative like that.

I don't disagree that there are major problems but "the most morally bankrupt political class in history". Not even close.

:pop:

:cheers:

Agreed. The rampant corruption of the of the late 1800's that lead to Theodore Roosevelt's rise as a progressive and reformer was far worse than anything we see now.
 
Teapot Dome comes to mind.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/teapotdome.htm
 
An interesting twofer today. First, a look at Bernie Sanders, who may not win the nomination but could end up destroying the Dems if too many of his supporters walk out in frustration after the convention. Second, a look at who is really responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.

https://pjmedia.com/diaryofamadvoter/2016/03/28/republicans-better-pay-attention-to-bernie/?singlepage=true

Republicans Better Pay Attention to Bernie
By Roger L SimonMarch 28, 2016

Most Republicans and their presidential candidates (when they're not bashing each other like four-year-olds) are focused on Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, living in fear that the Department of Justice will give a pass to the former secretary of state on her email and foundation malfeasances, even if the FBI recommends indictments.

And where is the FBI anyway? What's taking them so long?

But this has not been a good few days for Mrs. Clinton. First she lost in three states by stunning margins to Bernie Sanders, who garnered 71% of the vote in Hawaii, 73% in Washington, and and a huge 81% in Alaska.

Then it got worse. The L.A. Times reported that FBI interviews were finally looming for Mrs. Clinton and her close aides Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan, Cheryl Mills and Philippe Reines. And 147 FBI agents are now officially said to be involved.  That's a lot of investigative power being applied to one case (or group of cases) and a lot of potential leakers if the DOJ rejects an indictment.

Ironically, Sanders' electoral success may actually be giving the DOJ encouragement -- or more precisely permission -- to go forward with the indictment. At least it may be setting up that kind of emotional climate. The people don't really want Hillary, so it's okay to indict her. Let's move on.

But moving on for the Democrats may not be as predictable as we thought -- bring on Biden or Elizabeth Warren -- if Bernie's popularity continues to grow. And it won't be simple. Sanders has an army of supporters who would not easily be mollified if the nomination is taken from their hero. Many of them are young, as we know, and the young are the ones who like to demonstrate. Welcome back, Chicago 1968! The Whole World is Watching. Where are Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin? In Guy Fawkes masks?

Meanwhile, inside the convention, the Democrat superdelegates may be standard-issue party hacks, but they're still people, subject to public opinion. They may start to see Bernie as a more formidable candidate in the general election than Hillary. The polls already show that, and have for a long time. And after the FBI/DOJ information has leaked, if it's bad news, who knows...?

Winning is everything in politics. Accommodations will be made. Bernie may be a socialist, but socialism can be seen as chic, even to the gang at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, if need be. Anyway, Democrats will tell themselves, everyone knows that once Bernie's in office, he won't really be a socialist. The system won't let him.

Actually, whatever the Democrats tell themselves (and you can bet they will if they have to) Sanders really is a socialist. An excellent article in Commentary by Seth Mandel  makes it clear. Mandel writes:


When he [Bernie] arrived at Brooklyn College in 1959, he was amazed to discover, in his words, “real live socialists sitting right in front of me!” His first such encounter was with the Eugene V. Debs Club—named for the first socialist candidate for president of the United States. Soon, according to Sanders’s biographer Harry Jaffe, his roommate would come back to their dorm room to find the socialist reading material Sanders preferred to his schoolwork.

After a year, Sanders transferred to the University of Chicago, where he threw himself into the burgeoning radicalism swirling around Hyde Park. He joined the Young People’s Socialist League and took a leadership position in the Congress of Racial Equality, and he would lecture his roommate late into the night on the ills and evils of capitalism.

In 1963, Sanders took a break from school to volunteer for the reelection campaign of Chicago Alderman Leon Depres. It was his first taste of electoral politics, and it was under the wing of a man who claimed one of his formative experiences had been visiting Trotsky in exile in Mexico in 1937. Sanders then threw himself into Marx’s writings ....


In reality, lovable Bernie Sanders is a dangerous man. He is already corrupting the minds of our young, who have been barely educated in civics in the schools -- if at all. They don't know the history of socialism and almost nothing about the economic failure and mass murder associated with the ideology.

Republicans should be paying attention to this phenomenon -- the rise of Bernie -- because it's scary. Its results could be worse than a Hillary presidency, actually a lot worse. And, as I just mentioned, he's beating everyone in the polls in both parties. You may think that will evaporate by itself or in the back and forth of a general election campaign -- and I hope you're right. But what if it doesn't?

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/28/the-culture-that-created-donald-trump-was-liberal-not-conservative/?utm_content=buffer29085&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The Culture That Created Donald Trump Was Liberal, Not Conservative
Jim Lewis
Mar. 28 2016, 12:42 p.m.

WHO CREATED Donald Trump?

Now that Donald Trump, the candidate, has become both widely popular and deeply loathsome, we’re seeing a cataract of editorials and commentary aimed at explaining how it happened and who’s to blame. The predictable suspects are trotted out: the Republican Party, which had been too opportunistic and fearful to stand up to its own candidate, Fox News, which inflamed the jingoes, and white working-class voters, unhinged by class envy and racial resentment.

The predictable bewilderment and outrage are professed. But absent from all these ashen-faced accounts is any examination of the people who put Trump in a position to run for president in the first place. The man didn’t emerge, all at once and fully formed, from some hidden and benighted hollow in the American psyche. He’s been kicking around for 30 years or more, and he was promoted and schooled, made famous and made wealthy, by the same culture and economy that now reviles him, and finds his success so vexing.

After all, it wasn’t some Klan newsletter that first brought Trump to our attention: It was Time and Esquire and Spy. The Westboro Baptist Church didn’t give him his own TV show: NBC did. And his boasts and lies weren’t posted on Breitbart, they were published by Random House. He was created by people who learned from Andy Warhol, not Jerry Falwell, who knew him from galas at the Met, not fundraisers at Karl Rove’s house, and his original audience was presented to him by Condé Nast, not Guns & Ammo. He owes his celebrity, his money, his arrogance, and his skill at drawing attention to those coastal cultural gatekeepers — presumably mostly liberal — who first elevated him out of general obscurity, making him famous and rewarding him (and, not at all incidentally, themselves) for his idiocies.

Sure, he was a nasty man and a blowhard even then, a rich clown playing the media for publicity, a quintessential type: the eternal hustler, too nasty and vulgar to be entirely respectable, but too successful to be ignored. We’ve seen thousands like him and we’ll see thousands more. But he’d built a bunch of buildings, and real estate is to Manhattan what oil is to Texas: a toxic and destabilizing commodity, and a universal excuse for almost any bad behavior. So he wasn’t a liberal man, but he’d spent his life surrounded by them. How bad could he be?

If you think that sounds stupid and smug, imagine how it sounds to people out in the rest of the country. Liberals were sure the devil would come slouching out of Alabama or Texas, beating a bible and shouting about sodomy and sin. They didn’t expect him to be a businessman who lives on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Rick Santorum was a threat, but your run-of-the-mill New York tycoon just couldn’t be, not in the same way — because even if the latter was unlikable, he was known, he was covered, he fell within a spectrum that the morning shows and entertainment press are comfortable with, much more so, anyway, than they are with what the slow learners among liberals still blithely call “rednecks.” When, a few years ago, Trump started going on about Obama’s birth certificate, no one said, “Hey, maybe we don’t want to associate with this guy anymore.” Instead, the Washington Post invited him to be its guest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Its editors wouldn’t have extended the same backslapping generosity to David Duke or Alex Jones or any of the other rustic zealots with whom Trump is now, unquestionably, on all fours.

The culture that first made Trump wasn’t the one that goes hunting on weekends, or the one that’s been reborn in Christ. It was the culture of celebrity for its own sake, of kidding-but-not-kidding-but-maybe-really-kidding, a culture of materialism and greed, too forgiving of fame and too prone to taking nauseating crassness as just another act; a culture with delusions of its own moral faultlessness and its ability to control whatever conversation it’s begun, ever-tempted by the idea that absolutely everybody must see irony where we see it, that it’s all politics as usual, and whatever happens, Vanity Fair will cover it all with the same, slightly distanced knowingness, in between the ads for expensive watches and luxury cars.

Before you object, let me be clear about what I’m not saying: I’m not saying America’s newest love affair with fascism is a sign of some systematic decadence, foisted upon us by Jews and homosexuals who’ve been too busy gawping at some 21st-century Sally Bowles to notice the rest of the country out stocking up on brown shirts. That’s a miserable, false, and dangerous argument; and left-wing puritanism is as joyless and life-denying as its right-wing counterpart. I love Warhol and the games he and people like him taught us to play. Sometimes those games get out of hand, and then it’s not fun anymore, but pleasure is not the problem, and dourness is not the remedy.

Nor am I suggesting that we should excuse the GOP or the bigoted thugs who have now made this man the imminent threat that he is. Not for a second do they get a pass. But there’s plenty of blame to go around for Trump, so before we turn to the usual denouncements, let’s take a moment to remember who helped create this monster. It wasn’t them.
 
Thucydides said:
An interesting twofer today. First, a look at Bernie Sanders, who may not win the nomination but could end up destroying the Dems if too many of his supporters walk out in frustration after the convention. Second, a look at who is really responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.

https://pjmedia.com/diaryofamadvoter/2016/03/28/republicans-better-pay-attention-to-bernie/?singlepage=true

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/28/the-culture-that-created-donald-trump-was-liberal-not-conservative/?utm_content=buffer29085&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer


While I commend you for posting anything from The Intercept, you do understand that it is significantly to the Left of the Democratic Party? I'm not suggesting there isn't a convergence of some ideas that Sanders and Trump share, and many of us have pointed this out.

But The Intercept is as close to being socialist as you can get in US media. Chris Hedges would agree that Trump is a result of the failure of the "liberal class" but this does not make the very narrow point you think it does. Rather it widens the spectrum of debate to include genuine progressive voices, not the sham progressives we see in the Democratic establishment.
 
He could probably be easily replaced in Trump's campaign:

Sky News

Trump Campaign Manager Charged With Assault

Sky News
March 29, 2016


Donald Trump's campaign manager has been charged in Florida over the alleged assault of a journalist, according to a police report.

Corey Lewandowski, 42, is accused of grabbing and bruising the arm of Michelle Fields, a reporter at the time for the conservative news website Breitbart, at a Trump rally on 8 March.

She tweeted out a picture of bruising following the alleged incident.

(...SNIPPED)
 
A week ago Fields tried peddling her story to no avail,the video didnt support her claims.This week she files a police report.I suspect a court will throw this complaint out and she may well face charges herself for filing a false police report.
 
Perhaps he'll form the Donald Trump party?  [:D

Reuters

Trump drops pledge to back Republican presidential nominee other than himself

By Steve Holland
Reuters
March 29, 2016

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday abandoned a pledge to support a party presidential nominee other than himself, a sign of increasing friction with chief rival Ted Cruz.

"No, I don't anymore," Trump replied, when asked at a CNN town hall event whether he still supported a pledge he made last year to support whoever is the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election.

(...SNIPPED)
 
  What Salon is missing though is where the screaming little banshee sucker punches a man she was arguing with right before getting pepper sprayed.  The "groping" was just the man putting a hand on her arm. 
 
TheHead said:
  What Salon is missing though is where the screaming little banshee sucker punches a man she was arguing with right before getting pepper sprayed.  The "groping" was just the man putting a hand on her arm.


I see her reach out, maybe to grab the pepper spray. She's complaining to the man who she says groped her, not the man trying to calm her down. Again, she's 15.

The fact that people are yelling such disgusting things is also indicative of the kind of crowd Trump appeals to.
 
If people are going to participate in this thread, they have to ensure their points are factual. Everyone knows the game people play with videos, only sharing what is needed to cement their point.

And for the last time, politicians do not control the crowds that come out. It's already well known that outside sources are funding much of the violent protesters.

So we're going to stop condemning candidates for whatever happens on the street. They are not Trump supporters or Sander's supporters. They are simply protesters and are not part of the discussion anymore.

We spend too much time on exchanges like that above which is nothing more than he said\ she said, nobody wins, waste of bandwidth

We are going in a new direction here, and in the other political threads.

We are going to stick to the issues and the candidates. That's it, that's all. Anything else runs the risk of being deleted without notification or explanation.

Lastly, by way of a small explanation, this is a military site, of mostly military people, who come here to discuss military topics. If you want to spend your day arguing politics, there's plenty of sites out there that cater to that subject.

This is not one of them.

From this point on, Moderators who contribute to this thread will not moderate them and vica versa.

---Staff---
 
recceguy said:
We are going to stick to the issues and the candidates.

I certainly hope Trump's stance on abortion qualifies as one of these issues acceptable for this thread.

Cupper, so will this mean his campaign is losing steam then due to what happened yesterday?

Reuters

Trump struggles to contain abortion fallout as White House rivals pounce

By Megan Cassella
Reuters
March 31, 2016

By Megan Cassella

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican front-runner Donald Trump's campaign sought on Thursday to contain the fallout from his comments on punishing women for having an abortion, characterizing the flap as a "simple misspeak" as his White House rivals pounced on the controversy.

The billionaire businessman rowed back rapidly on Wednesday from his statement that women should be punished for having abortions if the procedure is banned in the United States.
The comments triggered a flood of rebukes from both sides of the abortion debate, and his campaign tried to address the repercussions.

"You have a presidential candidate that clarified the record not once but twice," Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson told CNN, describing the initial comments as a "simple misspeak." She described Trump as "pro-life with exceptions" and pointed to Trump’s two statements that followed the MSNBC interview as an accurate depiction of his views.

(...SNIPPED)
 
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