John Bel Edwards just opened a can of whoop-ass on Diaper Dave Vitter:
That’s fucking brutal.
by John Cole| 67 Comments
This post is in: Election 2016, Proud to Be A Democrat
John Bel Edwards just opened a can of whoop-ass on Diaper Dave Vitter:
That’s fucking brutal.
This post is in: #BLM #M4BL, Election 2016, Hillary Clinton 2016, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
Hillary Clinton speaking before roughly 2100 at Atlanta rally pic.twitter.com/R3usUTHOyb
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Jesse Jackson, to standing ovation, at HRC event in Atlanta: "It's healing time. It's hope time. It's Hillary Clinton time."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Rep. John Lewis in Atlanta with HRC: "Hillary Clinton is without a doubt the most qualified person to be president of the United States."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Black Lives Matter protesters interrupt Hillary, who says, "Yes, Black Lives do matter!" to loud cheers.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Fewer than 10 protesters singing near front of podium. They're getting quieter as Hillary continues.
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) October 30, 2015
John Lewis has joined Clinton back on stage as protesters continue to chant and sing over her speech.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Huge "let her talk" chant breaks out.
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) October 30, 2015
Black Lives Matter protesters leaving venue.
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) October 30, 2015
From Peoples’ AP report:
… At multiple campaign stops, the Democratic presidential front-runner outlined her plans for criminal justice reform, an issue that she and her rivals — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley — each pitch as they court black voters who will help choose a nominee. But for Clinton this time, a mostly friendly audience at Clark Atlanta University included several protesters from the Black Lives Matter Movement.
They sang and chanted for nearly 12 minutes as Clinton tried to speak over them. Rep. John Lewis, a hero in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, urged them to stop, as did the musician Usher. But they persisted until the crowd of more than 2,000 students, most of them black, chanted, “Let her talk!”…
The former secretary of state encountered no such trouble later Friday in North Charleston, South Carolina, where she was warmly received at an NAACP banquet held less than 10 miles from Emanuel African American Episcopal Church, a historic black congregation where a white gunman killed the pastor and eight others in June.
Clinton sat silently through a ceremony for the families of “The Emanuel 9,” then during her later remarks praised them for their “grace and resilience.”
She also used the venue to emphasize her support for tougher gun laws. “The murder of nine innocents at Bible study has renewed the call to do something about the senseless gun violence that stalks our country,” she said. “The question for us is how many more people have to die before we take action.”…
Clinton called Friday for eliminating sentencing disparities between crack cocaine crimes and those that involve powder cocaine. The changes would build on a 2010 act of Congress that narrowed the disparity between crack crimes — which are concentrated among minorities — and powder crimes, which are more likely to involve whites. Clinton’s plan would make the change retroactive.
She proposed a legal ban on racial profiling by police. The policy would forbid federal, state and local officers from “relying on a person’s race when conducting routine or spontaneous investigatory activities,” unless they have information linking a suspect to a crime. Clinton hasn’t detailed how her idea would go beyond existing law, but her campaign cited previous congressional proposals that would make it easier for alleged profiling victims to recover damages from government agencies in civil court.
Clinton also embraced the movement to “ban the box,” or prevent the federal government and contractors from asking about criminal history during initial job applications. Studies have shown that employers are reluctant to consider applications with a criminal history, but job prospects improve for former felons if hiring managers hear about their qualifications before their criminal records.
“I believe in second chances,” Clinton said in South Carolina.
Clinton has made frank discussion about the country’s lingering racism a central theme of her primary campaign, in an effort to woo the coalition of minority, young, and female voters who twice catapulted Barack Obama into the White House.
In Atlanta, she stressed her determination to build upon Obama’s legacy. “It will be up to me assuming we get this done to be a president who builds on what we have achieved and goes even further,” she said…
Sounds to me like HRClinton is making all the right points!
Late Night Open Thread: In Non-GOP-Related Campaign News…Post + Comments (74)
This post is in: Bernie Sanders 2016, Election 2016, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Fools! Overton Window!
BREAKING: NHDP Chair Pens Letter to Secretary of State Stating Sanders Is a Democrat https://t.co/GtwNSR1Ua9 #fitn #nhpolitics
— Judy Reardon (@JudyReardon) October 29, 2015
Yes, my title is snark. Or, in the words of underrated author R.A. Lafferty: Tongue so firmly in cheek as to protrude from the vulgar bodily orifice.
From the linked article:
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley has written a letter to N.H. Secretary of State Bill Gardner stating Sen. Bernie Sanders is considered a member of the Democratic Party. The letter will be submitted to the Secretary of State as part of a package establishing Sanders satisfies the New Hampshire state law requiring a candidate to be a registered member of the party whose nomination he or she is seeking in order to appear on a New Hampshire primary ballot…
Shortly after Sanders announced last spring he was seeking the Democratic nomination for president, Secretary of State Gardner questioned whether Sanders would satisfy state law since he is not registered to vote in Vermont as a Democrat. Vermont is one of several states that does not register voters by party affiliation.
In the past, Gardner has not found that to be an obstacle. He raised no concerns when former Vermont Gov. [Howard Dean] filed to run in the Democratic primary for President in 2004 or when George H. W. Bush filed to run for the Republican nomination for president in 1980 and 1988 and George W. Bush filed in 2000 and 2004, even though their home state of Texas does not register voters by party… But Gardner suggested that Sanders potentially could be treated differently from the two George Bushes, Al Gore and Howard Dean because the fact Sanders in the past has declined to accept Democratic nominations for U.S. Senate elections in Vermont.
Political parties, however, get to determine who their members are, not the government, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that is why Buckley’s letter to Gardner stating Sanders is considered a member of the Democratic Party is so significant…
Despite the ongoing speculation, there is no question that Sanders’ name will be on the ballot for the New Hampshire presidential primary. The only question is whether he and the Democratic Party will be forced to go to court to get his name on the ballot.
More details at the link. No idea why Gardner, who is himself a Democrat, would decide to be so punctilious about Sanders, except that he’s one of those Granite Headers Staters whose primary allegiance is to New Hampshire’s valuable “First in the Nation” status…
Open Thread: The Co-opting of Bernie Sanders BeginsPost + Comments (109)
This post is in: Election 2016, Hillary Clinton 2016, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
How the #CNBCGOPDebate topics compared with the first Democratic debate https://t.co/kApNPhjwXW pic.twitter.com/zQ1tPvDupl
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) October 29, 2015
#GOPdebate pic.twitter.com/rBT90JvCmM
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 29, 2015
Tonight's #GOPDebate made it clear: We cannot afford a Republican in the White House. Get your free sticker: https://t.co/o662Sz9ACJ
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 29, 2015
Later Night Open Thread: HRC Wins the GOP DebatePost + Comments (98)
by John Cole| 94 Comments
This post is in: Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It)
Remember when people made fun of Alan Grayson for this:
He was right:
IDAHO FALLS — On the last weekend of August, Jason and Jenny Steinke talked about their future. For the first time in a while, it looked positive. Jason had just landed a good-paying mechanic job with benefits. Jenny was set to be a grandmother.
That weekend, they found time to escape for a quick Island Park camping trip, one of their favorite activities. Several weekends prior the couple drove from their home in Idaho Falls to Grand Targhee Ski Resort, where they listened to music and rode the chairlift to the top of the mountain.
“We just enjoyed each other’s company,” Jason, 43, said recently. “I’m grateful for those three weeks, because they were three really good weeks.”
Yet something weighed on the couple. During the Island Park trip, Jason and Jenny talked at length about her worsening asthma. Nearly a decade ago the 36-year-old had been diagnosed with the condition that inflames and narrows the airways.
The asthma flared up every so often, once requiring hospitalization, but hadn’t usually required much attention. Without insurance, Jenny sometimes obtained short-acting inhalers from a community health clinic. Other times, she bought them off friends who had extras.
The inhalers usually helped. But over the summer months Jenny needed them more frequently. On the camping trip she was using her inhaler every hour, Jason noticed. The more she used it, it seemed, the shorter the duration of relief.
Still, the Steinkes didn’t panic. With Jason’s new job at Utility Trailer, they would finally have health-care coverage. The insurance was set to kick in Sept. 1, two days after they returned from the camping trip. Surely Jenny could wait until then to see an asthma specialist, they told each other.
“Now that I had insurance, we were going to try to get the asthma under control,” Jason said.
I don’t need to tell you how this story ended, do I?
Bitch all you want about the Democrats not being pure enough or good enough or progressive enough, one party is actively trying to kill you, and it ain’t the Democrats.
This post is in: Election 2016, Proud to Be A Democrat
Looking at @FoxNews @BillKristol & @WSJ takes on Biden non-run, gotta wonder: Was it all an elaborate practical joke at GOP media's expense?
— Billmon (@billmon1) October 21, 2015
[Warning: Continuing autoplay]
This will no doubt get me labelled a Hilbot Harpy, but the details are still interesting. Per the NYTimes:
…After skipping the first Democratic debate last week, Mr. Biden called a handful of operatives he hoped would work on a campaign and left them with the impression he was ready to run. With his advisers, Greg Schultz, Mike Donilon and Michael Schrum, listening on a speaker phone, Mr. Biden told the operatives that he had “the strongest chance to continue the work Barack has done,” according to Democrats who discussed the private calls on condition of anonymity. He added that he believed Mrs. Clinton could lose to the Republicans.
But when he asked their advice on how to raise the estimated $30 million he would need for the early states and $40 million he would need to reach the Super Tuesday contests, they told him it could not be done in the time available.
Mr. Biden’s advisers concluded he could raise the money but not without sacrificing necessary days on the ground in the early states campaigning. After subtracting the time needed for an estimated 40 fund-raisers, the holiday period when little campaigning is done and time for debate preparations, that would leave Mr. Biden with perhaps 40 to 45 days to devote to retail stumping before the Iowa caucuses in February…
The reaction I'm picking up from Biden insiders (even ones who wanted him to run) is relief that he's not jeopardizing his legacy
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) October 21, 2015
Politico‘s Glenn Thrush: “In the words of a longtime ally, it became increasingly clear that the planning was ‘more fantasy football than football.’”
There was so, so much going for a Joe Biden presidential campaign — wasn’t there? His shaggy-dog “authenticity,” the tantalizing possibility of a Hillary Clinton face plant, the endless egging-on by a D.C. press corps that coveted a Joe-vs.-Hillary fight over a dreary, substance-y battle between Clinton and a Larry David doppelgänger.
The solitary item in the “no” column: reality.
Joe Biden was a bad presidential candidate in 1988 and 2008, and he didn’t seem to be brandishing many new skills (especially discipline or a measured tongue) in his more than four decades of public life.
At 72, with his 46-year-old son, Beau (whom he viewed as the most likely president in the Biden family), buried less than six months ago, the vice president’s restless mind alighted on an unexpected path to a political future — until his gaze returned to reality and legacy. In the end, he opted to stop where he stood — as an uncommonly powerful and collaborative vice president…
Harry Reid to Ted Barrett: "Well, I served with Joe for over thirty years here. He'd be a good candidate but he made the right decision."
— David Chalian (@DavidChalian) October 21, 2015
Renowned number-cruncher Nate Cohn, in the NYTimes, says “Joe Biden Ran in the Invisible Primary, and Lost to Hillary Clinton”:
… Mr. Biden’s decision was informed by personal considerations, as he said Wednesday in bowing out, not just the cold calculus of building a national campaign. But the reality was that he would have struggled for the same reason that other traditional, establishment-friendly candidates decided not to run. The support from party operatives, donors and officials wasn’t quite there. The party had already decided, for Mrs. Clinton.
That’s why there was no grand movement to “draft” Mr. Biden into the race, even after the F.B.I. began its investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s emails, and even after Mr. Biden began to reconsider a presidential run. My colleagues Carl Hulse and Jason Horowitz reported that many of Mr. Biden’s likeliest allies were discouraging him. So were prominent public figures from Team Obama, like David Axelrod. There were few or no defections from Mrs. Clinton’s camp.
What has happened over the last few months is exactly what one would anticipate in a “Party Decides” framework. As my colleague Brendan Nyhan wrote in August, Mr. Biden was already running for president in the invisible primary. Like most candidates who test the waters, he didn’t find enough support to justify entering the race...
This is Biden's version of O.J.'s "If I Did It."
— Scott Conroy (@ScottFConroy) October 21, 2015
The Boston Globe has some quibbles:
… Considering how popular Hillary Clinton is within the Democratic Party, and considering that a Biden run would have likely been a lost cause, the rationale for his candidacy has always been difficult to decipher. There are precious few policy differences between Biden and Clinton. At least Bernie Sanders can say he’s running on an agenda of dealing with income inequality more forcefully than Clinton. What issue would have defined Biden’s candidacy in contrast to Clinton?…
To make matters worse, Biden’s remarks Wednesday, which sounded like an announcement speech changed at the last minute to an “I’m not running speech,” largely focused on his policy priorities. He offered few words of support for Clinton and, amazingly, even took a veiled shot at her, arguing that contrary to the joking reference Clinton made at the Democratic debate, Republicans are not the “enemy.” A lot of Democrats would disagree with the vice president about that. But whatever one’s views, Biden’s comments are decidedly unhelpful. So as a Democratic vice president who should, at least theoretically, clearly want a Democrat to win in 2016, why say it? Why use his speech to undercut the likely nominee of his party?…
now the media will never get to transition from "Biden: decent and likeable guy" to "Biden: cringey gaffe-monster" like they wanted :( :( :(
— Jason Linkins (@dceiver) October 21, 2015
Sounds like @MartinOMalley burning up phones w woulda-been Biden folks today.
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 21, 2015
This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republicans in Disarray!, Assholes
This is going in the background quote Hall of Fame https://t.co/M65uCGQJJU pic.twitter.com/EP5avhnjVo
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) October 21, 2015
I don’t remember US News & World Report as a left-leaning publication (/snark), but here’s David Catanese’s report on “The Demise of Jeb Bush“:
… Less than four months before primary voting begins, Bush has sunk into second-tier status in the GOP nominating bout. He’s stuck in a single-digit polling slump, idling between fourth and fifth place in the 15-candidate field, even after his allies have blitzed the television airwaves with more than $5 million in advertising. His much heralded fundraising prowess has also been neutralized, as he’s raised essentially as much money as Sen. Ted Cruz this last quarter and saved less than the rogue upstart Ben Carson.
“What gave [Bush] the status of front-runner is the money that was known that he had raised. But this year, with the field this large, I’m not sure that money will dictate the outcome,” says Iowa state Rep. Mary Ann Hanusa, who attended an early Bush event before endorsing Ohio Gov. John Kasich. “The media called [Bush] the front-runner, but sometimes the voters have other ideas.”…
Even among Bush’s admirers, there’s a gathering sense he can’t win this race anymore – that in order for him to become the nominee, his rivals have to lose it…
Bush’s path to victory seems more elusive each day. And by most standards, his most viable track should have already begun to take shape. Sure, in late October 2011, there were polls that showed Herman Cain holding a small lead for the GOP nomination. But what’s less cited is that eventual nominee Mitt Romney remained consistently in second place, always polling in double-digits and usually in the 20s.
From that barometer, Bush isn’t even close to where Romney was. His current polling looks most like that of Ron Paul, who stayed in the ongoing race until May 2012 but came in fourth place in terms of delegates…
Being classed with the likes of Ron Paul has got to be the most unkindest cut of all. Well, apart from the “he’ll totally be ready for 2020!” remark…
***********
Apart from wishing further confusion to our Repub enemies (same as every day, Pinky!), what’s on the agenda for the day?
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Under-Ripe to Rise?Post + Comments (175)