I am not a Joe Biden fan in 2020 (or 2019). But I will give him credit when he does something smart. THE HILL reports that James Comey endorsed Joe today.
And Joe's response? "No thanks." Good for Joe. James Comey screwed up everything. He screwed up Hillary's campaign. He screwed up Donald Trump's presidency. He really needs to sit down and shut up. No one wants his help. He's a disgraced official who needs to bow out of public life. There is no comeback for Comey.
Andy Kroll (ROLLING STONE) reports:
The C.E. Gaines Center at Winston-Salem State University was filled to capacity. The typical set list of U2 and Bruce Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac had been replaced by Young Jeezy. The young people in the audience, most of them young people of color, danced in the bleachers as they awaited the arrival of the man they’d come to see, one Senator Bernard Sanders.
The people who couldn’t get inside spilled out onto the street next to the gym, where campaign volunteers led them in chants of “Feel the Bern” and “Not me — us!” Then some of the young people, who held blue-and-white BERNIE signs and wore black-and-white BERNIE FOR HBCUS stickers, started their own chants:
I love my H in front of my B
My B in front of my C
I love my H-B-C … U!
This wasn’t your typical presidential campaign rally. Presidential candidates don’t typically visit Winston-Salem State, one of the dozen historically black colleges and universities in North Carolina. Hillary Clinton didn’t visit in 2016. Barack Obama didn’t come here in 2008. (Michelle Obama did.) When Bernie Sanders took the stage, the crowd erupted so loudly you could feel it standing outside the entrance to the Gaines Center.
Sanders says it will take nothing short of a revolution to overturn the political establishment in Washington and elect a democratic socialist as president. Four years ago, he ran on a class-focused message. In 2020 the Sanders campaign believes the path to the nomination, and ultimately the White House, means mobilizing not only working and middle class people, but also young people and people of color in record-breaking numbers. It’s why Sanders visits schools like Winston-Salem State. It’s why his campaign has one of the most impressive student organizing operations in the Democratic field. “The key to this election,” Sanders said last year, “is can we get millions of young people who have never voted before into the political process, many working people who understand that Trump is a fraud, can we get them voting?”
There are real doubts about whether Sanders can pull this off. He is staking his candidacy on two exceedingly difficult tasks: turning out young voters and voters of color in a way no Democrat has done since Obama, as well as convincing nonvoters to register and vote for him. He proved in Iowa and Nevada that he could appeal to voters of color and working-class voters, but he fell dramatically short with the older black voters who decided South Carolina’s primary.
Super Tuesday is the biggest test yet for Sanders. States with large numbers of voters of color — such as North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, and California — will hold their primary elections and put to the test Sanders’ plan to build a cross-class, multi-racial movement — the very movement Sanders says can win him the Democratic nomination.
Here in North Carolina, Sanders entered Super Tuesday at a disadvantage, having only recently opened his first campaign office. (Mike Bloomberg, by contrast, had 11 offices in the state.) But North Carolina was a useful place to see Sanders’ coalition strategy on full display in the days before the state’s primary. His campaign blanketed local TV stations with an ad, narrated by actor Danny Glover, that touted Sanders’ work in the civil rights movement and his pledges to end police misconduct, ban cash bail, legalize marijuana, and invest in jobs and education.
The real action was on the ground, though, on college campuses and in urban suburbs and in grassroots canvasses across North Carolina. In 2016 and again in 2020, Sanders has paid special attention to HBCUs. Last fall, he went on a three-state tour of HBCU campuses in the South. His campaign launched an HBCU-focused campus organizing project. He introduced a plan to invest tens of billions of dollars in HBCU students and teachers.
And let's note this:
WASHINGTON (AP) — @BernieSanders wins Democratic presidential primary in California, claiming biggest prize on Super Tuesday #APRaceCall
Still waiting on the results from Texas.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Super Tuesday -- who's still standing?
Starting in the US with the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. It's Super Tuesday. Multiple states will be making their preferences known today. From WIKIPEDIA, these are the states for Super Tuesday.
1344 delegates are at stake. I'm looking at the list and remembering 2008. Hillary supporters in Texas claimed she got less delegates than she should have. How did that happen? Texas votes in a primary and that's usually it. But there is a caucus after the voting closes. Barack Obama supporters cheated and lied and that's a fact, I've seen the videos. The worst was the Oak Lawn video -- a part of Dallas -- where Barack supporters controlled the meeting and told the people present that it was fine to go and it wasn't. As soon as the people not in the know left (Hillary supporters), Barack supporters did the 'official vote' and Barack won. That's how, even though Hillary easily won the primary, the delegates from the State Convention ended up gong overwhelming to Barack. He got 54.7% of the delegates to her 44.9% even though she won the primary, getting 50.87% of the votes (he got 47.39%). It wasn't fair, it wasn't right.
Will it repeat today?
Good question.
One thing we do know, a lot of candidates couldn't take the heat so they ran from the kitchen. Still in the race?
Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, War Hawk Joe Biden, US House Rep and Iraq War veteran Tulsi Gabbard and oligarch Michael Bloomberg. That's right, only five candidates remain in the race.
Tiny Pete kept insisting that he had widespread appeal, the kind of appeal needed to win against Donald Trump. Then came South Carolina and he was out of excuses for the gulf between his campaign and the voters. They just didn't like you, Pete. Tom Steyer also read the tea leaves in the results out of South Carolina and dropped out following his third place finish.
The only one more boastful of a connection with voters than Pete was Amy Klobuchar. Time and again, we were told -- by her -- that she was the only one and that only she had done this or that in an election. Now the only elections were in her home state of Minnesota but she liked to pretend that they would play out the same way across the country. Her lousy finish in South Carolina last Saturday didn't help her. Nor did returning home on Sunday for a rally only to be held accountable by voters in her state.
Rishika Dugyala (POLITICO) reports:
Starting in the US with the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. It's Super Tuesday. Multiple states will be making their preferences known today. From WIKIPEDIA, these are the states for Super Tuesday.
| 1,344 | 52 | Alabama primary | — | — | |||
| 6 | American Samoa caucuses | — | — | ||||
| 31 | Arkansas primary | — | — | ||||
| 415 | California primary | — | — | ||||
| 67 | Colorado primary | — | — | ||||
| 24 | Maine primary | — | — | ||||
| 91 | Massachusetts primary | — | — | ||||
| 75 | Minnesota primary | — | — | ||||
| 110 | North Carolina primary | — | — | ||||
| 37 | Oklahoma primary | — | — | ||||
| 64 | Tennessee primary | — | — | ||||
| 228 | Texas primary | — | — | ||||
| 29 | Utah primary | — | — | ||||
| 16 | Vermont primary | — | — | ||||
| 99 | Virginia primary |
1344 delegates are at stake. I'm looking at the list and remembering 2008. Hillary supporters in Texas claimed she got less delegates than she should have. How did that happen? Texas votes in a primary and that's usually it. But there is a caucus after the voting closes. Barack Obama supporters cheated and lied and that's a fact, I've seen the videos. The worst was the Oak Lawn video -- a part of Dallas -- where Barack supporters controlled the meeting and told the people present that it was fine to go and it wasn't. As soon as the people not in the know left (Hillary supporters), Barack supporters did the 'official vote' and Barack won. That's how, even though Hillary easily won the primary, the delegates from the State Convention ended up gong overwhelming to Barack. He got 54.7% of the delegates to her 44.9% even though she won the primary, getting 50.87% of the votes (he got 47.39%). It wasn't fair, it wasn't right.
Will it repeat today?
Good question.
One thing we do know, a lot of candidates couldn't take the heat so they ran from the kitchen. Still in the race?
Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, War Hawk Joe Biden, US House Rep and Iraq War veteran Tulsi Gabbard and oligarch Michael Bloomberg. That's right, only five candidates remain in the race.
Tiny Pete kept insisting that he had widespread appeal, the kind of appeal needed to win against Donald Trump. Then came South Carolina and he was out of excuses for the gulf between his campaign and the voters. They just didn't like you, Pete. Tom Steyer also read the tea leaves in the results out of South Carolina and dropped out following his third place finish.
The only one more boastful of a connection with voters than Pete was Amy Klobuchar. Time and again, we were told -- by her -- that she was the only one and that only she had done this or that in an election. Now the only elections were in her home state of Minnesota but she liked to pretend that they would play out the same way across the country. Her lousy finish in South Carolina last Saturday didn't help her. Nor did returning home on Sunday for a rally only to be held accountable by voters in her state.
Rishika Dugyala (POLITICO) reports:
Sen. Amy Klobuchar canceled a rally in
her home state Sunday night as several dozen protesters chanted “Black
Lives Matter,” “Klobuchar has got to go” and “Free Myon” — referencing
the case of a black teenager convicted of murder after a flawed police
investigation.
According to videos that emerged on social media, the senator’s rally was set in St. Louis Park, Minn., at a local high school. WCCO-CBS Minnesota
reported that the protesters made their way into the rally and onstage,
where they continued chanting. After a 40-minute delay, the rally was
canceled.
For Amy Klobuchar: the NAACP in Minnesota has asked you to suspend your campaign and address the fact that you sent a teenage boy to prison based on faulty evidence. You are also polling at 0% with AA voters. How do you expect to win the nom without their support? #DemDebate
They were right to protest. Never agree to stop a protest for a meeting after the event. A meeting before the event? Sure. Go the meeting and if the politician is insincere, protest. But don't agree to a meeting after. At the DNC convention in 2008, a group of veterans made that mistake. They were supposed to be about issues and non-partisan. They instead got sweet talked and called off their protest. When the meet-up took place afterwards, it wasn't with any candidate, it was a low-level flunky known as a world class liar for his history of lying. The meet-up was nonsense and the veterans were played. Some of them took their rage over that into the GOP convention. It's a real shame that they wasted a chance to use their energy to impact the Democratic Party.
So tonight at the @NAACP of St Pau’sl Presidential panel most candidates were represented there but no @amyklobuchar? Wonder why? The organizers weren’t pleased and told those in attendance to spread the word. Even Trump had reps there. #WeAreMN
Zak Cheney-Rice (NEW YORK MAGAZINE) notes:
Amy Klobuchar finished with zero percent
of the black vote in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. But things
weren’t all doom and gloom ahead of Super Tuesday: Her campaign-trail nemesis,
Pete Buttigieg, had dropped out of the race after a similarly dismal
showing in the Palmetto State, giving the senator an opening to recruit
some of his newly unmoored supporters. The crucial test would be her
home state of Minnesota, one of 15 that vote this week; anything short
of a first-place finish there seemed likely to torpedo her 2020 bid. On
Sunday, Klobuchar prepped for a rally in St. Louis Park hoping for a
show of strength. What she got instead was a protest that forced her to
cancel the event and may have been a watershed moment in her decision to
drop out.
The
night before Klobuchar announced the suspension of her campaign and
endorsement of Joe Biden on Monday, demonstrators with the Minneapolis
NAACP and Black Lives Matter Twin Cities commandeered a rally stage that
had been set up for her, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
They carried signs and banners and chanted “Free Myon” and “Klobuchar
has got to go,” prompting counter-chants of “Amy!” from among the
hundreds gathered to support her. Myon Burrell was a 16-year-old black
boy for whom Klobuchar’s office secured a lifetime prison sentence in
2002, when she was the district attorney for Hennepin County. Burrell
was convicted of murder after a shooting that November killed an
11-year-old bystander; holes in the case abound, as outlined by a recent
Associated Press
report. The details include that Burrell’s alleged accomplices denied
he was even there. A substantial share of the state’s witnesses were
paid jailhouse informants. The main eyewitness claimed to have seen
Burrell that night across the street from where the shooting took place
— in the dark, 25 feet away, and behind a wall. The indignities only
worsened after the teen was convicted: Klobuchar denied Burrell’s
request to attend a memorial service for his mother, who died in a car
collision on the way home from visiting him in prison one day.
The case has since become a rallying cry for local activists. The groups protesting on Sunday had called
on Klobuchar previously to suspend her campaign, citing her handling of
the Burrell case. For her part, the senator has made tepid suggestions
that its verdict be reviewed if any new evidence has come to light. But
Sunday’s activists were adamant. “Amy Klobuchar has the power and the
influence — if she wanted to actually help us to free him she could, and
she doesn’t want to,” Leslie Redmond, president of the Minneapolis
NAACP, told USA Today.
Indeed, the demonstrators asked Klobuchar to have Burrell’s family join
her onstage on Sunday. The campaign declined and canceled the event
instead, saying they had offered to meet with protesters in private but
balked at what they called last-minute changes to the terms of the
parley.Amy was a lot of talk but, in the end, all she was was source material for Ava DuVernay's follow up to WHEN THEY SEE US.
Amy, you were 5th in Iowa (the state next to your own), 3rd in NH, and 6th in NV. You have 0% support from Black voters, and the NAACP called on you to suspend your campaign. #DropOutAmy Anyone who gave a donation should request a refund #refundamy
You have to wonder about those big talkers -- Amy and Pete? They aren't even showing up for Super Tuesday -- this despite the fact that they have been taking contributions all along. Not to mention that states now have early voting and there are people who have voted in the Super Tuesday states for Amy and Pete already because they early voted. What a slap in the face to their supporters.
And shame on the reporters. They were fine doing an 'investigative' report on how people who worked for Amy thought she was a bitch. But her problems as a prosecutor are well known and have been out there. That wasn't enough for the corporate media to take interest -- not even in the debates. She finally got coverage on this issue why? Because there was 'conflict.' The NAACP and Black Lives Matter were protesting her at an event.
That's the 'hook' the issue required for the press to give it some serious attention. That is an indictment of the corporate media. They refuse to explore issues and instead surf around for hot topics.
The media has a lot to answer for -- including their attacks on Bernie Sanders' campaign. MSNBC is well rid of Chris Matthews but let's not pretend the bias started and ended with Chris. Chris wasn't, for example, on CNN last Saturday morning. The media has not been fair for some time, openly. They are not fair to Donald Trump and they get away with it because a lot of people don't like Donald and they applaud the nonsense of, for instance, Jim Acosta. They've gotten away with imposing their opinions as facts and now they're doing it to others as well -- doing it openly.
That's not a defense of Donald Trump and certainly not a defense of Chris Matthews (Ava and I wrote "TV: The future is out there" noting Chris needed to be gone and a note had to be added to it because Chris announced he was leaving MSNBC on his program last night). It is noting that any desire to be objective, honest or fair has left the media.
Bernie Sanders continues his campaign in spite of the corporate media attacks. He continues arguing for a world of us -- people united. And that's a message that has resonated with a large number of Americans.
It’s Super Tuesday and polls are open! Find your polling place and its hours here: berniesanders.com/vote #VoteForBernie
- If you can vote, show up today for those who can't— The disenfranchised, who deserve their rights restored. The undocumented, who deserve a path to citizenship. Our kids, who deserve a healthy and habitable planet.
Yesterday, his campaign released a new ad.
The differences between Bernie and War Hawk Joe Biden are many. Joe supported the Iraq War as a senator. As Vice President, he mismanaged it.
Remember, Barack put him in charge of Iraq. In 2010, Iraqis went to the polls. They faced violence, but they turned out in large numbers. And they did so to vote Nouri al-Maliki out as prime minister. That's what they did. Ayad Allawi should have been the new prime minister.
But Nouri refused to step down. And Joe Biden refused to demand that he step down.
Eventually, Joe was the lead on the US strategy to overturn the will of the Iraqi people, to nullify their votes, with a contract known as The Erbil Agreement which gave thug Nouri a second term.
It was already known that he was persecuting Iraqis, that didn't matter to Joe.
Ayad Allawi ran on a platform of inclusion and of Iraqi national identity. The votes were to heal the divisions in Iraq. That's what the voters wanted.
But Joe didn't want to support that and he showed up in Iraq to sell The Erbil Agreement and began lecturing Iraqi politicians about . . . Ireland. They looked at him like he was crazy.
Nouri's second term is why you had the rise of ISIS in Iraq. It's why, by 2012, Barack wouldn't even speak to Nouri on the phone. Including when Nouri called him the day after the November 2012 election to congratulate him. Barack refused to take the call and pushed it off on Joe.
So it's about time Joe started answering for the conditions in Iraq because he's responsible for a lot of that having been in charge of the US approach/response to Iraq for his eight years as vice president.
The corporate media is the media of failure. Since October, it's rare for a week to go by without one of the corporate outlets informing you that, 'over in Iraq,' the protest have died out.
They're not good at spending time on the actual protests -- what the people want, the violence they endure, etc -- but they're really good at telling you -- over and over -- that the protests have died.
It's a real shame though because the protests haven't died.
Iraq Protest well underway now in Baghdad.
Protestors message is the same as before they do NOT want the Iranian regime running their country
Additionally there is a call to have Muqtada Al-Sadr designated as a terrorist
&
Iran's pres Rouhani & his mob just arrived in Baghdad
The corporate press keeps reporting the funeral but the Iraqi protests still have a pulse.
Student march for university students in Dhi Qar today.
#Nasiriyah #IraqProtests #IraqiRevolution #العراق_ينتفض
Protesters in #Nasiriyah, are chanting anti-political parties slogans.
#BaghdadPost #IraqProtests
#saveIraqipeople #FreeIraq
Telegram Channel:
t.me/TheBaghdadPost…
#UNSC & @ChinaAmbUN, when the militias are running the country, police do turn a blind eye.
#IraqGovIsKillingUs
#AlSadrIsKillingUs
#StopHuntingUs
#IraqProtests
New content at THIRD:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: The warning flare no one noticed
- TV: The future is out there
- Roundtable
- Poor, dumb Joe
- From The Tesr Test Kitchen
- What if the show becomes a hit now? (Dona)
- Tweet of the week
- File it under WTF
- This edition's playlist
The following sites updated
