On foreign policy, Bernie is a one-trick pony

Iraq is his only response to any foreign policy question. He has no vision for the future. Sometimes I think Iraq and the Soviet Union are the only country he can find on a map.

Dow turns positive for year: Erases 2,000-point plunge

The Dow turned positive for the year on Thursday, erasing a scary start to the year that at one point had the index down as much as 1,974 points in just the first three weeks of 2016.

The remarkable rebound has been driven by a spike in oil prices and fading fears of a possible recession in the U.S. Oil has returned to $40 a barrel and the U.S. economy continues to grow, despite the global slowdown.

But just a few weeks ago the markets were in full meltdown mode, with many predicting the bull market was on its death bed.

"That marked the zenith of panic. The market traded to extremely oversold conditions," said Peter Kenny, an independent market strategist. "Since the lows we've seen the market rally in stealth mode. Those who panicked got punished."


http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/17/investing/stocks-positive-2016-dow-jones-oil/

Sanders’s path to victory involves unprecedented and absurd delegate math

Top Sanders supporter falls for Fox ploy to divide Bernie and Hillary

Prominent Bernie Sanders supporter Shaun King (who is openly campaigning for Sanders) just used Facebook to promote a conspiracy theory concocted by Fox News ultra-conservative commentator, and comedian, Dennis Miller.

According to Miller — in a comment posted on Facebook, which King then shared approvingly with his followers — Bernie Sanders would be winning the Democratic nomination right now if it weren’t for “the rigged [superdelegate] game.”

The not-terribly-objective Miller recommends that Bernie Sanders’ supporters “don’t take it,” and “rise up.”

Lest anyone think that Dennis Miller is recommending this out of his great love for progressive ideals, Miller has previously claimed that Democrats created the “birther” lie, and that President Obama “has Islamic sympathies.” Miller also suggested that the protester who was sucker-punched at Donald Trump’s recent rally shared some of the blame for getting hit in the face. That’s who Dennis Miller is. (He went off the rails about 15 years ago.)

Let’s put aside the fact that Sanders announced last night on Rachel Maddow’s show that if he can’t win the popular vote, he’s going to try to take Hillary’s superdelegates in order to secure the nomination anyway. It will be interesting to see if Shaun King now criticizes Sanders’ effort to rig the election by super delegate.



http://americablog.com/2016/03/top-sanders-supporter-falls-fox-ploy-divide-bernie-hillary.html

The only two scenarios by which Hillary will not be nominated

1. The favorite "Hillary-will-be-indicted" meme of the right wing. (Won't happen).

2. Super delegates will swing the nomination to Sander's. (Hillary will already have a majority of delegates.)

Column: Sanders, Warren will help Clinton unite Democrats

But the GOP candidate won’t be Clinton’s only asset. Once she’s sewn up the nomination, she’ll collect two endorsements that could sway skeptical progressives: one from Sanders, the other from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

“There’s going to be no reluctance on his part” if Clinton wins, Sanders’ chief strategist, Tad Devine, told me. “He has said that Hillary Clinton is extremely well qualified to be president. Meanwhile, he’s competing, and it’s going to go all the way to the end of the primaries.”

Warren hasn’t said when she’ll make an endorsement, but she’s already thinking about how she could play a role in helping Clinton win — and, meanwhile, nudging Clinton toward more progressive positions.

“Economic populism is driving a lot of the debate,” a person familiar with Warren’s thinking told me. “She knows how to communicate and operate in that space. She takes seriously her role in helping Democrats get it right.”

Warren has already lobbied Clinton to support expanding Social Security benefits, a favorite progressive goal. Last month, Clinton promised not to seek benefit cuts and said she wants to increase benefits for the poorest beneficiaries.

Warren also helped persuade Clinton to endorse legislation banning Wall Street executives from accepting “golden handshake” payments from their firms when they get government jobs.


http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/column-sanders-warren-will-help-clinton-unite-democrats/article_0ed659b5-efea-5123-8b68-48ed5ddae79a.html

Pro-Trump Pastor Mark Burns Says Hillary Clinton Endorses Black 'Genocide’

Donald Trump does not like Hillary Clinton — and the pastor whom Trump brings along with him on the campaign trail believes that she harbors a desire to mass-murder black Americans.

Late last year, Pastor Mark Burns, co-founder of the South Carolina-based Christian TV network NOW, became a Trump surrogate after talking to the 2016 Republican presidential frontrunner at a closed-door meeting in New York City with various black pastors. Since then, Burns (or “Pastor Mark”) has introduced Trump at campaign events, prayed for him, sang his praises on social media, and gone on TV to talk about how wonderful a Trump presidency would be for the country, God, and black America.

“I'm not an Uncle Tom, no coon,” Burns said on MSNBC in November. “This is me looking at the politics, and looking at an individual, a strong leader that I believe that's going to bridge and bring a strength back to America.”

"Bernie Sanders…doesn't believe in God,” the pastor told a crowd of Trump fans last week. “Listen, Bernie gotta get saved. He gotta meet Jesus. He gotta have a come-to-Jesus meeting." (Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate and self-described democratic socialist, is Jewish.)


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/20/pro-trump-pastor-mark-burns-says-hillary-clinton-endorses-black-genocide.html

I guess the 'revolution' is too much work in Colorado.

From Reddit:

Saying “Hillary only won the Confederacy” isn’t just idiotic — it’s also bad for the Democratic Part

Earlier this week, the activist group Progressive Democrats of America sent out an email in which it tried to downplay Hillary Clinton’s primary victories by noting she has “won the Confederacy” while the rest of the country is “primed to go for Bernie.” This was an awkward attempt to make the case for not giving up on the Bernie Sanders campaign despite Clinton’s almost insurmountable lead in pledged delegates. The race, this line of thinking goes, is now moving on to western states where Sanders has enormous support. A few significant victories, and he could be right back in it.

The backlash to the letter was swift. Detractors pointed out that, for starters, it’s not true — unless Massachusetts, Illinois and Ohio are now considered part of the Confederacy. Also, the argument elided the widely reported fact that Clinton owes a great deal of the margin of her victories in Southern states to African American voters, a group traditionally not, to put it mildly, great supporters of the explicit white-supremacist ideology associated with the Confederacy. That word itself has become shorthand for the voting advantages enjoyed by the majority-white Republican Party in the South. Tying it to wins involving a large share of the African-American vote is silly.

The PDA quickly apologized. In truth, however, the organization was parroting an argument I’ve seen made by scattered Sanders fans on social media over the last few weeks. (Note: I am not saying Sanders himself is responsible for his supporters’ dumb comments, implying Hillary is winning with the votes of unreconstructed Confederates, nor that he and his fans are racists. PLEASE DON’T @ ME!) It has taken a couple of different forms – sometimes the claim substitutes “red states” for “Southern states” – but the implication is always the same: Hillary Clinton is winning states that no Democrat will win in the general election, So we shouldn’t assume they reflect a wider base of support for her in the country.

As an argument about who the Democrats should nominate, this is a supremely dumb one. This is a primary election. The issue of whether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is better suited to win, say, Alabama in the general election is not the question that is up for debate.

But there is a wider issue here, of which this dust-up is just an example, and that is the tendency of Democrats and left-of-center voters to throw up our hands and sneer at the South when it comes to talk of a voting coalition, or just about anything else.


http://www.salon.com/2016/03/19/saying_hillary_only_won_the_confederacy_isnt_just_idiotic_its_also_bad_for_the_democratic_party/

Teaser Trailer released for 'Marvel's Luke Cage' on Netflix (VIDEO)