May 19, 2016

My FB feed today

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/18/1528089/-Sanders-Supporters-And-White-Entitlement

Sanders Supporters And White Entitlement

As a Bernie Sanders supporter, one of my greatest frustrations with the people in my camp is the anger they seem to direct at Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party for what they deem to be an “unfair” primary process. I think we can all agree that there are problems with our elections, but in the end it seems to me that concerning many of my fellow Sanders supporters who are new to the process and the Democratic Party, the sense of entitlement they feel wrt taking the nomination is pretty off putting. Personally, I think it's in part a product of the kinds of people Bernie has drawn out of the woodwork, i.e. white independent liberals and working class nonpartisans.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/19/1528489/-Sanders-campaign-admits-it-wants-to-hurt-Clinton-even-if-that-means-helping-Trump

Sanders campaign admits it wants to hurt Clinton, even if that means helping Trump

Bernie Sanders has no plausible path to secure the Democratic nomination: To earn a majority of pledged delegates, he'd need to win 68 percent of those left outstanding, even though he’s only won less than 46 percent of available delegates to date. But instead of acknowledging this reality, Sanders’ campaign is now taking a scorched-earth approach toward its opponents—even if that means helping Donald Trump win the White House.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/sanders-camp-flirts-with-going-full-burn-it-down

Sanders Camp Flirts with Going Full "Burn It Down"

The New York Times posted an article late Wednesday evening which confirms and expands on much of what I've been hearing from within the Sanders campaign in recent weeks and days. The top leaders of the campaign are now saying openly that they are focused on dealing a crushing blow to Clinton in the California primary on June 7th and aren't concerned whether it damages Clinton's chances in the general election or not.

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http://www.politifact.com/nevada/statements/2016/may/18/jeff-weaver/allegations-fraud-and-misconduct-nevada-democratic/

Allegations of fraud and misconduct at Nevada Democratic convention unfounded

We rate this claim False.

May 5, 2016

2016 National Democratic Primary - Clinton 56%, Sanders 41% (Ipsos/Reuters (Web) 4/30-5/4)

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/polls/ipsos-reuters-24447

May 4, 2016

John Kasich suspending campaign: Source tells NBC News

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I'm kind of surprised - thought he was going to take on Trump 'till the end.

So it's the Democratic winner versus Trump - 100% official now.

May 3, 2016

Bernie up by 27 votes now (now 13010)

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/indiana

May 3, 2016

Yes, Bernie Sanders can force a contested convention.

With the Democratic presidential nomination system working the way it does, there are essentially two possible outcomes: A candidate will either win in a blowout, or he or she will need superdelegate votes to gain a majority.

The reason for this is simple: Fifteen percent of all of the Democratic delegates are unbound superdelegates. So unless you have about an 18 percentage-point lead among delegates by the time the voting wraps up, you'll need some superdelegates to put you over the top. This makes the difference between a close race and a blowout a little murky — which can be advantageous to the underdog.

Right now, Hillary Clinton has about a 10 percentage-point delegate lead over Bernie Sanders. (For comparison: Barack Obama's pledged delegate lead was only about four percentage points by the end of the 2008 race.) The current margin is not likely to change much between now and the end of the contest, with the two likely to play to a draw in California, Clinton to win big in New Jersey and D.C., and Sanders to triumph in smaller states between now and the end of the race. For it to change significantly in Sanders's favor, he'd need to do very, very well in California and New Jersey in particular, a promise that he has issued often and delivered rarely.

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...he (Bernie) said. "She will need superdelegates to take her over the top at the convention in Philadelphia. In other words, the convention will be a contested contest."

That's true — mostly because, unlike in 2008, Sanders will contest it. Eight years ago, Clinton conceded the race before the convention, recognizing that trying to fight her way to victory on the convention floor was likely to fail, despite her having a slight lead in the popular vote. But Clinton realized the damage that could be done to the party — and perhaps herself — so she didn't.

Sanders doesn't share the former sentiment, as he has made clear. He was an independent until he decided to run for president, and his goal during his campaign has been to upend the system, into which a convention floor fight fits neatly.

But that doesn't mean he has any real shot at winning.

...

Lots more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/02/yes-bernie-sanders-can-force-a-contested-convention-that-doesnt-mean-he-can-win-one/

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My commentary is in the form of the bold and underlined text.

April 27, 2016

Hillary can lose every state from here on in and still win the nomination (AP)

Statement made by AP and read by Rachel on MSNBC.

April 27, 2016

Bernie wins RI (MSNBC)

April 27, 2016

Hillary - Delaware

April 26, 2016

The Republican Clerk Who Wiped Thousands From The NY Rolls Just Got Very Bad News

Republican Clerk Diane Haslett-Rudiano is living proof that voter fraud exists, but not in the way her party is selling it. They would have you believe that dead people are voting by the thousands; that entire congressional districts are won by people who moved away decades ago. You’ll hear stories of illegals storming the southern border at great peril to their own lives…so they can vote in American elections. Those stories would be all false. We know why Republicans want to keep people from voting. If enough people voted, things would change.

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Haslett-Rudiano is thought to have skipped a step in a regular protocol of updating the voter list with deaths and changes of address.

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She skipped a step. Oops! Who gets the shaft? The registered, disenfranchised voter. In Brooklyn, they’re probably hoping to hit more Democrats. Eight percent of any population is mind-blowing. It’s a potential game-changer no matter where you go. The lengths the GOP will go to see to it that people lose interest in the voting process are astounding. They’ll enact “voter fraud” legislation and pull tactics that have folks remembering voting as some line they used to stand in for no reason.

Keep your corporate shills in office, gut education so you can cultivate more Republicans, and hope you don’t lose too much in the next crash. The Republican way.

http://author.addictinginfo.org/2016/04/24/the-republican-clerk-who-wiped-thousands-from-the-ny-rolls-just-got-very-bad-news/

April 26, 2016

Polls Say Bernie Is More Electable Than Hillary. Don’t Believe Them.

What they really show is a candidate who hasn’t been attacked.

Trailing in the Democratic presidential race, Bernie Sanders has one last gambit. He wants to persuade the party’s superdelegates—officeholders, luminaries, and party officials who can vote at the convention—that he’s the Democrats’ best hope to win the general election. Never mind that Hillary Clinton has won more votes and elected delegates. “There are a lot of delegates out there who are looking at the general matchup,” Sanders argued Sunday on CNN. “And what they’re seeing in polls is that Bernie Sanders is running a lot stronger against Donald Trump than is Hillary Clinton.”

It’s true that Sanders does better than Clinton in hypothetical matchups against the Republicans. Currently, Sanders outperforms Clinton by more than seven percentage points against Trump, and by nearly nine points against Ted Cruz. But that’s not because Sanders is the stronger nominee. It’s because Republicans haven’t yet trashed him the way they’ve trashed Clinton. Once they do, his advantage over her would disappear.

In recent days, several writers—Sahil Kapur in Bloomberg Politics, David Corn in Mother Jones, Greg Sargent in the Washington Post, Ed Kilgore in New York, and others—have sketched this argument. But is it true? Polls suggest it is. A concerted attack on Sanders’ weaknesses would hurt him badly in a general election. Here’s how it would look.

The problem with current polls that test Sanders against Trump or Cruz is that they don’t capture the effects of the fall campaign. As Harry Enten points out in FiveThirtyEight, early general-election polls in previous cycles were predictively worthless. Early in the 2000 election, for instance, George W. Bush led Al Gore by 12 percentage points. “Bush, then the Texas governor, burst onto the national scene with relatively little negative media scrutiny,” Enten observes. Between December 1999 and November 2000, as the scrutiny intensified, Bush’s net favorability fell 27 percentage points. He ended up losing the popular vote.

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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/polls_say_bernie_is_more_electable_than_hillary_don_t_believe_them.html