Attorney in Texas
Attorney in Texas's JournalHillary Campaign Update (Historical Advantages from the Beginning, But A Very Tight Race Now)
Look at the size of Hillary's historically record setting endorsement lead:
(This graph is a bit out of date as it shows Hillary's advantage heading into the Iowa caucus, and this graph omits several recent Sanders endorsements, but it generally shows the size of Hillary's advantage at the outset).
Given this historically large advantage among the establishment wing of the party, a healthy candidate would have capitalized on this advantage to have locked this election away months ago.
Obviously, the race is not locked away. Here is a graph of all of the Ipsos/Reuters national polls:
Here is a graph of all of the McClatchy/Marist polling:
Here is a graph of the Bloomberg/Selzer polling:
This should be a huge concern. Hillary's weakness is not without explanation. Here are graphs of her favorable vs. unfavorable ratings and her trustworthy rating AMONG DEMOCRATS (and bear in mind almost no independents or moderate Republicans like or trust Hillary):
DOES ANYONE REALLY BELIEVE WE COULD NOMINATE A HISTORICALLY DISLIKED AND DISTRUSTED CANDIDATE WITHOUT THERE BEING CONSEQUENCES IN THE GENERAL ELECTION?
HILLARY HAS BATTLED FROM A HISTORICALLY LARGE ADVANTAGE TO A CURRENT TIE IN THE POLLING, AND HER CAMPAIGN NEVER PREDICTED THIS - WHAT HAS THIS CAMPAIGN DONE TO ASSURE YOU THAT HER CONFIDENCE ABOUT THE GENERAL ELECTION IS NOT EQUALLY UNJUSTIFIED?
Trucks Are Getting More Dangerous And Drivers Are Falling Asleep At The Wheel. Thank Congress.
Source: HuffingtonPost
WASHINGTON — Illinois State Trooper Douglas Balder sat in his squad car, its red and blue lights strobing into the frozen night of Jan. 27, 2014. He was about to be set on fire.... A heavy-duty tow truck and a bright yellow Tollway assistance vehicle were also pulled over, attending to the stranded semi....He had positioned his 2011 Crown Victoria behind the Tollway vehicle and switched on his flashers. There were also flares sputtering on the pavement, and the Tollway truck was flashing a large blinking arrow and its amber hazard lights. Visibility on that clear, cold night was excellent ... Renato Velasquez, who was barreling toward the stopped vehicles in a flatbed big rig loaded with three massive rolls of steel, didn’t see Balder’s flashers. He didn’t see the pulsing arrow or the flares. He didn’t change lanes or take any evasive action until far too late. Velasquez was falling asleep, a court would find later. His truck rammed into Balder’s squad car at 63 miles per hour, according to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the accident.
The impact crushed the Crown Vic’s trunk, exploding the gas tank and catapulting the patrol car into a roadside ditch. The three 14,580-pound steel coils chained to Velazquez’s trailer bed burst their restraints. One of the massive rolls struck the cab of the Tollway vehicle, instantly killing its 39-year-old driver Vincent Petrella and injuring Agron Xhelaj, the driver of the stalled truck who was seated beside him....“I woke up a short time later on fire,” he said. “Literally on fire. Burning alive.”.... His squad car was half collapsed. The detonated gas tank was spraying fuel and flames through his cab. His only clear thoughts were of survival and of his wife of 14 years, Kimberlie. He yelled out her name.... Truck-related deaths hit an all-time low during the economic doldrums of 2009, when 2,983 truck accidents killed 3,380 people. But as the economy has recovered, the carnage has been on the rise. In 2013, the most recent year for which finalized statistics are available, 3,541 wrecks killed 3,964 people — an increase of 17.3 percent in just four years. In 2014, the number of deaths resulting from truck accidents was down slightly, but the total number of crashes and injuries increased.
At the same time, Congress has been caving, very quietly, to lobbying from trucking interests that want to roll back, block or modify at least a half-dozen important safety regulations. Significant parts of the hauling industry have long opposed many of the federal rules governing working hours, rest periods, size and weight limits, and safety standards. When the Great Recession began in 2008, profit margins for shippers shrank and bankruptcies rose, prompting a desperate industry to step up its lobbying effort.
Perhaps, the trucking companies’ lobbyists suggested to Congress, trucks could haul loads heavier than the federal 80,000-pound limit, which would allow them to deliver more goods with each truck. Maybe they could have longer double trailers, increasing the limit from 28 feet for each unit to 33 feet — turning each rig into an 80-foot-long behemoth, as long as an eight-story building is tall. Or they could let truck drivers be more flexible with their rest breaks, which would allow them to work up to 82 hours a week instead of the already-exhausting limit of 70. Maybe trucking firms could reduce labor costs by hiring lower-paid drivers, younger than 21 — as young as 18. Maybe they could stop federal regulators from raising insurance requirements that were set during the Reagan administration. Maybe the federal motor carrier safety ratings for unsafe trucking companies could be kept secret..... If they are successful, these changes would amount to the most significant overhaul of highway safety rules in decades. But most people don’t know such sweeping revisions are even being considered.... The latest round of congressional wrangling started with a fight over snoring, or, more specifically, the obstructive sleep apnea that causes it.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-made-trucking-deadlier_us_56fd6f92e4b0a06d58052ee8
Bill Maher: "Hillary’s new slogan should be: 'Eat the Chicken.'"
Bill Maher had Susan Sarandon on hie show last night:
There was this insightful and hilarious exchange about the Democratic primary:
Maher:“I'm also a Bernie Sanders supporter. I have been saying for months on this show, 'until it's not, that's who I'm for.' You know he's putting on the table a what I call a 'New Deal.'Sarandon:“It is. It's the new old 'New Deal.'"Maher:"You pay more in taxes, but look at what you get."Sarandon:"And many other things: you protect the environment, you don't get connected to Wall Street, you don't take Big Pharm money, you don't take all the money from Montsanto."Maher:"I have also been saying that if the airline cannot board your first choice, eat the chicken. That should be Hillary’s slogan: Eat the Chicken. Are you going to eat the chicken?”Sarandon:“I’m a vegetarian.”
This is a GREAT interview. Both Hillary supporters and Sanders supporters will enjoy it.
PS - I'm voting for Sanders, but if the airline doesn't offer my first choice, I will eat the chicken.
Bill Maher: "Hillary’s new slogan should be: 'Eat the Chicken.'"
Bill Maher had Susan Sarandon on hie show last night:
There was this insightful and hilarious exchange about the Democratic primary:
Maher:“I'm also a Bernie Sanders supporter. I have been saying for months on this show, 'until it's not, that's who I'm for.' You know he's putting on the table a what I call a 'New Deal.'Sarandon:“It is. It's the new old 'New Deal.'"Maher:"You pay more in taxes, but look at what you get."Sarandon:"And many other things: you protect the environment, you don't get connected to Wall Street, you don't take Big Pharm money, you don't take all the money from Montsanto."Maher:"I have also been saying that if the airline cannot board your first choice, eat the chicken. That should be Hillary’s slogan: Eat the Chicken. Are you going to eat the chicken?”Sarandon:“I’m a vegetarian.”
This is a GREAT interview. Both Hillary supporters and Sanders supporters will enjoy it.
PS - I'm voting for Sanders, but if the airline doesn't offer my first choice, I will eat the chicken.
Sanders' Wins To Date and His Path Forward
So far, Hillary remains successful as a regional candidate, but a weak and vulnerable national candidate.
The contests over the past month have confirmed the extreme weakness of Hillary's centrist campaign outside least progressive region of the US (the 13 ex-Confederate states of the Bible Belt):
First, let's be perfectly clear before the Hillary Patrol begins their whine about how "the Bible Belt matters!" Of course all regions matter. The Bible Belt is about a fifth of the country and it should count for a similar proportion of the candidate selection process. We get that Hillary has a southern accent and likes to talk about her church going faith in God when she campaigns in the Bible Belt. We get that she's the former First Lady of Arkansas. We get that her centrist message is going to beat a strong progressive message in the most anti-choice, anti-LGBT-equality, anti-union, anti-semitic region of the US, our Bible Belt. No one is ignoring this vote. Hillary won it. Congratulations!
In the rest of America, however, Sanders' 16 wins in the 23 non-Bible-Belt states where Sanders has earned 56% of the pledged delegates continues to show that Sanders is much preferred over Hillary:
State.....Hillary Delegates.....Sanders Delegates
IA.....................23....................21
NH.....................9....................15
NV....................20....................15
CO....................28....................38
MA....................46....................45
MN....................31....................46
OK....................17.....................21
VT......................0.....................16
NE....................10.....................15
KS....................10.....................23
ME......................9.....................16
MI.....................63.....................67
IL......................78.....................78
MO....................36.....................35
OH....................81.....................62
AZ…………………..….42………….....………33
UT……………………....6…………….....…….27
ID……………………..…5…………….....…….18
AK.....................3......................13
HI......................8......................17
WA....................27.....................74
WI.....................38....................48
WY....................7.......................7
Total................597...................750 out of 1347
While Sanders has already erased almost half of the pledged delegate lead Hillary built up in the Bible Belt, he still has a 216 delegate deficit to overcome, but this is to be expected considering the least progressive states were front-loaded onto the calendar. If you account for the ideological front-loading of the least progressive states, then you would expect that Sanders would be behind in the delegate count at this stage in the primary calendar even though he would be on tract for the nomination.
Considering this front-loading, Sanders is only about 90 pledged delegates short of where he would want to be to remain on track to win the majority of the pledged delegates.
This 90 pledged delegate gap is definitely surmountable.
Nate Silver's projections about the pace at which each of the candidates would need to win pledged delegates to enter the convention with a majority assumes a race that was tied from beginning to end.
But the race has not been static; instead, Hillary started out ahead and Sanders has caught or passed her (compare a graph of all national polling versus a graph of only the more reliable live cellphone plus landline polling):
ALL POLLS
ALL LIVE PHONE POLLS
Sanders' taking the lead is even more significant because these nationwide polls include the 13 Bible Belt states where Hillary is far more popular so, to balance our Hillary's regional popularity, Sanders needs to be even more popular outside the Bible Belt than the popularity shown in the national polling.
We can do this!
Keep fighting! Keep phone banking! Keep winning!
Heavy turnout seen across state, some long lines at polls
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinal
At the state level, voter turnout is also looking strong so far, said Michael Haas, elections administrator of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.
Last week, GAB officials predicted that nearly 1.8 million Wisconsinites — or 40% of eligible voters — would cast a ballot, which would amount to the largest turnout since 1980 for a spring election.
Early voting, which wrapped up for in-person absentee ballots last week, has also been running well ahead of the 2012 presidential primary.
...
UW-Green Bay spokeswoman Janet Bonkowski said throughout most of the day about 100 students were waiting to vote on campus, with the line surging to as many as 250 students around 4 p.m., once most classes had wrapped up. .... Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders visited the campus in recent days, helping boost turnout, she said.
Read more: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/heavy-turnout-seen-across-state-some-long-lines-at-polls-b99700961z1-374667001.html
"The biggest mistake Clinton has made during this election season is attacking Sanders."
link to Taylor Gipple's excellent analysis on Huffington Post; excerpt:
The mainstream media almost convinced me Bernie Sanders had lost the Democratic nomination after his disappointing Super Tuesday. ... I wasn’t going to vote, politics was finally at its peak of corruption and the American public just didn’t care enough about its future. ... But a month later, after many blowout wins by Sanders, and multiple self-inflicting wounds by Clinton, Bernie Sanders proved me wrong. Now more than ever, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally shining through. I thought his momentum was at a halt, but Sanders out-raised Clinton in both February and March (and that’s without Super Pacs).
After Sanders wins both Wisconsin and Wyoming later this week, his train is going full steam ahead into New York.... A win in Clinton’s adopted back yard would push the Sanders campaign over the edge in momentum and cripple any inevitable belief that assumes Clinton will be the nominee.
The biggest mistake Clinton has made during this election season is attacking Sanders. Attacking the most moral candidate we’ve seen in quite some time is just an awful, embarrassing blundering misstep. It’s as if the Clinton camp assumes people don’t have access to the internet, won’t fact check her, and will believe whatever she says. That’s why she losing the under 40-age vote by a massive margin.... Look at Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, and Clinton overwhelmingly comes off like leprosy among people online. I’ll say it again, I just don’t see the same enthusiasm coming out of the Clinton camp.
And don’t forget Clinton is under federal investigation. No one knows what’s going to come of the current investigation, but the fact is she is under federal investigation! If any other candidate was placed under federal investigation, that’s an automatic disqualification of being able to run for president of the United States.... Don’t think for a second that there isn’t still a warm, glowing light at the end of a dark tunnel that is the election process. And that light is shining brighter than ever for Bernie Sanders.
"Only Hillary can stop Bernie Sanders from being US President, says Michael Moore"
link; excerpt:
"If everybody shows up to vote, Bernie Sanders will be the next President of the United States," predicts Michael Moore, the provocative filmmaker whose Fahrenheit 9/11 remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time.
"But first," he adds, "he has to get through the hurdles of the Democratic Party, which does not want him as their nominee."
Moore ... pays far more attention to the politics of the US than most, and is convinced the only way Donald Trump could become the next president – assuming the Republican establishment doesn't find some way to block his seemingly inevitable nomination – is if he squares off against Hillary Clinton rather than Sanders....
"Keep this statistic in mind: 81 per cent of this country is either women, people of colour or young adults under the age of 35. That's who's voting this year, and Mr Trump has done marvellously offending all three of those groups of people. The chance of him winning is only possible if people stay home on election day."
Sanders rally breaks Zorn Arena attendance record
Source: WEAU (Eau Claire, Wisconsin, NBC affiliate)
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) -- The scene inside the Zorn Arena in Eau Claire was packed on Saturday to listen to Bernie Sanders.
The line to get in Saturday morning ran from the Zorn Arena all the way up Garfield Hill.
The weather wasn’t great but people still came out in packs to support at the Sanders rally.
Over 3,400 people were inside the Zorn Arena Saturday; Sanders' campaign is estimating around 4,300 people total including those in an overflow room.... "I may not necessarily agree with every issue he has, but, in this field with our candidates, I have confidence he is the man with integrity and America's best interest at heart," Conner Franz of Stevens Point said.... "I was glad to find out that, not only did he say what he wanted to do, which sounded idealistic, but he actually seems to have a symbol of a plan,” Stephanie Turner of Eau Claire said.
Read more: http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/Sanders-rally-breaks-Zorn-Arena-attendance-record-374386261.html
Trump would be least-popular major-party nominee in modern times
Source: Washington Post
If Donald Trump secures the Republican presidential nomination, he would start the general election campaign as the least-popular candidate to represent either party in modern times.
Three-quarters of women view him unfavorably. So do nearly two-thirds of independents, 80 percent of young adults, 85 percent of Hispanics and nearly half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.
Those findings, tallied from Washington Post-ABC News polling, fuel Trump’s overall 67 percent unfavorable rating — making Trump more disliked than any major-party nominee in the 32 years the survey has been tracking candidates.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-would-be-least-popular-major-party-nominee-in-modern-times/2016/03/30/b4b077e0-f5e7-11e5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html
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