Now that Ken Paxton has been acquitted of all charges, Paxton can talk about the forces that conspired to push his bogus impeachment, which he does in this interview with Texas Scorecard’s M.Q. Sullivan.
MQS: “We had a secret investigation take place in the Texas House, with unsworn witnesses offering uh what John Smithy described as triple hearsay as evidence [and] no public hearings.”
MQS: “It’s been said that the Republicans were told this is a loyalty vote to the speaker of the House [Dade Phelan], and if it’s taking out Ken Paxton is what it takes to show loyalty, you have to do it.”
KP: “Democrats have figured out they can block vote. There’s 65 of them. Right now they block vote. They go to the Republicans and they say ‘We’ll get you elected as as speaker if you do what we say. We want to negotiate this deal.’ And so then that speaker who’s really controlled by the Democrats only needs 10 Republicans votes and then the Democrats effectively control [the House].”
KP: “I don’t think it’s any accident that the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice had two lawyers involved with the House investigating committee.”
KP: “I think the Biden Administration was tired of being sued. We’d sued him 48 times in two and a half years, and have been relatively successful with those cases, and I think that was a directive to the Democrats.”
KP: “[Phelan] was directed by the Democrats.” House Republicans need to be as united as Democrats.
KP: “They never had any evidence, and they obviously didn’t when they got to the Senate floor. But I think the message was ‘Do what we tell you to do or else.'”
MQS: “It seemed apparent to a lot of observers that the old Bush machine was ratcheted up against you. Johnny Sutton, Karl Rove, folks like that, who had not had much to say about Texas politics, their fingerprints were all over this from from very early on.” Sutton held several roles at the state and national level under George W. Bush, and was eventually appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas.
KP: “This whole Coincidence of George P., after, what, 10 years of not having his license, on October 1st he asked the State Bar to get his license back. That just so happened to be that later that day that the these employees of mine told me that they’d turn me into the FBI. So somehow on that same day, before I knew about it, George P. is applying for his license.”
KP: “I think that that was the first sign that the Bush people were involved in this. And I think you can see from Johnny Sutton representing every one of these employees, that he was he’s doing this for free for the last three years, without ever sending a bill or even having a fee arrangement, that doesn’t make any sense either.”
KP: “Karl Rove wrote the editorial and he was directed, and I think given, that editorial by Texans for Lawsuit Reform. So you have all of these Bush connections that sought to get rid of me.”
MQS: TLR “is a group that has been kind of the de facto business lobby for more than two decades.”
KR: “They have definitely changed. They become a lobby group. They’re beholden to large, either corporate interests or individual interests, that don’t necessarily reflect the views of the Republican party.”
Sullivan suggests Paxtons problems may have started when he started targeting big tech and big pharma.
KP: “There’s a reason that we we’re looking at Big Tech, because they control the marketplace and they’re trying to control speech and control entire market activity on on advertising. There are issues related to them being deceptive in how they advertise, and also in what they tell consumers about what they’re doing with their information.”
KP: “Big Pharma obviously involved in this vaccine mandate, and potentially getting away with not actually testing their their vaccine, and telling us it does one thing when it does another.”
Paxton also brings up the role of banking as an industry that may not have been happy with him.
In another interview with Tucker Carlson, Paxton said he considers Texas Senator John Cornyn “a puppet of the Bush family” and will consider running against him in 2026.
Yesterday’s LinkSwarm embedded a bodycam video of an Eaton County deputy fatally shooting a knife-armed suspect who had just stabbed a 77-year old man. Today we’ve got an after-action breakdown of the shooting, including additional footage from a home surveillance camera.
A few thoughts:
She did an admirable job of clearing the error quickly.
Talking about the bump and rack being unnecessary, I think it all happened so fast she just hadn’t processed that the perp had managed to put her gun back in battery.
The bodycam clearly shows this was a justified shooting. The sad truth of the madness running rampant in 2020 is that if the perp had been black, boundless multitudes would be calling for (at the very least) her firing for using “excessive force.” And, if she was employed in a locale run by a certain type of Democrat, she probably would be fired to appease the rage mob.
I emailed Karl Rehn to get his reaction: “I thought she performed well. The ASP analysis is solid regarding bad grip.”
Biden leans on bundling billionaires, Steyer hits diminishing returns, Bloomberg takes up the “Most Widely Loathed” spot, Warren donations take a nosedive, Sanders đ commies, and Beto’s acid trip ends. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
We’re also down to the last two days of the year, so expect Q4 fundraising numbers to start dropping later this week.
Keep an eye on the new faces, I sagely advised: Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, plus former Rep. Beto OâRourke of Texas.
Sorry about that. Despite a fawning cover story in Vanity Fair, OâRourke flamed out fast. Harris staged an impressive launch, but then fell to earth. Brown never entered the race. Only Booker is still running, and his campaign is on life support.
Next time I recommend a hot technology stock or a soon-to-be-famous restaurant, ignore the tip.
Snip.
I didnât see Pete Buttigieg coming. The 37-year-old gay mayor of a small city? Inconceivable, I thought. Iowa voters may shortly prove me wrong.
I did see Elizabeth Warren coming. Her focus on plans to make the economy work better for the middle class was effective, I wrote.
Then Warren stumbled on healthcare. When she belatedly offered a plan, it proposed a government-run health insurance system, but only after a long transition period.
That seemed smart, I wrote. Itâs not clear that voters agree.
To be fair, I did get some things right.
I figured out that the controversies over Bidenâs verbal gaffes were really a polite proxy for questions about his age. Heâll be 78 on Inauguration Day; is he up to the job?
I noted that most Democratic voters arenât Bernie Sanders-style socialists, and that the progressive âlitmus testsâ that dominated early months of the campaign â âMedicare for all,â the Green New Deal, and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency â werenât a sure path to winning primaries.
Speaking of which, unions, they of the fat health benefits, are not wild about “Medicare for All.” It would be tough going from a Cadillac plan to the equivalent of Medicaid.
Ranking the campaign dropouts. This is a pretty crappy “Have you done the will of the party, comrade?” ranking. No way does Kamala Harris’ disasterous campaign rank at the top.
Joe Biden released the names of more than 200 people and couples who are raising money for his presidential campaign, a list that includes a number of big names in Democratic money like Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg and LGBT rights activist Tim Gill and his husband, Scott Miller.
Bidenâs list of fundraisers, each of which has brought in at least $25,000 for his presidential bid, includes many of the biggest names in Democratic fundraising. The list spans Wall Street, Silicon Valley and a number of politicians themselves.
The former vice president voluntarily disclosed the list as the Democratic field â and especially Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren â sparred with each other throughout November and December over how to have adequate transparency about money and finances on the campaign trail.
More than any other leading candidate, Biden is relying on big fundraising events to power his bid for the presidency, which makes these bundlers crucial to his success. Other big-name bundlers for Biden include New York venture capital and private equity investor Alan Patricof, and billionaire real estate broker George Marcus.
Biden is running for president on his longtime experience in public service, and his list of bundlers reflects the many high-powered connections he built over that time. Biden bundlers include current senators Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Delaware Sen. Chris Coons. Former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles is a bundler for Biden, as is Dorothy McAuliffe, wife of former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
A number of former ambassadors â who are often longtime bundlers and major political donors in their own right â are also helping Biden. They include Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, former U.S. Ambassador to Portugal; Denise Bauer, former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium; Anthony Gardner, former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union; and Mark Gilbert, former U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, and more.
It occurs to me that if there were a massive foreign aid kickback scheme funneling overseas money to longtime swamp creatures, Belgium and EU ambassadors would be perfectly situated to direct/skim off the graft. Evidently Biden and Rudy Giuliani have been have been feuding since the 1980s. (Worth reading for the many flip-flops in Biden’s career, including on the death penalty.) Remember how Biden is supposed to be the moderate, rational one?
More Hunter Biden dirt? Eh, it’s from a private investigator in the baby momma lawsuit, so caution is probably in order. But the “helping defraud American Indians” charge is new, though the names of Devon Archer, John Galanis and Bevan Cooney are not. Heh:
Just saw the new Star Wars. Wow! Never saw this coming, Rey turned out to be Hunter Bidenâs kid! What a twist!
Hillary Clinton tried. So did 16 rival Republicans. And after hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on ads attacking Donald Trump in 2016, the results were the same: They never did much damage.
Now Michael R. Bloomberg is trying â his way â spending millions each week in an online advertising onslaught that is guided by polling and data that he and his advisers believe provide unique insight into the presidentâs vulnerabilities.
The effort, which is targeting seven battleground states where polls show Mr. Trump is likely to be competitive in November, is just one piece of an advertising campaign that is unrivaled in scope and scale. On Facebook and Google alone, where Mr. Bloomberg is most focused on attacking the president, he has spent $18 million on ads over the last month, according to Acronym, a digital messaging firm that works with Democrats.
That is on top of the $128 million the Bloomberg campaign has spent on television ads, according to Advertising Analytics, an independent firm, which projects that Mr. Bloomberg is likely to spend a combined $300 million to $400 million on advertising across all media before the Super Tuesday primaries in early March.
Those amounts dwarf the ad budgets of his rivals, and he is spending at a faster clip than past presidential campaigns as well. Mr. Bloomberg is also already spending more than the Trump campaign each week to reach voters online. And if the $400 million estimate holds, that would be about the same as what President Barack Obamaâs campaign spent on advertising over the course of the entire general election in 2012.
The ads amount to a huge bet by the Bloomberg campaign that there are enough Americans who are not too fixed in their opinions of Mr. Trump and can be swayed by the adsâ indictment of his conduct and character.
None of these assumptions are safe in a political environment that is increasingly bifurcated along partisan lines and where, for many voters, information from âthe other sideâ is instantly suspect. But Mr. Bloombergâs aides believe it is imperative to flood voters with attacks on the president before it is too late.
Yeah, let’s keep throwing money into a proven losing strategy. Can’t see how that one can possibly fail to beat Trump. And as long as we’re rerunning 2016’s Greatest Misses, have you tried expressing outrage over the Billy Bush tape? Bloomy is also dropping a ton of money on Texas for Super Tuesday:
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is ramping up his efforts in Texas, with plans to build a state operation that his campaign says will be unrivaled by anyone else in the primary field.
In an announcement first shared with The Texas Tribune, his campaign said it will open a Texas headquarters in Houston and 16 field offices throughout the rest of the state between now and the March 3 primary. The offices will be spread across the Houston area, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Austin, East Texas, the San Antonio area, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen and the Killeen area.
The campaign also named its first Texas hires:
Carla Brailey, vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party, will serve as Bloombergâs senior advisor.
Ashlea Turner, a government relations consultant who worked on Bill Whiteâs 2010 gubernatorial campaign, will serve as Bloombergâs state director.
Kevin Lo, who worked on presidential candidate Kamala Harrisâ Iowa campaign before she ended her campaign earlier this month, will serve as Bloombergâs organizing director. (Update: On March 27, 2020, Texas Tribune sent out this correction via email: “*Editor’s note: Bloomberg’s campaign initially listed Kevin Lo as one of its first Texas hires. Lo later said he was incorrectly listed by the campaign and never worked for the campaign and has asked this story to be updated to remove his name.”)
Lizzie Lewis, communications director for 2018 gubernatorial nominee Lupe Valdez, will be Bloombergâs press secretary.
Has anyone there ever run a successful campaign? None of the ones named were. Also:
While heâs only announced one hire, Biden has topped most Texas polls. There have not been many polls since Bloomberg declared his candidacy and launched a massive national TV ad blitz that prominently targeted the state. The one Texas survey since Bloomberg’s launch, released Dec. 11 by CNN, found Bloomberg at 5% â good enough for fifth place in but still far behind Biden, who placed a distant first with 35%.
Amy Keiderling is exactly who Cory Bookerâs presidential campaign is looking for as he seeks to build momentum in the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses.
The Waukee small business owner listened to Bookerâs remarks in an Adel bowling alley recently â Booker’s first stop of a four-day bus tour across Iowa. She said he gives her the same feeling she had when she caucused for Barack Obama.
He’s the first candidate sheâs seen in person this cycle, but before she left, she committed to caucus for the U.S. senator from New Jersey.
She isnât alone. Tess Seger, a campaign spokeswoman, said Booker surpassed his 10% average of caucus commitments at each of his tour stops. Sometimes 20% or 30% of the crowd signed the commitment cards.
âWeâre getting the people who are going to be caucusing for us, precinct captaining for us,â Booker told the Register on Monday. âItâs really exciting. This is how you win here.â
But, so far, Booker is a far short from the winner’s circle. In the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll, conducted in November by Selzer & Co., Booker earned 3% support among likely Democratic caucusgoers. He’s been at or below 4% in first choice preferences in the Iowa Poll since 2018.
One cruel explanation is that people are simply lying to the Booker campaign because Democrats don’t have the heart to turn down a black candidate. Alternately, his “10% of tour stops” simply isn’t translating into mass appeal. Another theory: People actually do like him, but no one thinks he’s tough enough to beat Trump. And if you haven’t already had your fill, here’s another “struggles for traction” piece.
Downtown underwent a dramatic transformation under Buttigiegâs leadership. One-way streets became two-way. Speed limits were reduced. Driving lanes were narrowed. Trees were planted. Decorative brick pavers were laid.
I hate him already.
Buttigieg and his supporters say the more pedestrian-friendly downtown has spurred more than $190 million in private investment, as several key buildings found new life, transformed into hotels, apartments and restaurants.
As the economy recovered from the recession of 2008-â09, some of that investment might have been inevitable, as Buttigieg benefited from a rebounding national economy. Supporters still credit the mayor for setting the tone and aggressively pursuing projects.
More than 500 apartments have been built or are under construction downtown, luring new residents to the city.
That’s, what, two whole complexes?
The street changes have also annoyed some motorists. Any news story about Smart Streets thatâs shared on social media will draw complaints from residents pointing out there is too much traffic congestion downtown at peak travel times. Buttigieg has said the slowed traffic is worth the larger benefits.
There’s no end to Democrats willing to make life worse for people who drive cars.
Thereâs also Smart Streetsâ roughly $21 million price tag, paid for with bonds that are being repaid with Tax Incremental Financing money, which comes from property taxes paid on the assessed valuation growth in an area. That project, combined with the cityâs overhaul of its parks system, means the city could be limited in making other big investments in the near future, depending on their size.
Still, the assessed value of downtown property rose from about $132.8 million in 2013 to roughly $160.9 million last year, a 21-percent increase, according to a Tribune analysis of county property tax records.
Whole things sounds like a mixed bag at best. But since there are no reports of him luring an entire population of drug-addicted beggars to South Bend, it does sound like he did a much better job as a mayor than Steve Adler…
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Headline: “Julian Castro sees lift in polls despite being knocked off debate stage.” Reality: He’s up to 4%. Break out the party favors!
Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? “Michael Moore: Trump Will Win in 2020 if Democrats Nominate Another âCentrist, Moderateâ like Hillary Clinton.” I understand all those words individually…
2. Heâs criticized âMedicare for allâ a lot. What is his health care plan?
He wants to keep Medicare for people over 65 and create a new government program for people under 65. Everyone under 65 would automatically be enrolled in that program â which would cover all âessential health benefits,â including pre-existing conditions â but people could choose to forfeit the coverage and receive a credit to buy private insurance instead. He argues that this would guarantee universal coverage without forcing people to use a government health plan.
So instead of an expensive, unworkable program, he offers a slightly-less-insane unworkable but expensive program.
Sanders claims to be a democratic socialist in the European mold; an admirer of Sweden and Denmark. Yet his career is pockmarked with praise for regimes considerably to the left of those Scandinavian models. He has praised Cuba for âmaking enormous progress in improving the lives of poor and working people.â In his memoir, he bragged about attending a 1985 parade celebrating the Sandinistasâ seizure of power six years before. âBelieve it or not,â he wrote, âI was the highest ranking American official there.â At the time, the Sandinista regime had already allied with Cuba and begun a large military buildup courtesy of the Soviet Union. The Sandinistas, Mr. Sanders had every reason to know, had censored independent news outlets, nationalized half of the nationâs industry, forcibly displaced the Misquito Indians, and formed âneighborhood watchâ committees on the Cuban model. Sandinista forces, like those in East Germany and other communist countries, regularly opened fire on those attempting to flee the country. None of that appears to have dampened Sandersâs enthusiasm. The then-mayor of Burlington, Vt., gushed that under his leadership, âVermont could set an example to the rest of the nation similar to the type of example Nicaragua is setting for the rest of Latin America.â
Sanders was impatient with those who found fault with the Nicaraguan regime:
Is [the Sandinistasâ] crime that they have built new health clinics, schools, and distributed land to the peasants? Is their crime that they have given equal rights to women? Or that they are moving forward to wipe out illiteracy? No, their crime in Mr. Reaganâs eyes and the eyes of corporations and billionaires that determine American foreign policy is that they have refused to be a puppet and banana republic to American corporate interests.
Sanders now calls for a revolution in this country, and weâre all expected to nod knowingly. Of course he means a peaceful, democratic revolution. It would be outrageous to suggest anything else. Well, it would not be possible for Bernie Sanders to usher in a revolution in the U.S., but his sympathy for the real thing is notable. As Michael Moynihan reported, in the case of the Sandinistas, he was willing to justify press censorship and even bread lines. The regimeâs crackdown on the largest independent newspaper, La Prensa, âmakes sense to meâ Sanders explained, because the country was besieged by counterrevolutionary forces funded by the United States. As for bread lines, which soon appeared in Nicaragua as they would decades later in Venezuela, Sanders scoffed: âItâs funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people donât line up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death.â
Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. All the vaguely interesting Steyer news is also vaguely off target. First: “AOC accepted Tom Steyer contribution, despite accusing Buttigieg of ‘being funded by billionaires.'” (thisismyshockedface.jpg) Second: “Former Tom Steyer aide sues SC Democratic Party for alleged defamation.” Details: “A former aide for 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer who resigned amid allegations that he stole volunteer data from the rival Kamala Harris campaign is now suing the South Carolina Democratic Party, accusing the partyâs chairman of defamation.” Being a former Tom Steyer aide must be like getting cut from the Washington Generals.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Elizabeth Warrenâs campaign sounds the alarm as fundraising pace slows about 30% in fourth quarter.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warrenâs campaign told supporters in an email on Friday that, so far, it has raised just over $17 million in the fourth quarter, a significant drop from her fundraising haul during the third quarter.
The memo asks backers to step up in giving to the campaign.
âSo far this quarter, weâve raised a little over $17 million. Thatâs a good chunk behind where we were at this time last quarter,â it says.
Warren finished the third quarter bringing in $24.6 million, which was much more than most of the other Democratic primary contenders, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Sen. Bernie Sanders â who, like Warren, shuns big-money fundraisers â led the field with more than $25 million during the third quarter.
If the $17 million total stands that would represent a 30% drop from the previous quarter. The quarter ends in four days.
Poll numbers and fawning media profiles are ephemeral, but cold, hard cash is a great measuring stick for a presidential campaign. Warren is in trouble and donors know it. After all that noise about the most women ever in a presidential field, it seems increasingly likely that it’s going to come down to Biden and Sanders. Warren had no problem taking high dollar donations until she ran for President. If you live in Iowa, own a phone and vote Democrat, there’s a decent chance Warren will call you:
Makes sure that activists, celebrities, elected leaders and local Democratic officials keep picking up the phone (or checking their voice mail) to hear the same five words: âHi, this is Elizabeth Warren.â
She has made thousands of such calls over the past two years to key political leaders and influencers, according to her campaign, and Democratic officials say she stands apart for her prolific phone habit. She makes her case against President Trump, seeks out advice and tries to lock down endorsements.
It is a huge investment of the campaignâs most precious resource â Ms. Warrenâs time â that advisers hope will pay a crucial good-will dividend in the run-up to the first votes of 2020.
The breadth of her call list serves another purpose: It reinforces the campaignâs message that she is a team player for the party, looking to lift candidates up and down the ballot despite running as a populist outsider threatening to shake up the system. And her efforts as a party builder and leader differentiate her from a key rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, who represents Vermont as an independent rather than as a Democrat, and whom far fewer Democrats described calling them out of the blue.
Early this year, Ms. Warren announced that she would not be courting or calling big donors, a fact that has become central to her campaign. âI donât do call time with millionaires and billionaires,â she declared at the most recent debate. Ms. Warren instead uses her calls to small donors â heavily publicized and advertised on social media â to burnish her populist credentials, and these less talked-about political calls to woo the establishment.
Ms. Warren occasionally makes the calls on the long walks she takes in the morning â she likes to get her steps in and can sometimes be seen, sans entourage, briskly roaming the streets of whatever city she woke up in that day. But most often her calls are made in car rides in between events.
Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Yet another NYTthree questions piece. “Power of love” question is vapid, and reparations is idiot Social justice Warrior pandering. On the third question, on her views on mental health, she “believes that antidepressants are harmfully overprescribed.” She probably has a point.
These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:
Biden continues to lead, the DNC raises the bar for Debate Three, Booker spurns his former best buds rabbi, Williamson attends the world’s lamest rave, and Swalwell and Gillibrand compete to see who can run the most cringe-inducing campaign. It’s your weekly Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update!
Polls
Harvard/Harris (go all the way to page 144): Biden 36, Sanders 17, Harris 8, Warren 5, Buttigieg 5, O’Rourke 4, Booker 3, Hickenlooper 1, Gravel 1, Ryan 1, Yang 1, Castro 1, Bloomberg 1, Inslee 1.
The DNC announced that come the third Presidential debate, Democrats will need to score at least two percent in four polls, as well as “campaign contributions from at least 130,000 donors, including 400 unique donors in at least 20 states,” to make the debate stage.
Everyone know who Joe Biden is. Every other candidate in the race? Not so much.
Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? The main news this week was a huge subpoena for campaign finances records stemming from last year’s losing gubernatorial campaign.
The nationally watched race for Georgia governor between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, the winner, was decided months ago. But proxy battles emanating from it still rage on.
Abramsâ campaign on Friday delivered more than 3,600 pages of bank records to the state ethics commission in response to a far-reaching subpoena looking to turn up campaign violations.
But a lawyer representing Abramsâ campaign is pushing back on releasing communications with outside individuals and groups, and Abramsâ former campaign manager slammed the investigation as âpolitical revengeâ by Republicans.
The subpoena was one of several targeting liberal groups connected to Abrams. Issued by David Emadi, the new head of Georgiaâs ethics commission, it asked for banking records from Abramsâ campaign as well as communications between the campaign and several outside groups working to drive voter registration and turnout.
Also see the news on Andrew Gillum below. Karl Rove systematically dismantles Abrams claims of “voter suppression” in her losing gubernatorial race.
Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. He had a CNN town hall. “If Bennet doesnât get a noticeable bump in the polls â meaning going from somewhere under 1 percent to anywhere consistently over 1 percent â he probably wonât make it onto the June debate stage in the first round.” Gets a Business Insider profile, which reveals that he was born in New Delhi, India. He was chairman of the Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2013â2015, which included the 2014 election where Republicans regained nine seats to retake the majority. He did vote against restoring the Clinton-era cosmetic “assault weapons” ban in 2013. Both he and Hickenlooper are having trouble finding traction:
Former governor John Hickenlooper, the wealthy white male moderate who progressives think is too close to the oil industry, and U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, the wealthy white male moderate who progressives think is too close to Wall Street, have both struggled to meet the debate requirements set by the Democratic National Committee.
Snip.
But itâs on the donor front that things begin to look truly dire for both candidates. As of March 31, Hickenlooper had received contributions from just 1,093 unique donors, a review of Federal Election Commission disclosures shows. While that figure only includes less than a monthâs worth of donations following his campaign announcement on March 4, it puts the governor on pace for only a fraction of the donors he needs to fully guarantee himself a spot on the debate stage in June and July, much less qualify for the September debate.
Because he announced his presidential bid after the FECâs first-quarter deadline, Bennet has yet to file a campaign-finance report. Neither campaign responded to a request for comment Wednesday on their total number of unique donors, or their reaction to the DNCâs new, higher threshold for the third debate.
Biden sought to reassure people that he views the changing climate as an existential threat to the planet, something he would take seriously and deal with aggressively. He also told his audience that the âfirst and most important plankâ of a Biden climate policy could be summed up in two words: âBeat Trump.â
His argument was hardly specious. He pointed to all the things that he â and the 22 other Democrats seeking the partyâs nomination â are talking about, all they would do if they gain power in 2020. âAs long as Donald Trumpâs in the White House,â he said, ânone of these critical things are going to get done.â
What was left unsaid but obvious was the bare-bones rationale for his candidacy, that heâs the candidate in the best position to deny Trump a second term. Biden will have to prove this over the coming months. He wonât be able to avoid his rivals, nor engage solely in a debate with the president. But right now, he wants Democrats to believe he has a far better chance of taking back the White House, if only because he would play well in the three states that secured Trumpâs presidency: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Snip.
At a time when the Democratic Party is being reshaped, Biden is a link to what came before Trump. He calls himself an Obama-Biden Democrat, which can be an asset in the primaries but perhaps less so in the general election. He will not have negatives as high as Hillary Clinton had in 2016 (or Trump for that matter). But Obama, for all his esteem and popularity among Democrats, was part of what brought about the reaction that gave the country the Trump presidency.
The biggest problem with Biden’s goal of being the candidate of both the past and the future is his inability to obtain the Time Stone…
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. Booker was closed friends with an Orthodox rabbi he met at Oxford. Now they don’t even speak. Why? Booker supported Obama’s Iran deal. (It’s a long, interesting piece, assuming you can get around the Post paywall/adblocker blocker combo.) Booker wants you to know that his gun control proposals would totally end mass shootings. Which proposals? “My proposals. You know, proposals. That I have. That will totally work. Because I say so.”
The only millennial on Earth to sincerely describe themselves as a âlaid-back intellectual,â Buttigieg has made it impressively far on identity alone. His website has a meme generator, for example, but no actual platform, leaving journalists to cobble one up out of tweets and interviews.
Whatâs emerged in the past six months is a brazenly conservative agenda.
To start, he doesnât want single-payer health care because he canât imagine a world without private insurance â one of the highest-profile symbols of the inhumanity of privatization. Instead, he wants âMedicare-for-all-who-want-itâ to compete in the marketplace. âI donât think we have to make it that complicated,â he says, sounding unnervingly like our current president.
The rest of his policies are likely informed by his personal life (same-sex marriage) or his military career, the latter of which dominates his worldview. If heâs for gun control, itâs only because he âdidnât carry an assault rifle around a foreign country just to come home and see them used to massacre my countrymen.â Indeed, Buttigieg carried an assault rifle to oversee the murder of Brown people, not his own electorate.
Buttigiegâs decorated service transforms him from a bootlicker into an actual boot-on-the-ground. He abandoned his elected duties to go to Afghanistan over a decade after everyone knew it was a phony war. Few âlaid-back intellectualsâ volunteer for war; fewer still come back believing in it. But Buttigieg canât get enough: Heâs afraid of Iran, blames Hamas for the devastating conditions in Gaza and thinks the U.S. has a lot to learn from how Israel âhandles threats.â
In April, he took it upon himself to suggest a ânational serviceâ program for every U.S. teenager. Maybe he means clean-up-your-rivers and volunteer-to-read service work, but itâs the military that swallows up his praise, and previous presidentsâ time in the war machine that he idolizes. I can already see the Republicans back home in Mississippi nodding along.
It’s always nice to have reminders that the hard left still hates ordinary Americans.
On paper, Castro checks so many boxes. Heâs young, heâs Latino, he has as much experience as Beto and Mayor Pete, he can appeal to the right with his strong religious beliefs.
But even Castroâs time as a former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development can be read as problematic.
âConsider … his relationship with Hillary Clinton, his time in politics, and I think compared to the two others mentioned, JuliĂĄn Castro is considered to be a part of the establishment that needs to change,â journalist Shahrazad Maria Encinias told me, via Facebook, echoing the sentiments of other journalists I reached out to in order to discuss Castroâs campaign.
And, for that matter, many think that, despite Castroâs resume, thereâs not a lot of âthereâ there.
Also this: “I donât know who would be identified as his base.” Wait, you mean twenty years of endless “Hispanics are a super-powerful political force just waiting for the right candidate to wake them up” pieces were just lies? (Spoiler: Yes.) He also promised not to take oil and gas money:
Since day one, my campaign refused contributions from PACs, corporations, and lobbyists. Today I announced we're also refusing contributions from oil, gas, and coal executivesâso you know my priorities are with the health of our families, climate and democracy. #NoFossilFuelMoneypic.twitter.com/dwHoMklrzy
Because oil companies are just lining up to donate to a guy polling at 1%. He’s scheduled for a Fox town hall on June 13.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: In. Twitter. Facebook. Daily Beast: “Hereâs Why Bill de Blasio Thinks He Can Be President. And Hereâs Why Heâs Wrong.” It’s actually pretty weak tea by the standards of de Blasio-bashing. (Speaking of rich genres…) Oh, and NYPD cops hate him too. “‘As you can see, a President Bill de Blasio would be an unmitigated disaster, not just for union members, but for any American who wants a functioning government,’ NYC Police Union President Patrick Lynch wrote in a letter the union shared with media.”
When one examines Gabbardâs politics, the only difference between Gabbard and the rightâs least favorite leftist ideologies is that she has spoken out articulately about online censorship and anti-interventionism.
Both talking points, however, are a means of pushing economically and politically left-wing policy.
Snip.
Speaking of constitutional rights, Gabbard picks and chooses what to support. In the words of her own campaign website, Gabbard seeks to âensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited.â
She has demonstrated her desire to disarm the American population by continually pushing gun control legislation, including H.R.5087, a congressional bill that proposes a full ban on all âsemiautomatic assault weapons,â with a pages-long definition that effectively includes every semiautomatic weapon in existence.
Her website also clearly states her support of the âconcept ofâ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezâs âGreen New Deal,â a proposal that was (rightfully) relentlessly mocked by the right for its unrealistic goals and childish language (âcow farts.â)
Gabbardâs public support of the same bill is overlooked however, because she is viewed as more mature, reasonable, and eloquent than Ocasio Cortez.
But her goals are not much more grounded than those of Ocasio-Cortez. She is currently pushing the âOFF Fossil Fuels Act,â a bill that if passed would mandate a 100 per cent transition to âzero-emissionâ vehicles in just 16 years. The same bill would require that the United States transition to 100 per cent âclean energyâ within the same 16-year period.
Gabbardâs environmental goals practically mirror those of Ocasio-Cortez. Sheâs just less bombastic about it.
Also look at Shoe0nHead’s callout to Gabbard as her queen in Saturday’s video if you haven’t already.
At this point, Gillibrand isnât focused on winning the primary. Sheâs worried about surviving the next few months.
Despite a soaring national profile in the U.S. Senate[{{citation needed}}], Gillibrand has failed to achieve liftoff as a presidential prospect. She has not broken 2 percent in a single national poll since officially declaring her candidacy in mid-March, and her 0.4 percent average in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of surveys places her behind the likes of JuliĂĄn Castro, Tulsi Gabbard and even geeky long shot Andrew Yang.
This is the point where I’d usually do a snip and quote another big block of biographic info on Gillibrand, but the pandering here is laid on too thick to let it pass: “Gillibrand gained national attention upon entering the political arena for possessing a rare combination of big brains [No], telegenic looks [she’s OK] and personal magnetism [No].” She’s “telegenic” only by “politics is Hollywood for ugly people” standards. She’s got middling blond sorority girl looks, her “soaring national profile” seems limited to a few political reporter fangirls, and before she launched her presidential campaign, the average non-New Yorker couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup. She’s a political lightweight that a small group of dedicated party hacks has insisted we treat as a heavyweight. She Peter Principled her way into a senate seat and her Presidential aspirations are laughable. She’s Beto O’Rourke without the gravitas and 90% less goofy charisma, and her campaign failure is entirely predictable. And if you thought she was a bad politician, you haven’t heard her singing:
Kirsten Gillibrand singing Lizzo on the campaign trail is the cringiest moment of the 21st century (so far): pic.twitter.com/S22Q5zJ0vO
She seems like one of those drunks at karaoke night who is absolutely sure she’s nailing it, much to the amusement of everyone else. She’s also tried some tranny pandering.
Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. Biggest news this week was him being hit with federal subpoenas over “his 2018 campaign for governor and his work with a Massachusetts nonprofit organization and a local public relations firm owned by one of his closest advisers.” If I were of a conspiratorial cast of mind, I’d view this and the Stacey Abrams subpoenas mentioned above as part of a coordinated effort against both. However, the rational part of my mind notes that one was state and the other federal, which tends to argue against such a conspiracy.
Our condolences to @ericswalwell, @SenGillibrand, @sethmoulton, and @amyklobuchar (all fake progressives and stooges for corporate power) for polling below us in the new Harvard/Harris poll. There's always next time!
The Klobuchar zero showing in that poll is probably an anomaly, but yeah, the others are toast.
California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. LA Times: “After dazzling debut, Kamala Harris falls from top of presidential pack.” It was never that dazzling, and she was never at the top. She is racking up California endorsements, which are like the Arby’s coupons of politics; you keep them around because every once in a while they’re useful, but mostly they just lie around forgotten until getting tossed out long past their expiration date. Freakshow animal rights protestor grabs the mic from her on stage.
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. She was on Pod Save America, which is big in lefty circles. It’s a whole lot of “Trump won the Midwest, but I can win the Midwest, because I’m the most Midwest Midwest from the Midwest.”
Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. The Center for Public Integrity offers nine random facts on Messam, including his record of political giving and the value of his house ($517,220). It’s not particularly interesting, but Messam news is thin on the ground…
Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: In. Twitter. Facebook. Had a CNN town hall, where he pandered hard. “If this country wasn’t racist, Stacey Abrams would be governor.” 0-2. He does oppose “Medicare for all.”
Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Sanders is not doing so well now that he’s not running against Hillary Clinton. “In conversations recently with about a dozen voters who showed up at his events during his longest New Hampshire swing, it’s clear that the kind of ride-or-die support Sanders had in 2016 has dissipated a bit.” Reason covers his commie history.
Sanders once identified as a socialist who, with reservations, admired the economic achievements of Cuba under Fidel Castro, of Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, and of the Soviet Union right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Running for office as a candidate for the Liberty Union Party in Vermont in the 1970s, Sanders sought a top tax rate of 100%, saying “nobody should earn more than $1 million.”
Sanders wanted to stop businesses from moving out of their original communities, arguing that the ultimate solution to protect workers was national legislation that would “bring about the public ownership of the major means of production.” He favored the government seizure of “utilities, banks, and major industries,” without compensation to investors or stockholders.
Shortly after he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981, Sanders told a room full of charity workers, “I don’t believe in charities,” because only the government should provide social services to the needy.
California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. It’s like he’s trying to win a bet for running the most cringe-inducing campaign:
I may be "another white guy," but I know where there are gaps in my knowledge or my experience and I know when to pass the mic. pic.twitter.com/jMYBwF97xY
He too had a CNN town hall. “The California congressman said he did not agree with Sanders’ proposal to extend voting rights to people currently in prison.” Also opposes eliminating private health insurance and impeachment. But should Swalwell obtaining these tiny clues temporarily blind you to the fact that he’s still an idiot, there’s also this: “The 38-year-old congressman said on Sunday night that he’s still paying off what was $100,000 in student loan debt.”
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren’s radical wonkery offers “A vision of a government that is at once more responsive and more intrusive.” And radically bigger and more expensive. She proposed a blatantly unconstitutional wealth tax. Well, you can’t expect a former Harvard law professor to understand such arcane trivia as “the Constitution.” She’s all in on Iowa:
At a half-dozen events in rural Eastern Iowa over Memorial Day weekend, paid organizers and volunteers swarmed every attendee, affixing brightly colored circles to them as proof their contact information had been secured. The sticker patrol circled the room before Warren spoke â and afterward in the selfie line â just in case anyone happened to slip through.
The campaignâs hyper-vigilance about capturing data on every potential supporter isnât unique to Iowa, but the sheer number of people dedicated to the task certainly is. Warren has made an early wager on the state unrivaled by other Democratic hopefuls, aiming to strike early in the nomination contest by out-organizing the competition.
She already has more than 50 staffers in Iowa, and more are coming: A âsignificantâ number of hires will be announced on June 15, according to Jason Noble, her Iowa communications director. The national campaign said its Iowa payroll would total at least 60 after the additions.
Plenty of other Democrats are investing heavily and ramping up their presence in Iowa, including Cory Booker, Beto OâRourke, and Kamala Harris. But no candidate has hired nearly as many staffers or made the Hawkeye State as central to their hopes for the nomination from the very start.
Snip.
But the up-front investment by Warren â who so far has lagged behind Biden, Bernie Sanders, Harris, OâRourke, and Pete Buttigieg in fundraising â isn’t without risk. Committing to so many salaries from the outset could leave the campaign without much cash for TV and digital advertising in the critical weeks before voting begins. That danger is even greater given that Warren has sworn off high-dollar fundraisers.
Warrenâs camp says sheâll be fine, pointing out that she transferred $10.4 million from her Senate reelection account to give her a healthy financial cushion.
Could work, or could leave her dead broke after coming fourth behind Biden, Sanders and (rolls dice) Klobuchar and no way to pivot to must-win New Hampshire.
Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She appeared at a “rave.” I use quotes because “The event, ‘Ethereal Spring,’ is being thrown by Daybreaker, a three-hour sober morning rave held every few weeks in cities across the world. Like other Daybreaker events, this one consists of an hour-long fitness class followed by two hours of (sober, morning) dancing.” That resembles a “rave” about as much as an afternoon tea party resembles an orgy. (Cue a bitter old journalist penning the obligatory “Millennials Ruin Raves” piece.) Six paragraphs in we learn this takes place in Manhattan. Then Williamson talks about the importance of dancing. Welcome to Hell. She also gets a Washington Post profile. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know she was campaigning in Fairfield, Iowa, home to a lot of people who practice Transcendental Meditation. Om, om on the range…
Yang, 44, was born in New York to two immigrants from Taiwan. He graduated from high school in Exeter, N.H., in 1992, got an undergraduate degree from Brown and went to law school at Columbia, which he graduated from in 1999. His career got off to a tough start: He spent mere months working as a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York before, he says, he quickly became bored with it. Next he launched a failed Internet company called Stargiving, which raised money for charity by auctioning off celebrity experiences. He worked for a mobile software company called Crisp Wireless as vice president of their business and legal department and at a health-care start-up called MMF Systems. Then he ran a tutoring company that was acquired by test-prep giant Kaplan in 2009 for an undisclosed amount. (On the trail, Yang refers to it as a âmodest fortune.â)
In 2011, Yang founded an organization called Venture for America. His vision was to train entrepreneurs and dispatch them around the country to help create job growth. He was later named one of the Obama White Houseâs Champions of Change for that work. Along the way, Yang married and had two kids, including an autistic son.
In a way, Yang credits the latter experience with fueling his campaign for president. âAs first-time parents, you donât know whatâs normal versus whatâs not normal,â he recalls. âIs it normal for a three-year-old to freak out when the texture of the ground changes?â It was a growing experience for him. Until then, Yang had suffered only minor adversity. The idea that a single mother would have to care for an autistic child with no resources was heartbreaking, he says, and helped shape his belief in universal basic incomeâthe core of his platform and the idea thatâs helped him gain traction.
Also: “To win the nomination, Yang will have to convince Democrats that heâs got the best chance at beating Trump.” Yeah, I don’t see that happening.
Out of the Running
These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, or for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running (and I’ve even gone back and put in names that were mentioned as possibilities for running that I’ve dropped, just for the sake of completeness):
Via Twitchy comes this news of a browser extension from American Bridge (one of David Brock’s liberal super-PACs) that changes “Trump” to “Steve Bannon.”
Evidently love now Steve Bannons hate.
This has to be one of the more remarkable branding failures of recent memory. Liberals have spent the last year engaged in nonstop demonization of Donald Trump, evidently believing that if they just called him SuperExtraMegaHitler with a side order of cheese fries enough, voters would come to see him with the gut-level personal distaste they did and he would never be elected.
This little prank from one of Brock’s groups confirms that tactic not only failed, but keeps failing. Instead of continuing their futile attempts to demonize President Trump, some liberal elites have obviously decided that it’s more productive to demonize Bannon as “the new Karl Rove.” The problem with this approach is that while everyone knows who Trump is, I doubt 90+% of the electorate knows who Bannon is.
Jimmy Kimmel should set up one of those man-in-the-street-quiz segments where people are asked: “Who is Steve Bannon? A. An aide to President Trump, or B. The guy who turns into The Incredible Hulk?” I’m betting most people pick B.
The other problem with this approach: the “demonize Karl Rove as the evil mastermind tactic” didn’t work either, as it failed to prevent Bush43 from being elected to a second term.
Latest Iran deal revelation: Iran gets to self-inspect their own nuclear site. But Kerry did get them to agree to pinky swear they’re telling the truth…
Obama and his party. “No president in modern times has presided over so disastrous a stretch for his party, at almost every level of politics.” Caveat the first: Although I think the phrase “thereâs neither a Great Depression nor a criminal conspiracy in the White House to explain what has happened” is probably false on both counts. Caveat the second: Notice how the article carefully omits any mention of the specific Obama policies that have made his party so unpopular…
I really want to believe this Atlantic piece on how Russia is losing in Ukraine, but I just don’t. This one sentence has so much wrong with it I have trouble trusting the rest of the article: “Shale, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and renewablesâthree areas where Russia is extremely weakâare ascendant and are dramatically altering the market.” Shale’s a solid play if you’ve already tapped out more easily-extracted hydrocarbons (I doubt Russia has), LNG is a profitable byproduct if you’re already extracting oil, but at today’s market prices (which have sucked since 2009) it’s not worth pursuing on its own, and renewables? Hippie, please…
Muslim beats wife in front of police, saying they can’t arrest him because she’s his property.
Slovakia to the EU: Screw you, we’re not taking any Muslim refugees. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
Movement in Spain tries to erase Salvador Dali from history. You’ll get my Salvador Dali from me when you pry the melting clocks out of my burning hands!
While hardly a disinterested observer, Karl Rove is far from an untutored one, and he offers up some compelling reasons why Obama will lose in 2012. Four, to be precise:
The economy is very weak and unlikely to experience a robust recovery by Election Day.
Key voter groups have soured on him.
He’s defending unpopular policies.
And he’s made bad strategic decisions.
The second point is the one he offers the most meat in terms of polling analysis. And the fourth is Obama’s decision to abandon Presidential distance and starting campaiging for reelection early.
James Cameron calls for a vote against California’s Proposition 23, which would reign in the most radical of the state’s job-destroying “green” excesses. That’s Canadian citizen James Cameron.
Is Nurse Bloomberg planning a run for the Presidency in 2012? “If he runs, Bloomberg is prepared to spend between $1 to $3 billion on his campaign.” That’s Billion, with a “B”.
“Poll Finds Obama Voters Leaning Republican”: That was the original title for that New York Times piece. It looks like someone at the Obama White House got through on the emergency NYT Red Phone, as it now bears the less-depressing-for-liberals title “Obama Coalition Is Fraying, Poll Finds.” But the article itself should be just as distressing to them: “Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Roman Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents.” And take a look at the accompanying graphic, which shows lots of groups breaking heavily for Republicans, including college-educated voters. Man, that’s got to really stiing for those enveloped in the soft comfort of the Obama Reality Bubble.
(Hat tips: Real Clear Politics, Fark, NRO’s The Corner, and probably some I’ve forgotten. I’m dancing as fast as I can.)
Charles Krauthammer: “If you are a conservative Democrat and you see the great swing between ’08 and ’09, you know that this idea that you can ride the coattails of Obama â [that] there was a great realignment last year â is false, and they are now extremely exposed.”
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann are even blunter: “Are the elections of 2009 precursors of the same kind of massive partisan upheaval in Congress that we experienced in 1994? The historical data says yes, they are….For the House to pass Obamaâs healthcare bill five days after so huge a repudiation of the Democratic Party and its program is breathtaking in its arrogance. Voters all over America will get the point: The congressional Democrats donât give a damn what the voters think.”
Karl Rove also sees the results as disasterous for Democrats: “Tuesday’s elections should put a scare into red state Democratsâand a few blue state ones, too….Looking ahead, the bad news for Democrats is that the legislation that helped lead to the collapse of support for their party on Tuesday could yet inflict more pain on those foolish enough to support it. The health-care bill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to vote on this week could sink an entire fleet of Democratic boats in 2010….Tuesday’s results were the first sign that voters are revolting against runaway spending and government expansion. But Democrat likely ain’t seen nothin’ yet if they try to ram through health-care reform.”
The Wall Street Journal calls it “Worst. Bill. Ever.” (Actually, they just say worst since the New Deal; after all, the infamy isn’t quite the same as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. However, as bad as it is, I’m not sure the results of ObamaCare be quite as baleful as the Economic Opportunity Act enacted as part of LBJ’s Great Society programs that helped bring up us intergenerational welfare dependency and the destruction of the black family structure in America.)
