Bernie vs. The DNC: Round 2

April 17th, 2019

In 2016, it was obvious to neutral observers that the DNC had put their thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. From mysterious coin flips to Debbie Wasserman Schultz rigging the superdelegate count to Clinton using the DNC as her personal money laundering service to evade federal campaign limits, the entire process was rigged against Sanders.

This presents a two-fold problem for Democrats in 2020: Sanders is still bitter about it, and Democratic establishment still wants to screw him out of the nomination:

WASHINGTON — When Leah Daughtry, a former Democratic Party official, addressed a closed-door gathering of about 100 wealthy liberal donors in San Francisco last month, all it took was a review of the 2020 primary rules to throw a scare in them.

Democrats are likely to go into their convention next summer without having settled on a presidential nominee, said Ms. Daughtry, who ran her party’s conventions in 2008 and 2016, the last two times the nomination was contested. And Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is well positioned to be one of the last candidates standing, she noted.

“I think I freaked them out,” Ms. Daughtry recalled with a chuckle, an assessment that was confirmed by three other attendees. They are hardly alone.

From canapé-filled fund-raisers on the coasts to the cloakrooms of Washington, mainstream Democrats are increasingly worried that their effort to defeat President Trump in 2020 could be complicated by Mr. Sanders, in a political scenario all too reminiscent of how Mr. Trump himself seized the Republican nomination in 2016.

Yes, it’s ever so “complicating” when you actually let voters choose the candidate they prefer rather than foisting the Jeb Bushes of the world on them.

How, some Democrats are beginning to ask, do they thwart a 70-something candidate from outside the party structure who is immune to intimidation or incentive and wields support from an unwavering base, without simply reinforcing his “the establishment is out to get me”’ message — the same grievance Mr. Trump used to great effect?

But stopping Mr. Sanders, or at least preventing a contentious convention, could prove difficult for Democrats.

He has enormous financial advantages — already substantially outraising his Democratic rivals — that can sustain a major campaign through the primaries. And he is well positioned to benefit from a historically large field of candidates that would splinter the vote: If he wins a substantial number of primaries and caucuses and comes in second in others, thanks to his deeply loyal base of voters across many states, he would pick up formidable numbers of delegates.

To a not-insignificant number of Democrats, of course, Mr. Sanders’s populist agenda is exactly what the country needs. And he has proved his mettle, having emerged from the margins to mount a surprisingly strong challenge to Hillary Clinton, earning 13 million votes and capturing 23 primaries or caucuses.

His strength on the left gives him a real prospect of winning the Democratic nomination and could make him competitive for the presidency if his economic justice message resonates in the Midwest as much as Mr. Trump’s appeals to hard-edge nationalism did in 2016. And for many Sanders supporters, the anxieties of establishment Democrats are not a concern.

That prospect is spooking establishment-aligned Democrats, some of whom are worried that his nomination could lure a third-party centrist into the field. And it is also creating tensions about what, if anything, should be done to halt Mr. Sanders.

Some in the party still harbor anger over the 2016 race, when he ran against Mrs. Clinton, and his continuing resistance to becoming a Democrat. But his critics are chiefly motivated by a fear that nominating an avowed socialist would all but ensure Mr. Trump a second term.

In this they’re probably right.

“There’s a growing realization that Sanders could end up winning this thing, or certainly that he stays in so long that he damages the actual winner,” said David Brock, the liberal organizer, who said he has had discussions with other operatives about an anti-Sanders campaign and believes it should commence “sooner rather than later.”

I remember them talking about “damaging Hillary” in 2016 as well, as though it was Sanders’ and his supporters’ loyal duty to lay down and allow themselves to be crushed rather trying to win. “The mere rank and file voter must not be allowed to interfere with the desires of their betters!”

But to some veterans of the still-raw 2016 primary, a heavy-handed intervention may only embolden him and his fervent supporters.

You don’t say!

R. T. Rybak, the former Minneapolis mayor who was vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, complained bitterly about the party’s tilt toward Mrs. Clinton back then, and warned that it would backfire if his fellow mainstream Democrats “start with the idea that you’re trying to stop somebody.”

If the party fractures again, “or if we even have anybody raising an eyebrow of ‘I’m not happy about this,’ we’re going to lose and they’ll have this loss on their hands,” Mr. Rybak said of the anti-Sanders forces, pleading with them to not make him “a martyr.”

The good news for Mr. Sanders’s foes is that his polling is down significantly in early-nominating states from 2016, he is viewed more negatively among Democrats than many of his top rivals, and he has already publicly vowed to support the party’s nominee if he falls short.

“Bernie Sanders believes the most critical mission we have before us is to defeat Donald Trump,” said Faiz Shakir, Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager. “Any and all decisions over the coming year will emanate from that key goal.”

Or, as former Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri put it: “One thing we have now that we didn’t in ’16 is the uniting force of Trump. There will be tremendous pressure on Bernie and his followers to fall in line because of what Trump represents.”

This is what professional observers call “a lie.” You didn’t have the uniting force of Trump back in 2016? I’m pretty sure you were all united in your hatred of him back then as well. And Bernie and his supporters had just as much pressure (if not more so) to fall in line.

But Mr. Sanders is also taking steps that signal he is committed for the duration of the race — and will strike back aggressively when he’s attacked. On Saturday his campaign sent a blistering letter to the Center for American Progress, a Clinton-aligned liberal think tank, accusing them of abetting Mr. Trump’s attacks, of playing a “destructive” role in Democratic politics, and of being beholden to “the corporate money” they receive. The letter came days after a website aligned with the center aired a video highlighting Mr. Sanders’s status as a millionaire.

See Monday’s clown care update for details.

Snip.

“If anybody thinks Bernie Sanders is incapable of doing politics, they haven’t seen him in Congress for 30 years,” said Tad Devine, Mr. Sanders’s longtime strategist, who is not working for his campaign this year. “The guy is trying to win this time.”

But such outreach matters little to many Democrats, especially donors and party officials, who are growing more alarmed about Mr. Sanders’s candidacy.

Mr. Brock, who supported Mrs. Clinton’s past presidential bids, said “the Bernie question comes up in every fund-raising meeting I do.” Steven Rattner, a major Democratic Party donor, said the topic was discussed “endlessly” in his orbit, and among Democratic leaders it was becoming hard to block out.

“It has gone from being a low hum to a rumble,” said Susan Swecker, the chairwoman of Virginia’s Democratic Party.

All these anti-Sanders quotes seem to have the same undercurrent “It is Bernie’s duty to do the will of the Party, and it is we party elite, not mere voters, who channel the true will of the Party.”

Howard Wolfson, who spent months immersed in Democratic polling and focus groups on behalf of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, had a blunt message for Sanders skeptics: “People underestimate the possibility of him becoming the nominee at their own peril.”

The discussion about Mr. Sanders has to date been largely confined to private settings because — like establishment Republicans in 2016 — Democrats are uneasy about elevating him or alienating his supporters.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats in 2016? RNC chairman Reince Priebus, even though he was a Scott Walker guy, acted as fair, neutral overseer of the election process, refusing repeated calls to “derail Trump” for the “good of the party,” while DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz put her thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton at every turn. The end result was that Trump won and Clinton lost. The danger of thwarting the actual will of voters once again seems lost on Democratic Party insiders.

The matter of What To Do About Bernie and the larger imperative of party unity has, for example, hovered over a series of previously undisclosed Democratic dinners in New York and Washington organized by the longtime party financier Bernard Schwartz. The gatherings have included scores from the moderate or center-left wing of the party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California; Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader; former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., himself a presidential candidate; and the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden.

“He did us a disservice in the last election,” said Mr. Schwartz, a longtime Clinton supporter who said he would support former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in this primary.

Remember: actually trying to defeat the party’s One True Anointed Candidate is “a disservice.”

But it is hardly only Mr. Sanders’s critics who believe the structure of this race could lead to a 50-state contest and require deal-cutting to determine a nominee before or at the convention.

“If I had to bet today, we’ll get to Milwaukee and not have a nominee,” said Ms. Daughtry, who was neutral in the 2016 primary.

The reason, she theorized, is simple: Super Tuesday, when at least 10 states vote, comes just three days after the last of four early states. After that, nearly 40 percent of the delegates will have been distributed — and, she suspects, carved up among candidates so that nobody can emerge with a majority.

Unlike Republicans, who used a winner-take-all primary format, Democrats use a proportional system, so candidates only need to garner 15 percent of the vote in a primary or caucus to pick up delegates. And even if a candidate fails to capture 15 percent statewide, he or she could still win delegates by meeting that vote threshold in individual congressional districts.

Should no bargain be struck by the time of the first roll call vote at the 2020 convention in Milwaukee — such as a unity ticket between a pair of the leading delegate-winners — the nomination battle would move to a second ballot. And under the new rules crafted after the 2016 race, that is when the party insiders and elected officials known as superdelegates would be able to cast a binding vote.

The specter of superdelegates deciding the nomination, particularly if Mr. Sanders is a finalist, is highly unappetizing to party officials.

Sure it is. I have absolutely no doubt that, if push comes to shove and Sanders comes into the convention with the most delegates but short of a majority, the DNC is going to find some way to screw him out of the nomination yet again, and by whatever means necessary. And it’s going to be hilarious. Also, I think many political junkies are secretly (or not-so-secretly) hoping for a brokered convention, since one hasn’t happened since 1952.

“If he is consistently raising $6 million more than his next closest opponent, he’s going to have a massive financial advantage,” said Rufus Gifford, former President Barack Obama’s 2012 finance director, noting that Mr. Sanders would be able to blanket expensive and delegate-rich Super Tuesday states like California and Texas with ads during early voting there.

Mr. Gifford, who has gone public in recent days with his dismay over major Democratic fund-raisers remaining on the sidelines, said of Mr. Sanders, “I feel like everything we are doing is playing into his hands.”

But the peril of rallying the party’s elite donor class against a candidate whose entire public life has been organized around confronting concentrated wealth is self-evident: Mr. Sanders would gleefully seize on any Stop Bernie effort.

“You can see him reading the headlines now,” Mr. Brock mused: “‘Rich people don’t like me.’”

Fair enough, but a whole lot of the “rich people” who absolutely hate Sanders seem to be Democratic Party insiders and Hillary backers. And don’t forget that DNC Chair Tom Perez is a Clintonista who ruthlessly purged Sanders supporters from all DNC staff positions.

Related thoughts from Robert Stacy McCain:

All the “experts” on the Democrat side (most of whom are connected to the Clinton machine, in one way or another) believe Bernie Sanders can’t possibly defeat Trump, so they’re doing everything they can to stop him. Ask yourself why there’s been so much enthusiasm in the liberal media for Pete Buttigieg. That’s got all the hallmarks of a Team Clinton propaganda operation. After the attempt to launch Beto O’Rourke as a “rock star” candidate fizzled, Team Clinton looked around for some other available weapon to hurl at Bernie — they really hate Bernie — and apparently Buttigieg got the nod. Another hallmark of a Team Clinton operation? It’s failing. Despite everything his enemies have done to try to boost other candidates, Bernie’s support keeps growing. He’s gained more than five points, from 16.5% to 21.7% in the Real Clear Politics national average, in just the past couple of months.

This is very good news for Republicans, by the way. Team Clinton’s meddling in the Democrat primary campaign will only add to the paranoid cult mentality among Bernie’s supporters, intensifying their commitment to their candidate, so that if anyone else gets the 2020 nomination, at least one-fifth of Democrats will believe that Bernie got cheated again. Anything that convinces the rank-and-file that the Democrat Party is essentially corrupt — yeah, that helps Trump.

I’m not sure I buy the Buttigieg Boomlet as Clinton Op theory, but I do admit that it makes a certain amount of sense…

LBJ Didn’t Kill JFK

April 16th, 2019

Sunday I got my taxes to the all-but-printed stage, and then drove down to Bookpeople to attend a signing for Robert Caro’s new book Working (an excerpt of which I printed back in January).

Caro is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of four (soon to be five) monumental volumes on the life of Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson (The Path to Power, Means of Ascent, Master Of The Senate, and The Passage of Power). The portrait Caro paints of Johnson (and keep in mind that I haven’t read all of them yet) is that of a shrewd, driven, absolute son-of-a-bitch. I’m sure Mr. Caro and I would have many political disagreements (he’s obviously a fan of many of the big government initiatives Johnson championed), but no one doubts his competence and commitment to research (which is what Working is about; how he found out certain things in the lives of Johnson and Robert Moses, the subject of his equally acclaimed book The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.)

No one, that is, except Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theorists.

Now let’s grant that there were many strange aspects to the Kennedy Assassination, that LBJ was an absolute son-of-a-bitch, and that numerous people in the 1960s thought he might have had a hand in it. I own copies of A Texan Links at Lyndon and MacBird! (a satirical play casting LBJ as Macbeth and JFK as Duncan). So it’s not exactly a new idea.

One would think, more than half a century after the assassination, the conspiracy theorists, having failed to provide incontrovertible proof of said conspiracy, would move on. But it seems that an entirely new crop has popped up in the margins.

One of them showed up at Caro’s signing. (I later found out the name of the local crank, but don’t feel like giving him the publicity.) During the question and answer session he nattered on and on about Madeleine Brown, Billie Sol Estes, etc. It was more a monologue than a speech.

After sharp prompting from Bookpeople staff and the audience, he finally got out something resembling a question and briefly shut up. Caro replied he had read the Brown, said it was a poor plagiarism of another book he had read (but couldn’t remember the title), and dismissed the others. Then came the money quote:

“In 40 years of research I never came across any credible evidence that LBJ had anything to do with JFK’s assassination.”

Keep in mind that this is a man who has made every effort to interview all the living principles of Johnson’s life, read hundreds of boxes of papers in the LBJ library, found out the undocumented source of Johnson’s secret power in 1940 (discussed in the aforementioned post), and even interviewed Ladybird Johnson about her late husband’s longtime lover Alice Glass.

This is not a man who skimps on research.

If Robert Caro says there’s no evidence that Johnson had anything to do with the Kennedy assassination, I don’t see how an objective observer can regard that as anything but the definitive word.

Unfashionable though it may be to believe so, communist sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald, probably acting alone, almost certainly killed John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson had nothing to do with it.

Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 15, 2019

April 15th, 2019

More Q1 numbers are trickling out. Harris, Sanders and O’Rourke all did well, Gillibrand and Castro did poorly. Insert your own Biden as Hamlet sentence here.

Fundraising

More Q1 fundraising numbers, continued from last week, with new additions announced

  1. Bernie Sanders: $18.2 million from 525,000 donors
  2. Kamala Harris: $12 million from 138,000 donors
  3. Beto O’Rourke: $9.4 million from 218,000 contributions (number of donors not specified)
  4. Pete Buttigieg: $7 million from 158,550 donors
  5. Elizabeth Warren: $6 million from 135,000 individuals
  6. Amy Klobuchar: $5.2 million (number of donors not specified)
  7. Cory Booker: $5 million (number of donors not specified)
  8. Kirsten Gillibrand: $3 million
  9. Andrew Yang: $1.7 million from 80,000 donors
  10. Julian Castro: $1.1 million

For the sake of comparison, incumbent president Donald Trump pulled in pulled in $30 million, and has $40 million in hand.

Polls etc.

Emerson: Sanders 29, Biden 24%, Buttigieg 9%, Harris and O’Rourke at 8%. I think that’s the first poll that had Sanders over Biden, or Buttigieg over Harris and O’Rourke.

538 Presidential roundup.

538 polls.

Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.

Decision Desk has helpfully compiled a stream of 2020 Presidential candidate tweets.

Pundits

Washington Post‘s The Fix rates the candidates in order of likeliness to be a nominee. Any list that ranks Warren third and Biden sixth can’t be taken seriously.

Heh: “Scientists Recommend Reducing The Number Of Democratic Presidential Candidates To Help Fight Climate Change.” “Scientists recommend the current Democratic field be reduced to less than half the current number or we could see an increase in hurricanes, droughts, kaiju, and ‘other climate change things.'”

Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Krystal Ball (yes, her real name) make the case for Abrams. “You can just hear the narrator intoning: “With hard work and perseverance, anyone can succeed. America is the land of opportunity.’ But, Abrams doesn’t seem to buy that narrative. For one thing, in spite of all of her success in the grand American meritocracy, Abrams still found herself filing for governor at a time when she owed $170,000 in consumer and student loan debt and $50,000 in taxes.” Wait, you’re making the case for Abrams? As for running statewide:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out. But see Friday’s LinkSwarm for more information on this prince among men and his multiple felony indictments.
  • Addition: Actor Alec Baldwin: Maybe? No news from Baldwin himself since floating last week’s Twitter balloon, but this piece suggests Democrats should run a celebrity…just not Alec Baldwin.

    In one of the Twitter rants he is always getting up to, Alec Baldwin claimed the other day that if he ran for president in 2020, he could beat President Trump. It would be “easy,” he said. “So easy. So easy.”

    I’m not so sure he’s right about this. No one over the age of 35 watches Saturday Night Live anymore, certainly not outside our major cities. Normal people don’t know who is being parodied in your 37th different sketch about some minor White House official, which makes laughing along kind of difficult. What else do Americans associate Baldwin with these days, apart from 30 Rock and that one funny monologue in Glengarry Glen Ross? His stint narrating Thomas and Friends? The Hunt for Red October? I just don’t think he’s beloved enough.

    Wait, people under the age of 35 watch Saturday Night Live? I’ll need to see documented evidence of that…

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning toward a run. Despite his cancer diagnosis, he was visiting Iowa, which suggests he’s not easily deterred.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning Towards Running. He’s evidently planning to run as Obama’s pale third term. I’m not sure that’s the red tofu Democratic activists are longing to hear, but it may not matter. Biden also has an advantage in having every old Democratic office holder at his beck and call. Here’s a Vanity Fair piece on how the #MeToo creeper stuff is going to hurt him; it’s unconvincing, and it’s the same argument liberals made about the Billy Bush tape sinking Trump. He’s also delivering Fritz Hollings’ eulogy.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Maybe. Nothing since last week’s “he might run after all” blip.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He had a kickoff campaign event in Newark, where he did the usual “Republicans are evil racists who will kill you” scaremongering. Whistling past the graveyard: “Cory Booker Hasn’t Taken Off Yet, but His Campaign Doesn’t Mind.”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning Toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1. Now that date is not so far away…
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He did the “I was already running but now I’m officially officially running” thing. A report on his speech makes it sounds like all the usual Democratic talking points. “Buttigieg criticized what he called the more conservative connotation of the word “freedom,” one that he said refers simply to freedom from the government. He instead talked about government having a role in promoting other freedoms: from racism, gender inequality, unfair working conditions, financial exploitation, a lack of affordable health care.” Big Brother needs to get bigger! Kurt Schlichter wants us to remember how annoying Buttigieg is. Hmmm: “Austin Mayor Steve Adler backing Buttigieg two weeks after welcoming Beto at hometown rally.” Those liberal college town mayors have to stick together…
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Castro only raised $1.1 million in Q1. Even by the standard of a guy that’s not setting the campaign trail on fire that’s piss-poor. Gets a Vox profile.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out. But for some inexplicable reason she and her husband are out on a speaking tour. Of course, it could be the very explicable reason of “money.”
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. “New York City mayor tests chilly waters for presidential run.” “Chilly” as in “Hydrogen freezes.”
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. He campaigned in Pennsylvania. “At a Tuesday night event hosted by Penn Democrats, Delaney billed himself as a different type of Democrat, offering a centrist vision for the nation.” The picture shows a crowd of what looks to be about 25 people, despite a plate of free sandwiches in the room…
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She hit the goal of 65,000 donors to put her on the debate stage, but no word yet of how much money she actually raised. Also, Hawaii Democratic State Senator Kai Kahele says he’s raised $250,000 to primary Gabbard for her U.S. congressional seat.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She raised $3 million in Q1, which is piss poor by the standards of a sitting new York senator. She should have been able to shake down that much from Wall Street the day she announced. her staff is blaming her stand on Al Franken. Heh: “White House National Security Adviser John Bolton could not stop laughing when played a clip of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) discussing her opposition to “tactile” nuclear weapons on the campaign trail.”
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. Seeing no sign he’s running for President in 2020. But this is interesting: “Former Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum built up some serious hype when he launched a voter drive. That work will be done with his Forward Florida political committee, which he now chairs. But it appears Gillum also formed a corporation with a similar name and function. Division of Corporations records show on April 5, paperwork was filed for the Forward Florida Action not-for-profit corporation.”
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. She released 15 years of tax returns, which showed she and her lawyer husband made nearly $2 million in 2018. Must be nice. She’s leading the Hollywood fundraising race (just like Alan Cranston did in 1984), which donations from Shonda Rhimes, Elizabeth Banks, Quincy Jones, and J.J. Abrams, who is reportedly considering buffing up her campaign with more lens flare. She’s also the candidate of big tech:

    the national obsession with ethnicity and novelty obscures the more important reality: Harris is also the favored candidate of the tech and media oligarchy now almost uniformly aligned with the Democratic Party. She has been a hit in all the important places—the Hamptons, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley—that financed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

    Unlike Warren and Sanders, or Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, Harris has not called for curbs on, let alone for breaking up, the tech giants. As California’s attorney general, she did little to prevent the agglomeration of economic power that has increasingly turned California into a semi-feudal state dominated by a handful of large tech firms. These corporate behemoths now occupy 20 percent of Silicon Valley’s office space, and they have undermined the start-up culture that once drove the area’s growth.

    Snip.

    By the time Harris ran for the Senate, she could count on massive support from Bay Area law firms, real-estate developers, and Hollywood. More important, she appealed, early on, to tech mavens such as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Sean Parker, Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, venture capitalist John Doerr, Steve Jobs’s widow Laurene Powell, and various executives at tech firms such as Airbnb, Google, and Nest, who have collectively poured money into her campaigns. Their investment was not ill-considered. Harris seems a sure bet for the tech leaders. Her husband, attorney Doug Emhoff, was a managing partner with Venable Partners, whose clients include Microsoft, Apple, Verizon, and trade associations opposing strict Internet regulations.

    She’s also building out her campaign in South Carolina, probably a smart move. With so many candidates in the race and proportional delegate allocation, I don’t think Iowa and new Hampshire are going to winnow the field nearly as much in the past, which is going to make South Carolina’s February 29th primary more important than in year’s past. Speaking of which: “Bakari Sellers, a CNN commentator and former South Carolina state representative, endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris for president, her campaign announced Monday.” Wait, Harris is a gun owner? That will make for some interesting Harris-Swalwell deabtes. (Hat tip: CarpeDonktum.)

  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. “John Hickenlooper is misrepresenting his record on the death penalty.” He visited some Iowa brewpubs.
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. He had a CNN town hall. At least one review was not kind: “He really did sound like he has just half a brain, as he himself said earlier this week. CNN didn’t do Inslee any favors by airing this interview.” He said his state would love to get all those illegal aliens. One wonders if his constituents feel the same.
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. She raised $5.2 million in Q1. She also released her most recent tax return, showing a modest (by u.S. senatorial standards) $338,483 in income. She’s in Iowa pimping for ethanol. She visited Boulder.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run? Why can’t Terry meme?

  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Wayne Messam presidential campaign staffs up with women and alumni from Gillum and Obama.” “His staff currently numbers about 20, mostly women. Of the eight senior staffers, five are women.”
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Maybe? “Seth Moulton is running social media ads asking if he should run for higher office.” Expect him to throw his hat into the ring under his new name of Candidate McCandidateFace.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. “The big idea? Beto doesn’t have one.” “Beto O’Rourke’s most distinctive policy position? To be determined. There’s no signature issue yet, no single policy proposal sparking his campaign. Convening crowds — and listening to them — is the central thrust of his early presidential bid.” The roots of Beto’s money. Hint: It’s not record sales. “O’Rourke co-owns a shopping mall worth seven figures; He received his half as a gift from his mother.”
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Why is Tim Ryan running for president, anyway?” “There are not a lot of discernible reasons why Tim is doing this.” But rapper Cardi B says she’s endorsing both Sanders and Ryan, based on seeing Ryan promising free health care on TV. So he’s got that going for him…
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Evidently some people still hold a grudge from 2016:

    Sen. Bernie Sanders has accused a leading liberal think tank, founded and run by longtime Hillary Clinton allies, of orchestrating attacks on him and two other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

    In a letter provided to CNN by his campaign, Sanders addressed the board of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action Fund on Saturday, alleging that its activities are playing a “destructive role” in the “critical mission to defeat Donald Trump.” Sanders cited two posts about him by ThinkProgress, a website run by CAP’s political arm, and past pieces focused on Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.

    The exchange threatens to shred an already frayed public détente between the wider circles surrounding both Sanders and Clinton, who fought a bitter 2016 presidential primary that still looms large in the minds of many Democrats — if only because they fear a divisive replay in 2020.

    CAP, founded in 2003 by John Podesta, who was former President Bill Clinton’s final chief of staff and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, and its top officials have often been accused by progressives loyal to Sanders of seeking to undermine his political agenda — debates that frequently blow up on social media platforms like Twitter.

  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Probably Out? Said he wasn’t running, but there’s this: “California billionaire Tom Steyer may be reconsidering his decision last January to remove himself as a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, according to a new report. A citizen in Iowa recently recorded a robocall that tested political messaging related to Steyer, according to a report from Iowa Starting Line.” Still think he’s out, but not this for the record.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. Officially kicked off his campaign in Dublin, California, staying all in on the gun grabbing issue. There’s also a parody website.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren pulled in $6 million in Q1 from 135,000 individuals. “Elizabeth Warren doesn’t like to talk about it, but for years she was a registered Republican.” And here’s the Warren Policy Proposal of the Week: “Ban new fossil fuel production on federal lands.”
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She got a joint town hall on CNN with Andrew Yang. Williamson’s part is filled with bad ideas: A hardline approach to Israel (undoing President Trump’s Golan heights resolution, for instance) and supporting reparations.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. Yang had some of his own bad ideas, like “monitoring malicious speech.” He also wants to decriminalize heroin and other opiates (along the lines of Portugal), which may be the first genuinely new idea any Democratic Presidential candidate has floated this cycle. Here’s a review of his book. “Once you read his book, it is apparent that Andrew Yang is running for president because he is afraid of normal people.” He’s an idea-a-minute guy, many of them bad, sort of a Democratic version of 2012’s Newt Gingrich. Yang also leads the candidates in Facebook spending.

  • Ilhan Omar, 9/11, and the Great Coordinated Democratic Freakout

    April 14th, 2019

    Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said something very stupid, and President Donald Trump made a video that called her on it:

    What followed was not just the usual Democratic Party freakout, but a coordinated Democratic Party with the same absurd talking points:

    It’s fascinating to watch Democrats step up to the plate and tell the exact same lie, one after another, in order to construct a false reality right before our very eyes. Omar said something stupid and President Trump merely called her out for it. There was absolutely no call to violence in the video, much less anything remotely resembling “white supremacy.” So why the uniform Democratic attempt to pretend otherwise, beyond their usual “Our violence is speech, your speech is violence” lie?

    For one thing, social justice warrior “intersectionality” forbids white men from criticizing a black Muslim female Democratic representative. Why, that’s like an untouchable criticizing a Brahmin! Doesn’t Trump know his place?

    But there’s a second, bigger reason at work: Because Omar’s stupid statement was about 9/11, President Trump’s response video included footage of the original attack, thus violating the Democratic media complex’s taboo on showing videos of 9/11. They know just how damaging those videos are to their vapid “Islam is a religion of peace” talking points, necessitated by both immigration (more Muslims equal more Democratic voters) and foreign policy (“Palestinians, good! Israel, bad!”). They know how powerful and damaging those images are to the Democratic brand, which is why they call footage of a hugely important historical event that happened 18 years ago “triggering.”

    And in one very important sense they’re right. Those images are triggering: They trigger Americans to vote against Democrats.

    That’s why they’re pushing back against President Trump so hard and calling such video “an incitement to violence,” because they’re desperate to reimpose that taboo.

    This time I don’t think it’s going to work.

    Notes From The Continuing Decline of the Union/Democrat Complex

    April 13th, 2019

    Given the chances to escape from union clutches, workers do so in droves:

    Given the choice of no longer paying to support unions they didn’t want to join in the first place, lots of public sector workers took it.

    Two of the largest public sector unions in the country lost more than 210,000 so-called “agency fee members” in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling that said unions could no longer force non-members to pay partial dues. That case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, effectively freed public workers from having to make “fair share” payments—usually totaling about 70 to 80 percent of full union dues—in lieu of joining a union as a full-fledged member.

    Now, annual reports filed with the federal Department of Labor show that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) lost 98 percent of it’s agency fee-paying members during the past year. Another large public sector union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), lost 94 percent of their agency fee-paying members.

    Even though unions were preparing for a mass exodus in the wake of the Janus ruling, the numbers are staggering. In 2017, AFSCME reported having 112,233 agency fee payers (compared to 1.3 million dues-paying members), but that figure dropped to just 2,215 in the union’s 2018 report. The SEIU reported having 104,501 agency fee-payers in 2017 (compared to 1,919,358 dues-paying members), but just 5,812 of them at the end of 2018.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

    Unions have long provided a disproportionate share of Democratic fundraising, and their decline hasn’t been entirely offset by high tech billionaire money. This is why Democrats have kept trying to prop up unions through such measures as the failed attempt to ram “card check” through in 2009. It’s also why Democrats have introduced legislation to invalidate right to work laws in the 27 states that have them. Fortunately, this is yet another piece of proposed legislation that’s going nowhere fast…

    LinkSwarm for April 12, 2019

    April 12th, 2019

    At long last, the FISA abuse/FBI spying on the Trump campaign scandal is finally being dragged into the light again. At the same time, Wikileaks head honcho Julian Assange has been extracted from the Ecuadorian embassy arrested, pending extradition to the U.S. Coincidence? I report, you decide. “The US department of justice confirmed he has been charged with computer crimes, and added in a statement that if convicted he will face up to five years in prison.” Dang dude, if he had turned himself in when indicted, he’d already be out by now and working the talk show circuit.

    Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm, and remember that you have to finish doing your taxes this weekend.

  • Stating the obvious: “Barr is right, spying on Trump campaign did occur.”

    The baffling thing was why they were baffled. Barr’s statement was accurate and supported by publicly known facts.

    First, what Barr said. “I think spying did occur,” he told the Senate Appropriations Committee. “But the question is whether it was adequately predicated. And I’m not suggesting it was not adequately predicated. But I need to explore that.”

    That is entirely accurate. It is a fact that in October 2016 the FBI wiretapped Carter Page, who had earlier been a short-term foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. The bureau’s application to a secret court for that wiretapping is public. It is heavily redacted but is clearly focused on Page and “the Russian government’s attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” Page was wiretapped because of his connection with the Trump campaign.

    Some critics have noted that the wiretap authorization came after Page left the campaign. But the surveillance order allowed authorities to intercept Page’s electronic communications both going forward from the day of the order and backward, as well. Investigators could see Page’s emails and texts going back to his time in the campaign.

    So there is simply no doubt that the FBI wiretapped a Trump campaign figure. Is a wiretap “spying”? It is hard to imagine a practice, whether approved by a court or not, more associated with spying.

    Anyone reading this blog (or any non-MSM news source) knew that Obama’s Justice Department was spying on Trump over two years ago. At this point it’s about as surprising as hearing that James Harden is good at basketball…

  • Barr Confirms Multiple Intel Agencies Implicated In Anti-Trump Spy Operation.” (Hat tip: J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • In the same vein:

    Democrats seem both angry and frightened, and their kneejerk and perhaps even somewhat panicked response right now is to try to destroy Barr.

    You can feel the frisson of fear they emanate. They waited two years for the blow of the Mueller report to fall on Trump, and now other investigative blows may fall on them. The Mueller report combined with Barr’s appointment could end up being a sort of ironic boomerang (whether or not boomerangs can be ironic I leave to you to decide).

    How could this have happened? they must be thinking. How could the worm have turned? But they are spinning in the usual manner, hoping that—as so often has happened in the past—their confederates in the press will work their magic to make all of it go away and boomerang back to Republicans instead.

    But whatever comes of it all, if anything, Democrats cannot believe that at least right now their dreams have turned to dust and they taste, instead of the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

    That’s from Neo, formerly NeoNeocon. I can see why she’d want to change the name, given how many neocons became #NeverTrump lunatics. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Newly released email from Platte River Networks, the firm that serviced the Emailgate server used by Hillary Clinton: “Its all part of the Hillary coverup operation.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Who’s Worse – Julian Assange or the NY Times and Washington Post?

    Deeply sourced? What a laugh. As we now know post-Mueller Report, these “respected” journalists were simply trafficking in collusion lies whispered to them by biased informants. In other words, they were a bunch of gullible, over-zealous propagandists. For that they received their Pulitzers, as yet unreturned, needless to say (just as the Pulitzer for Walter Duranty still hangs on the NY Times’ wall despite decades of pleas from Ukrainians whose countrymen’s mass murder by Stalin was bowdlerized by Duranty).

    So, in other words, these mainstream media reporters have gotten off with nary a slap on the wrist (indeed received fame and fortune) for lying while Julian Assange may be headed for prison for telling the truth. There’s a bit of irony in that, no?

  • Iraqi special forces launch an operation against islamic State remnants in the Hamrin Mountains. If you looked at the livemap, the Hamrin Mountains were the tiny sliver of ISIS-held territory between Tikrit and Kirkuk. No population centers, just some remote mountainous caves.
  • Avenatti indicted on 36 charges of tax dodging, perjury, theft from clients.”

    Avenatti stole millions of dollars from five clients and used a tangled web of shell companies and bank accounts to cover up the theft, the Santa Ana grand jury alleged in an indictment that prosecutors made public Thursday.

    One of the clients, Geoffrey Ernest Johnson, was a mentally ill paraplegic on disability who won a $4-million settlement of a suit against Los Angeles County. The money was wired to Avenatti in January 2015, but he hid it from Johnson for years, according to the indictment.

    In 2017, Avenatti received $2.75 million in proceeds from another client’s legal settlement, but concealed that too, the indictment says. The next day, he put $2.5 million of that money into the purchase of a private jet for Passport 420, LLC, a company he effectively owned, according to prosecutors.

    You can read the indictment itself here. Hey, remember the MSM treating Creepy Porn Lawyer like a rock star? Pepperidge Farm remembers:

  • When California Democratic Representative Ted Lieu went after Candace Owens, he probably had no idea he’d just make her star shine brighter. “She was a liberal, but during the #GamerGate controversy, she was ‘doxxed’ by the Left, and had a road-to-Damascus awakening: ‘I became a conservative overnight. I realized that liberals were actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls.'”
  • Wendy Davis is going to run for congress against Rep. Chip Roy. In one way this makes sense, as Roy narrowly won over Joseph Kopser by 2% in 2018. However, Kopser was (by Democratic standards) a well-heeled businessman moderate. I don’t actually see Abortion Barbie being nearly as competitive after the walloping she took in 2014. Also of interest is her running for an Austin-to-San Antonio district rather than somewhere near her previous base of Fort Worth. (I emailed the Kopser for Congress address to ask if he’s running again, but the contact address is no longer valid.)
  • Fritz Hollings, RIP. Hollings was one of the last conservative southern Democrats, and co-sponsor of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act, which temporarily limited spending growth until congress gutted it in 1990.
  • West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin supports the reelection of Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins.
  • Georgia Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath lives in Tennessee.
  • “Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned China that his soldiers [are] occupying the island of Thitu in the South China Sea, which is currently surrounded by some 275 Chinese fishing militia and Coast Guard vessels.”
  • Why we need the electoral college:

    he core function of the Electoral College is to require presidential candidates to appeal to the voters of a sufficient number of large and smaller states, rather than just try to run up big margins in a handful of the biggest states, cities, or regions. Critics ignore the important value served by having a president whose base of support is spread over a broad, diverse array of regions of the country (even a president as polarizing as Donald Trump won seven of the ten largest states and places as diverse as Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, West Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Texas).

    In a nation as wide and varied as ours, it would be destabilizing to have a president elected over the objections of most of the states. Our American system as a whole — both by design and by experience — demands the patient building of broad, diverse political coalitions over time to effect significant change. The presidency works together with the Senate and House to make that a necessity. The Senate, of course, is also a target of the Electoral College’s critics, but eliminating the equal suffrage of states requires the support of every single state. A president elected without regard to state support is more likely to face a dysfunctional level of opposition in the Senate.

    Consider an illustrative example. Most of us, I think, would agree that 54 percent of the vote is a pretty good benchmark for a decisive election victory — not a landslide, but a no-questions-asked comfortable majority. That’s bigger than Donald Trump’s victory in Texas in 2016; Trump won 18 states with 54 percent or more of the vote in 2016, Hillary Clinton won 10 plus D.C., and the other 22 states were closer than that. Nationally, just 16 elections since 1824 have been won by a candidate who cleared 54 percent of the vote — the last was Ronald Reagan in 1984 — and all of them were regarded as decisive wins at the time.

    Picture a two-candidate election with 2016’s turnout. The Republican wins 54 percent of the vote in 48 states, losing only California, New York, and D.C. That’s a landslide victory, right? But then imagine that the Republican nominee who managed this feat was so unpopular in California, New York, and D.C. that he or she loses all three by a 75 percent–to–25 percent margin. That 451–87 landslide in the Electoral College, built on eight-point wins in 48 states, would also be a popular-vote defeat, with 50.7 percent of the vote for the Democrat to 49.3 percent for the Republican. Out of a total of about 137 million votes, that’s a popular-vote margin of victory of 1.95 million votes for a candidate who was decisively rejected in 48 of the 50 states.

    Who should win that election? This is not just a matter of coloring in a lot of empty red land on a map: each of these 48 states is an independent entity that has its own governor, legislature, laws, and courts, and sends two senators to Washington. The whole idea of a country called the United States is that those individual communities are supposed to matter.

  • Can Jewish Exodus from Democratic Party keep Florida red in 2020?”
  • Five debunked feminist myths. Including that hoary 77¢ canard.
  • “On Thursday, Google canceled its AI ethics board after 2,476 employees signed a petition urging the company to remove Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James for opposing transgender activism. An anonymous Google employee told PJ Media the corporate culture resembles the stifling of debate on college campuses, and warned that Google’s caving to pressure on this issue will only embolden activists.”
  • Eurocrats issue absurd takedown commands under a new “terrorist content” law. Include all of Project Gutenberg.
  • A follow-up to last week’s LinkSwarm piece about Baltimore mayor Catherine Pugh’s bribes-via-bulk-children’s book-orders scam: Critical Carlos reviews Healthy Holly. And don’t miss the video.
  • Via regular blog reader Howard comes this handy map of fake hate crimes.
  • That “far right extremist crimes are on the rise” talking point is absolute bunk.
  • More than 60 groups are considering suing SPLC. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Antifa gonna antifa:

  • “Man In Critical Condition After Hearing Slightly Differing Viewpoint.”
  • Casino Profits Collapse In Atlantic City.”
  • Pollen haboob. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • The word for the color orange didn’t exist in English until the introduction of the fruit.
  • “Oh no, not the bees! They’re in my eyes!
  • You just missed the 50th anniversary of the Japanese Penis Festival. (Hat tip: Ordy Packard on Twitter.)
  • Sudan Coup Update

    April 11th, 2019

    The good news is that Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, a man implicated in genocide in Darfur, has indeed been deposed after 30 years in power and is under arrest.

    The bad news is his replacement, Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed bin Awaf, was also sanctioned for his role in Darfur. Ibn Auf is also the former head of military intelligence, which is the sort of background that lets someone stick around power for a while, no matter that the military has said they’ll only rule for two years.

    Protest leaders are already saying that military rule is not good enough, they want actual democracy:

    Omar al-Bashir is a scumbag dictator who tried to impose Sharia law on Sudan. I’m cautiously optimistic that his replacements will be an improvement, though how much remains to be seen.

    The BBC has a timeline of al-Bashir reign.

    Coup in Sudan

    April 11th, 2019

    I’m about to go off to bed, but here are numerous reports that a coup against the unpopular dictator Omar al-Bashir, who has ruled Sudan for 30 years, has succeeded and forced him to step down after weeks of massive protests against him:

    Al-Bashir is a corrupt scumbag who has played footsie with jihadists and is responsible for the genocide in Darfur. Usually instability like this makes a country ripe for takeover by jihadists, but the nature of al-Bashir’s regime (which discriminated against all Sudanese who weren’t Arab) suggests that whatever follows him probably won’t be Islamists (knock on wood).

    Developing…

    Netanyahu Wins Israeli Election Yet Again

    April 10th, 2019

    Benjamin Netanyahu was effectively reelected to a fourth term as Israeli Prime Minister:

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won Tuesday’s election and will be able to form a governing coalition that will enable to withstand a bribery indictment by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, according to the results with 97% of the vote counted.

    Mandelblit indicted Netanyahu pending a hearing on February 28, details of the indictment that were not permitted to be released during the election could be leaked as early as Wednesday. The hearing is expected to take place in July and the decision on the final indictment some six months later.

    The parties that said clearly ahead of the election that Netanyahu would not have to quit following a final indictment were Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, the Union of Right-wing Parties and Yisrael Beytenu, which won 61 seats, according to preliminary results.

    Likud won 35 seats, Shas and UTJ eight each and URP and Yisrael Beytenu five. Kulanu, whose leader Moshe Kahlon said he would join a Netanyahu-led government but leave following a final indictment, won four seats.

    Blue and White won 35 seats, Labor and Hadash-Ta’al six each and Meretz and the United Arab List-Balad four each. The New Right, Zehut and Gesher did not cross the 3.25% electoral threshold. However as this dramatic election has shown, anything could change as the final votes from IDF soldiers, prisoners and diplomats are counted.

    Exit polling had the two blocs neck and neck, but actual votes had Likud’s bloc pulling ahead, reminding us yet again that you can’t trust exit polling.

    Netanyahu is one of President Trump’s most important allies abroad (arguably the most important), and has long been a hate object for the American left, which even sent Obama’s Democratic operative Jeremy Byrd in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat him in the 2015 election.

    Also interesting is the continued decline of Israeli’s Labor Party, which continues to shrink and has not had a prime minister since Ehud Barak left office in 2001. Labor had 44 seats in 1992, and is now down to 6, a victim of its insistence on adhering to a broken “peace process” with untrustworthy, terrorism-minded Palestinian partners.

    Expect more vicious Israel-bashing from American liberals following the election, guaranteeing still more Jewish Americans will flee the Democratic Party.

    The Inevitability Of Autonomous Drone Swarms In Combat

    April 9th, 2019

    Borepatch thinks it’s going to be a while until we get autonomous drones in combat. I think he’s probably mistaken, as he seems to be thinking about using them to pilot big, expensive things like tanks.

    I think we’re going to see autonomous drone swarms used in combat a lot sooner.

    Soldiers are expensive (at least for first world armies). Drones are cheap and getting cheaper. Imagine inserting a drone delivery system behind enemy lines and let them wreck havoc in bases and depots. Make some exploding, some small caliber anti-personnel, some with top-down anti-vehicle shaped charges. They don’t have to be perfect, they only have to be more discriminating than artillery barrages or cluster bombs. Give them a one-time encrypted activation code and some 30-60 minutes of juice. Make them low cost enough and no one cares if you lose them all; picking up depleted drones to be sent back and reworked after you take the objective is just gravy.

    Or use Mischief Reef as a concrete example. Have a stealthy submersible surface just long enough to unleash a thousand autonomous drones designed to attack personnel, ships or aircraft. It’s quite possibly you could destroy half a billion dollars worth of expensive combat aircraft and facilities using $500,000 worth of drones.

    Borepatch brings up the problem of hacking. It doesn’t matter if the enemy can hack one or two if you’re deploying a hundred at a time at a cost comparable to one M829 round.

    Done right, a drone swarm can be plenty dumb and plenty cheap and still be lethal. You don’t need to make them smart enough to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants if you limit their use cases to combatant areas.

    There are dozens of other use cases for drones in combat. Heavy refueling drones, each of which carry enough diesel to top off an M1A2 tank during a prolonged armor push. Small swarms of small drones that perform automated sweeps of restricted areas, sending up alerts (and possibly deploying non-lethal weapons) after detecting intruders. Automatic long-range search drones deployed for sea rescue operations.

    All this is coming sooner rather than later.