Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Feb. 7th through Feb. 13th

February 7, 2016 JanF Community 182

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

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52 Comments

  1. 28 at dawn, 31 now predicted high of 37 but we beat our predicted high yesterday by 4 degrees and it’s actually sunny today (although just as windy – current wind chill is 21). Geordie, thanks for the Shakesville link – McEwan is absolutely correct. Got some tracking down to do today before I can actually process some stuff but hope to at least check HNV at GOS as I bet there will be NH updates. After today I’m thinking of writing a “OK, so you’re for Bernie, please stop dissing my lived experience with Hillary’s programs” diary over there. Maybe. Meanwhile, to work. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Do it, bfitz!! That would be an excellent diary.

      I am formulating a different sort of post. I am getting a sick feeling about some of the rhetoric from our side and I want to make sure we don’t win the battles but lose the war. We will all need to come together after the primaries and you can’t “unsay” things you have said. In 2008, a lot of damage was done to our coalition by thoughtless remarks. This time around I had hoped the Clinton campaign had learned how counter-productive that was but I am seeing glimpses of the same-old-same-old. It is not enough to appeal to the Obama coalition, you need to heal the wounds from the 2008 primary season and not create new wounds with the Sanders voters. It is much better to get people to vote for your candidate than to get their grudging vote because of the fears of a President Trump or President Rubio or President Cruz.

  2. Morning all! Crisp here this morning, and will be all week – I love it personally, as February SHOULD be cool at least! I am currently waiting for a callback from SSA – I got my bill for my Medicare Part B premium payment for March-May yesterday, and it seems light years too high, given I shouldn’t be subject to the income related adjustment. I had sent them all the paperwork on that last year and have a letter from them telling me I don’t have to pay it, but I know mistakes happen. or maybe there’s something in here i’m not aware of. Anyway, I called and I could have stayed on line for half an hour waiting, or schedule a callback for an hour from now, so I chose the latter option. So THIS is how people spend their time in retirement, on the phone with government agencies! lol

    I’m sure Bernie is going to win NH by 30 points at least – if the margin is less than that, it’s a good sign for Hillary, esp given the few missteps by Albright and Steinem on her behalf up there. I doubt they were as significant to most voters as the GOS folks make it seem, but it doesn’t help to hector young women who don’t get what feminists of our and previous generations went through. And who probably have not yet experienced glass ceiling or other pervasive workplace issues.

    Jan I think you are so right to be concerned about the aftermath of all this – although frankly, I’m not sure what can be done about the poisonous partisanship of a lot of Sanders’ supporters. The emotional enthusiasm that is part and parcel of a “revolutionary movement” doesn’t easily translate into “ok, we lost that one, let’s get behind the Dem Party’s choice.” Especially since a lot of those younger supporters were only tenuously connected, if at all, to the Democratic Party to start with. That’s one thing I really like about that Shakesville post I linked – Melissa just asks all the right questions, with respect. Not that that would prevent some Berners from taking offense, of course.

    Dee, that is awful about the DKos machine eating your Black Kos post – what the heck is going on with that place? People were unable to rec comments or diaries or even post comments on several diaries on Sunday, and that stretched into Monday. Hope they get that fixed.

    Ok, off to surf around while I wait for my call back – have a great day everyone!

    • Ha!!! “So THIS is how people spend their time in retirement, on the phone with government agencies! lol”. I guess they figure you have plenty of time now!! I hope they sort it out for you.

      I know what you are saying about the many Bernie voters who are not really Democrats and who want to be part of a revolution rather than a political party. My old friend Norbrook has a post about that:

      What it all comes down to is that if you have a progressive agenda and you want to see it enacted, you have to get 218 House districts at a minimum with progressives. You need at least 51 Senators. Even then, it’s not going to be “perfect.” It’ll be a compromised, weak in some areas, somewhat contradictory mix, if you get it at all. Otherwise, it doesn’t happen, no matter who you elect as President, how many polls you cite, or what sort of mandate you think they have. But I understand that, because I understand the government we have. I know that getting progressive achievements means a lot of work, a lot of compromise, and I’m not going to be 100% happy with the initial steps. The problem the frustrati have is that they think just electing a President is enough, and it’s why they’re doomed to perpetual disappointment. If you want to fix something you need to know how it works, and the problem with the frustrati is they don’t know how it works.

      What worries me more than losing the unicorn chasing frustrati is the damage that was done in 2008 being exacerbated by aiming the vitriol at young women and young people in general. There are still people who won’t forgiver Hillary Clinton for her dismissive attitude towards Barack Obama and her husband’s ill-advised comments in the run-up to South Carolina. Will they vote for Hillary in 2016? Probably … but they will do it because the alternative sucks not because they feel good about it. I don’t want the campaign for the presidency to wound her in such a way that it is difficult to govern and difficult to get everyone on the same page for getting Congress, and the states, back. It will take all of us.

    • And got my call back – sigh. Apparently, when I appealed the income related premium adjustment, they accepted it JUST FOR 2015 – for the one month I was eligible for Medicare last year, December. So now I have to appeal it again for 2016 – but pay the bill they sent me now anyway, hoping for an adjustment later on. It really is true, you have to be retired to have the time to deal with this stuff! Oh well, it will get straightened out – I worked for SSA for several years at the beginning of my government career, so I’m not going to slam them, it will work out.

    • Not missteps by Albright and Steinem, misreports of what Albright and Steinem said. Albright pulled out a line she’s been using for years against female R congresscritters about women not supporting women, but because the entire effen universe revolves around Bernie so everything that anybody says about anything must be interpreted as pro- or anti-Bernie… And they just cut the Steinem comment in half – she was talking about how kids of that age track where the other gender is. And as for taking Bill’s comments out of context (viral attacks on Hillary supporters was what he was talking about), well, let’s just say the Clinton Rules haven’t changed any after all these years.

      And yes, the aftermath is likely to be not good. If we who know the good works Hillary has invested her life in can’t get beyond the invisible wall the corporate-owned media set up 25 years ago, the damage to the Party will be phenomenal and the outlook for 2018 will be lousy.

      • I am not talking about Albright and Steinem, I am talking about Bill Clinton. He is not a surrogate, he is part of the campaign. He simply cannot attack the young people voting for Bernie Sanders because his wife, our president, will need them in November and in 2018 and 2020 and 2022. And our party will need them, too.

        Politics is not a blood sport, it is how we choose the people who will run our government and real people’s real lives depend on it. My advice to the Clinton campaign: don’t bash when you can bridge, don’t mock when you can illuminate … don’t make the supporters of the other guy hate you.

        If as we expect, Hillary wins most of the Super Tuesday primaries, we need to pivot towards coming together for GOTV. It will be much harder to do if you have to first take your fingers out of the eyes of the people who voted for your opponent.

        The Supreme Court just voted to allow people to die from the emissions coming from coal plants. We need everyone’s vote and everyone pulling together to beat the Republicans.

        • We’re not going to get the Bernie trolls no matter what because they aren’t Dems in the first place. Bill isn’t attacking anybody – he never has – but he is most certainly pointing out very strongly that “Clinton Rules” have been expanded to include Clinton supporters and that’s just not right. But of course, Clinton Rules, anything he says about the victimizers has been and will be presented by the victimizers as attacking them to make them the victims.

          We will most certainly need every Dem we can get our hands on to get out and vote in November. Obama didn’t tell him to sit down and shut up after the primaries. Bill’s an asset to the Party – including Hillary’s campaign – but there will always be Clinton Rules. He did a visit, with photos, to a NH middle school and it was reported as “photoshopped” “creepy” and even “pedophilic” – The Rs are trying to stop us from using one of our best campaigners in the General by attacking him in the primaries. (And while I’m not sure about Bernie campaigning if Hillary wins, I know damn good and well Bill and Hillary will be campaigning if Bernie wins – and Bernie won’t tell him to sit down and shut up any more than Barack Obama did.)

  3. Good morning, 39 and partly sunny in Bellingham. Today will be a busy domestic day, with birthday plans for Ron, valentines for the family, notes to old friends because I didn’t send any Christmas cards this year and I don’t want to lose touch completely, etc. And Ava called last night to ask if we could please sew together on Thursday, so it’s rag doll time or I get the loser Grammie award!

    The national election news I’m so focused on isn’t reflected in my local newspapers. The Bellingham Herald’s lead article on about cross border Canadian shopping trends, and the main Seattle Times articles concern the miserable traffic situation and the attempts to remedy commute times with toll lanes. The R’s just “fired” the transportation secretary by refusing to confirm her because they are “being brutalized” with constituent complaints. Easier to create a scapegoat than to fix tax laws and pass legislation to properly fund a very real transportation crisis in our state!

    http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/inslee-gop-should-be-ashamed-for-firing-of-wsdot-chief/

    • That is FABULOUS! I totally forgot Sam Bee’s show would be on the air by now, I need to go look up where to watch it. Such a sad sack, that Jeb – “please clap” is right up there with Rubio’s “Mr Roboto” impression as indicators of the patheticness (I’m sure that’s not a word but can’t think of a better one offhand) of the Republican field.

      • I just finished watching the full episode off of the TBS stream (next week my DVR gets it because I hate commercials). Her intro where she shreds Ted Cruz is hilarious … I laughed out loud twice … and her segment on the idiot Kansas Republican (is that redundant?) is brilliant.

  5. New Hampshire is not “all white” and these immigrants want to show some electoral power:

    New Hampshire’s immigrant population, at just 5.5 percent, is less than half the national average, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. But across the Granite State, a growing foreign-born population is making its voice heard and trying to hold candidates accountable on issues like immigration reform and foreign policy.

    “Before, yes, it was a white state,” Mary Georges, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, says as she stands in the sanctuary of Raymond Baptist Church in Raymond after a panel on immigration reform. “But today it’s not really just a white state. We’ve become a diverse state. Manchester is a big city. It can change the politics because now there are a lot of immigrants.”

    Georges, 58, is part of that change. She has lived in the U.S. for 25 years — 23 of them in Manchester. In November she became the first African immigrant elected to a municipal office in New Hampshire, when voters elected her to Manchester’s school board. She pushes other African immigrants in Manchester to pay attention to local and national politics, she says.

    At 13.2 percent, Manchester’s immigrant population is more than twice the state average, according to the most recent U.S. Census data. The concentration of immigrants and campaign events has made the Queen City a center for immigrant activism — especially pushing candidates to clarify their positions on immigration reform and foreign policy.

    Georges is part of a group “bird dogging” the candidates to get their views on immigration.

    We should probably keep an eye on the returns from Manchester!

  6. For those who think that some sort of “sanity” exists in the NH primary process, because there are votes cast, get a load of this:

    The state party awards delegates on a proportional basis to presidential candidates based on their vote statewide and by congressional district.

    But it also has a 10 percent threshold.

    What does that mean? It means that if a candidate does not get 10 percent of the vote, he gets no delegates. (And this is a hard threshold — no rounding.)

    What’s more, not only do those underperforming candidates get no delegates, but whatever delegates they could have gotten based on their vote share go to the winner of the primary (!). […]

    According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, here’s the order of the candidates (with a line inserted to represent the 10 percent cutoff):

    — Trump 31 percent — 6 delegates
    — Rubio 16 percent — 3 delegates
    — John Kasich 12 percent — 2 delegates
    — Ted Cruz 12 percent — 2 delegates

    — Jeb Bush 9 percent
    — Chris Christie 5 percent
    — Carly Fiorina 5 percent
    — Ben Carson 3 percent

    So let’s do some math: Everyone below the 10 percent threshold — Bush, Christie, Fiorina and Carson — add up to 22 percent.

    So 22 percent of 20 is 4.4. Round down, and that means, roughly, another four delegates would be added to Trump’s total.

    Instead of a 6-3 delegate win, Trump would get 10. Thought about another way: Some 40 percent of Trump’s delegates could be coming from people who cast their votes explicitly in opposition to him — or at least for candidates running very different campaigns.

    So a vote for Bush or Christie … could mean delegates for Trump!

    • It’s a good ad – but the mom and the young boy walking together, I could almost hear her giving him “the talk” and it made me tear up. America is broken. Always was but my white privilege meant I didn’t see it (as in I saw isolated instances, not a systemic problem). But Hillary sees it, and while she knows she can’t make it right, she also knows what the next steps to take are and is determined to make sure those steps are taken. Hope is why dreams may lie bleeding on the floor but they don’t die.

  8. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 9 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 11. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    Whew! I am certainly glad that is over with (NH Primary). You know your candidate is going to lose but there is a part of you that hopes it won’t happen. Now we can put that behind us and put our collective energy into states that better reflect our party and America. I was heartened by what I saw in the exit polls because it showed New Hampshire to be the outlier that we expected it to (I have some numbers and reaction that I will post later if I have the time). Here is one hopeful article from Ed Kilgore about the Sanders millennial “base” … it’s white!

    What hasn’t gotten much attention [is] that the reasonably well-established nonwhite voter preference for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders is also going to affect the millennial category as we get beyond the exceptionally pale electorates of Iowa and New Hampshire. The reason is simple enough: Millennials are the most diverse of the commonly identified generational cohorts, with 43 percent of them being nonwhite. Nonwhite millennials are also more prone to identification as Democrats, and they vote Democratic in significantly higher numbers (Mitt Romney actually carried white millennials in 2012). So it’s not a reach to guess that nonwhites could form a majority or near-majority of millennials voting in Democratic primaries nationally.

    Yes, there are signs that nonwhite millennials are much more open to the Sanders appeal than are older nonwhite voters. But even a Reuters analysis that’s widely in circulation to show the strong nature of Sanders support has him carrying about 38 percent of black voters under 30. That’s good, but not the stuff of generational ownership.

    Here is a palate cleanser:

    Maryland’s legislature voted on Tuesday to override Gov. Larry Hogan (R)’s veto of a bill to give more than 40,000 ex-offenders in the state the right to vote while still on parole or probation.

    Maryland joins 13 other states and the District of Columbia where citizens are permitted to vote immediately after serving their sentences. Hogan vetoed the legislation in May of last year after the legislature passed it with large majorities.

    This year protecting and preserving the right to vote has to be the focus of every Democrat. It may very well come down to who the Republicans allow to vote.

    See all y’all later!

  9. It is troublingly warm. I barely needed long sleeves this morning & it’s going to get up in the mid-70s every day the rest of the week. The weather guy looked for the nearest cloud — it’s over 300 miles away, in Mexico. What happened to our El Nino “cooler & wetter” winter?? It hasn’t rained in over a month. Even I who hate to be the slightest bit cold — I’m wearing capris & a t-shirt to race on Sunday. If this is February, what will June be like?

    Anyway, eating my baked oatmeal & drinking tea. I sent off for an “I’m With Her” bumpersticker. Had to get it from Amazon, because Hillary’s website wouldn’t let me buy one unless I gave my phone # & I hate, hate, hate getting calls. Thinking about breakfast for race day, checking off other stuff to have with…..gonna freeze my water holder.

    • You can get the Hillary campaign swag at Amazon? I will have to go find it. I don’t want any of my personal information on their databases … I don’t trust the security and I don’t want phone calls and emails from whoever they sell their lists to.

      • I did a google search for “I’m with her” bumpersticker & Amazon was one of the top results. It comes from a 3rd party through Amazon but I don’t care, I didn’t have to give my phone # to anyone.

    • Hey, anotherdemocrat—I always give a false phone number when I go to sites like that. I hate getting calls too. We used to have a land line, which we had taken out because we were getting too many calls (even though we were supposedly on the Do Not Call list), so we said, “Enough of that!”

      I give my real number only to friends, family, and people that absolutely have to get in touch with me, such as realtors or doctors.

  10. Good morning after, Moosekind! It’s 29 F. here on a fair day in NoVa, going up to 37 F. In less than an hour I’m being picked up to collect boxes and boxes of Girl Scout cookies, which will be distributed among the Daisies tomorrow night at the troop meeting. On Saturday we’ll have to deliver them to the buyers.

    Was hoping that NH voters would surprise us and give HRC a much better showing against BS, but it was not to be. Oh, well, we have Nevada to look forward to and then South Carolina on the 27th. It seems very odd to me that South Carolina has two different primaries, one for Rethugs and one for Democrats! Is SC the only state that does that?

    Must eat breakfast and get dressed. Will be back later to see how everyone’s doing. Wishing a good day to everyone in Moosylvania!

    • Here is what happened in New Hampshire, Diana.

      People who have lived through tumultuous times where people’s civil rights were under assault, where young men were forced into serving in foreign wars of choice, where the threat of nuclear war was real, and where our social safety net has been shredded, value experience in government and governing and slow but steady change. The youngest of that group came of age after the first black president was elected and after he had to deal with the mess left by Republicans instead of advancing his own agenda. So when people say that Barack Obama is a failure, they say Yes He Is. :( Maybe the hype about “transformational” was too much and led to disillusionment, the same sort of disillusionment that will surely as night follows day, follow a Sanders presidency when the pony is not delivered on Day One … or Day 1461. I remember the anger when President Obama did not recall all the troops across the globe and shut down Guantanamo and frog march Dick “Dick” Cheney to the electric chair the afternoon of January 20, 2009. That anger is sadly still driving a lot of folks who are unhappy that change is gradual and that sea change very often comes about after a tidal wave wipes out everything in its path. No, thank you! I will take my change in smaller doses.

      Those young people probably never did clinic escort and don’t understand that the right to choose is under assault … they may not have had enough work experience to realize that the gender pay gap is real. They will eventually “get it” but I hope that the primary experience does not leave them so jaded that they drop out of the political process. We will all need to work together to save our country from Trumpism.

      • Funny you should say that about clinic escort, Jan. For years I got up at 4 a.m. on January 22nd so I could be at the clinic by 5 a.m. to defend against the antis. Toward the end of those years I started wearing a bulletproof vest (borrowed from my husband) under my clothes. It was that frightening.

        Some of these kids are too young to even know that married women didn’t get the right to use contraception unhindered until Griswold v. Connecticut 1965 and unmarrieds with the Baird v. Eisenstadt Supreme Court decision in 1967.

        Young women take so much for granted. I remember when a married woman’s income wasn’t counted toward buying a house unless she was 32 or had a doctor’s certificate saying she was sterile. I remember when a woman who showed up for work on a freezing morning wearing slacks would have been fired or sent home. When I married in 1967 my husband’s credit rating became MY credit rating, although his was poor and mine was top-notch. Yep, the so-called “good old days.”

        • Comment editor just told me I didn’t have permission to edit my comment. I wanted to correct the spelling of “top-notch.” What gives? I had to clear all my Web data this morning and sign in again because I couldn’t even fierce anything without doing that.

          So what gives?

        • We can share our stories with them but, sadly, not our experiences.

          I remember clearly the days when women with careers were held back because what if they got pregnant???? I also recall that when I went to apply for a loan for my second house, the application had a box to check for “Divorced”. I asked the loan officer what that had to do with my credit worthiness as I had been divorced for nearly 20 years and I wanted to check “Unmarried”. I didn’t want to misrepresent anything on my application but I was sick and tired of that long ago mistake being part of my credit history. None of their freaking business! I made a big feminist stink about it and was allowed to check “Unmarried”. Now there is one box: “Unmarried (Single, Divorced, Widowed)”.

          • My divorced with 5 kids and no child support mother’s pay at an engineering firm was 25% of what her single male coworker’s was because he “might get married someday and have a family to support”. But no, you can’t give them the experience we have – just the history which they do not, mostly cannot, connect to. And I really don’t know what can be done about it.

  11. Mornin’ Meese.
    It is snowing here. We are hovering around 33 degrees – so not sure if it will turn to sleet.
    Am eating my morning oatmeal – and will probably curl up in bed with a novel for a bit.
    Procrastinating – I need to finish my next Sunday piece.

  12. 21 at dawn, 24 now, heading for 52 and sunny. The 15-KWH mark (y-axis on the graph – haven’t actually got that much in a day yet and don’t expect to until April) showed up on my monthly tracking graph for the first time since last October and I will crest 100 KWHs for the month by 10 a.m. CST. Hillary’s concession speech was a class act. But then, she’s a class act. Glad NH is done and the time until the next “contest” can’t go too quickly. Soloing today but will check back as I can. {{{HUGS}}}

  13. Morning all. Very chilly here this morning but bright and sunny, so despite last night, I feel pretty optimistic about the future. I actually expected the margin to be 30 points, so 21 or whatever it ended up at is a bit better than I thought it would be.

    On NH – I am reading a great history of Rome, SPQR by Mary Beard, about the first 1000 years of Rome, and last night (I read in bed before going to sleep) I came across her first mention of the famous phrase ‘bread and circuses”, referring scornfully to the way Roman politicians kept the vast Roman public happy. I think it’s also applicable to the Sanders campaign’s appeal to the youth vote – bread in the form of free college, and circuses in the form of legalized pot. I know it sounds dismissive and superficial, but he apparently got a lot of votes from Rand Paul supporters – he appeals to independents, not Democrats, and the libertarian streak in the millenial and post millenial age group certainly responds to his “everything is terrible let’s start over” message. I read someone on DKos last night saying look at the Canadian election of Trudeau for a lesson – he got overwhelming support from young voters not in small part because of promises to legalize pot nationwide, they said.

    It does mean real Democrats have to seriously mobilize in the rest of the primaries and I’m sure the local parties are doing just that. Someone was asking last night on the Hillary results thread whether it was legitimate to count superdelegates since they can change their minds. In my view, the superdelegates who are Democratic Party officeholders and activists are very unlikely to change from HRC, given the destruction of the Party that a Sanders nomination would bring – we would not only lose the White House, the downticket races would be very badly affected.

    Ok, enough of that – onward to NV and SC! Have a great day everyone!

    • This is true: “[Sanders] apparently got a lot of votes from Rand Paul supporters – he appeals to independents, not Democrats, and the libertarian streak in the millenial and post millenial age group certainly responds to his “everything is terrible let’s start over” message.”

      Registered Democrats were split about 50-50 but the independents who were drawn to the Democratic primary were about 72% for Sanders, 27% for Clinton. Someone pointed out that 8 years ago, Ron Paul got those votes and won the New Hampshire primary.

      There are not a lot of primaries left that allow crossover voting so that is another reason that New Hampshire is probably an outlier. Here is another one:

      “@mmurraypolitics:
      40% of Dems support continuing Obama’s policies, and HRC wins them, 64-36
      41% of Dems want more liberal policies, and BS wins them, 80-19”

      I actually don’t know many Democrats who aren’t pining for a third term for Barack Obama. The voters who don’t support Obama’s policies are probably not Democrats.

  14. Good morning, 46 and raining in Bellingham. I hope I have a dry swim suit for the pool this morning, but I’ve got a sneaking feeling I don’t. Computer woes disrupted my day yesterday and I forgot about the laundry. I do have valentines and a “feel better” box for Ryan ready to mail. I had no idea Star War Lego sets were so expensive!

    We’ll go out for Ron’s birthday dinner tonight, but the family celebration will wait until next weekend. Both of us have February birthdays and one chocolate cake is plenty!

    I’ve got the primary blues this morning, but I’ll get over it. It was certainly more reassuring when HRC had a commanding national lead and no primary opponents. Yesterday’s SCOTUS decision re the Clean Air Act deepens my concern.

    Supreme Court conservatives block Clean Energy Plan

    In the meantime, the court’s conservative majority offered a powerful and timely reminder to voters about what’s on the line in the 2016 election. Readers are going to get tired of seeing me write this, but three current justices will be at least 80 by Inauguration Day 2017. Ginsburg will be 83. A fourth, Breyer, will be 78. The average retirement age: 78.7.

    New York’s Jon Chait said yesterday’s Supreme Court order helped illustrate “the enormity of the stakes in November. Democrats need to hold on to the White House or literally risk planetary disaster.”

    • Will John Roberts Destroy His Reputation And A Livable Climate At The Same Time?

      … if the Roberts court ultimately decides to kill the rule 5-4 then that decision will immediately become the leading contender for the worst Supreme Court decision in U.S. history. After all, if the nations of the world ultimately don’t avoid catastrophic warming and if the U.S. is seen as bearing a significant portion of the blame — two entirely plausible outcomes — then future generations and historians will be judging the Court’s decision while suffering in a world with a climate that has been irreversibly ruined for centuries.

      Not content to simply destroy American democracy (see VRA shredding), plunging our planet into a climate chaos.

  15. One more thing then I will let go of it. Here are the raw vote totals from the NH Primary:

    Name Votes Percent
    Bernie Sanders 147,291 60.2%
    Hillary Clinton 93,443 38.2%
    Other 4,122 1.7%

    I am not going to let about 50,000 people override the importance of the votes of 65.9 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012. There is only one candidate in either party who will continue the Obama Administration policies, who will work for a better future not by tearing everything down but by building on the foundation laid over the past 7 years. Here is a snippet from a Roger Simon op-ed that I retweeted last night. He suggested that the Hillary message gets muddled when all the surrogates start blathering and that she needs to reset to this:

    “Hillary Clinton is a person of intellect and accomplishment. She has spent almost her entire life helping people around the globe. As president, she will restore economic growth at home, stand up to our enemies abroad and safeguard our allies. She will break the glass ceiling, and we will all feel proud.”

    p.s. Clinton likely to leave NH with same number of delegates as Sanders

    Hillary Clinton is expected to leave New Hampshire with just as many delegates as Bernie Sanders, even after he crushed her in Tuesday’s presidential primary.

    Sanders had won 13 delegates with his 20-point victory on Tuesday and is expected to raise that total to 15 by the time all of the votes are counted.

    Two of the state’s 24 delegates are currently unpledged but will likely be awarded to Sanders once the results are finalized.

    Clinton won nine delegates in the primary but came into the contest with the support of six superdelegates, who are state party insiders given the freedom to support any candidate they choose.

    Hardly earth shattering. And for what it is worth, Donald Trump got 35% of his party vote and Hillary Clinton got 38% of her party’s vote (probably more if you eliminated the crossovers). Yet she is the one “in trouble”.

    Okay, that was three things. :)

    • Paul Waldman gets closer to the problem:

      What’s Hillary Clinton’s message?

      She doesn’t have one. She doesn’t have a clear diagnosis of the problem the country faces, nor does she have an explanation of what the solution is, nor can she say why only she can bring about the better future voters are hoping for.

      Of course, Clinton can make a persuasive argument for her preferred solution on any policy area you can name. She also has a strong argument for why Sanders is being unrealistic about much of what he wants to do, an argument I basically agree with. And if you asked, she could tell you all about her ample qualifications for the presidency. But it doesn’t add up to a coherent story.

      Our narrative-driven media demands a narrative, a story line, a “hook”. It is not enough to have an excellent resume or a vision for the future you have to have an “overrideing theme”. And “I am a woman” is not going to be enough, apparently, and to be fair, probably shouldn’t be.

      I hope she can find that “hook” because too much is riding on this election to leave it up to chance that the voters will find a way to connect with her.

      • Bill gave us one that nobody seems to want to push – “She makes things better”. And since that’s something she’s done all her life – looked at where we are and what’s going on at that time, figured out how to make it better, then did it – “She makes things better is a great message to run with.

        • Besides it being the wrong messenger (“oh look, her husband supports her!”) it is not enough because they have not seen full-force bad yet in their young lives. People of color and people in poverty are still living it which is why they are not feeling the Bern.

          Gail Collins had an excellent piece today that I blockquoted from downthread.

  17. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 4 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 18. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Two more Republicans dropped out: Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina. They will not be missed on the national stage. The people of New Jersey are sad but their sadness is mitigated by the knowledge that Gov. Bully is term limited, maybe even indictable. I wish they would put Carly in the same prison with the Colorado Springs PP clinic murderer as an aider and abetter.

    One more Bundy arrested, this time Papa “The Negro Liked Slavery” Bundy. He had traveled to Oregon to help the last 4 holdouts in the Malheur occupation and the FBI took him into custody. No word yet on the charges. The FBI has now surrounded the encampment and is planning to move in. The 4 say that they will not leave unless there is a promise that they will not be arrested and can take their guns. Sorry! Law breaking (finally!) has consequences. It was all fun and games to them, egged on by the right-wing media and political figures. Now time to pay the piper.

    Speaking of justice, the Justice Dept and the City of Ferguson had reached an agreement on changes in policing. Tuesday night, the city voted against some of the provisions of the agreement and yesterday the Justice Department filed suit to bring “constitutional policing” to Ferguson. I am pulling together a post because it is Good Government in action and an example of what is at stake if Republicans should win the presidency. It is not just the Supreme Court, but the Justice Department and prosecutorial power.

    The president spoke yesterday to the Illinois General Assembly about toxic partisan politics and fixes he would like to see to voting laws. Video and transcript is here.

    See all y’all later!

  18. Good freezin’ morning, Moosekind! It’s 19 F. in NoVa at the moment, going up to 29 F. later on a sunny, blue-skied day.

    Thanks for the morning update, Jan. Glad those idiots in Idaho will be rounded up and arrested. It’s time for that to end.

    I’m glad about Ferguson. It was time for that situation to be remedied.

    Yesterday I went to the Hillary Clinton Web site and found that I was forced to “sign up” again. I thought I’d see a Web site that had news of where she was that day, upcoming events, meaning rallies and speeches, and a “Contact us” tab whereby I could write her an email of support. No such thing! I’m amazed that our Moose Sister bfitz was able to write to her.

    Not many thoughts in my head, unfortunately. I need to get on with my writing but somehow I cannot tear myself away from the primaries and caucuses. Democratic debate tonight!

    Hope all will have a good day!

    • I will probably not watch the debate, I am sick of all the screaming! There is a sporting event on my TV tonight that I will watch instead. I will check Twitter later.

      I never tried to send an email to Hillary Clinton’s campaign (I get a lot of them from it!). I am going to guess it would be impossible to keep the riffraff from destroying any Contact Me form or email. She can’t even Tweet without the most vile nasty stuff being replied back.

    • Try http://hillaryspeeches.com/ for what’s going on. The google-able website is her fundraiser site. I got the snail mail address from a comment on an HNV last week sometime. It’s at home but I’ll get it for you either tonight if I manage to log in somewhere or tomorrow. It’s still Hillary for America but it’s a P.O. box that is for non-check stuff.

      I had a call from a Hillary for America volunteer asking if I’d like to attend a debate watch party. When I told her, “No. I can’t stand Bernie Sander’s voice.” There was a silence and then she burst out laughing and said that was the best excuse she’d ever heard. :) I reassured her I’d try to get a hold of the transcript and see what was said, she laughed again – I think I made her evening – thanked me, and went on to her next call.

  19. We may break a record today — 83 degrees. Really worrisome-ly warm for February. Very excited about today’s press conference from people looking for gravity waves. It’s at 9:30 my time. Got a twitter tab open to #LIGO, that’s the center that has something press conference-worthy. Between that & the race on Sunday, that is all the thoughts I have right now. Besides wondering what happened to our cooler & wetter winter because of El Nino. And worried about drought returning, since it hasn’t rained this year.

  20. Good mornin’ Meese.
    Just finished my writing chores – off to make a fresh pot of coffee.
    22, sunny and cold here in Saugerties.
    Haven’t even had time to look at much news.
    bbl

    • Same stuff, different day. For some reason Ta-Nehisi Coates decided he needed to announce that he will vote for Bernie Sanders – not an endorsement, he says, just answering a question put to him. It is surely his right but I am not sure what purpose it serves except to stir the pot. Why any black intellectual would want to be lumped in with Cornel West, I have no idea.

      Charles Blow asks people to“Stop Bernie-Splaining to Black Voters” and a Tweeted photo of white people from Senator Sanders’ SuperPAC conducting a forum on how to talk to black women went viral. The group deleted the Tweet but not before it had been screen capped.

      And Utah said no to removing sales tax from feminine hygiene products because they can’t possibly make up for the lost tax revenue! Meh.

      • Here are some snippets from Blow’s column:

        I cannot tell you the number of people who have commented to me on social media that they don’t understand this support. “Don’t black folks understand that Bernie best represents their interests?” the argument generally goes. But from there, it can lead to a comparison between Sanders and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; to an assertion that Sanders is the Barack Obama that we really wanted and needed; to an exasperated “black people are voting against their interests” stance.

        If only black people knew more, understood better, where the candidates stood — now and over their lifetimes — they would make a better choice, the right choice. The level of condescension in these comments is staggering.

        Sanders is a solid candidate and his integrity and earnestness are admirable, but that can get lost in the noise of advocacy.

        Tucked among all this Bernie-splaining by some supporters, it appears to me, is a not-so-subtle, not-so-innocuous savior syndrome and paternalistic patronage that I find so grossly offensive that it boggles the mind that such language should emanate from the mouths — or keyboards — of supposed progressives.

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