NATIONAL——PRESIDENT——REPUBLICAN PRIMARY——Pew Research——Trump 25, Carson 16, Fiorina 8, Rubio 8, Bush 4, Cruz 6, Kasich 1, Huckabee 2, Paul 2, Christie 1, Graham 1, Jindal 0, Santorum 0, Pataki 0
NATIONAL——PRESIDENT——DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY——Pew Research——Clinton 45, Sanders 24, Biden 8, Webb 0, O’Malley 0, Chafee 0
IOWA——PRESIDENT——REPUBLICAN PRIMARY——NBC News-WSJ-Marist——Trump 24, Carson 19, Fiorina 8, Bush 7, Cruz 6, Rubio 6, Jindal 6, Huckabee 5, Paul 4, Christie 4, Kasich 3, Santorum 1, Graham 1, Pataki 0
IOWA——PRESIDENT——DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY——NBC News-WSJ-Marist——Clinton 33, Sanders 28, Biden 22, O’Malley 3, Webb 1, Chafee 0
NEW HAMPSHIRE——PRESIDENT——REPUBLICAN PRIMARY——NBC News-WSJ-Marist——Trump 21, Fiorina 16, Bush 11, Carson 10, Rubio 10, Kasich 6, Christie 7, Cruz 6, Paul 5, Huckabee 1, Graham 0, Jindal 0, Pataki 0, Santorum 0
NEW HAMPSHIRE——PRESIDENT——DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY——NBC News-WSJ-Marist——Sanders 42, Clinton 28, Biden 18, O’Malley 2, Webb 1, Chafee 1
Speaker of the House in waiting Kevin McCarthy… by ewillies
Mark Leibovich on what Trump is running against: “Other than undocumented immigrants, who represent a go-to boogeyman for the right, Trump’s targets consisted of a bipartisan assembly of the ‘’permanent political class’ that Joan Didion described in her book Political Fictions: that incestuous band of TV talkers, campaign strategists and candidates that had ‘rigged the game’ and perpetuated the scripted awfulness of our politics.”
“Resentment of this class has built over several years. It has been expressed on both sides, by the rise of insurgent movements like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street… As a reporter in Washington, I, too, have grown exceedingly weary of this world — the familiar faces, recycled tropes and politics as usual — and here was none other than Donald J. Trump, the billionaire blowhard whom I had resisted as a cartoonish demagogue, defiling it with resonance. He tacked not to the left or to the right, but against the ‘’losers’ and ‘scumbags’ in the various chapters of the club: the pundits who ‘wear heavy glasses’ and ‘sit around the table,’ the ‘political hacks’ selling out American interests overseas.”
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. calls out Republicans for their shameless pandering to the gun industry and commends President Obama for “politicizing” the latest mass shootings:
President Obama spoke some of the most important words of his tenure last week in response to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. “This is something we should politicize,” the president said. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.”
This is something we should politicize. His statement was remarkable for violating the etiquette as to what a leader should say after another slaughter by a deranged gunman and the conventional wisdom about how politicians have to pretend that they are not engaged in politics.But Obama was forcing us to face reality. It’s politics that has rendered our nation powerless in the face of butchery. There have been at least 142 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and Congress has done nothing. It’s politics, as Obama said, that makes the U.S. “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” and politics that leads our learned legislators to pass laws barring the government from “even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.”
…”Politicize” is the right word for another reason: We will not act until politicians start losing elections for opposing even the most modest gun safety measure. We will not act unless political parties that block action lose their majorities. Yes, I am talking about a Republican Party that has completely aligned itself with the interests of gun manufacturers and gun fanatics.
Dionne cites “the conclusion of a study released in August by National Journal: “The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns.” Dionne adds, “State laws could be even more effective if they were matched by federal laws that made it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands.” Here is that chart. It is huge, so I can’t really post it here to fit the page and at the same time have you read it. So go click on that link.
There is definitely one area where Hillary Clinton is to the left of Bernie Sanders, and it is on guns. Which is why Hillary was the first one out with a strong statement after the Oregon UCC shooting. Margaret Hartmann:
Last week, in response to the mass shooting in Oregon, Hillary Clinton called for a national push against the NRA and the gun lobby, saying, “This is not just tragic. We don’t just need to pray for people. We need to act and we need to build a movement. It’s infuriating.” On Monday, she’ll explain what she intends to do about it if elected president, when she unveils her plan to tighten restrictions on gun sales through legislation and executive actions. Clinton has been discussing the issue on the campaign trail since the Charleston church massacre in June, but the new push may also help her politically. Tackling gun violence is one of the few areas where Clinton is more liberal than Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who’s ahead of her in several polls of New Hampshire and Iowa voters. […]
She also wants Congress to overturn the 2005 law that prevents firearm manufacturers and dealers from being sued by the victims of gun violence. While serving in the Senate in 2005, Clinton voted against the law, but Sanders, who was in the House at the time, supported it.
Second Amendment rights are important to many Vermont voters, and Sanders has a mixed record on gun control. He supported the 2013 law to expand background checks and ban certain types of weapons, but in 1993 he voted against the Brady bill, which established mandatory background checks and a five-day waiting period. He also voted to allow guns on Amtrak and received support from the NRA during his first campaign.
You know that old addage that people get more conservative as they get older? On the Supreme Court, it seems that the opposite is true: Justices get more liberal.
Jeb! Bush is so desperate that his campaign is actually considering using his brother, George W. Bush, in campaign events.
“He’s finally close. Confidants of Vice President Joe Biden expect him to make a decision next weekend, or shortly thereafter, on whether to launch an epic battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination,” Politico reports.
I thought she did pretty good.
In “Watching Republicans Flail is Not a Strategy,” Ruth Conniff, editor of The Progressive, reminds Democrats not to get distracted by the GOP presidential candidates’ demolition derby, and that we do in fact need a honed, simple message of our own
“The Republican destruction machine is opening up an opportunity. Democrats and progressives should start talking about what we are for. Here is what we are for: great public institutions that serve the common good.
For decades, a right-wing propaganda campaign has been claiming, falsely, that our public institutions are no good, inefficient and wasteful, and that they should be handed over to private business. Part of the reason that message resonates with the public is that everyone has had a bad experience with bureaucracy; waiting in line at the DMV.
But here is something else Americans know from experience: In the deregulated private market, con artistry abounds. That’s why Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have struck a chord with their criticism of hucksterism on Wall Street. Credit card companies routinely take advantage of their customers. And millions of Americans know what it’s like to be ripped off by big banks and jerked around by health insurance companies. Fly-by-night voucher schools and shady charter-school operators are cashing in on public education funds by shortchanging students.
If the privatizers have their way, soon millions of Americans will be sending our kids to school at private academies in the same strip malls where we use the privatized postal services, bank at the check-cashing joint and shop at the deregulated rent-to-own shop.
Progressives need to stand up to this dystopian vision with better values: great public schools for each and every child, a well-maintained infrastructure and communities that are a great place to live for everybody — not just those rich enough to send their kids to private schools, buy up the prettiest land and build big walls to keep the rest of us out.
A more positive, generous message leads to more progressive politics.