National

Matt Taibbi asks if this is the end for Republicans: “If this isn’t the end for the Republican Party, it’ll be a shame. They dominated American political life for 50 years and were never anything but monsters. They bred in their voters the incredible attitude that Republicans were the only people within our borders who raised children, loved their country, died in battle or paid taxes. They even sullied the word ‘American’ by insisting they were the only real ones. They preferred Lubbock to Paris, and their idea of an intellectual was Newt Gingrich. Their leaders, from Ralph Reed to Bill Frist to Tom DeLay to Rick Santorum to Romney and Ryan, were an interminable assembly line of shrieking, witch-hunting celibates, all with the same haircut – the kind of people who thought Iran-Contra was nothing, but would grind the affairs of state to a halt over a blow job or Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube.” “A century ago, the small-town American was Gary Cooper: tough, silent, upright and confident. The modern Republican Party changed that person into a haranguing neurotic who couldn’t make it through a dinner without quizzing you about your politics. They destroyed the American character. No hell is hot enough for them. And when Trump came along, they rolled over like the weaklings they’ve always been, bowing more or less instantly to his parodic show of strength.”

I see valued commenters Dave falling into a kind of cognitive trap. He seems to think that that Nevada was all about people (Bernie and Hillary), and their supporters. It is nothing of the sort. Nevada is part of an ongoing push-back against the out and out bullshit that has dominated capitalism (and by extension our politics) for the last 30 or so years. In part, I blame myself for Dave's confusion. When I said unruly Democrats would come home when "Warren is announced as VP" I was using a sort of shorthand for the Clinton campaign recognizing that there is a cancer. Consider your take on the economy like your take on climate change. The politics of climate change are binary. You believe is it real or you don't. Similarly, you believe capitalism in trouble or you don't. The question yet to be settled is - what side of the issue is the Democratic Party on? If the Clinton Campaign can somehow show that they understand that climate change (e.g. rigged economy) is real... I see all Democrats coming home. If the Clinton campaign, and the Democratic Party Apparatchiks, can't get over that hill, I see chaos ahead.

If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned. I am happy to say that has been the case at state conventions in Maine, Alaska, Colorado and Hawaii where good discussions were held and democratic decisions were reached. Unfortunately, that was not the case at the Nevada convention.

Last night Hillary Clinton won Kentucky by 1 point, splitting the delegates at 27 a piece in a state demographically favored for Sanders, and she did much better than expected in Oregon, losing to Sanders by only an 8 point margin, 54-46, when the Sanders campaign was expecting a 30-40 point victory more in line with their performance in the Washington state caucus. In Oregon, Sanders wins 28 delegates to Clinton's 24, so he gains a net total of 4 on the night. Clinton is now 92 delegates away from clinching the nomination. Given the upcoming slate of primaries and the expected performances by the candidates in them, Hillary will likely clinch the nomination the second polls close in New Jersey and she is declared the projected winner, before we even get to California. She will score landslides in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and New Jersey. She will likely get 7 of the Virgin Island's 12 delegates. She will likely get 40 of Puerto Rico's 67 delegates (both results based on a conservative estimate of a Hillary 60-40 win in both). In New Jersey, early models of the vote show a landslide for Hillary.

New Jersey - We haven't seem demographics like this since Maryland. Blowout. Clinton 64% - Sanders 36%. pic.twitter.com/3Yrdsd8lHE

— Benchmark Politics (@benchmarkpol) May 18, 2016

Assuming a 64% win in NJ, Hillary will win 97 of the state's 142 delegates. And that puts her over the top at 8 pm on June 7. Hillary should plan on declaring victory that night. Concerns for the feelings of Sanders supporters, and for Sanders himself, after the unpleasantness of the last few days and Sander's tantrum last night, are over. Sanders alone is responsible for lying to his supporters by suggesting that the primary has been stolen. Sanders alone is responsible for lying to his supporters by suggesting that he can win the nomination. Sanders alone is responsible for talking his supporters down from the violence and outright terroristic and misogynist behavior they have engaged in over the last few days. He will concede to Hillary without precondition or concession in mid June like Hillary did in 2008. And then we will talk about reforms to the primary process in 2020 and beyond, where we eliminate caucuses, closed primaries and super delegates. Then we will talk about the platform. But not before.

Above this story about a British Inquiry into the Iraq war, this headline grabbed my attention.

Architects of disastrous Iraq War still at large

Jonathan Chait:

Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns could be seen as a process issue, perhaps even a vetting question so important that it’s “disqualifying,” as Mitt Romney has called it. But perhaps it could be something more than that. It might be the thin end of the wedge that opens up a powerful theme against the self-professed billionaire: that Trump is a total fraud. Trump has repeatedly refused to publish his tax returns, and repeatedly lied about his intention to do so. He promised five years ago to release his returns when President Obama released his birth certificate, and reneged. He promised to release them in February 2015; again promised to do so last fall and then in January, then backed off on the grounds that he was under an IRS audit, an argument tax experts have unanimously dismissed as nonsensical. Now he insists there’s “nothing to learn from them.” As many financial reporters have speculated over the years, based on whatever fragmentary information Trump has provided, he almost certainly has far less money than he claims. A reporter who has dug into the question estimates Trump’s actual worth at $150–250 million; Trump claims to be worth $10 billion, which is at least 40 times the journalist's estimate. The reality of Trump’s business career is that he is not so much a great businessman but somebody who has figured out how to make money by convincing people that he is one. [...] The particulars of his day-to-day message, to the extent he has one, barely matter. His entire appeal rests on the bedrock of his identity as a successful entrepreneur. The vast wealth Trump claims to have amassed allows him to supposedly fund his own campaign, escaping the influence of fundraisers who control his opponents. His alleged deal-making skill explains why he will be able to improve every trade deal, solve every legislative impasse, and finesse every diplomatic conflict. Trump’s endlessly repeated proposition is that he will take the skills that made him so rich and generously use them to make the country rich. Without that, he’s just a dumber version of Pat Buchanan.