Saturday, March 02, 2019
There Are Now 13 Democratic 2020 Presidential Candidates
Inslee said he understood that he is a "dark horse" candidate -- unknown by many voters across the country. But he hopes to repeat the success of two other virtually unknown small-state Democrats who got the Democratic nomination and went on to be elected president -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Inslee's entrance into the race brings the total number of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to 13. And that is without Joe Biden, Beto O'Rourke, and Michael Bloomberg -- all of whom are expected to enter the race soon.
Here are the candidates who have officially entered the race for the Democratic nomination:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): The 2016 runner-up is running again. He has the biggest grassroots base of any potential candidate, and he has been the leader of the push to move the party leftward. Press reports of staff sexual misconduct within his 2016 campaign and a more competitive field will present Sanders with a very different race this time, however. Still, for many of the Democratic left, Sanders is the only candidate with the credibility to pursue their top-tier issues, like Medicare-for-all.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): The former California attorney general started generating White House hype almost as soon as she got to the Senate in 2017. As a younger black woman, she personifies the Democratic Party’s changing nature. She’s endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major middle-class tax credit, though her days as a prosecutor may present problems with the progressive grassroots. Based on the early polls and media hype, Harris has made the biggest splash of any Democrats not named Sanders.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): The Massachusetts senator is proudly progressive, though she tends to position herself as wanting to fix capitalism rather than replace it. She wants to outflank Trump on trade and give workers seats on corporate boards and tax extreme wealth. Warren got on the ground early in Iowa and other early states. (You might have also heard about her releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove she had Native American roots — a poorly executed attempt to rebut Trump’s “Pocahontas” taunts.)
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): The former Newark mayor and part-time firefighter is another fresh face with big ideas like savings accounts for newborns, and he’s also running in a Democratic primary with a lot of black voters. He’ll have to contend, though, with his work promoting charter schools (not a favorite of the teachers unions) and the perception that he’s close with Wall Street.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): Gillibrand has evolved over the years from a centrist Democrat in the House to a progressive who endorses Medicare-for-all and universal paid family leave; a pillar of her Senate career has been cracking down on sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand is presenting herself as a young mom in tune with the #MeToo era and the Democratic women who powered the party to historic wins in the 2018 midterms.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): She will look to blend her folksy, Midwestern manner with some crossover appeal, given her history of working across the aisle with Republicans and winning elections handily in a purplish state. Klobuchar is also known for her willingness to crack down on big tech firms, focused on privacy and antitrust issues. She is struggling with a lack of name recognition, however, and she has been the subject of several recent reportsabout her alleged harsh treatment of staff.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: Inslee is centering his work on environmental issues and the threat of climate change. He has pushed a bill to get his home state off coal energy and all other carbon-producing energy sources by 2045. It hasn’t always been smooth — voters in Washington rejected an Inslee-supported carbon fee in 2015 — but the governor hopes to quickly build a profile by focusing relentlessly on humanity’s direst existential threat.
Former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julián Castro: Castro got VP buzz in prior elections; now he’s running in his own right after serving in Barack Obama’s Cabinet, on an aspirational message as the grandson of immigrants.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Gabbard fires up a certain strain of antiwar progressive. She’ll face tough questions, though, about her apparent friendliness with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her past comments on LGBTQ rights.
Former Rep. John Delaney: The most notable thing about Delaney is he’s already been running for president for two years, more or less living in Iowa, the first state on the presidential calendar. But he was the first choice of just 1 percent of Iowa Democrats in a recent poll.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Something of a viral political star, though he leads a city of “just” 100,000 people, Buttigieg is a military veteran and a Rhodes scholar, and he would be the first openly LGBTQ president in American history. Redevelopment and infrastructure projects have been staples of his tenure as mayor.
Andrew Yang: A humanitarian-mind entrepreneur who also served under the Obama administration. He’s running on a policy platform that includes, among other things, a universal basic income that would pay out $1,000 a month to every American over age 18.
Marianne Williamson: A self-proclaimed “bitch for God” who has been a spiritual adviser to Oprah. Her previous political experience is a failed run for Congress as an independent in 2014.
Trump Averaging More Than 11 Lies For Every Day In Office
The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump has told 8,718 lies in his first 759 days in office. That's an average of 11.49 lies for every day!
No president in the past (of either party) has come close to telling as many lies to the American people as Trump has told, and I doubt that any future president will either.
It wouldn't be far from the truth to claim -- if Trump is speaking, then he is probably lying.
Ocasio-Cortez Impresses With Her Questioning Of Cohen
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is serving her first term in the House Of Representatives. Republicans have tried to demonize her -- probably because a smart and strong woman scares the hell out of them.
And that's exactly what she is -- smart and strong. She has hit the ground running, and is performing exceptionally well for a freshman legislator.
An excellent example of this was displayed during her questioning of Michael Cohen when he appeared before a House committee. Instead of trying to grandstand, like too many other representatives did, she asked pertinent questions and got answers that will help in the investigation of the corrupt Trump family.
Here is her five minutes of questioning:
Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you, Mr. Chair.
"Mr. Cohen, I would like to quickly pick up on some previous lines of questioning before getting into my own. So I may go a little quickly to get it all in five minutes. First, my colleague from Vermont had you asked several questions about AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer. And in that you mentioned a treasure trove -- a treasure trove of documents in David Pecker's office relating the information assembled from all of these 'catch and kill' operations against people who potentially had damaging information on the president.
"You also mentioned that the president was very concerned about the whereabouts of these documents and who possessed them. Does that treasure trove of documents still exist?"
Cohen: "I don't know. I had asked David Pecker for them."
Ocasio-Cortez: "So you would say the person who knows the whereabouts of these documents would be David Pecker."
Cohen: "David Pecker, Barry Levine, or Dylan Howard." (Editor’s note: Pecker is chairman of AMI; Levine is the National Enquirer’s former executive editor; Howard is AMI’s vice president.)
Ocasio-Cortez: "Okay. Thank you. Secondly, I want to ask a little bit about your conversation with my colleague from Missouri about asset inflation. To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?"
Cohen: "Yes."
Ocasio-Cortez: "Who else knows that the president did this?"
Cohen: "Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman, and Matthew Calamari." (Editor’s note: Weisselberg is the Trump Organization’s CFO, Lieberman and Calamari are executives at the Trump Organization.)
Ocasio-Cortez: "And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?"
Cohen: "Yes. And you would find it at the Trump Org."
Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you very much. The last thing here. The Trump Golf organization currently has a golf course in my home borough of the Bronx, Trump Links. I drive past it every day going between the Bronx and Queens. In fact, The Washington Post reported on the Trump Links Bronx course in an article entitled 'Taxpayers Built this New York Golf Course and Trump Reaps the Rewards.'
"That article is where many New Yorkers and people in the country learned that taxpayers spent $127 million to build Trump Links in a 'generous deal allowing President Trump to keep almost every dollar that flows in on a golf course built with public funds.'
"And this doesn't seem to be the only time the president has benefited at the expense of the public. Mr. Cohen, I want to ask you about your assertion that the president may improperly devalued his assets to avoid paying taxes. According to an August 24th -- August 21st 2016 report by The Washington Post: 'While the president claimed in financial disclosure forms that Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, was worth more than 50 million, he had reported otherwise to local tax authorities that the course was worth 'no more than 5 million'.' Mr. Cohen, do you know whether this specific report is accurate?"
Cohen: "It is identical to what he did at Trump National Golf Club at Briarcliff Manor."
Ocasio-Cortez: "Do you know -- to your knowledge, was the president interested in reducing his local real estate bills, tax bills?"
Cohen: "Yes."
Ocasio-Cortez: "And how do you do that?"
Cohen: "What you do is you deflate the value of the asset and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction."
Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you. Now on October 2018, the New York Times revealed that 'President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.' It further stated for Mr. Trump: 'He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents' real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing his tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.' Mr. Cohen, do you know whether that specific report is accurate?"
Cohen: "I don't. I wasn't there in the 1990s."
Ocasio-Cortez: "Who would know the answer to those questions?"
Cohen: "Allen Weisselberg."
Ocasio-Cortez: "And would it help for the committee to obtain federal and state tax returns from the president and his company to address that discrepancy?"
Cohen: "I believe so."
Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you very much. I yield the rest of my time to the chair."
Friday, March 01, 2019
Is Texas Competitive For 2020? This Poll Says YES!
A couple of days ago, I brought you a map of the electoral college prospects for 2020. The map, by Taegan Goddard, had Texas listed as competitive. At the time, I expressed my doubts. Texas is still very red, and has many people who will vote for anyone with a "R" beside their name on the ballot.
But maybe I was wrong. Look at the charts above. A new poll shows that three candidates would run very well against Donald Trump. Joe Biden and Beto O'Rourke trail him by only 1 point, and Bernie Sanders trails by only 2 points -- all well within the poll's margin of error.
Biden and O'Rourke also have a net positive favorable rating in the state -- Biden by 11 points and O'Rourke by 4 points. All other candidate have a net negative rating, including Trump (by 2 points).
Could a Democratic presidential candidate turn Texas blue in 2020? Probably not, but it is within the realm of possibility -- and that should have Democrats pulling out all the stops in Texas. It would be a mistake for the Democratic candidate to write off the state.
These charts reflect the results of a new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between February 20th and 25th of a sample of 1,222 Texas voters, with a 3.4 point margin of error.
Trump Fails Again (Because He's A Terrible Negotiator)
During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump told Americans he would solve all the nation's problems because he was a "great negotiator". That was just another of his many lies. He has only one negotiating skill -- bullying. That may work against small businesses, but it doesn't work when dealing with other nation's -- especially dictators.
The truth is that Trump has failed at every one of his attempts to negotiate, and he failed again in Hanoi this week. Here's what the editorial board of The Washington Post had to say about it:
The failure of President Trump’s summit meeting with Kim Jong Un revealed the fundamental weakness of Mr. Trump’s strategy for addressing the growing nuclear threat from North Korea. The president supposed that his personal and improvisational diplomacy, featuring unwarranted and unseemly flattery of a murderous tyrant, would make possible the substantive steps toward disarmament that the regime has resisted for decades. Instead, he was presented by Mr. Kim with a patently unacceptable offer that left him no choice but to walk away.
It’s good that he did walk away, but Mr. Trump’s miscalculation leaves U.S.-North Korean relations in disarray, even as the regime continues to produce material for weapons and long-range missiles capable of striking the United States. It calls for a fundamental reshaping of the U.S. approach — one that is more realistic about the nature of the Kim regime, including its horrific human rights violations.
If the administration had pursued a more substantive approach to the negotiations, Mr. Kim would have known the position he brought to Hanoi was a non-starter. By Mr. Trump’s account, the 35-year-old ruler offered to shut down the North’s Yongbyon nuclear complex in exchange for the removal of all sanctions — something that would have left his regime in possession of other nuclear facilities, not to mention its existing arsenal. (North Korea says it asked for nullification of five U.N. resolutions that contain most, but not all, sanctions.) Pyongyang has twice before struck deals to close Yongbyon, only to renege. Even if its closure were guaranteed in this instance, it would fall far short of the minimum the United States should require for the lifting of sanctions.
Mr. Kim may have believed that he could bamboozle Mr. Trump, who at their last meeting abruptly agreed to suspend U.S. military exercises with South Korea in exchange for an ambiguous statement about denulearization. Since then, Mr. Trump has waved around flattering letters he received from Mr. Kim, spoken about falling in love with him and ceased U.S. efforts to call attention to the crimes against humanity Mr. Kim is credibly accused of. Meanwhile, international economic pressure on the regime eased.
Even after the summit’s failure, Mr. Trump persisted in sending the wrong messages. At a news conference in Hanoi, he cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that North Korea is continuing to expand its nuclear arsenal and declined to say whether he would still demand complete denuclearization before lifting sanctions. He again questioned the costs of the U.S.-South Korean military alliance.
Worst of all, Mr. Trump offered Mr. Kim a pass on the case of American Otto Warmbier, saying he accepted the dictator’s word that he did not know about the gross mistreatment that led to Warmbier’s death. If Mr. Kim can obtain Mr. Trump’s sanction for such atrocities, it’s no wonder he would offer only one-sided deals.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Kim had assured him that North Korea would not return to nuclear or missile testing; if that remains true, there will still be time and opportunity for negotiation. But it ought now to be clear that the president’s shallow and slapdash attempts at dealmaking are not going to succeed.
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