Trump is wrong so often, but did the “blind squirrel” get something correct for once?
Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn’t in the race, Bernie Sanders would have EASILY won Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, not to mention various other states. Our modern day Pocahontas won’t go down in history as a winner, but she may very well go down as the all time great SPOILER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2020

Posted by: librul | Mar 4 2020 16:05 utc | 203

I heard a short while ago on Sputnik Radio that the Dems will change the rules so that Gabbard does not qualify for the next debate.

Posted by: lysias | Mar 4 2020 16:19 utc | 205

@ 204 librul
“Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn’t in the race, Bernie Sanders would have…”
Classic Democrat blame-game. Bernie is not entitled to Elizabeth Warren votes. Just like the Democrats were not entitled to Ralph Nader and Jill Stein votes. I’ve already seen a Bernie fanatic here blame southern “black people”. Substitute Russia, why not?

Posted by: SharonM | Mar 4 2020 16:21 utc | 207

Another election bellwether was the thrashing (72.5% to 12.7%) handed out in CA’s 12th Congressional District primary by that arrogant fossil millionaire Nancy Pelosi (of “we should make sure the [coronavirus] vaccines are “affordable” infamy) to her Bernie bro primary opponent Shahid Buttar.
That district consists entirely of the city of San Francisco, reputedly one of the most “progressive” and “liberal” cities in America. A city that is now literally littered with human shit, the entropic debris of American “democracy” and gangster capitalism.

Posted by: Trisha | Mar 4 2020 16:30 utc | 209

Damn bastards aren’t wasting a second, already plotting to move the goal post to keep Tulsi off the debate stage.
Tulsi Gabbard
(When you go to Fox link click 1st article listed. Don’t know why it’s not connecting directly.)
They actually want Trump to win against Loser Biden. This is unreal. Biden is still untested in the campaign. Even Judge Judy stated yesterday on MSNBC he’s been treated with kid gloves so far! If anyone can see a loser and a desperate con job, it’s her.
Everyone should protest this move by the DNC against Tulsi!

Posted by: Circe | Mar 4 2020 16:32 utc | 211

Final Super Tuesday breakdown:
California: Bernie increased his CA vote share, but so did Biden at the 91% reporting threshold. Bernie should get 140 delegates vs. Biden’s 103 – so Biden is going to retain the lead.
Maine: Biden extends lead slightly, but results shouldn’t change significantly: 9 delegates for Biden vs. 8 for Bernie.
Looks like delegate total after Super Tuesday will be:
Biden: 576
Bernie: 554
Bloomberg: 46
Since Bloomberg has dropped out and endorsed Biden, the nails are proliferating on Bernie’s coffin. Between Bloomberg, Butti and Klobo – that’s about another 80 delegates for Biden.
Warren looks like she’s going to exceed the 15% threshold in CA, so will wind up with 100 or so delegates. Given the very public spat with Bernie – it looks like she’s angling for Biden VP.

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 4 2020 16:35 utc | 213

@Circe #215
You are very naive.
“Losers” that are the President and Vice President nominees for the Democratic party of the United States are something; failed nominee is nothing.
I’d also note that the states Bernie has won so far: CA, NV, CO and UT skew very heavily younger and are liberal states. Bernie has been losing both in liberal states that skew older (Maine) and conservative/Southern states that skew younger (Oklahoma). Bernie got crushed in states that skew both older and conservative.
Only if Iowa can repeat, will Bernie have a prayer.
You can look at state level age demographics here

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 4 2020 16:52 utc | 215

P.S.- I see our resident mole trolls have resurfaced. Welcome back…

Posted by: ben | Mar 4 2020 17:04 utc | 217

I see Biden captured the older black voters throughout most of the South. That’s not too shocking considering that it was most probably a “voting by association” ( Obama/Biden) vote.

Posted by: ben | Mar 4 2020 17:16 utc | 219

Blues
“It’s very peculiar, to say the least, that the bumbling idiot criminal Biden ‘won’ in my home state of Massachusetts. ”
Really. I am in Mass. I voted for Sanders.
what happened?
All I can think is that “liberal Democrats” are very strong in this state. The kind of people who read the Boston Globe and the NYT and believe them, and went along with the Russiagate hoax. Etc. IOW, lots of college-educated people in this state. Many of them are exactly the ones who think they are smarter than others and get their info from the MSM, and ultimately do not question the MSM line. They will vote for Biden because he is the establishment candidate. Because he was Saint Obama’s VP. They cannot think outside the box. They would also like to have houses on Martha’s Vineyard (like, now, the Obamas, and John Kerry), where Hillary goes to do fund-raising. They identify with the 1%.
They excoriate Trump and Trump supporters reflexively, while ignoring Biden’s corruption in Ukraine or Hillary’s corruption with her pay-to-play foundation. Many are snobs. If California is doing X, they will do not-X.
Just speculating. But I was very surprised that Biden won here. So, trying to figure out what Massachusetts voters are “thinking.”
It is also interesting that Warren tanked here. Not sure what this shows.
I was very pleased when Warren first came on the scene and became a Mass. senator. But have become increasingly displeased with her, as have some others I have spoken to. Partly it is a “Hillary” type of problem. She is just . . . unappealing!! She looks like a . . . school marm. Not happy about her “MeToo-type” accusations toward Sanders.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 17:21 utc | 221

Here’s another new ad specifically tailored for Michigan and Appalachia states. Scroll and click ad titled Decimated.
Biden Trade deals killed jobs

Posted by: Circe | Mar 4 2020 17:32 utc | 223

“This US election is the last hooray of the boomers.” Huh? Trump, Sanders and Biden are all from the so-called “Silent Generation” while Elisabeth Warren is an early “Boomer.” Boomers the Dems shall have amongst them a goodly longer while.
Posted by: Billosky | Mar 4 2020 13:50 utc | 175
++++++++++++++++
That word “boomer” is misunderstood and misused by most poeple. The oldest cohort of the baby boom (those born in 1946) is 73 now.
Biden, Trump, and Sanders are all older.
Warren is 70.
The youngest baby boom cohort, born in 1964, is now 56 years old. In other words, in their prime.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 17:45 utc | 225

according to the bezos blog , biden is romping about while sanders is a “a populist promising a revolution”. so they have roughly the same slant on sanders as the dixiecrats and texas “our main problem with trump is his style” republicans voting for biden. talking about “left voters” in those states is like talking about the “israeli left”. they’re “left” or “progressive” on a scale of “right of center” to “wow scum right taki level shit”.

Posted by: the pair | Mar 4 2020 17:51 utc | 227

We need to End Political Parties, PACs, and Corporate Donations.
George Washington wasn’t in One; and argued against having them. We’re now seeing the Epic Failings of such Implementations.
Each Person Running on One’s Own Cash – No Loans (Limits per Political Office – Max 1BillionUSD for POTUS) and Direct Individual Cash Contributions, with Modest Limits of 10K per Person for the Election Cycle.
Federal/State Election Boards Sponsor Debates+Positional Presentations.
Electoral College Electors Chosen by State – without Previous Political Party Affiliations.

Posted by: IronForge | Mar 4 2020 17:52 utc | 229

The point is that we (humanity) now have globally integrated, industrial scale, highly technical agricultural production. While it is fine to fantasize about growing a couple tomatoes in your yard, you will not be able to produce the quantities of grain and fiber and industrial feedstock crops necessary to support your lifestyle that way. “Back to nature” cannot work for a population of 7 billion on this planet. It is very doubtful that America could even do it with only a population of 300 million.
Basically, “back to nature” was already just silly self-delusion more than a century and a half ago when Thoreau gave it a try. It has only become more unrealistic over the years since.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 4 2020 15:46 utc | 200
+++++++++
You may be right and I am not going to go head to head with your assertions because I don’t have facts and figures at my disposal. It does, however, seem relevant that there are cases where backyard agriculture produced needed food in the face of the failure of “factory agriculture.” I recall reading that at some point in the history of the USSR, rules were loosened so that peasants could grow food on their own plots. The production of these plots was the main source of food needed in urban centers. In the American South, slaves produced food and eggs on this own little plots—after, obviously, literally slaving in the cotton fields all day—and these plots supplied everyone, including those in the “big house” with actual food and eggs and also, often, pork.
Throughout the nineteenth cent, burgeoning inudstrial centers such as Boston and Berlin were supplied with food from their own hinterlands, as farmer carted their produce into the cities every morning. Cows were kept within the city limits. Our image of how millions can be fed is very much narrowed by the growth and ubiquity of factory farming, completely separated from the ultimate “eaters.”
A lot of nonexperts make fast and free with assumptions of what “we” need to feed “the world,” while disregarding the point that many of those “we” need to feed are peasants and others whose land has been stolen from them and who have been driven into urban environments because their home environments have been made unlivable in one fashion or another.
Actually, tons of food coule be grown on suburban lawns. In the Netherlands, the 2022 Expo Floriade in Almere is about building cities that are food- and energy-independent.
https://floriade.com/en/agenda/floriade-dialogues-summit-changemakers-in-food/

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 17:58 utc | 231

“I see Biden captured the older black voters throughout most of the South…”
ben@220
My guess is that the turnout among black voters was very low. It is impossible to understand the discretion of black voters in Dixie without bearing in mind, very seriously, the history of centuries of intimidation, exclusion and persecution to which African American descendants have been subject.
As to the effect of civil rights legislation consider just two, very contemporary aspects of life in the South- first the actuality of mass incarceration and criminalisation which means that significant numbers (in the millions) of black people have had criminal records imposed on them- all rational blacks understand that they are ten times more likely to be stopped, arrested, railroaded, jailed or killed by the state than the average.
Then there is the reality that, during the past decades millions of people have been disfranchised by racist laws and office holders.
It is against this background that the apparent power of the “misleaders’ needs to be understood- it has no real substance except the constant threat of attack prompting superficial unity.

Posted by: bevin | Mar 4 2020 18:08 utc | 233

–Biden did …surprising well. Which states had electronic voting machines?
–Given that the debates are strongly engineered, tentative prediction Tulsi will somehow not be allowed to get up on stage.
–What happens if Biden picks Hillary to be his V.P.? There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
–Remember, Hillary actually won the popular vote, back before the brain fog, no matter what you may think of her personally. If Dems were to convince Trump not to debate, and everyone runs on name recognition, without getting in front of the cameras…

Posted by: Imagine | Mar 4 2020 18:14 utc | 235

I forgot something right at the end of 236: SLAY!

Posted by: Circe | Mar 4 2020 18:29 utc | 237

Can’t understand why people who fail against big government can support Bernie when he openly admits that he would have the government control damn near everything. That will be his downfall.

Posted by: Fractional ownership | Mar 4 2020 18:42 utc | 239

When Beto O’Rourke (sp?) endorsed Biden, Joe was heard saying “you’ll run my gun policy”. Have heard it reported that Beto’s gun policy proposal has been to literally go door to door confiscating guns. Anybody know whether or not this info is correct?
Because if true, it is the only thing Trump will need to point out about Biden in order to ensure Trump’s re-election.
Republicans are not the only gun-owners, not the only 2nd amendment defenders.
Just one reason people who would abandon Trump to vote Sanders will never vote for Biden.
Fix is in, indeedy – how bloody obvious is it after last night??
And yes, as others have said, Sanders now has his own fate in his own hands. He runs independent if not the dem nominee or he hands Trump his second term.
What will you do, Bernie? Do you intend to defend our interests for real and give us the chance to start deconstructing the billionaires you and you alone are RIGHTFULLY willing to say SHOULD NOT EXIST, or will you repeat your egregious mistake of 2016?
(note to bevin: To my eternal honor, I have email from Joe Bageant in which he told me he wished he had written an essay of mine I sent him years ago)

Posted by: Phryne’s frock | Mar 4 2020 19:14 utc | 241

Comparing Sanders super Tuesday states in 2016 with Sanders super Tuesday states in 2020 shows him doing about the same against the establishment candidate. It should have been expected for the most part.

Posted by: dltravers | Mar 4 2020 19:37 utc | 243

vk @199
I replied to your post regarding the fall of the Western Roman Empire but because it was so long I put it on the open thread.

Posted by: ADKC | Mar 4 2020 20:07 utc | 245

bevin |@229
Slick willy, is that you? LOL. That would explain you’re advocating for Epstein and Weinstein, wouldn’t it.
And your sly, pro-Party messaging.
=
Anyone surprised that the fix was in?
Yeah, I suppose everyone that attacked me and Russ (or stayed silent) when we said that “the fix is in” weeks ago.
=
It is not time yet to walk … the fight against the oligarchs goes on
For Democratic Party partisans, there’s NEVER a good time to walk.
=
the people don’t count until they make real nuisances of themselves
Yet you’re NOT advocating for an independent Movement but continuing with Bernie’s insurgency.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 4 2020 20:18 utc | 247

“I lived in DE for years when I was young and strongly disliked the guy then and dislike him now – a total ruling class tool, and also a dangerous war hawk
Posted by: michaelj72 | Mar 4 2020 19:18 utc | 243”
++++++
In Delaware, corporations rule the state. Delaware is home base to corporate America, the corporation’s friend. Delaware is the very avatar of vulture capitalism—but practiced against our own country. Here is Investipedia’s definition of “Delaware Corporation”:
Delaware Corporation
By Will Kenton
Updated Jun 17, 2019
What Is a Delaware Corporation?
“A Delaware corporation is a company that is legally registered in the state of Delaware but may conduct business in any state. Delaware first began to adapt its laws in the late 19th century, making changes that would attract businesses away from other states such as New York. Over time, Delaware became a respected state in which to incorporate, even if the majority of a company’s business was conducted outside the state.”
Uh, so “over time” Delaware became respectable. IOW its strategy to steal business from other states didn’t start out being respectable.
Further:
” Delaware Corporations Explained
Incorporating in Delaware has become widespread among large U.S. companies; about half of the S&P 500 members are incorporated in the state. This is especially true of the financial sector. Delaware has business-friendly usury laws, which allow banks and credit card companies to have much more freedom to charge high-interest rates on loans.
Usury laws are state-based legislation that establishes limits on the amount of interest that can be applied to loans and other forms of financing. This is a form of consumer protection that regulates how much interest businesses can charge their local customers. Delaware usury laws, by comparison, give lenders greater leeway to charge interest.
The state’s legislation also applies to operations and business conducted in other states. In other words, a company incorporated in Delaware can charge interest rates in accordance with Delaware usury law rather than local usury laws even when doing business with customers nationwide.”
Home base of usury. Remember all of that debt that people owe to credit cards because they have to use their cards just to survive from month to month? That usury is made possible by Biden’s home state. It is hard to imagine any credible politician emerging from the usury state of Delaware.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 20:19 utc | 249

@Robert Shule #227
You said:

Ok, I concede. The Democratic elite pulled off a big win over Sanders in the course of a few days with their man Biden. Only question is; how did they do it? What is the underlying mechanism of the party machine that got their man in?

The explanation doesn’t have to be very complicated. We have all seen Sanders’ strength with the youth – but this can arguably be offset by his weakness with the old. Do old people want the kids to get free education when they paid for theirs (yes, it is totally different today than back then, but that’s irrelevant much like Grandma giving the grandkids $5 for their birthday). Health care isn’t an issue many over 65 – they have free Medicare already. It doesn’t seem hard to believe that the older voters don’t feel Sanders has their best interests as top of mind.
Similarly, the DNC elite have endorsed Biden. This is, by default, Obama and HRC. Yes, Obama hasn’t overtly endorsed Biden, but he hasn’t endorsed Sanders either. The clear message from the entire rest of the DNCC is clear though: Biden. It is a mistake to underestimate the value of thousands to tens of thousands of Democrat party faithful being true to their salt.
Lastly, the dilution strategy. Biden was always going to be stronger in the South than a Jewish Vermonter. The risk was that Biden would get crushed so badly, early on, that it would negatively affect voters in later caucuses – Butti, Klobo, Warren and Bloomberg ensured that didn’t happen.

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 4 2020 20:29 utc | 251

@Really?? #253
If English is your first language, then perhaps you should re-read what you wrote – which I directly quoted.
When you preface a statement using a city and its hinterlands as an example, including cows within city limits, it is absolutely a misdirection if your intention was solely to talk about factory farming.
It is equally disingenuous to ignore the reality that transport plays in modern food distribution systems – and it is precisely this transportation dynamic which led to the rise of the factory farm.
And it is logistics details like transportation which militate against the “local” food production/consumption dynamic you appear to espouse.
There are always going to be places where it is cheaper to grow food, given cheap transport, than somewhere nearby.

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 4 2020 20:56 utc | 253

h @ 249
“I’m not buying. No way. Something is amiss. Maybe in Mass they simply swapped out Warren and gave it to Biden. Just a radical thought. ”
+++++++++++
Gee, I wonder.
It does seem pretty incredible that Biden would win here. People are not brain-dead . . . It is rather disturbing to think that the “left liberal information bubble” could shield Biden—I mean, anyone who has a TV would have seen him in all his confused, jibberishy, glory, even if they had not had the pleasure of watching his open perviness as he fondles other men’s (including other politicians’) young daughters in public (btw, do the Bidens have any daughters, or only sons?). And his pugnacious and information-free responses to voters who communicated with him in person. It is a real head-scratcher.
Biden gives new (potential) meaning to the term “geriatric presidency.” At least Reagan did possess hoky charm (part of his actor’s took chest). And I don’t think he was a perv. Biden is not only charmless; he is cringeating.
I wonder whether they have counted the absentee ballots in Mass.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 21:03 utc | 255

Ciue 254
You said: “No, I don’t agree at all with your statement that it is possible to feed Boston from its hinterlands today.”
I did not make the statement, “It is possible to feed Boston from its hinterlands today.” I did not make any similar statement. The word “today” does not appear in my post. I did not use the present tense.
You copied a graf of mine but then you paraphrased it, putting your own erroneous paraphrase forth as my “statement.”
Then you have the CHUTZPAH to argue back saying you directly quoted me.
More dishonesty.
Then you blather on commanding me to have said something different from what I did say, or did not say.
You are a troll.
You have already been called out on this thread, not by me.
Why don’t your stop now.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 21:18 utc | 257

Interesting data, if true from a New Republic opinion piece source

In virtually every Super Tuesday state (aside from California, where the data is incomplete), the late deciders broke for Biden by a lopsided margin. In Minnesota—whose senator, Amy Klobuchar, endorsed the former vice president on Monday—nearly three times as many primary voters who made up their minds in the last few days chose Biden over Sanders. The same pattern held in Massachusetts, where Biden beat Sanders among the late deciders by a two-to-one margin.
Endorsements mattered, especially the blessing of Biden by Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg after South Carolina. What was impressive was how quickly the word got out to voters searching for a mainstream alternative to Sanders. Democrats who had been biding their time suddenly flocked to Biden because of late-breaking news coverage, not TV ads.
Based on preliminary data, Sanders failed to expand the electorate dramatically. Missing were the younger voters who he promised were primed for revolution rather than reform. In every state, according to exit polls, there were significantly more Super Tuesday voters over 65 than those between the ages of 18 and 29.

There’s that age thing again…

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 4 2020 21:23 utc | 259

Mr. Gruff, Large-scale, industrial agriculture is often held up as the solution for feeding the world’s growing population, but small farms of about 25 acres or less, along with family-run operations (like Masumoto’s peaches) produce over 70 percent of the world’s food.
look up nationalgeographic.com and future-of-food/photos-farms-agriculture to read for yourself
truth is (and i come from iowa farm folk) farming corn and soybeans industrially in iowa has left the soil so depleted it will no longer grow anything without use of copious amounts of fertilizers and pesticides…which have left our waters in increasingly awful condition. farmers here will swear they are caretaking the land, but studies have proven they vastly overestimate the care they take and are in major denial about how the draintile systems have failed and the pollutants are pouring into waterways in alarming amounts.
(was it the world book of statistics where I also read about the greater productivity of small farms? memory like a sieve and too busy to research again but all can research for facts for themselves…)
herd people into cities and close off the commons was how England made labor dirt cheap, eh?

Posted by: Phryne’s frock | Mar 4 2020 21:42 utc | 261

Really @256 – So, last night I took one for the team and watched Fox for the results. Martha McCallum and I think his name is Brett were discussing the results as they came in. All I can say is they were stunned by the returns and these folks don’t get stunned by a whole lot. Their natural inclination toward what they were witnessing was the ‘unbelievability’ of it all. Because it was unbelievable.
I wonder if Warren appears to be a bit rattled today. As in, off her game.
And when you think about Klobuchar dropping out the day before, many of us speculated she did so knowing her internals weren’t showing a win in her home state. Yet Warren never blinked. If her internals were showing something similar to Klobuchar’s why didn’t she take the Establishment’s offer as Klobuchar did. Then again, maybe Warren’s internals weren’t showing she was losing but rather winning. They made an offer but she declined. Ok. They showed her…maybe.
Again, I can’t help but wonder if she seems off her game today.
As a corporate entity, as the DNC and RNC both are, couldn’t such an entity simply switch the names on the numbers? Seems to me corporations pretty much do whatever they need to to succeed in whatever goal it is they are trying to attain. The only thing that stops them is regulations and the law, but those tend to only apply when they get caught. What rule or even law for that matter applies to a corporate switcheroo?
The dastardly thinking behind such a move was on constant display under Obama’s leadership. These people play for keeps. Breaking regs or laws means nothing to them as long as it serves in achieving their goals.
All of this reminds me a lot about how the DNC broke rules, regs and laws in the nomination of Obama in ’08. The pattern feels strikingly familiar.
I realize how batchit crazy I may be sounding, but I’m telling you, what we witnessed last night simply wasn’t authentic.

Posted by: h | Mar 4 2020 22:01 utc | 263

William Gruff #257

Urbanization of the population reduces humanity’s environmental footprint significantly, but returning to primitive agriculture would disperse a large portion of the population away from the cities and into the countryside as an agricultural workforce.

Food the thought there. Consider: urbanisation may have reduced human footprint on agricultural land but it has dramatically transformed the form of agriculture on those ‘liberated’ lands. Especially in the ‘first’ world nations and to some extent others. The pressures for efficient agriculture and the amalgamation of properties into one massive agricultural factory are just immense.
Additionally agribusiness is short term and there are few defenders of the productivity of the earth biomass through a gentler agricultural form. Pumping vast quantities of artificial fertilisers derived from mines or petrochemical or gas converters is an essential part of BIG AG. Small family farms with reduced fertiliser imports have done better throughout the millennia (given a benign environment of course).
Dark Emu is worth a read on this to open eyes to the primitive sustainable agriculture of the Australian Aboriginal people with a different land use footprint. I suspect the same may have pertained in Mesopotamia or even the Indus valley prior to animal management practices.
Humans in both villages and farms in this modern world want to consume stuff to make for a pleasant life and that has dramatically enlarged their footprint in mining and industry, see Dupont and C8 as an example of a deadly footprint. Dupont is not alone. Every large truck or train transporting products across nations is a footprint stamping on the land, the atmosphere and the life forms along the route.
I am not offering a solution but there is a perceivable alternative informed by the past and present intelligence.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 4 2020 22:55 utc | 265

People who can’t understand English, who have an agenda but are too cowardly to put it directly forward and who then want to argue that the impression given is not what they, in their own minds, believed would be received, post on MoA. Really?? posted in 232.
Do you understand now?
Posted by: c1ue | Mar 4 2020 21:27 utc | 261
+++++++++
I do understand.
No “lawyering” needed.
You now think you are a mind reader.
Troll.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 23:23 utc | 267

All of this reminds me a lot about how the DNC broke rules, regs and laws in the nomination of Obama in ’08. The pattern feels strikingly familiar.
I realize how batchit crazy I may be sounding, but I’m telling you, what we witnessed last night simply wasn’t authentic.
Posted by: h | Mar 4 2020 22:01 utc | 263
+++++++++++++++
I don’t recall what occurred with Obama in 2008. Do you mean, how he swamped Clinton in various (I think later) primaries and came out the front runner? I always thought maybe they had a deal that he would give her a big cabinet post.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 23:28 utc | 269

Posted by: h | Mar 4 2020 22:01 utc | 263
Anything is possible with electronic voting machines. But most of it will be voter suppression (making voting difficult and unaccessible in certain demographic areas), and maybe some trickery in the polls if they are close. They won’t try it with polls that are not that close.
Campaigns do their own polling. Sanders campaign did not say anything (they did in Iowa), so I assume counting is fairly accurate.
Sanders has always been around 30 percent. This was marketed as the lead before the “moderate” vote consolidated. Now he would need more than 50 percent should Elizabeth Warren get out of the race.
Sanders’ policy proposals are conservative for a European except the “Democratic Socialism” tag. In Germany Sanders’ policies would be more “Green” than Social Democrat. USians brainwash seems to wear off with the young generation. There is some hope.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 4 2020 23:39 utc | 271

Thanks for that dirty linen from Delaware. I fully agree with the assessment and that likely makes Delaware the heart of the beast. I find Biden the most repugnant evil almost on par with Kissinger or the Dulles brothers.
. . .
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 4 2020 22:34 utc | 264
++++++++++
I propose we nickname Delaware “The Usury State.”
I have in-laws and other friends from Delaware, and I love Longwood Gardens and the fact that Delaware is one of the mushroom-growing centers of the nation. All of that horse manure . . .
But the state is controlled by the DuPonts and their ilk.
The state of Delaware practically exists to function as an “offshore” haven for corporate pirates.
I don’t want to dump too hard on Biden because portions of his political career look valid, and he has had a very hard road with deaths of wife and children. But what he offers now is a subpar individual with a lot of baggage and even blackmail potential (talk about Trump being blackmailed by the Russkies) who clearly and *obviously* is not up to the job mentally or emotionally. I foresee a total collapse in a debate with Sanders—if such is allowed to take place by TPTB.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 23:58 utc | 273

Just wait until the debates and Donnie will tell Biden he would be locked up…
The crowd erupts in a “Lock Him Up “ chant.
The “outsider” vs the “criminal mafia boss” part 2
Presidential Reality Show, Season 2.
A uniparty to rule them all.

Posted by: Bernie | Mar 4 2020 23:58 utc | 275

bevin @ 265
Excellent article by Glen Ford.
He clearly articulates something I vaguely posited concerning Dem voters in Mass–as to why in the world would they vote for Biden. Fear of fracturing the Dem Party, where it is seen as the only bulwark against racist Repugs.
Head scratchers re the Mass vote might read the Ford piece for hints as to a dynamic that may be animating some Dem voters in Mass who (putatively) went for Biden.
Ford’s assertion (below) makes me think also of PA enforcers in Palestine working hand in glove with the Israelis:
“Rather than resist the New Jim Crow/Same Old Rich White Man’s Rule, the Black Misleaderhip Class eagerly offered themselves as co-managers of oppression – for a small cut of the spoils, and the privileges of racial “leadership.”
Or is that far-fetched? In any event, I recommend the Ford piece. Be sure not to copy the period at the end of the URL provided by bevin.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 5 2020 1:01 utc | 277

OT, but on the co-evolution of food supply and cities’ hinterlands,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLOHsc86Ikc

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 5 2020 3:51 utc | 279

Piotr Berman #211

Biden will be eviscerated by Trump and Republicans, the top Liberal intellectual product of the last four years, that Russian menace is the greatest threat and Trump + Sanders are Russian instruments, is not particularly convincing, least of all of “deplorables” that swing votes in the Rust Belt.

There is a long road between here and the November decision. In a linear world Trump would eviscerate Biden. But Trump is just as vulnerable to the filthy democrat slur as anyone else. We see how deep the dems penetrated every corner and office of the deep state. FBI, NSC, CIA riddled with scumbag democrazis. The f’ked up Trumps first term and the stink of Russian garlic still hovers around him.
Now suppose they credibly released a crescendo of Epstein connections. Recall the Lolita Express and the Manhatton Marqis de Sade Mansion were fully equipped. Equipped to snare people for the future that is. For later years when the information might be ‘helpful’. Where is the devine Ghislaine Maxwell and what was the set she swanned with? Madam untouchable and likely a custodian of the data bank.
So one of my scenario guesses informed by years of watching dirty politics in many places is that given the Dems have succeeded in goosing the USA public to accept the totally absurd ‘Biden for President’ then they will get him there by severing Trumps Achilles heel. Pure speculation… but then Trump allowed this by failing to slay Hillary and Debbie when he could have skewered them easily.
So, assuming Biden gets to the election day (with Trump reduced to a teeny groping sleaze) who do you think might be his Vice President? Now that person may need to fill in for him sooner than thought if alzheimers overwhelms him. She would need to be a person from the core establishment, perhaps even serving as Secretary of State in the past. Someone with great knowledge of global leaders and leadership.
Don’t get me wrong, I would not like to see this scenario manifest but the evil ones are at the controls.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 5 2020 5:16 utc | 281

SharonM #197

There is a good chance that the american voter feels affinity with speech errors and seeming senility. Why cancel those moments when Joe Biden can actually connect with his voters;)

Thank you for that succinct reminder. Reagan did the same and they elected him TWICE. What an awful thought.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 5 2020 6:15 utc | 283

Sad to say, whoever really are the boss/ess’s of amerika will be able to put whoever they choose into power, by getting the media to say whatever the elites decide need be said.
After all, one has to look no further than this very blog to grok that indoctrinated, weak-minded amerikans have no trouble ignoring even the most rational, well stated argument, if it conflicts with the set of biases which amerikans have been instructed from the instant they climbed out of their mom’s womb that they must believe. To not believe would be treason.
Consider this thread where the argument has been run over the last 16 years that change effected though the ballot box is an obvious, blatant, impossibility.
Despite the super Tuesday result which clearly demonstrated that the fix was in, even now the weak-minded types still argue the toss over irrelevant side issues like “we wuz robbed”, or, “what is the strategy that Bernie could use to beat Biden”.
It has been as plain as day that only a compliant old school centrist as they call em, (‘racist tool of the corporates & the MIC’ being a more accurate descriptor’) will be permitted to win the nomination, yet gobble, gobble, gooble, turkeys just cannot get past the lies told since birth, that they live in an honest, fair-dealing democracy.
They don’t cling to these asinine beliefs because they haven’t followed the proof – to the contrary.
No these facile adherents of nonsense ignore facts simply because confronting the truth has them feeling uncomfortable. They call others who question that unsustainable mindset trolls, cos it is easier to be intellectually dishonest than confront the reality of their destructive existence.
They need amerika to be the most honest, god-fearing and trustworthy republic ever because were that not true, their own lives would stand revealed as worthless.
Cognitive dissonance doesn’t come close to epitomizing this 100% AR grade, specimen of self deception.

Posted by: A User | Mar 5 2020 6:36 utc | 285

Really?? #274

I don’t want to dump too hard on Biden because portions of his political career look valid, and he has had a very hard road with deaths of wife and children. But what he offers now is a subpar individual with a lot of baggage and even blackmail potential (talk about Trump being blackmailed by the Russkies) who clearly and *obviously* is not up to the job mentally or emotionally. I foresee a total collapse in a debate with Sanders—if such is allowed to take place by TPTB.

Gotta respond. I have zero sympathy for Biden. If I did I would have to have sympathy for every vengeful killer that lost his wife and children to accidents. I might even have to extend that compassion to an ISIS fighter who has been head f’cked by a religious upbringing that preached hate and murder while pretending to be pious. Anyway Biden carries his grief as do all of the bereaved BUT Biden leads and collaborates with a global war machine that slaughters millions overseas by intent and the same at home by intentional disregard. Biden is not a son of the USA, he is a destroyer of the USA people.
A closer debate with Sanders is great as a narrow lineup gives Biden constant pressure and no respite place as he will need to retort or duck and obfuscate after Bernie makes a statement. High pressure debates clearly expose the weaknesses and the limitations of every player. Biden is such a hapless dunce that he is bound to drop his lines, forget what office he is running for or break out in a rage and tell Bernie to go vote for someone else.
I have no sympathy for Biden he hides behind his bereavements like a carpetbagger hides behind the hedge on the way out. He is about to get snared by his dirty little thievery in Ukraine where he stole the nations wealth and then stole support $$ and loans from the USA and the IMF and left the Ukrainian people to pay back the debt. Low life thieving turd.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 5 2020 9:29 utc | 287

This is really great interview explaining a lot:
US analyst Krystal Ball on Obama’s mistakes, Sanders, the crux of identity politics and why the Democratic Party has learned nothing.

My favorite quote:

However, if he (Sanders) comes in with the most delegates, but not a majority, then I have every expectation – which has been confirmed by recent reports – that they will, in fact, try to take it from him. Even though they know that this would utterly destroy the Democratic Party and probably handle Donald Trump the re-election victory, because many people, myself included, would not vote for the Democratic nominee in that circumstance if they stole it from Bernie Sanders.
But why would they do that, knowing that it would destroy the party? Well, because ultimately they prefer a Donald Trump presidency to a Bernie Sanders presidency. Because under Donald Trump, even in opposition, they know how to maintain their power and their deal flow from their consultancy firms and their lobbying and corporate boards. All of these things stay in place under a Donald Trump administration.
Under a Bernie Sanders administration, however, all of that ends. All of that access, all of that power, it’s over.

Posted by: Cemi | Mar 5 2020 10:14 utc | 289

Cemi #290
Also watch Jimmy Dore’s recent show about Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday “win”. He plays that clip of Biden forgetting the word “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence and remarks that that alone should have ended his career right there and then.

Posted by: Carciofi | Mar 5 2020 11:15 utc | 291

Home base of usury. Remember all of that debt that people owe to credit cards because they have to use their cards just to survive from month to month? That usury is made possible by Biden’s home state. It is hard to imagine any credible politician emerging from the usury state of Delaware.
Posted by: Really?? | Mar 4 2020 20:19 utc | 250
++++++++++++++++++
Warren first gained name recognition as an advocate for consumers, in particular she highlighted the predatious nature of credit card companies and consumer slavery to these companies and to debt in general. Now the preferred establishment Dem candidate comes from the state that provides a haven for these credit pirates. Is Warren going to say anything about this?
It is an obvious point of attack for Sanders, and for Trump, if he notices it. Helping Americans get out of debt and resist falling into greater debt should be a top priority for every candidate—esp. those who claim to care about the (putative) middle class.
Hopey-Changey Obama as we know did nothing (that I know of) to help home owners get out from under the burden of their shady mortgages. Instead they just lost their homes.

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 5 2020 12:22 utc | 293

Uncle T 288
“Gotta respond. I have zero sympathy for Biden. If I did I would have to have sympathy for every vengeful killer that lost his wife and children to accidents.”
I agree that hiding behind bereavement is not a pass, and Biden has caused magnitudes of bereavement as a result of policies he has supported.
My main point is that, from my reading of his Wiki bio, certain features of his political career seem valid. I.e., typical of most American pols’ careers. Support for some decent legislation and more support for warmaking and other negative legislation which—I mean the typical careers—have led the country to where we are today. Except for the few good men, some of whom perished under suspicious circumstances, such as JFK, RFK, and Paul Wellstone. Wellstone’s death was, I believe, one of the most important events of our recent political history because Wellstone stood virtually alone in questioning the US’s headlong rush to cross the Rubicon of the March 2003 Iraq invasion. Can it really have been an accident? The timing was simply unbelievable . . .

Posted by: Really?? | Mar 5 2020 12:34 utc | 295

@278 SR

he lacks self-respect, refusing to fight for himself when smeared as a traitor and instead amplifying the propaganda of anonymous liars and murderers.
he lacks self-respect, refusing to fight for himself when smeared as a traitor and instead amplifying the propaganda of anonymous liars and murderers.

Okay, so instead of continuing his campaign fighting to get somewhere you would rather he be mired in a viral food fight with the establishment and the media that he can’t get out of, instead of remaining focused fighting for the issues, and ending up losing every remaining state.
First of all, the way Dems are rigging this is with massive disproportionate congressional endorsements–What’s he gonna say? No. You can’t endorse, James Clyburn, and company!; when he’s got a few people in Congress endorsing him who he needs to speak up and appear at his rallies as well to help motivate the crowds and back his platform?
There are only two viable avenues to fighting back. One is for PEOPLE TO SHOW UP FOR HIM. And of course if people are cynical, like you, Jackrabbit and many here, OR stupid, ignorant and totally media brainwashed over many, many years, and they either won’t show up because they’ve given up, or will show up for the establishment candidate then he has a mountain to move, doesn’t he??? But sometimes the establishment candidate is a Ziofascist in a populist’s disguise, like Trump, therefore the establishment fool people with their bought and paid for chosen candidate? On the Dem side they tried to push what they claimed was a different, non establishment new guy, Buttigieg, but it didn’t work. Bernie is not bought and paid. You know how hard it is to fund a campaign with small donations?
So then, because Buttigieg didn’t work out, they had to do something to make Biden viable. So they had him win big in a state, the most ignorant, brainwashed, sure-thing state in the Confederacy with a large African American community, and then when he pulls it off, throw massive financial support and congressional endorsements behind Biden, even though he’s still the weak establishment candidate who lost miserably in the first 3 states, and PROP HIM UP this way so the fear and Obama-era-brainwashed black community and other white ignorants think he’s the best candidate. Yes, they even order the primary states in a way that they can legally rig the process. How do you fight all that in the heat of the campaign? Yes, his spokespeople surrogates have been pointing to this unfair advantage, while Bernie is out there fighting the fear brainwash every single day trying to make people see!
The second way to fight is from the inside, and that’s why he’s been fighting from the inside as an independent in Congress not to taint his message and platform with Dem establishment influence. But there’s only so far you can go in Congress as an Independent to change things, so he figured out that he had to use the Democratic structure/scafolding to try to access the Presidency because that’s the highest platform with the most power to change things, but he needs people to SHOW UP for him to get there.
And he needs people to show up for down-ballot progressives he endorses.
That’s the only way to fight this. The fix is too big and complex to fight in 15-minute soundbite rants that then go viral and are viciously attacked and end up drowning him in a sea of distraction while he’s fighting for the heighest office. And if he uses legal recourse, what’s he going to do? Hire an army of lawyers to verify the ballot counting and voter suppression in each count in every state often rigged by a Republican state legislature and also send summons to the DNC suing their fast-and-loose rule modifications which are agreed to by majority DEM rule and get bogged down in legal entrapment with little or no results?
You seem to think what he’s engaged in is an easy task! You know how incredibly difficult it is to mount a grassroots operation in every state, study each idiosyncratic district witinin every state to understand their delegate distribution and which districts are more amenable, which more necessary, and then recruit an army of volunteers to run around convincing community groups, unions and people in general of what is in their best interest to fight for and vote for? He’s been working for years in many of the states! He can’t do it on the fly like Democrats who have a system in place for decades!
Bernie, using the Democratic election scafolding as an independent that Dems dislike and mistrust, is already achieving monumental change and progress with people, that without seizing the Presidency yet is to be commended as a brave and brilliant effort in itself. Only when he can win the Presidency can he bring the millions of supporters with him to actually make significant transformative change.
For now the fight is arduous slog, frustrating, slow, exciting but also incredibly disappointing and disheartening, therefore not for the faint of heart, not for cynics as progress is snail’s pace and day to day unrewarding. Only when the cummulative effect of that bittersweet struggle gains momentum do the rewards start to appear and multiply.
So you know, you try what he’s doing and then judge yourself as harshly as you just judged him.
For starters he’s a person of valor and integrity and an incredibly committed hard worker for his age, let’s not forget that fact, which is already probably way more than maybe you are able to achieve in your corner of the world, in your lifetime or maybe never. He is not a pretender milking charisma and a flair for eloquence like Obama was with inherent advantages and skyrocketting to the top after only a few years of community service and less in Congress. Sanders’ success and support comes from every-day discipline and years of struggle and hard work.
He is to be commended and respected for all he has acieved already and your judgmental ignorance is beyond offensive!

Posted by: Circe | Mar 5 2020 14:24 utc | 297

The truth rings like a bell, And ther it is right ther >
Cerce @ 298
Thanks for that outstanding comment. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. You just nailed.
SS America has now hit the iceberg and is sinking fast !
The elite are shooting the third class passenger’s (not enough life boats)
Some of us (with our eyes open) are lucky enough to have scrabbled aboard a good sound life boat called M O A
But what do I see those on board are rowing in deferent directions !! Going round and round but getting nowhere!
Stop and think it’s absurd, picture it.
Now here’s the thing, those that say the system is curupt are correct but you can still support Bernie and be a street activist
You have nothing to lose and all to gain !
It’s just a war with many battle fronts. Unity is needed on all fronts.
So come on guys support Bernie but also support CERCE right here. You sure did gang up and test her.
So now let’s start rowing together.
Just to add i’m sure like me, you have family & freands with opposing views but that bond should be stronger so vote Bern and hope for the best.

Posted by: Mark2 | Mar 5 2020 15:06 utc | 299