Category: Bernie Sanders

Boris Survives, Bernie Quits

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There’s encouraging news across the pond:

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent a third night in intensive care in a London hospital having been admitted for persistent coronavirus symptoms, although his condition is said to be improving.
Culture Minister Oliver Dowden is the latest U.K. lawmaker to comment on Johnson’s condition, telling the BBC Thursday morning that the prime minister is “stable, improving, sat up and engaged with medical staff,” adding, “I think things are getting better for him.”
Johnson is receiving “excellent care” at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London where he is being treated, Finance Minister Rishi Sunak said at the government’s daily press briefing Wednesday afternoon. . . .
Johnson, 55, was moved to the intensive care unit at London’s St. Thomas’ Hospital on Monday evening after his coronavirus symptoms worsened.

The news is not so encouraging for the Bernie Bros:

Sen. Bernie Sanders ended his presidential campaign, he announced Wednesday, leaving former Vice President Joe Biden as the apparent Democratic presidential nominee.
“I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful, and so today I am announcing the suspension of my campaign,” Sanders told supporters in a livestream, saying he wished he could provide supporters with “better news” but “I think you know the truth.”
“We are now some 300 delegates behind Vice President Biden and the path to victory is virtually impossible,” he said. Sanders, I-Vt., called Biden “a very decent man who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward.”
Calling the decision “difficult and painful,” Sanders said he had to make an “honest assessment of the prospects for victory.”
He added that he understands some supporters want him to fight on through the convention, but he could not “in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour” as the COVID-19 outbreak grips the nation.
He pledged to have significant influence over the party platform this summer, as he did during the 2016 convention.

My college-senior son is a Bernie Bro — don’t ask, it’s a painful subject — and he greeted the news of Bernie’s withdrawal by blasting the Soviet national anthem on his stereo, followed by “The Internationale.”

He’s an ironic socialist, I guess. And this is doom for the Democrats.




 

Sanders Wins California, Biden Wins Texas, Brokered Convention Looms

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As of 8 a.m., Maine remains “too close to call” — Joe Biden leads by about 2,200 votes with 83% of precincts reporting — but what matters more is the delegate count, and it will take another day or two before we have a complete total from Super Tuesday. Biden won 9 of 15 contests, including two states (Minnesota and Massachusetts) that had been considered a lock for Bernie Sanders, so you could say the “Joementum” is real:

Get ready for a long and grueling road ahead as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders battle for the Democratic presidential nomination in a race that could possibly result in the country’s first contested major-party nominating convention in well over a half-century.
The former vice president, surging to victory in the five southern Super Tuesday states and beyond, crowed to supporters at a primary celebration speech in Los Angeles after most of the results were in.
“I’m here to report that we are very much alive,” Biden told a cheering crowd. “This campaign is taking off.”
Hours later, the Associated Press projected Biden the winner in Texas – which had the second-largest cache of delegates on Super Tuesday.
But Sanders, the populist senator from Vermont who’s making his second straight White House run, won California — the biggest prize on a day when one-third of all Democratic presidential convention delegates were up for grabs.
“Tonight I tell you with absolute confidence we’re going to win the Democratic nomination,” Sanders, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist lawmaker, predicted as he spoke to supporters in his home state of Vermont. . . .
Biden . . . was wounded after a lackluster fourth-place finish in Iowa’s caucuses and a disappointing fifth-place showing in New Hampshire’s primary. But a slight rebound in Nevada’s caucuses — where he came in a distant second to Sanders — was followed this past weekend with a landslide victory in South Carolina’s primary. . . .
Fox News contributor and former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile termed Biden’s comeback “the most impressive 72 hours I’ve ever seen in U.S. politics.”
That comeback was fuled by a tidal wave of establishment consolidation behind Biden over the past three days, which included rival moderate candidates Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg dropping out of the race and endorsing the former vice president.

On MSNBC last night, James Carville credited Rep. James Clyburn — the black South Carolina Democrat who gave an emotional endorsement to Biden last week — with saving the Democratic Party. This salvation is purely for the party establishment, and anyone who’s seen Biden’s public appearances lately knows that the doddering old fool is unlikely to be a formidable opponent to Trump in November.

We may not have seen the last plot twist in this story. What happened so far? Until Feb. 3, the campaign was about fundraising, TV debates and polls. Then you had the disastrous clusterfark of the Iowa caucus and eight days later, Biden placed fifth in New Hampshire. So by Feb. 12, everything that the pundits had been telling America during the debates-and-polls phase of the campaign was wiped out by the actual results. A three-week scramble ensued — “The Great Liberal Freakout” — during which there were two more debates, Feb. 19 in Las Vegas and Feb. 26 in Charleston, the first of which saw Mike Bloomberg get destroyed as an establishment alternative, and the second of which was a gang beatdown of Sanders. The next debate is March 15 in Phoenix, but by then we will have had another round of primaries (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Washington State, and the North Dakota caucus) on March 10.

The next big prizes are Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Arizona on March 17, with a total of 577 delegates at stake. The questions are whether Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren will stay in the race. Bloomberg’s team said they would “reassess” after Tuesday, when the billionaire’s big spending netted him 46 delegates. As long as a brokered convention scenario is possible, Bloomberg will probably decide to stay in it, but what about Warren? So far she’s done no better than third place in any state, and how much money does she have left? There’s no way she can compete statewide in big states like Florida or Ohio, so her only real incentive for continuing her campaign is the prospect that she could struggle on, gather a comparative handful of delegates (maybe 200 total by June) and have some influence in a brokered convention.

UPDATE: Feminists are butt-hurt:

(Hat-tip: Boris Badenoff on Twitter.)




 

SUPER TUESDAY: Joe Biden Sweeps the South, Bernie Sanders Wins VT, CO, UT

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UPDATE 11:45 p.m. ET: OK, so far in California — about 15% of precincts reporting — it’s Sanders at 27%, Bloomberg 20%, Biden 18%, Buttigieg 12% and Warren 11%. You might say, “But I thought Buttigieg dropped out?” Yes, but early voting (an idea I’ve always opposed) means that many thousands of ballots were already cast before Buttigieg quit. Both Texas and Maine are still too close to call, but the “win” doesn’t really matter. What matters is the delegate count, and “too close to call” means that Biden and Bernie will more or less evenly split a majority of the delegates in those states. If Bernie manages to hang on for a win California, that will offset his losses elsewhere, and so the total delegate count should be nearly a dead-heat.

Still, tonight will be counted as a comeback victory for Joe Biden, whose campaign was written off for dead before he won South Carolina, and now he’s got momentum in a field that has swiftly shrunk from seven candidates to four. Warren has vowed to remain in the race, and Bloomberg’s campaign staff says they will “reassess” their situation tomorrow. My guess is that both of them hang around at least for the next debate on March 15, but that’s just a guess.

It was pointed out on MSNBC tonight that Biden won states where he never campaigned, ran no ads, and didn’t even have any staff or offices in the state. So a lot of inconceivable things have already happened, and I’m going to bed. We’ll sort it all out in the morning.

UPDATE 11:20 p.m. ET: Sanders wins Utah and leads by about 4 points in Texas, but it’s still too close to call there. Biden wins Massachusetts, where Warren placed third in her home state.

UPDATE 10:40 p.m. ET: Biden has won Minnesota and Arkansas, while Texas and Maine remain too close to call. Polls close in California at 11 p.m. ET.

UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: Tennessee has just been called for Joe Biden, adding to Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Oklahoma for the former vice president, while Bernie Sanders has added a win in Colorado to his previously announced victory in his home state of Vermont.

* * * PREVIOUSLY * * *

It’s 7 p.m. ET, and polls just closed in Virginia — which has already been called for Joe Biden — and in Vermont, where I’d say Bernie Sanders is the heavy favorite. A week ago, it looked like Biden was doomed, but he won big Saturday in South Carolina, forcing Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar to quit the campaign. Buttigieg and Klobuchar both endorsed Biden, and so that leaves Biden, Sanders, Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren as the only real candidates left. My hunch is that Bloomberg is going to get completely wrecked tonight. He’s spent something around $500 million in a huge bet on Super Tuesday, and I doubt he’ll clear 10% in any of the 14 states voting today. We shall see.

UPDATE 7:15 p.m. ET: Yeah, this was an easy call:

What really counts, of course, is not who “wins” each state, but rather the total delegate haul for each candidate. Keep an eye on that.

UPDATE 7:35 p.m. ET: Fox News just called North Carolina for Biden.

UPDATE 7:50 p.m. ET: Damn those Samoans! I just lost a bet!

That’s six more delegates than I thought he’d get. I’m shocked to learn that if you throw around a few million bucks in Samoa, you get results.

UPDATE 8:05 p.m. ET: The Biden juggernaut rolls on:




 

Democrats Engage in Angry Shouting Match in Charleston, South Carolina

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The worst debate in the history of American politics:

The CBS News moderators came under fire on social media Tuesday as the Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina grew heated, with crosstalk often drowning them out.
Meghan McCain compared the debate’s atmosphere to the contentious discussions she faces on “The View,” saying, “these moderators need to get this under control.” . . .
Former Vice President Joe Biden in particular spoke over moderators attempting to cut him off on several occasions, insisting, “I am not out of time. You spoke over time, and I’m going to talk” and later asking, “Can we just speak up when we want to? Is that the idea?”
Later, as Biden attempted to break in again, moderator Gayle King quipped, “I promise, Mr. Vice President, we are going to get to you,” with Biden responding, “You keep promising me that, but you never get to me.”

Some commentators declared that Joe Biden had his strongest debate performance to date, but what I noticed was he kept shouting at the top of his lungs, as if being loud was whole point — aerobic shouting. Meanwhile, almost everyone directed their fire at Bernie Sanders, except Elizabeth Warren, who spent much of the night attacking Mike Bloomberg, who isn’t even on the ballot in South Carolina. Jim Geraghty might have explained that strategy best:

 

In general, the debate was a colossal waste of time, and time is the valuable commodity that Democrats can’t afford to waste now:

Time is running out for the Democratic Party and, by this time next week, it will probably be too late for them to turn back. More than a third of the delegates to their national convention will be chosen next Tuesday, when 14 states including California and Texas hold their primaries. One the one hand, this means that the party’s agonizing struggle over its 2020 presidential nomination may soon be effectively over. On the other hand, if Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders claims a decisive victory next Tuesday — which now seems likely — the “Anybody But Bernie” faction of the party will be pushed to increasingly desperate measures in their efforts to deny him the nomination. . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.




 

AOC: Girl-Crush of the Bernie Bros

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New York Post columnist Miranda Devine argues that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “was [Bernie] Sanders’ secret weapon in Nevada, wooing the crucial Latino voters who propelled him to victory, and injecting much-needed ethnic, gender and age diversity into his campaign. Without her, he’s just another grouchy old lefty howling into the wind.”

Having a young Latina surrogate — too young to remember all the brutal Marxist-Leninist regimes for which the old lefty is so nostalgic — is helpful to the Sanders campaign. It certainly helps in states like Nevada and California where Latinos are now a majority of K-12 students. The fact that young people are the most enthusiastic supporters of the septuagenarian socialist is simply the triumph of hope over experience.

Selling obsolete economic fantasies to young people is the kind of scam with which no reputable person would wish to be associated, and Jonathan Chait is sounding the alarm about Bernie:

At the heart of Sanders’s campaign is a hard-core socialist vanguard which is indifferent to the Democratic Party except as a potential vessel for the Bernie revolution. Their calculation is perfectly rational. Even if Sanders is likely to lose, the small chance of success is worth the risk to a party they don’t care for to begin with. What is odd is watching rationalizations take hold among a much larger group of progressives who very much do care about denying Trump a second term, and who have explained away the risks of a Sanders nomination with a series of fallacies.
The first of those is a confusion over what it means to predict an outcome. “The truth is we are all clueless about what voters want or will accept,” argues conventional-wisdom-monger Jim VandeHei, in a signal of how deeply the anti-probabilistic fallacy has spread. It is true that there is uncertainty attached to every outcome. The talking heads who guarantee Sanders will lose are wrong — any nominee might win, and in a polarized electorate, both parties have a floor of support that gives even the most toxic candidate a fighting chance. In 2016, Trump was the most unpopular candidate in the history of polling, but he squeaked into office because everything broke just right for him. It could happen for Bernie, too.

Exactly. Intelligent liberals like Chait see the most likely scenario — Bernie leading Democrats into the wilderness, like Jeremy Corbyn did to Labour in the U.K. — while others are trying to argue that maybe Bernie can beat the odds the way Trump did in 2016. But the two big problems with that argument are that (a) a major reason Trump won was because Hillary represented the hated “establishment insiders,” and (b) Trump is an incumbent, running on a record of remarkable success. This doesn’t mean that Trump is a shoo-in for re-election in November, but it does mean that he is less vulnerable to a populist challenge.

There is a certain logic to the pro-Sanders argument: Trump won with right-wing populism, therefore Democrats should counter by running a left-wing populist. As logical as that seems, however, it neither expands the potential base of Democratic voters, nor does it address Trump’s real vulnerability, i.e., his brusque demeanor, which is offensive to the bourgeois sensibilities of the suburban middle class. What Democrats really needed in 2020 was a candidate who promised to restore the norms of respectable public discourse. Such a candidate would not necessarily be “moderate” in terms of policy, but he would speak in a calm and soothing way — polite and boring, the way nice politicians do.

Bernie Sanders is not a nice politician, and the belief that a grumpy old socialist is the ideal candidate against Trump — well, this is an untested hypothesis. Now that Sanders had emerged as the front-runner, his Democratic rivals are ganging up against him:

Joe Biden’s campaign is airing a new digital ad in South Carolina accusing Bernie Sanders of trying to undermine Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection by threatening to primary him. Pete Buttigieg was on TV in South Carolina hitting Sanders over health care and Mike Bloomberg targeted Sanders’ past gun votes.
“When it comes to building on Barack Obama’s legacy, Bernie Sanders just can’t be trusted,” the Biden ad, first obtained by POLITICO, warns.
The fusillade targeting Sanders on the eve of a Democratic debate in the fourth early state of South Carolina marked the latest turn in a Democratic primary that now has a decisive frontrunner. Each of the candidates, competing for a fraction of the moderate vote, are attempting to blunt the Vermont senator’s momentum coming off a landslide win in Nevada. . . .
Bloomberg, who will not appear on a ballot in South Carolina, is attempting to slow Sanders’ surge as the billionaire businessman is poised to face his first test in Super Tuesday states.
Bloomberg unleashed his own 90-second video spot saying Sanders was elected to the House in 1990 with the support of the National Rifle Association.
Ominous music plays in the background and subtitles read: “Bernie voted with the NRA and opposed federal background checks.”
The ad cited Sanders’ opposition to a background check bill in the 1990s and votes in the early 2000s against allowing lawsuits against gun manufacturers, issues that aligned with the NRA’s stance.

It can be predicted that, just as last week’s Nevada debate turned into a gang beatdown on Bloomberg, tonight’s debate in South Carolina will become a gang beatdown on Bernie Sanders. The problem is that Sanders has a hard-core base — somewhere between 20% and 30% of Democratic primary voters — that will not abandon him for any reason.

So the seven Democrats on the debate stage, including billionaire Tom Steyer, are all competing for the same anti-Bernie vote. This will continue into next week’s Super Tuesday primaries and there is no good way this ends for Democrats. Either (a) Bernie gets the nomination, and faces a high probability of catastrophic defeat in November, or (b) Democrats somehow cheat Bernie out of the nomination, thereby alienating 20%-30% of their own party’s base.

The best hope for Democrats, honestly, is a global coronavirus pandemic.




 

Bernie Praises Castro, Snubs AIPAC

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On 60 Minutes, the new front-runner’s mask slips:

Self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, in an interview that aired Sunday night, heaped praise on some of the policies instituted in Cuba by the late Communist dictator Fidel Castro.
“We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba — but you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad,” Sanders, the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, told Anderson Cooper on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
The Vermont senator highlighted a literacy program that Castro implemented after he seized power from Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
“When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?” Sanders asked.
It’s not the first time Sanders has expressed his support for policies championed by Castro, who stepped down in 2011 and died in 2016.
In a resurfaced video from the 1980s that aired on “60 Minutes,” Sanders explained why the Cuban people didn’t help the United States overthrow Castro.
“He educated their kids, gave them health care, totally transformed the society, you know,” Sanders says in the clip.

Bernie’s supporters will certainly point out that major media never bothered asking him tough questions until he appeared poised to win the nomination. As long as he was just a senator running as the token left-wing opponent of the “moderate” Democrat front-runner, network news operations weren’t going to go very deep into the oppo-research files. Now that the establishment is in disarray? It’s a whole new game.

Meanwhile, Bernie is pandering to the Left’s anti-Israel grassroots:

The pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) issued a blistering statement Sunday night slamming Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont for claiming the organization gives a platform for “bigotry.”
Mr. Sanders announced on Twitter that he would be keeping in tradition by not attending AIPAC’s annual conference this year, writing that the Palestinian people deserve “peace and security” just like the Israelis.
“I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights,” the senator tweeted. “For that reason I will not attend their conference. As president, I will support the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians and do everything possible to bring peace and security to the region.”
AIPAC responded to Mr. Sanders in a tweeted statement, calling his attacks “shameful” and touting the group’s diversity.
“Senator Sanders has never attended our conference and that is evident from his outrageous comment,” AIPAC said. “In fact, many of his own Senate and House Democratic colleagues and leaders speak from our platform to the over 18,000 Americans from widely diverse backgrounds — Democrats, Republicans, Jews, Christians. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, progressives, veterans, students, members of the LGBTQ+ community — who participate in the conference to proclaim their support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.
“By engaging in such an odious attack on the mainstream, bipartisan American political event, Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel. Truly shameful,” the group concluded.

Do you see how this hurts Democrats? They have spent four years claiming that Trump is Hitler, supported by “alt-right” Jew-haters, but now Democrats are going to nominate Bernie Sanders, who disses Israel in the name of “Palestinian rights,” so that Trump — who moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and strongly backs Netanyahu’s government — actually has the high ground on this issue. Why should Jews vote Democrat, when their nominee is sucking up to Palestinian terrorists?

Time is running out for “moderate” Democrats:

Eight days remain until the crucial “Super Tuesday” primaries, and the unmistakable momentum of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has the Democratic Party establishment quaking in fear. Longtime Clinton adviser James Carville went off on potential Sanders voters on MSNBC Saturday when it became clear Sanders had scored a crushing victory in the Nevada caucus. “If you want to vote for Bernie Sanders because you feel good about his program, you don’t like the banks on Wall Street or you don’t like pharmaceuticals, that’s legitimate, I understand that,” Carville said. “If you’re voting for him because you think he’ll win the election, politically, you’re a fool. And that’s just a fact. It’s no denying it, there’s so much political science, so much research on this that it is not even a debatable question.”
At a campaign rally Sunday in Houston, Sanders predicted that he would not only win next week’s Texas primary but that he would also defeat President Donald Trump in the Lone Star State in November. This was a bold boast, considering that no Democratic presidential candidate has won Texas since 1976, and that Trump beat Hillary Clinton by an 800,000-vote margin in the state four years ago.
While Bernie’s fans cheered his confident prediction of November victory, establishment Democrats and their media allies were struggling to accept the more sobering near-term reality that “moderate” candidates are unlikely to stop Sanders from winning the nomination. . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.




 

Russian Bots Get Results!

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“And let me say something else about this, not being too paranoid. All of us remember 2016, and what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our election and divide us up. I’m not saying that’s happening, but it would not shock me.”
— Bernie Sanders, Las Vegas debate, Wednesday

Look, I’m not saying that help from Russian military intelligence is the reason Bernie Sanders is going to win the Nevada primary Saturday, I’m just saying, draw your own conclusions:

U.S. officials have warned Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that Russia is attempting to boost his prospects of winning the White House in 2020, according to the Washington Post.
President Donald Trump and Congressional lawmakers have also received briefings regarding the Kremlin’s efforts to help Sanders, sources familiar with the matter told the Post. In a statement to the newspaper, Sanders called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “thug” and said he stands “firmly against” any efforts to interfere in U.S. elections
“I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president,” Sanders said. “My message to Putin is clear: stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.”
“In 2016, Russia used internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020. Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters,” he added.
A spokesperson for the Sanders campaign would not comment on the nature of Russia’s attempted efforts to help the Vermont senator.
Speaking to reporters about the Post’s report, Sanders revealed that he learned of Russia’s interference a month ago and seemingly suggested that their efforts were made public Friday in a bid to hurt him one day before the Nevada caucuses.
The development comes after Sanders raised the prospect of Russia being behind some online posts in support of the lawmaker, which have been described as toxic and violent by former Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) at this week’s Democrat debate in Nevada. Several other Sanders detractors have made similar claims.

So now, Bernie is about to score a gigantic win in Nevada, and we’re supposed to believe Russian bots aren’t the reason he’s winning.

Like I said, draw you own conclusions. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.




 

Bernie Wants to Make Everything Free …

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. . . so “Free the Nipple,” I guess?

A topless protester disrupted Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign rally in Nevada on Sunday — moments after Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced the Democratic presidential candidate to the stage.
De Blasio had just introduced Sanders to the crowd in Carson City as the “next president of the United States,” when Sanders entered the stage with his wife as the song “Power to the People” played.
That’s when a fully clothed woman jumped up and tried to wrest the microphone out of the Vermont senator’s hand, before grabbing another one from the lectern, and started speaking about the candidate’s support for dairy farmers.
“Bernie, I’m your biggest supporter, and I’m here to ask you to stop pumping up the dairy industry and to stop pumping up animal agriculture,” she said. “I believe in you…” she continued, before the mic suddenly went dead and security moved toward her.
Sanders moved to the edge of the stage as a string of women then paraded across holding images of cows — followed by a topless woman, who gestured to Sanders as members of his security detail positioned themselves between the two.
“This is Nevada. There’s always a little excitement — at no extra cost. Except we have a lot of water on the stage,” he said as he returned to the stage.
The protesters were prompted by the senator’s support in 2018 for legislation that provided emergency financial support for dairy farmers across the country because of the falling price of milk.

If you’re protesting dairy subsidies, I suppose showing your udders makes sense. By the way, I believe a majority of Trump supporters agree with me in opposing federal agriculture subsidies on limited-government principles. Nor do we mind attractive young women going topless, but the word “attractive” doesn’t describe most of Bernie’s supporters.