All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

This now makes two Sanders people in this thread whining about conspiracies because there was a 26 to 25% race in Iowa?

FFS. You guys wonder why people bristle at you.

No it just shows that a lot of people here are ignorant of how important this juncture of the primary process is. We don’t know who won Iowa on Wednesday and NH is next week. Bernie and Pete both would want to campaign on the Iowa results if they did well and they won. Meanwhile Biden who is the front runner had an awful showing and this could have severely damaged his momentum and allowed all the other candidates to have a chance.

Take Bernie out of it. Say Pete won. He campaigns all week on a win, his next strongest state is NH next week. It gives him a boost there and he has a shot of winning it. Meanwhile, Pete is driving to score Biden voters and donors. Biden had a horrible turnout in Iowa that nobody is talking about. All of a sudden those donors are looking more at giving Pete a windfall and people who were lukewarm on Biden have an alternative who has shown they can win.

Now Biden is pretty much shielded from what would be an awful situation and before Pete can really place himself with a ton of momentum, Sanders likely wins NH and all of the bets he hedged on winning Iowa didn’t matter and it’s old news and he can’t capitalize.

I’ve said this twice now, if this happened in 2008, you likely will not get Obama with the nomination.

This thing can fundamentally change a race for people. Even Klobuchar, she did okay here, but this could outright end her campaign because she bet big on it and it became irrelevant.

So regardless of the winner, this is a devastating outcome for many candidates.

[kidfresh512]

^that's an opinion.

No its extreme hyperbole. You know full well pelosi cannot stand Trump. Saying she would be fine with him being elected is just completely silly.

Your "point" obviously is you feel like "establishment Dems" are trying to attack or keep progressives down.

It is not served by using extreme hyperbole like that.

[Zauriel]

I have a theory.

It's not that Trump's approval rating in 49% because they approve or Trump. It's because those voters approve of the way the Republicans in Congress stand behind Trump no matter what he does. So, it actually reflects the approval of the way Republicans are unified and subservient to Trump.

If more Republicans broke ranks and voted against Trump, voted fro Witnesses or whatever, then Trump's approval rating might have been a lot lower.

most if not all Republicans stand united behind Trump while the Democrats are divided, fractured and fragmented. Even their dislike of Trump couldn't unite them. The iowa caucus reflects the divide between the Establishment, Progressive, moderate, liberal and far-left fractions in the Democratic Party.

Republicans who detested Trump had to vote for him because of their stronger dislike for HRC. Trump didn't unite the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton did it for him.

[InformationGeek]

Meanwhile, with other Pelosi related stuff, a manbaby in the administration that's not Trump tried to meme without fully understanding what he was posting and ended up doing a self-own on his boss.

[kidfresh512]

No it just shows that a lot of people here are ignorant of how important this juncture of the primary process is. We don’t know who won Iowa on Wednesday and NH is next week. Bernie and Pete both would want to campaign on the Iowa results if they did well and they won. Meanwhile Biden who is the front runner had an awful showing and this could have severely damaged his momentum and allowed all the other candidates to have a chance.

Take Bernie out of it. Say Pete won. He campaigns all week on a win, his next strongest state is NH next week. It gives him a boost there and he has a shot of winning it. Meanwhile, Pete is driving to score Biden voters and donors. Biden had a horrible turnout in Iowa that nobody is talking about. All of a sudden those donors are looking more at giving Pete a windfall and people who were lukewarm on Biden have an alternative who has shown they can win.

Now Biden is pretty much shielded from what would be an awful situation and before Pete can really place himself with a ton of momentum, Sanders likely wins NH and all of the bets he hedged on winning Iowa didn’t matter and it’s old news and he can’t capitalize.

I’ve said this twice now, if this happened in 2008, you likely will not get Obama with the nomination.

This thing can fundamentally change a race for people. Even Klobuchar, she did okay here, but this could outright end her campaign because she bet big on it and it became irrelevant.

So regardless of the winner, this is a devastating outcome for many candidates.

Has anyone actually disagreed here that it was a colossal fuckup?

You are absolutely correct on the importance and WHY it was a mess and important mistake. The only distinction being made is. Where is anything in all we know about what went wrong with the beta app, and implementation to suggest anything other than incompetence? To suggest it was something sinister or nefarious....in other words a conspiracy?

That's all. That's the only difference in opinions on what went down with the shit show from the Iowa caucus.

If I saw some evidence that it was planned or nefarious or someone changed results or didn't count results I would be right there with people calling out the issue.

But where is any of that? Until we have it what does it help to push conspiracies? That's what the GOP are good at.

[Zauriel]

Forget the Iowa caucus. it is is more important that we look forward to the New Hampshire Primary . Can't wait to see how that turns out.

[Michael Watkins]

It failed. The results will be verifiable by the paper ballots kept and the videos taken, as well. Maybe your guy just isn't quite as popular in Iowa as you wanna believe? Conspiratorial, preemptive 'iT wAs RiGgEd' over the simpler explanation, software sucked and processes agreed on and tried for the first time being a mess. Right now, Buttigege is in the lead. It's still possible Sanders will come out on top, and if he does, all this is going to look super silly.

it's going to look shady. because Buttigeg's people claimed that he was in the lead. and now no one knows who won Iowa. that is not inconsequential. the person this delay of results hurts most is the person who won. a few posts ago, someone said it as fact that Buttigeg was the winner. it's very easy to blow a lead. i just want Sanders to get a fair shot. you seem mostly interested in dismissing the concerns of any progressive who comments as if it beyond belief that someone would rig an election (even though you folks cried to the heavens that Hillary's presidency was stolen from her).

[Tami]

most if not all Republicans stand united behind Trump while the Democrats are divided, fractured and fragmented. Even their dislike of Trump couldn't unite them. The iowa caucus reflects the divide between the Establishment, Progressive, moderate, liberal and far-left fractions in the Democratic Party.

Republicans who detested Trump had to vote for him because of their stronger dislike for HRC. Trump didn't unite the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton did it for him.

Trump unites the Republican Party now using fear and threats and bribes. He doesn't unite the party like past presidents did, out of respect and loyalty.

[Michael Watkins]

No its extreme hyperbole. You know full well pelosi cannot stand Trump. Saying she would be fine with him being elected is just completely silly.

Your "point" obviously is you feel like "establishment Dems" are trying to attack or keep progressives down.

It is not served by using extreme hyperbole like that.

i have eyes. i watch the news. Pelosi is concerned with maintaining power. she has kept her position by being good at fundraising. she uses fear and hatred of Trump for fundraising purposes. she's under direct threat from progressives. but i wasn't even suggesting that she was involved in the Iowa mess. i just think that there's a lot of self-interested parties within the DNC. they just all happen to agree that Sanders is bad for their collective bottom lines. is it unrealistic to think that they will do whatever they can to stop the momentum of his candidacy? it's really no different from msnbc having a Clinton surrogate say that Sanders makes her skin crawl unchallenged. this is all psy-ops. they do the same thing against Trump. and i imagine that it's very frustrating to them that it has no impact his support.

[Michael Watkins]

Forget the Iowa caucus. it is is more important that we look forward to the New Hampshire Primary . Can't wait to see how that turns out.

they both should be important, imo.

[kidfresh512]

i have eyes. i watch the news. Pelosi is concerned with maintaining power. she has kept her position by being good at fundraising. she uses fear and hatred of Trump for fundraising purposes. she's under direct threat from progressives. but i wasn't even suggesting that she was involved in the Iowa mess. i just think that there's a lot of self-interested parties within the DNC. they just all happen to agree that Sanders is bad for their collective bottom lines. is it unrealistic to think that they will do whatever they can to stop the momentum of his candidacy? it's really no different from msnbc having a Clinton surrogate say that Sanders makes her skin crawl unchallenged. this is all psy-ops. they do the same thing against Trump. and i imagine that it's very frustrating to them that it has no impact his support.

You act like fear and hatred of trump is a bad thing? He is a terrible person, a terrible president, a horrible role model and an embarrassment. Using his character traits to raise funds to beat him and help other Democrats get in positions to vote against his horrible policies is bad now?

The entire primary process is designed to "stop the momentum" of the candidate that is not yourself. That's what an election is.

Yes it is unrealistic to think that they would rather keep Trump in power than to have the Democrat the people who vote choose at the end of the Primary get in the White House.

[Tendrin]

it's going to look shady. because Buttigeg's people claimed that he was in the lead. and now no one knows who won Iowa. that is not inconsequential. the person this delay of results hurts most is the person who won. a few posts ago, someone said it as fact that Buttigeg was the winner. it's very easy to blow a lead. i just want Sanders to get a fair shot. you seem mostly interested in dismissing the concerns of any progressive who comments as if it beyond belief that someone would rig an election (even though you folks cried to the heavens that Hillary's presidency was stolen from her).

I dismiss nonsense conspiracy theories rooted in silliness like videos about 'coin flips' for an individual delegate, and an untested app crashing. There's nothing substantial there so far. I'm definitely going to dismiss preemptive BS about it from the same crowd who declared it was 'rigged' last time around.

Hillary's loss is a /bit/ of a different animal, rooted in things we actually know happened rather than speculation, and that's without getting into concerns about how vulnerable our voting machines are. Thankfully, the Iowa caucus kept a paper tally

Meanwhile, in lighter news:

Fundraising for a political campaign is apparently not that easy when you and all your closest friends have been kicked off of a whole host of websites and credit-card platforms for being in a neofascist street gang with close links to white nationalists and people who commit acts of violence and seem to enjoy sharing racial slurs online.
Just ask Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, the Miami-based head of the pro-Trump, street-fighting Proud Boys who announced a run for Congress on November 1. According to documents filed with the federal government last week, Tarrio has raised almost no money in the three months since announcing his candidacy for Florida's 27th congressional district, which is currently held by Democrat Donna Shalala.

I'm sure WBE will love writing that profile when his run fails. xD

[Tami]

Upstate GOP leaders plotting to impact SC Democratic primary by boosting Bernie Sanders

COLUMBIA — A group of prominent Upstate Republicans is preparing to launch a wide-scale effort this week to encourage GOP voters across South Carolina to vote for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Feb. 29 Democratic primary, The Post and Courier has learned.

The Republican plan to impact the Democratic race, emerging just weeks before the “First in the South” primary, has two goals: Boost the candidate who the Republicans believe presents the weakest general election threat to President Donald Trump and pressure Democrats to support closing state primaries in the future.

South Carolina has open primaries, meaning voters do not have to register by party and can participate in either party’s contest. But some conservative activists have long pushed to change that, arguing it would ensure a more pure party process, and they are hoping this effort will win over Democrats to that cause.

The S.C. GOP executive committee voted last year to forgo its 2020 presidential primary, so the Democratic election will be the only one held Feb. 29.

Greenville GOP chairman Nate Leupp, Spartanburg GOP chairman Curtis Smith, Anderson GOP chairwoman Cheryl Cuthrell and the leaders of multiple tea party activist groups in the Upstate are behind the effort to undermine the Democratic race, with other officials still considering joining them.

[Tami]

Senator Doug Jones is risking his seat to vote to convict Trump on both counts.

[Tami]

Mike Pompeo Spectacularly Self-Owns With Attempted ‘Simpsons’ Troll Of Nancy Pelosi

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s attempt to troll House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Twitter hilariously backfired on Tuesday.

Pompeo responded to Pelosi ripping the pages of President Donald Trump’s State of Union speech with this image of cartoon character Lisa Simpson in tears over torn paper:

People on Twitter quickly pointed out, however, that the screenshot Pompeo posted was taken from an episode of “The Simpsons” in which Lisa’s faith in democracy is shaken during a trip to Washington.

“Given the context of the episode in question, this is a pretty masterful self-own on the part of Mr. Pompeo,” one person fired back at the secretary of state. Added another: “Dude. You just played yourself. Self owns are the best.”