by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Yesterday, Tuesday, February 11, 2020, was a doubly-critical day in American politics. First, it was the day that New Hampshire held its presidential primaries, events which allow a couple of hundred thousand cranky-assed farmers and small town residents the unique opportunity of limiting the choices that the rest of the country - with the exception of Iowa - will have in selecting a president to lead us all. The vote in New Hampshire caused two candidates to drop out of the race yesterday and a third today.
Bernie Sanders won the Democratic contest - kinda, sorta - in a race that Donald Trump had said one day previous would feature Republicans voting for the weakest possible Democrat in the Democratic primary - although Trump added that he considered all of the Democrats weak. Sanders received barely a quarter of the vote (25.7%), while former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, Pete Buttigieg, took second with just under a quarter of the vote (24.4%). 3,691 actual votes separated the two frontrunners. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota was third at just under 20% of the vote, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was fourth with 9.2%, and former Vice President Joe Biden, the candidate who was once thought to be the one to beat, came in fifth with 8.4 percent.
Not on the ballot was former New York City Mayor - and Mister Moneybags - Mike Bloomberg, a man many think will become the party's ultimate choice to escape a Bernie nomination. Bloomberg has yet to be tested by voters outside of New York City, but he has already shown an entertaining ability to make Trump foam at the mouth. He will begin appearing on ballots on Super Tuesday, March 3rd.
The top five all seem to be staying in for right now, but the rest of the field is more fluid, with Colorado Senator Michael Bennet and businessman Andrew Yang exiting the contest yesterday after the New Hampshire results became apparent and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick leaving the race today after a poor showing in New Hampshire.
The second major political event to transpire yesterday was that Donald Trump raised his middle finger to America as he blatantly interfered in our country's judicial process. Yesterday prosecutors from the United States Department of Justice announced that they were recommending that a federal judge sentence Trump associate (and self-described "dirty trickster") Roger Stone to prison for a term of seven to nine years for lying to Congress and withholding evidence. Trump issued one of his berserk tweets declaring that the recommendation was a "horrible and a very unfair situation." Within hours the recommendation was withdrawn because the prosecutors' superiors at the DOJ decided it was too steep.
Trump then said it was "ridiculous" to suggest that he had interfered or influenced the process. Later in the day Attorney General Bill Barr let his department know that he would personally manage cases that were of a personal interest to Trump from that point onward.
All four prosecutors in the Stone case quit the case after Trump chose to become personally involved in the sentencing of his friend and long-time associate, and there is a news story circulating that at least one of the four resigned from the Justice Department as well.
Trump, of course, still has the option of pardoning Stone altogether - and that option is a very real possibility in this corrupt and highly charged political atmosphere.
Bernie and Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar all had good days yesterday - and so did Donald Trump and Roger Stone - and chances are Mike Bloomberg also slept well last night. My state does not get to vote in a presidential primary until a week after Super Tuesday, and by then the table will have been cleared of everything except for a few stale leftovers - and the dessert will likely be sitting triumphant for all to applaud.
And I am relieved of the responsibility of helping to plan the menu because it is all done for me in states where people are infinitely more important and smarter than me.
It is the same system that gave us Hillary v. Trump - and it still sucks.
And Tom Perez, you also suck!
Citizen Journalist
Yesterday, Tuesday, February 11, 2020, was a doubly-critical day in American politics. First, it was the day that New Hampshire held its presidential primaries, events which allow a couple of hundred thousand cranky-assed farmers and small town residents the unique opportunity of limiting the choices that the rest of the country - with the exception of Iowa - will have in selecting a president to lead us all. The vote in New Hampshire caused two candidates to drop out of the race yesterday and a third today.
Bernie Sanders won the Democratic contest - kinda, sorta - in a race that Donald Trump had said one day previous would feature Republicans voting for the weakest possible Democrat in the Democratic primary - although Trump added that he considered all of the Democrats weak. Sanders received barely a quarter of the vote (25.7%), while former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, Pete Buttigieg, took second with just under a quarter of the vote (24.4%). 3,691 actual votes separated the two frontrunners. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota was third at just under 20% of the vote, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was fourth with 9.2%, and former Vice President Joe Biden, the candidate who was once thought to be the one to beat, came in fifth with 8.4 percent.
Not on the ballot was former New York City Mayor - and Mister Moneybags - Mike Bloomberg, a man many think will become the party's ultimate choice to escape a Bernie nomination. Bloomberg has yet to be tested by voters outside of New York City, but he has already shown an entertaining ability to make Trump foam at the mouth. He will begin appearing on ballots on Super Tuesday, March 3rd.
The top five all seem to be staying in for right now, but the rest of the field is more fluid, with Colorado Senator Michael Bennet and businessman Andrew Yang exiting the contest yesterday after the New Hampshire results became apparent and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick leaving the race today after a poor showing in New Hampshire.
The second major political event to transpire yesterday was that Donald Trump raised his middle finger to America as he blatantly interfered in our country's judicial process. Yesterday prosecutors from the United States Department of Justice announced that they were recommending that a federal judge sentence Trump associate (and self-described "dirty trickster") Roger Stone to prison for a term of seven to nine years for lying to Congress and withholding evidence. Trump issued one of his berserk tweets declaring that the recommendation was a "horrible and a very unfair situation." Within hours the recommendation was withdrawn because the prosecutors' superiors at the DOJ decided it was too steep.
Trump then said it was "ridiculous" to suggest that he had interfered or influenced the process. Later in the day Attorney General Bill Barr let his department know that he would personally manage cases that were of a personal interest to Trump from that point onward.
All four prosecutors in the Stone case quit the case after Trump chose to become personally involved in the sentencing of his friend and long-time associate, and there is a news story circulating that at least one of the four resigned from the Justice Department as well.
Trump, of course, still has the option of pardoning Stone altogether - and that option is a very real possibility in this corrupt and highly charged political atmosphere.
Bernie and Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar all had good days yesterday - and so did Donald Trump and Roger Stone - and chances are Mike Bloomberg also slept well last night. My state does not get to vote in a presidential primary until a week after Super Tuesday, and by then the table will have been cleared of everything except for a few stale leftovers - and the dessert will likely be sitting triumphant for all to applaud.
And I am relieved of the responsibility of helping to plan the menu because it is all done for me in states where people are infinitely more important and smarter than me.
It is the same system that gave us Hillary v. Trump - and it still sucks.
And Tom Perez, you also suck!
1 comment:
We have not heard the last of Barr trespassing into the realm of the Judiciary. He recently ignored an appellate decision he didn't like & supplanted it with the Trump line to deport a presumably very very legal alien.
Also in New Hampshire a voter can't change party registration "during the period of time between the first day of the filing period for the primary election and/or the presidential primary election and the date of the primary election itself" according to their Secretary of State.
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