Month: February 2016

Today in Historical Illiteracy

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At Salon, Andrew O’Hehir takes aim at Marco Rubio, and effectively targets his own foot:

Let me explain “Potemkin Super Bowl party,” because I don’t even know whether that’s a totally obscure reference. In the Soviet Union under Stalin — and Marco Rubio is already deeply unhappy about where I’m going with this — the state built “Potemkin villages,” idealized rural towns full of happy peasants for foreign visitors, while behind those façades the populace lived in misery.

Ummmm…Stalin?

You are only off by almost 200 years, and the reference is only a Google away.

A Potemkin Village was a fake town created by a courtier in the court of Catherine the Great, Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tavricheski, who allegedly created an elaborate fraud to convince the Czarina that the lands in the south of Russia were happy and loyal.

Attributing this to Stalin, when the term literally has its own Wiki page, does not inspire confidence on your grasp of the facts Mr. O’Hehir.

BTW, it appears that after reading comments to his article he corrected that bit, and he should get props for that, but if you have an only vague knowledge of this sort of cultural reference, just f%$#ing Google it.

Eric Arthur Blair Knows the Term for This

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Classification stupidity

The prosecutor for the military commission at Guantánamo is retroactively classifying pubic hearings:

The war court prosecutor is arguing that public disclosure of a transcript of a public hearing held at Guantánamo last year could endanger national security in response to a legal motion brought by 17 news organizations protesting pick-and-choose secrecy in the Sept. 11 pretrial hearings.

Army Brig. Gen Mark Martins makes the argument in a filing obtained by The Miami Herald that was still being reviewed for sensitive information on Thursday and not publicly released. At issue is the Pentagon’s decision to black out large portions of a 379-page transcript of an Oct. 30 hearing that included testimony from two soldiers who work at Guantánamo’s most clandestine prison, called Camp 7.

“That this information was uttered in a public session or is reported in news coverage does not render the information unprotected or vitiate the damage further disclosures would beget,” prosecutors wrote Jan. 29 in the 29-page filing in the war court case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

In defending the decision to censor what was public information, the prosecutors included a less-redacted transcript that showed previously blacked out sentences and in the same filing sealed up a declaration from the Guantánamo prison commander explaining what is at risk.

………

Reporters, Sept. 11 victim family members and other members of the public heard the testimony on Oct. 30 through a 40-second audio delay designed to let the judge or a court security officer mute the sound if anyone spilled national security secrets. No one ever pushed the button. But when the transcript came out weeks later, portions that the Miami Herald had reported in a routine Twitter stream were gone.

Now, a comparison of the two different censored transcripts of the same hearing offer a study in over-classification. Nearly every redaction is refined in the updated version.

The term to describe this sh%$ is “Orwellian”.

Hillary Retreats to Yet Another Firewall

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Hillary Clinton is way behind in New Hampshire, and she is running there like a candidate prepared to cede the first-in-the-nation primary.

As polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders continuing to hold a sizable lead here, Clinton strategists are positioning their campaign to weather a loss here, shifting their focus to holding Latino voters in Nevada, which votes Feb. 20, and then win in South Carolina, with its large black population, the following week.

One of Clinton’s most valuable campaign assets with voters in New Hampshire — her husband — is thousands of miles away in Nevada instead of working the coffee shops and union halls where the primary takes place Tuesday. Daughter Chelsea, another key surrogate, is also elsewhere. And even Clinton’s hearty corps of volunteer door-knockers, who were out in force braving the wintry mix that hung over the region Friday, seemed less than sanguine about her New Hampshire prospects.

………

Hillary Clinton is way behind in New Hampshire, and she is running there like a candidate prepared to cede the first-in-the-nation primary.

As polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders continuing to hold a sizable lead here, Clinton strategists are positioning their campaign to weather a loss here, shifting their focus to holding Latino voters in Nevada, which votes Feb. 20, and then win in South Carolina, with its large black population, the following week.

One of Clinton’s most valuable campaign assets with voters in New Hampshire — her husband — is thousands of miles away in Nevada instead of working the coffee shops and union halls where the primary takes place Tuesday. Daughter Chelsea, another key surrogate, is also elsewhere. And even Clinton’s hearty corps of volunteer door-knockers, who were out in force braving the wintry mix that hung over the region Friday, seemed less than sanguine about her New Hampshire prospects.

………

“You know, there’s a lot of states,” said campaign manager Robby Mook. “This is a delegate race. We’re not looking to win every single contest, every single time. We have a strategy and a plan for the long term.”

………

But she’ll also be flying out of the state two days before the election, a rare move for such a prominent candidate behind in the polls here. Clinton will be visiting Flint, Mich., to meet with the mayor about the drinking-water crisis that continues to grip that largely African American city. The visit will likely impress Democratic voters in New Hampshire, but the message of racial justice Clinton is sending through the trip is sure to resonate even more in South Carolina, where African Americans dominate the Democratic primary vote and Clinton remains popular.

I recall a similar firewall.  It was called the Maginot Line.

I still think that the chance that Hillary will win the nomination is a bit better than even, but this is a campaign is serious array

A Thought on the Democratic Debates………

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I didn’t catch them all, I had to shuttle the Sharon* and Charlie to rehearsal, but I caught a lot of it.

In the foreign policy portion, Clinton spent a lot of time touting her foreign policy bona fides.

Sanders went back to her history, specifically her vote in favor of the Iraq war.

What he did not discuss, and he should have brought up, was her bloodthirsty blunder on Libya, where she was later (in)famously quoted as saying of Qaddafi, “We came, we saw, he died.”

As a result of the overthrow of that government, we now have a country where Libyans are fleeing the country in droves, its educational and healthcare systems demolished, its economy a mess, ongoing genocide against black Africans, and the rise of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Whatever in the country.

Also, the overthrow of Qadaffi led directly to the death of ambassador Christopher Stephens in Benghazi.

And yet she continues to brag about overthrowing Libya.

This is not an indication of foreign policy prowess, this is an indication of thoughtlessness and incompetence.

*Love of my life, light of the  cosmos, she  who must be obeyed, my wife.

This Is Not an Endorsement to Tout

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In the Democratic Debates, Hillary Clinton touted Henry Kissinger’s support of your stint of Secretary of State.

Anyone who is proud of being endorsed by that amoral war criminal is not, “A mindful human being,” to borrow Ron Reagan Jr.’s description of Dick Cheney:*

I mean, Jesus H. Christ in a Chilean dungeon.

“I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time.”

Dear Ms. HRC: There is being tone-deaf, and then there is not being able to tell the difference between the New York Philharmonic and an abbatoir. What putative progressive—hell, what putative human being—would brag on being endorsed by the most pus-blooded vampire in American public life? Here with an opposing opinion are 40,000 dead Chileans, 100,000 dead East Timorese, and countless dead Laotians, Vietnamese and dead Cambodians.

And she’s the one with the foreign policy chops.

Good god.

Actually, the fact that Kissinger is still living in freedom might lead one to doubt the goodness of God.

The fact that Hillary Clinton lauds his support, and is by all reports a good friend of his, means that her much lauded foreign policy chops are highly overrated, but we already knew that.

*RRJ said about Dick Cheney, “I don’t think he’s a mindful human being. That’s probably the nicest way I can put it,” when describing Cheney’s behavior toward his mom, Nancy Reagan at his Dad’s funeral.†
†The Link is here. The Cliff Notes version is that Dick Cheney escorted her to Reagan’s casket, and he stopped at the bottom of some stairs, and allowed an 80 year old woman with glaucoma to flounder her way up the stairs. (Really classy)

Gloria Steinem, How about a Nice Glass of Shut the F%$# Up?

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Feminist icon Gloria Steinem has just suggested that young women are supporting Bernie Sanders because they are looking to impress boys:

Feminist activist Gloria Steinem on Friday suggested that young women support Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders over rival Hillary Clinton because they want to meet boys.

On HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher asked Steinem why Clinton, who has campaigned on the historic nature of her candidacy, was losing the young female vote.

 “I don’t mean to over-generalize … but men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, and women get more radical because they lose power as they age,” Steinem responded.

 “So it’s kind of not fair to measure most women by the standard of most men, because they’re going to get more activist as they get older,” she added.

 “And when you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘Where are the boys?’ The boys are with Bernie.”

 Maher joked that if he had chalked up Bernie’s support among young women to their desire to meet boys, Steinem would have slapped him.

Seriously?

After a lifetime of supporting equality, you blithely dismiss the attitudes of women as some sort of attempt at catching the right man?

She is saying that young women have no agency of their all.

I understand how some people are excited about the possibility of Hillary Clinton being the first woman President, but this is nuts.

The bigger picture is that identity politics is morally bankrupt, but I’m not a big picture kind of guy.

I’ll just call lame beyond belief.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!! (On Saturday)

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We had 2 3 more failures this week, all of them credit unions.

  1. Montgomery County Credit Union, Dayton, OH
  2. Cory Methodist Church Credit Union​, Cleveland​, OH
  3. ​CTK Credit Union, Milwaukee, WI​

Here is the Full NCUA list.

So, we have 4 credit union failures, and no commercial bank failures so far this year, continuing on, and exptending on, the trend that began last year.

It is odd that credit unions are failing faster than commercial banks.

I Swear, the Iowa Democratic Party Could Not Organize a Piss-Up in a Brewery

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And that’s the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario is that we saw fraud in the tabulation of the caucus results.

Given that it’s the Iowa Democratic party, my guess is that the increasing number of irregulatities:

Iowa Democratic Party officials are reviewing results from the Iowa caucuses and making updates where discrepancies have been found.

Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire the day after Monday’s caucuses said no review would be conducted, and that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory over Bernie Sanders was final.

But as errors are being discovered, the final tally is being changed, party officials confirmed to the Des Moines Register on Friday.

“Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have flagged a very small number of concerns for us, and we are looking at them all on a case-by-case basis,” Iowa Democratic Party spokesman Sam Lau told the Register.

………

The Register, too, has received numerous reports that the results announced at precincts Monday night don’t match what the Iowa Democratic Party has posted on its official results website.

Just one example: Grinnell precinct No. 1.

At least three caucusgoers there (including Dan McCue and Zack Stewart) and the Grinnell College newspaper reported that Sanders won 19 county delegates and Clinton 7, but party officials said the final tally was Sanders 18 and Clinton 8.

“19-7 is right,” Pablo Silva, a Grinnell College professor who was precinct secretary, told the Register Friday. “It is complicated, but the issue comes down to a problem with the math that can be complicated in large precincts. Short version: On Monday night, the IDP felt we had not done it right, and they attempted to correct what they saw as errors. We’ve been in touch since then. They are acknowledging our results, but, as I write, will wait on the arrival of our paperwork.”

Iowa Democratic Party, you had one job………

Whip Me, Beat Me, Make Me Buy Apple Products

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Seriously. If you feel a burning need to be dominated and degraded by a pro, then you clearly need to own the newest iPhone:

Thousands of iPhone 6 users claim they have been left holding almost worthless phones because Apple’s latest operating system permanently disables the handset if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician.

 Relatively few people outside the tech world are aware of the so-called “error 53” problem, but if it happens to you you’ll know about it. And according to one specialist journalist, it “will kill your iPhone”.

 The issue appears to affect handsets where the home button, which has touch ID fingerprint recognition built-in, has been repaired by a “non-official” company or individual. It has also reportedly affected customers whose phone has been damaged but who have been able to carry on using it without the need for a repair.

 But the problem only comes to light when the latest version of Apple’s iPhone software, iOS 9, is installed. Indeed, the phone may have been working perfectly for weeks or months since a repair or being damaged.

After installation a growing number of people have watched in horror as their phone, which may well have cost them £500-plus, is rendered useless. Any photos or other data held on the handset is lost – and irretrievable.

 Tech experts claim Apple knows all about the problem but has done nothing to warn users that their phone will be “bricked” (ie, rendered as technologically useful as a brick) if they install the iOS upgrade.

Freelance photographer and self-confessed Apple addict Antonio Olmos says this happened to his phone a few weeks ago after he upgraded his software. Olmos had previously had his handset repaired while on an assignment for the Guardian in Macedonia. “I was in the Balkans covering the refugee crisis in September when I dropped my phone. Because I desperately needed it for work I got it fixed at a local shop, as there are no Apple stores in Macedonia. They repaired the screen and home button, and it worked perfectly.”

 He says he thought no more about it, until he was sent the standard notification by Apple inviting him to install the latest software. He accepted the upgrade, but within seconds the phone was displaying “error 53” and was, in effect, dead.

 When Olmos, who says he has spent thousands of pounds on Apple products over the years, took it to an Apple store in London, staff told him there was nothing they could do, and that his phone was now junk. He had to pay £270 for a replacement and is furious.

 “The whole thing is extraordinary. How can a company deliberately make their own products useless with an upgrade and not warn their own customers about it? Outside of the big industrialised nations, Apple stores are few and far between, and damaged phones can only be brought back to life by small third-party repairers.

It appears that Apple’s new motto is, “There is a sucker born every minute.”

This is Insanely Sensible

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The Virginia AG has set up an task force specifically to go after patent trolls:

Suing a company for patent infringement just got a lot tougher in the state of Virginia.

The state (technically a commonwealth) has created a new legal office focused entirely on patent litigation. Specifically, the state’s Patent Troll Unit will look to extract penalties and legal fees from companies who make unjust patent infringement claims against businesses operating in the state.

The task force will seek out companies who file infringement claims on dubious or vague patents, seeking a quick payout. The legal team, reporting to the Attorney General, will file for injunctions against companies it deems acting in “bad faith” with infringement claims.

………

“Virginia businesses of all sizes can be targets, from a small, local business up to a large, high-tech firm,” Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring told the local Augusta Free Press.

“Under the bipartisan legislation we were able to help craft last year, my office has strong new enforcement powers and we’re going to use them to protect Virginia businesses from these bad actors.”

………

Those who believe they are being targeted by a patent troll are being advised to contact the Attorney General’s office with details including the demands of the patent troll, contact information and patent details.

This is an excellent idea.

Defending against a patent troll is frequently expensive, and so companies frequently settle. 

Having the Attorney General’s office on your makes it far less ruinous to fight patent extortion.

Elizabeth Warren Is Not Going to Make an Endorsement in the Primaries, but This Comes Close

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The distinguished Gentlewoman from Massachusetts just cut Lloyd Blankfein a new asshole over his whining about Bernie Sanders criticizing him:

Elizabeth Warren entered the intensifying battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, defending Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from a new attack by the head of Goldman Sachs — a Wall Street behemoth whose executives have delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton, her presidential campaign and her family’s foundation.

In an interview with International Business Times hours before Wednesday night’s Democratic town hall in New Hampshire, the Massachusetts senator — whose endorsement is coveted by both Democratic candidates — slammed Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein for asserting earlier in the day that Sanders’ criticism of Wall Street had created a dangerous environment in America.

“He thinks it’s fine to prosecute small business owners, it’s fine to go hard after individuals who have no real resources, but don’t criticize companies like Goldman Sachs and their very, very important CEO — that’s what he’s really saying,” Warren told IBT.

In January, Sanders pointed to billionaire Blankfein as a prime example of the corporate greed he says is harming the United States. Sanders also released a television ad in which he slammed Goldman Sachs by name, and he has criticized Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state, for accepting $675,000 of speaking fees and $930,000 of campaign contributions from the firm and its executives during her career. Goldman Sachs has donated at least $250,000 to her family’s foundation — which in 2014 held a donor meeting at the company’s Manhattan headquarters.

Blankfein responded to Sanders’ criticism on Wednesday in an appearance on CNBC, saying the intensity of the criticism created an environment that “has the potential to be a dangerous moment — not just for Wall Street, not just for the people who are particularly targeted, but for anybody who is a little bit out of line.”

Warren, a Democrat, disputed that notion in harsh terms, telling IBT that such statements show why American voters should focus on Wall Street’s power during the 2016 election.

“When Blankfein says that criticizing those who break the rules is dangerous to the economy, then he’s just repeating another variation of ‘too big to fail,’ ‘too big to jail,’ ‘too big even to prosecute,’” she said. “That tells you here we are, seven years after the crisis and these guys still don’t get it. Seven years. That crisis cost an estimated $14 trillion, it cost jobs, it cost homes, it cost retirement funds. And Lloyd Blankfein stands up and says ‘Don’t even criticize me, I ran a company that was right at the heart of some of the biggest financial frauds in history and made money off it, but don’t you dare criticize me.’ That’s his position? That’s why we need voters to get really engaged.”

This isn’t an endorsement as such, but it is a pretty clear indication that she has his back.

It Ain’t just the Caucuses that are F%$#ed up In Iowa

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There is a bill being mooted in the Iowa Senate proposing that Stanford University be published because their marching band is too mean.

There is something seriously wrong here, even without the whole “Bill of Attainder” thing:

………

 Stanford’s football team defeated the University of Iowa 45-16 in the game. In addition, the Stanford band, which has a history of irreverent performances, poked fun during the halftime show with a dancing cow, a frowning farmer formation and other tongue-in-cheek gestures that upset some Iowans. ESPN, which televised the game, cut away from the band’s performance. State Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, told The Des Moines Register at the Iowa Capitol on Wednesday that he introduced Senate File 2081 because he believes Stanford officials have condoned improper behavior by the marching band. “I think it’s unfortunate because here in Iowa we try to teach sportsmanship,” Chelgren said. “We try to teach courtesy, and when someone behaves in a way that is contrary to that, we need to point it out.”

 Good thing we can all ignore Iowa again until the 2018 state fair.

Seriously, what the actual f%$#?

The Snake Had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

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Another victim of repeated head trauma in the NFL, only this time it is a quarterback, Ken Stabler of the Oakland Raiders:

Former Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler, who died in July at the age of 69 of colon cancer, was found to have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease found in people who have had repeated blows to the head, according to a researchers at Boston University.

Stabler’s diagnosis is the latest in a line of former NFL players who have been found to have the disease. Scientists in Boston said that on a scale of one to four, Stabler had high stage three CTE.

“He had moderately severe disease,” Ann McKee, the chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston healthcare system and a professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University school of medicine, told the New York Times.

………

After his death, Stabler’s brain was removed and donated to researchers at the NFL’s “brain bank” at Boston University, who spent months dissecting it for clues as to why the quarterback’s mind declined in his final years. During the last few years of his life, Stabler rapidly slowed down in his cognitive functions. He began complaining of a high-pitched ringing in his head, couldn’t handle bright lights or loud noises, and began repeating himself.

McKee, who conducted the examination, called Stabler’s case “pretty classic”.

“It may be surprising since he was a quarterback, but certainly the lesions were widespread, and they were quite severe, affecting many regions of the brain,” McKee, who conducted the examination, said. “There was no question about the diagnosis.”

If this happens to a quarter back, it happens to everyone on the field.

Mothers, do not let your kids play football.

Lloyd Blankfein Just Gave the Best Endorsement of Bernie Sanders Ever.

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It appears that he considers the fact that Bernie Sanders does not worship his brilliance akin to terrorism:

Just days after a Bernie Sanders campaign ad singled out Goldman Sachs as “one of the Wall Street banks that triggered the financial meltdown,” the head of the global investment banking firm said such criticism is “dangerous.”

According to The Hill:

Sanders has railed against Wall Street throughout his populist campaign, accusing the sector of ruining the economy and holding down the middle class. And he has singled out [Goldman CEO Lloyd] Blankfein and his firm as a poster child for the greed and recklessness he says is endemic in finance.

In a January interview with Bloomberg, he specifically mentioned Blankfein as representing greed on Wall Street, for taking massive pay packages “after destroying the economy.”


“To personalize it, it has potential to be a dangerous moment,” Blankfein told CNBC on Wednesday. “Not just for Wall Street…but for anybody who is a little bit out of line.”

Blankfein also reportedly argued “that Sanders and his ilk are too rigid to get anything done,” as The Hill put it.

On the campaign trail, Sanders has criticized not only big banks, but rival Hillary Clinton’s cozy ties to them.

Bloomberg notes that Blankfein—who supported Clinton for president in 2008—also “declined to endorse a candidate for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, saying his imprimatur could harm that person’s chances.”

Oh, you poor delicate flower.

Bernie says mean things about you, and it’s the end of the world.

Get over yourself, you pampered, overpaid, psychopath.

Damn You. You Are Forcing Me to Defend Hillary Clinton, and I Do Not Want To.

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Aver at Sic Semper TyrannisRichard Sale unloads on Hillary Clinton, with a level of venom that really is really off putting:

………

There are few things as ugly as this rampant self-worship. Under its gaze, ordinary life shrivels and diminishes. The vast universe contracts to a mere tawdry bauble kicked to and fro by contending rivals. Hillary has eyes only for those circumstances, facts and incidents that suit and confirm her own biases and which advance her own designs, however morally dubious they may be. Self-worship like hers is not blind in the least– her temperament, her disposition, her power of analysis, enables her to select people whose ideals and ambition and desires are similar to her own. A political leader estimates his or her allies based on their usefulness in furthering the leader’s designs and schemes. Think of the people who occupy high positions in her campaign: her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, or her deputy chiefs, Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, loyalists all, all working to cover up the e-mail scandal, a scandal that clearly threatens Hillary’s viability as a candidate. Staffers like hers bend the rules until they break. One suspects that aanything or anyone that doesn’t serve Clinton’s appetite for public power is cast aside, belittled, scoffed at, undermined or marooned. A political leader like her, sees people as furniture, objects to be moved here, moved there, placed where they will do the leader the most good. A close supporter of a leader has no will or desires or designs of their own. They suspend such things in the hope that their subjugation will be generously rewarded. They accept that their purpose in life is to be used by someone greater, someone who will prove a generous giver of favors, advancement, money and prestige. In other words, their destiny is to be the tool of another’s more powerful and decided will.

This is complete bullsh%$.

I do not support Hillary Clinton, but by the standards of mainstream Presidential Candidates,* she is not especially narcissistic or immoral.

In fact if there is one thing that is remarkable about her political career it is that there have been no tell-all insider books published by people who work closely with her.

Even Bill had a few while president, and if one of Hillary’s acolytes had an axe to grind, they would get a 7 figure book advance from Regenry or other right wing publishers.

If she used people as you asserted, there would already have been such a book published.

Heck, it would have been published in the mid 1990s.

The loyalty of her people under these circumstances is remarkable.

I don;t like Clinton, but she is not a Borgia Pope.

*Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play.

Told Ya So

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Yesterday, I suggested that we wait a couple of days to see what the final vote tally in Iowa.

Today, we hear that votes are still trickling in:

Votes from one precinct in Iowa were still missing Tuesday morning, and Democrats from that neighborhood scrambled to find party officials so that they could report their tally: Bernie Sanders won by 2 delegates over Hillary Clinton.

With Des Moines precinct No. 42’s results, Clinton’s excruciatingly close lead narrowed further, making the final tally for delegate equivalents in the Democratic Iowa caucuses:

Clinton: 699.57

Sanders: 697.77.

It quickly raised questions about whether Sanders had won the popular vote in Iowa. Sanders backers called for Iowa Democratic Party officials to release the raw vote totals.

This is what happens in very close elections, and it won’t be fully resolved until well after New Hampshire votes.

Of Course He Handled Losing Graciously. He’s Gone Bankrupt 3 4 Times. He Knows How to Do This.

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Donald Trump gave a remarkably magnanimous in acknowledging his 2nd place finish in Iowa:

Donald Trump, who no one thought was a viable candidate for President just 6 short months ago, managed to come in a solid second place in today’s Iowa caucuses. For some, the fact that he didn’t come in first was shocking, for other’s, it was a relief.

Throughout the entire election season thus far, Trump has been the voice of xenophobic hate talk, blathering about building walls, deporting immigrants, ridiculing disabled reporters and offending pretty much everyone except white Americans. The fact that he was poised to come in first in Iowa terrified many. Although, having Tea Party favorite, Ted Cruz, come in first may actually be more terrible in the long run.

Regardless, Trump took his narrow loss with grace and gave a fairly humble and short speech.

It’s almost classy.

Bullsh%$ Bingo Winner of the Day

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There is a mildly amusing parody web site that does a compare and contrast of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, things like:

  • Bernie: Star Wars is a great series, and I thought that episode 7 is a nice return to the Franchise’s roots,
  • Hillary: [Makes “Live long and prosper” hand signal]

It’s kind of silly, and not too deep, and pokes fun at Hillary Clinton’s perceived lack of authenticity,* but someone at Salon decided to use the meme to attack all Bernie Sanders supporters as male chauvinists, aka Bernie Bros:

………These jabs at Clinton’s imagined sonic preferences reinforce the tired idea that the tastes of non-cis-male cultural consumers—from teenagers on through boomers and beyond—are something to be mocked and disrespected.………

Don’t even bother trying.

Annie Zaleski has won the bullsh%$ bingo game for this month, and possibly for the entire f%$#ing presidential campaign.

She has her head so far up her ass that she resembles a Klein bottle.

*Not her fault.   Bill Clinton does authenticity so well that if he were sharing a bill with Pope Frank, the Pontiff would look like the Andy Kaufman character Tony Clifton.

Iowa Caucuses

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And tomorrow is Groundhog day, so expect the same crap from the pundits, day, after day, after day, after day

In terms of the actual numbers, as of 11:50 PM EST, with 98% of Republican caucuses reporting, a Ted Cruz has won the Republican caucuses, with Trump second, and Rubio a fairly close third.

Clearly, Rubio is not the (lame and not particularly intelligent) great white hope of the Republican establishment.

With 94% of Democratic caucuses reporting, it looks like the delegate talley will be pretty close, as Hillary Clintonhas 49.9%  and  has Bernie Sanders 49.6%, with O’Malley at ½%.

The race has not been called, and there are reports that O’Malley has dropped out of the race.

The Democratic caucus results seems to indicate that very little bit has been settled.

I would guess that the results will be the same in the morning, but given that the reporting software is written by Microsoft, I would wait about 48 hours for the final count.*

Ongoing results here.

*I am not suggesting fraud here, I am suggesting incompetence and poor execution, kind of like Windows Vista, Windows 8, Office 2007, and Microsoft Bob.