The 2016 US Election (Part II)

[Flagg]

Why are you so mad all the time?

Sanders is losing.

[Flagg]

I'd say its worth doing on principle precisely because it is the sole opportunity the residents of said territories have to have any say, however small, in who becomes President. I would not call that a waste of time or money.

And it makes it all the more appalling that the so-called Democratic Party is apparently trying to further disenfranchise already disenfranchised Puerto Ricans. Weather its for the purposes of suppressing the vote, or saving money, or whatever, I hardly even care. Its indefensible.

Why? Puerto Rico has rejected statehood, and no state means no say. I mean if the parties want to give them a say, they can, but I honestly don't think they should. They can't vote for POTUS in November, so IMO it's a waste of money to allow them to cast ballots in a primary.

Might as well address this too.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/ ... erto-rico/

In an overshadowed Election Day contest, Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood in a nonbinding referendum, marking the first time such an initiative garnered a majority.
Puerto Ricans were asked about their desires in two parts. First, by a 54% to 46% margin, voters rejected their current status as a U.S. commonwealth. In a separate question, 61% chose statehood as the alternative, compared with 33% for the semi-autonomous "sovereign free association" and 6% for outright independence.
While the results may be an indicator of what Puerto Ricans want, statehood will not be possible without congressional action in Washington, something that is not guaranteed.
Read more: Puerto Rico: A forgotten front in America's drug war?
An economic downturn and shrinking population were the factors that contributed to the support for statehood, where referendums in 1967, 1993 and 1998 failed, Puerto Rico Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock said.
"I think people just came to realize that the current relationship simply does not create the number of jobs that we need," he said.
English before statehood in Puerto Rico?

English before statehood in Puerto Rico? 02:39
Hispanic voters under siege?

Hispanic voters under siege? 02:16
Hispanic Heritage Month - Puerto Rico

Hispanic Heritage Month - Puerto Rico 02:15
An exodus of residents from the island has culminated in a staggering statistic: Fifty-eight percent of Puerto Ricans live in the mainland United States, McClintock said.
Opinion: Treat U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico fairly
"When you have a political status that scares away half of your population, it is time to reject that political status," he said.
But some analysts say the views on statehood have not changed, despite Tuesday's results.
The preference of many voters is to consider a report by the Obama administration that lays out several noncolonial options before choosing an alternative status, said Jorge Benitez, a political scientist at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. This option, which is supported by the party that won the governorship, did not appear on the ballot.
"This isn't to say that support for statehood hasn't increased; it has," Benitez said. "But the only thing we can decipher with certainty from the vote is that the people of Puerto Rico want a change to the current status.
"It isn't clear what change we want, but we want change," he said.
The results of the referendum met with other criticisms, too.
There were voters who prefer the current status but didn't agree with the way it was defined on the ballot, thereby inflating the number of votes against the status quo, said Luis Agrait, a history professor at the University of Puerto Rico.
Secondly, a large number of ballots -- one-third of all votes cast -- were left blank on the question of preferred alternative status. If you assume those blank votes are anti-statehood votes, the true result for the statehood option would be less than 50%, Agrait argues.
Opinion: 'But what's a Latino?'
But McClintock accounts for the number of blank votes by explaining that those who voted to keep the current status would have left the question of alternatives blank.
The referendum is nonbinding, but it compels lawmakers in Washington to act, he said.
"The people are withdrawing their consent to be governed the way they are governed," McClintock said, citing the Declaration of Independence, which states that a government's power comes from the consent of those governed.
"Congress will have to address this and will have to pay attention," he said.
The roughly 4 million residents of Puerto Rico are American citizens but can't vote for president. However, the almost 5 million Puerto Ricans living in the 50 U.S. states have full voting rights.
Under its status as a commonwealth, Puerto Rico is subject to U.S. federal laws, though island residents are exempt from some federal taxes. Puerto Rico has a nonvoting representative in Congress.
The territory played a role in presidential politics this year during the GOP primaries, when candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum visited the island, seeking its delegates for the primary election.
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, created a small political firestorm when he said English should be the principal language in Puerto Rico before it could gain statehood.
Romney said he would have "no preconditions" on language for Puerto Rico to gain statehood, though during a CNN debate, he said English should be the United States' official language.
Last year, President Barack Obama made an official visit to Puerto Rico, the first such visit by a president in 50 years.

The treatment of the territories is absolutely shameful, a remaining legal bastion of second class citizen hood. Put the blame where it should go, on the US government, and not on the people of the territories.

Huh, news to me. Thanks. I was under the impression they wanted the status quo.

[maraxus2]

The official count is 1,769 Clinton, 1,501 Sanders. Clinton has 547 Superdelegates to Bernie Sanders 46 to emphasis on lopsided that is. And while the Democratic party is officially still telling the media "don't count super-delegates into delegate totals" the media have given up on that. Note they did listen to them until New York at which point the Supers got added back in because CNN and MSNBC want to call this election at 8pm EST next Tuesday never mind Califorina never mind if Sanders sweeps the states (Unlikely) to the point at which Chris Mathews has said The networks will call the election at 8pm, are planning are to do so regardless of results.

Again, because the result is no longer in doubt. Bernie is not going to win California by 70%. I'd be extremely surprised if either candidate won by more than 2% or so. Whatever delegates he gains on Clinton in CA, and he has never led in a single poll by the way, will be more than offset by Clinton's expected double point win in New Jersey. She will also beat him in Washington DC by a big margin. It's over. Just because you don't like an outcome does not make it evidence of a conspiracy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Why are you so mad all the time?

Sanders is losing.

I had plenty of things to be angry about long before Sanders started running, and will long after he has left the race or entered the White House.

In this case, I'm angry at how the territories get constantly shafted, even in the degree of news coverage their primaries garner. And I'd say that's something people should be angry about, because, you know, second class citizenship.

And this petty irrelevant personal sniping is getting very tiresome. I should probably ignore it as trolling in the future.

[Mr Bean]

Again, because the result is no longer in doubt. Bernie is not going to win California by 70%. I'd be extremely surprised if either candidate won by more than 2% or so. Whatever delegates he gains on Clinton in CA, and he has never led in a single poll by the way, will be more than offset by Clinton's expected double point win in New Jersey. She will also beat him in Washington DC by a big margin. It's over. Just because you don't like an outcome does not make it evidence of a conspiracy.

Superdelegates can change their vote up and until the day of the convention, they can also fail to vote or fail to show up to cast their vote and can't vote by proxy without a vote change. If we see 1968 happen again and the supers head for the hills it's quite possible for the first vote for Secretary Clinton to fail.

And that sort of smug self assurance of inevitability is what has caused the problems this election cycle for Secretary Clinton and one of the bigger reasons she's still spending money on the primary scheduled is because of treating a possibility as a certainty.

Who knows what will happen on Tuesday?
Who knows what will happen between June 7th and July 28th?

Anything from mass violence, indictment, to someone dropping dead of a heart attack could change that possibility into a fail state.
After all to quote Secretary Clinton herself...

We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California-then Senator Hillary Clinton 2008
I trust her wise words on the subject.

[Flagg]

Why are you so mad all the time?

Sanders is losing.

I had plenty of things to be angry about long before Sanders started running, and will long after he has left the race or entered the White House.

In this case, I'm angry at how the territories get constantly shafted, even in the degree of news coverage their primaries garner. And I'd say that's something people should be angry about, because, you know, second class citizenship.

And this petty irrelevant personal sniping is getting very tiresome. I should probably ignore it as trolling in the future.

It's not trolling, it's me pointing out a pattern of behavior. Every time Clinton garners a win you get pissier than normal. As for the territories, they do get certain benefits without having to contribute back to the US, though as a believer in democracy and an anti-imperialist I don't think we as a nation should have territories. Cut them loose or give them statehood.

[Omega18]

It looks like Hillary won very decisively in the Virgin Islands caucus with about 87% of the vote, but apparently the minimum threshold does not apply in this case so Hillary gets 6 of the delegates while Sanders still got the remaining one. However one Virgin Islands superdelegate who had previously pledged to Sanders has now publicly switched to supporting Hillary.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/ ... in-Islands

This does mathematically make a scenario where Sanders ends up with the majority of pledged delegates even more implausible.

[Flagg]

Again, because the result is no longer in doubt. Bernie is not going to win California by 70%. I'd be extremely surprised if either candidate won by more than 2% or so. Whatever delegates he gains on Clinton in CA, and he has never led in a single poll by the way, will be more than offset by Clinton's expected double point win in New Jersey. She will also beat him in Washington DC by a big margin. It's over. Just because you don't like an outcome does not make it evidence of a conspiracy.

Superdelegates can change their vote up and until the day of the convention, they can also fail to vote or fail to show up to cast their vote and can't vote by proxy without a vote change. If we see 1968 happen again and the supers head for the hills it's quite possible for the first vote for Secretary Clinton to fail.

And that sort of smug self assurance of inevitability is what has caused the problems this election cycle for Secretary Clinton and one of the bigger reasons she's still spending money on the primary scheduled is because of treating a possibility as a certainty.

Who knows what will happen on Tuesday?
Who knows what will happen between June 7th and July 28th?

Anything from mass violence, indictment, to someone dropping dead of a heart attack could change that possibility into a fail state.
After all to quote Secretary Clinton herself...

We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California-then Senator Hillary Clinton 2008
I trust her wise words on the subject.

I remember that smug quip suggesting Obama could be assassinated. It's sad that she's most qualified. Very sad.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I'll agree with Flagg on this much at least- the US should not have territories with second class status.

I don't want to open the secession Pandora's box, so I support statehood. Which seems to be the most popular option in Puerto Rico as of 2012.

So the super delegate switching cancels out the one delegate Sanders wins, and Hillary gains by six?

Disappointing, but not a big deal in terms of the overall numbers.

Trivia question, for those who have been keeping closer track than I- is that the biggest landslide by percentage of the race? Or does Vermont for Bernie or one of Clinton's Southern blowouts edge it out?

[maraxus2]

Superdelegates can change their vote up and until the day of the convention, they can also fail to vote or fail to show up to cast their vote and can't vote by proxy without a vote change. If we see 1968 happen again and the supers head for the hills it's quite possible for the first vote for Secretary Clinton to fail.

And that sort of smug self assurance of inevitability is what has caused the problems this election cycle for Secretary Clinton and one of the bigger reasons she's still spending money on the primary scheduled is because of treating a possibility as a certainty.

Who knows what will happen on Tuesday?
Who knows what will happen between June 7th and July 28th?

Anything from mass violence, indictment, to someone dropping dead of a heart attack could change that possibility into a fail state.
After all to quote Secretary Clinton herself...

We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California-then Senator Hillary Clinton 2008
I trust her wise words on the subject.

Yeah man, keep that tinfoil wrapped up tight.

Meanwhile, some analysis from Kevin Drum

Link

For many years now, the Republican Party has relied on the votes of white men to win the presidency. But that's gotten harder and harder. As Lindsey Graham famously put it four years ago, "We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term."

Graham was right: there's only just so much you can do with this demographic. In 1980 Ronald Reagan pulled white evangelicals and social conservatives away from the Democratic Party. That got the ball rolling. George Bush seized on Willie Horton in 1988. That helped things along. In the 90s, Newt Gingrich teamed up with Rush Limbaugh, the champion of the angry white guy. That helped some more. A decade later Karl Rove went off on a dogged search for the final scraps of the evangelical vote. That helped—but only by a percentage point or two. The pickings were getting slim. Finally, with nothing more available to them, a few years ago the Republican Party embarked on a strategy to suppress the non-white vote via voter ID laws. That was a desperate ploy, and it eked out only a slight advantage. For all practical purposes, by 2012 they seemed to be out of ideas. What more could they do?

At the time, I figured they were at the end of their rope. There are only so many angry white guys out there, and only so many that you can get out to vote. The GOP had squeezed the onion dry, and there wasn't anything left to do.

But I was wrong. There was one more last-gasp possibility that I hadn't seriously considered: nominate a guy willing to explicitly base his campaign on racism and xenophobia. No more dog whistles. No subtlety. No "self-deportation" or "Southern heritage." No winking and nudging as talk radio and Fox News did the dirty work. This was, literally, the only option left to them.

And so we got Donald Trump. It makes sense, but most of us simply didn't think Republicans would be willing to go quite this far. We were wrong. The embarrassing part of this for me is that I wrote about this very thing four years ago in Democracy Journal:

Here are six trends that I think are likely to continue for the next dozen years and beyond....Trend #5: The Republican Party will continue to become ever more dependent on the white vote, while the Democratic Party will depend ever more on minorities.

....So what does this all mean? With the usual caveats taken—world events can change things, anything can happen, etc.—here are some guesses. One: Certain aspects of the culture wars will heat up. In particular, thanks to the increasingly polarized demographics of the two main political parties, fights over immigration and race may well be even more acrimonious than they are today.

I guess I should have listened to myself.

[maraxus2]

Trivia question, for those who have been keeping closer track than I- is that the biggest landslide by percentage of the race? Or does Vermont for Bernie or one of Clinton's Southern blowouts edge it out?

Virgin Islands just edged Bernie's Vermont Primary win with 86.5% to 86.1%, followed up by Clinton's Mississippi primary win at 82.6%.

[Crown]

Meanwhile, some analysis from Kevin Drum

Link

For many years now, the Republican Party has relied on the votes of white men to win the presidency. But that's gotten harder and harder. As Lindsey Graham famously put it four years ago, "We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term."

Graham was right: there's only just so much you can do with this demographic. In 1980 Ronald Reagan pulled white evangelicals and social conservatives away from the Democratic Party. That got the ball rolling. George Bush seized on Willie Horton in 1988. That helped things along. In the 90s, Newt Gingrich teamed up with Rush Limbaugh, the champion of the angry white guy. That helped some more. A decade later Karl Rove went off on a dogged search for the final scraps of the evangelical vote. That helped—but only by a percentage point or two. The pickings were getting slim. Finally, with nothing more available to them, a few years ago the Republican Party embarked on a strategy to suppress the non-white vote via voter ID laws. That was a desperate ploy, and it eked out only a slight advantage. For all practical purposes, by 2012 they seemed to be out of ideas. What more could they do?

At the time, I figured they were at the end of their rope. There are only so many angry white guys out there, and only so many that you can get out to vote. The GOP had squeezed the onion dry, and there wasn't anything left to do.

But I was wrong. There was one more last-gasp possibility that I hadn't seriously considered: nominate a guy willing to explicitly base his campaign on racism and xenophobia. No more dog whistles. No subtlety. No "self-deportation" or "Southern heritage." No winking and nudging as talk radio and Fox News did the dirty work. This was, literally, the only option left to them.

And so we got Donald Trump. It makes sense, but most of us simply didn't think Republicans would be willing to go quite this far. We were wrong. The embarrassing part of this for me is that I wrote about this very thing four years ago in Democracy Journal:

Here are six trends that I think are likely to continue for the next dozen years and beyond....Trend #5: The Republican Party will continue to become ever more dependent on the white vote, while the Democratic Party will depend ever more on minorities.

....So what does this all mean? With the usual caveats taken—world events can change things, anything can happen, etc.—here are some guesses. One: Certain aspects of the culture wars will heat up. In particular, thanks to the increasingly polarized demographics of the two main political parties, fights over immigration and race may well be even more acrimonious than they are today.

I guess I should have listened to myself.

Who is Kevin Drum? Because he doesn't appear to be worthwhile listening to if he believes that the GOP hierarchy is willingly nominating Donald Trump as he alludes to with the above highlighted portion. In no way is Donald Trump the GOP hierarchy's preferred candidate. He scares the every living daylights out of them.

[The Romulan Republic]

Slightly old, but Sanders on the protests in San Jose, and violence in general, effectively disowning any supporters who commit violence in his name:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post ... -san-jose/

BERKELEY, Calif. -- One day after protesters brawled with supporters of Donald Trump outside of a rally in nearby San Jose, Sen. Bernie Sanders condemned political violence and anyone who committed it while backing his campaign.

"Violence is absolutely and totally unacceptable," said Sanders, after a press conference on the jobs market with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. "If people are thinking about violence, please do not tell anybody you are a Bernie Sanders supporter, because those are not the supporters that I want."

The scattered riots, which broke out late Thursday evening and were played back all day by news outlets, had nothing to do with the Sanders campaign. The crowd filmed giving chase to Trump supporters, and pelting one with eggs, included anarchists and unaffiliated activists.

But in the hours after the riots, a debate about their morality and meaning broke out in some sectors of the left. Emmett Rensin, an essayist and a deputy editor of Vox, was suspended from his job after advising people to "start a riot" if Trump came to their town, part of a running argument about whether violent protests were an understandable response to a candidate with views resembling those of Europe's far right. The question to Sanders today, from a local reporter, was prompted by clips of some protesters chanting "Bernie" as they hectored Trump supporters.

"I understand how reprehensible and disgraceful Donald Trump's positions are; how ignorant they are," said Sanders. "I can understand the anger, I surely can, because I feel it. The bigotry that is coming out of his mouth. The insults to the Mexican community, the Latino community, the Muslim community, and women, and African-Americans and veterans. I understand the anger. But we are not going to defeat Trump by throwing eggs or getting involved in violence of any kind. We defeat Trump when we stand together as one people and fight for a progressive agenda. Educate. Organize. Bring out large numbers of people."

Clinton condemned violence as well, albeit while suggesting Trump is partly responsible:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem- ... nce-223913

Clinton: Trump created conditions for violence at his events
By KYLE CHENEY 06/05/16 10:16 AM EDT
Donald Trump deserves a share of the blame for the anti-Trump protesters caught violently attacking his supporters last week, Hillary Clinton argued Sunday.

“Trump has lowered the bar. And now is it a surprise that people opposing him are stepping over that low bar?” she wondered in an interview aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The Democratic presidential candidate emphasized that she condemns “all violence in our political arena”

“I condemned it when Donald Trump was inciting it. I condemn it by those who are taking violent protest … against Donald Trump,” she said. “It should all stop.”

Trump, in his own CNN interview, accused “thugs” of orchestrating violence outside of his California rallies, which he described as a “lovefest inside.” He speculated that the violent protesters were “paid agitators” and referenced one viral image of a female supporter getting hit in the face with an egg.

“I would be very strong if I were the police,” he said. “Sheriff Joe Arpaio would not let a thing like that happen … I think they have to be able to do their job. I think the police forces are being treated very unfairly in this country.”

(Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, is a Trump supporter.)

Bernie Sanders, who’s still vying for the Democratic nomination against Clinton, also pleaded with his supporters to refrain from any violence. Trump has fingered Sanders allies for causing chaos at his rallies.

“I condemn it absolutely,” Sanders said. “I want to make it clear that any person who is a Bernie Sanders supporter, do not in any way shape or form engage in any violence.”

When people say that the Democrats and Republicans are just as bad, this is one of my main arguments to the contrary- that on one side, the leadership openly incites and condones violence. On the other, to my knowledge, it does not.

Meanwhile, from Robert Reich's Facebook page, explaining his reasoning for still voting for Sanders even if you think he can't win:

http://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1 ... nref=story

This morning I heard from an old friend here in California who said “I’m for Bernie, but he doesn’t really have a chance anymore. So isn’t my vote for him in the California primary just prolonging the agony, and indirectly helping Trump?”
I told him no, and gave him four reasons why he needs to vote for Bernie Tuesday and get others to vote for him as well:
1. True, the electoral numbers are daunting, and Bernie faces an uphill task, but a win Tuesday will help enormously. One out of 8 Americans lives in California.
2. Regardless of the electoral math, Bernie’s candidacy has never been mainly about Bernie. It’s been about a movement to reclaim our democracy and economy from the moneyed interests. And a win for Bernie in the California primary (and in other Tuesday primaries in Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota South Dakota, and New Mexico) will send an even clearer signal to Washington, the Democratic Party, and the establishment as a whole, that a large and growing share of Americans is determined to wrest back control.
3. The goals Bernie has enunciated in his campaign are essential to our future: getting big money out of politics and reversing widening inequality; moving toward a single-payer healthcare system and free tuition at public universities (both financed by higher taxes on the richest Americans and on Wall Street); a $15 minimum wage; decriminalization of marijuana and an end to mass incarceration; a new voting rights act; immigration reform; and a carbon tax. All will require continued mobilization at all levels of government. A win Tuesday will help continue and build on that mobilization.
4. Bernie’s successes don’t help Trump. To the contrary, they are bringing into politics millions of young voters whose values are opposite to those of Trump’s. Bernie has received majorities from voters under age 45 (as well as from independents). He’s won even larger majorities among young people under 30 – including young women and Latinos. Many have been inspired and motivated by Bernie to become political activists – the last thing Trump and the Republicans want. Those young people and independents need to be heard from Tuesday.
What do you think?

Edit: fixed links.

[maraxus2]

Who is Kevin Drum? Because he doesn't appear to be worthwhile listening to if he believes that the GOP hierarchy is willingly nominating Donald Trump as he alludes to with the above highlighted portion. In no way is Donald Trump the GOP hierarchy's preferred candidate. He scares the every living daylights out of them.

Drum's a lefty blogger who writes a column for Mother Jones magazine. His point wasn't that the GOP hierarchy willingly put forth Trump's campaign, nor even that they willingly support it now. But the whole strategy that the GOP uses to win federal elections, specifically the Presidency, doesn't really work anymore. You can't just crush among angry white guys, break even among swing voters, and lose by the expected proportion among Democratic voters. There aren't enough angry white guys to win that way anymore.

This is why the GOP made a few half-assed moves to make the party more attractive to non-white non-male voters after 2012. They actually did somewhat well on that front in 2014, particularly on the abortion issue. But reality reasserted itself pretty quickly and those attempts were basically abandoned. Trump, to both mine and Drum's thinking, is a natural extension of this impulse. As he wrote:

Graham was right: there's only just so much you can do with this demographic. In 1980 Ronald Reagan pulled white evangelicals and social conservatives away from the Democratic Party. That got the ball rolling. George Bush seized on Willie Horton in 1988. That helped things along. In the 90s, Newt Gingrich teamed up with Rush Limbaugh, the champion of the angry white guy. That helped some more. A decade later Karl Rove went off on a dogged search for the final scraps of the evangelical vote. That helped—but only by a percentage point or two. The pickings were getting slim. Finally, with nothing more available to them, a few years ago the Republican Party embarked on a strategy to suppress the non-white vote via voter ID laws. That was a desperate ploy, and it eked out only a slight advantage. For all practical purposes, by 2012 they seemed to be out of ideas. What more could they do?

This goes back even further to Nixon's successful splitting of the Democratic Party and Goldwater's unsuccessful attempt to do the same. But it's very quickly running out of steam. Dubya was honestly probably the most successful campaigner in the last 30 years of GOP politics. But he won in 2000 by a single SCOTUS vote, and he won his re-election campaign in 2004 by winning Ohio. But for Rehnquist in 2000, and 60,000 Ohio votes in 2004, Dubya would not be President, despite his skillful campaigning.

We're going to see how well the Obama coalition holds together without Obama on the ballot, but it strikes me that the Dems have a far sunnier future in terms of their presidential coalition than the GOP.

[The Romulan Republic]

Its been clear for a while that the Republicunt Party has put itself in a no-win scenario of their own making- by pandering to the crazy, bigoted, extremist base (which they have now, predictably, lost control of), they have made it so that basically, anyone nuts enough to win a Republican Primary is unlikely to be electable in the general election. Mitt Romney tried to have it both ways by being the flip-flop king, I suppose, but it failed.

Add in that the Republican base is built around a shrinking demographic (older white men), and they are a party with limited appeal that is only likely to get more limited, barring a major change of direction for either the party, the country, or both. The only reasons, I suspect, that they haven't been obliterated at the polls yet are because they've gerrymandered the hell out of Congress, and their are only two major parties. Voter suppression efforts probably help them too, but that's only going to carry them so far.

Barring a massive and lasting shift toward fascism or something like that (which admittedly another recession or major terrorist attack could cause), they'll probably be obsolete soon. And good riddance.

[The Romulan Republic]

So Puerto Rico has been called for Clinton, and by a respectable margin (about sixty/forty, I think). Sigh...

Both sides are apparently trading allegations of fraud/voter suppression.

https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/de ... s-of-fraud

Bernie Sanders’s campaign is accusing Puerto Rico’s Democratic Party officials of fraud in the territory’s presidential primary.

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The campaign’s head of Hispanic voter efforts, Betsy Franceschini, told Caribbean Business in an interview that Sanders officials were initially denied access to prisons to help inmates vote.
“Our Bernie Sanders officials were never certified. We had 40 officials we submitted in time for the prisons. Not one of them was certified, while all of theirs [Hillary Clinton’s] went in. Attorney Manny Suárez had to go in order for us to be let in. This is a great fraud,” Franceschini said.

In an internal campaign document, the Sanders camp also alleged the local party’s president Roberto Prats and elections commissioner Ramon Lopez de Azua “are holding back the certifications of Bernie Sanders’ voting center officials.”

“They did not deliver the certifications of the officials for the voting and our officials had to go into the prisons to put some pressure,” the memo reads, promising protests if campaign officials aren’t certified.

Puerto Rico is holding its Democratic primary on Sunday. It has 60 delegates up for grabs.

The Hill is not the most unbiased source, so take it with a grain of salt, but not a lot of people seem to be covering it.

For the Clinton side...

http://www.inquisitor.com/3173097/did-b ... ong-lines/

Bernie Sanders may have suppressed the vote in Puerto Rico, with an official coming forward on Sunday to accuse his campaign of requesting a massive cut in polling places that ultimately led to lines of several hours for voters.

The U.S. territory cast ballots on Sunday for the Democratic primary, one that Hillary Clinton was expected to win by a wide margin. After her big win on Saturday in the small territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands — defeating Bernie Sanders by more than 70 points and taking all seven possible delegates — Clinton is at the edge of crossing the threshold to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.



But it could take several hours to find out just how much Clinton wins by, as election officials in Puerto Rico expected to wait a long time to finish counting ballots. Voters were in line or up to two hours, the result of a sharp cut in polling places, The Hill reported.

The commonwealth initially had 1,510 polling locations. But it announced last month that the number of polling locations would be cut to 455 for the Sunday primary. Robert Prats, president of the Democratic Party on the island, said the 455 locations are four times more than the number of polling locations open in the Republican primary in March.
Local officials reported that at some polling places, counting of ballots didn’t even start until after 6 p.m. — a full three hours after the polls were supposed to close.

When word of the poll reductions first spread, many Bernie Sanders supporters online accused Hillary Clinton’s camp of orchestrating the move in order to suppress voters. There have been widespread conspiracy theories that Clinton’s backers or Clinton herself have been responsible for a series of voting irregularities, from closed poll places in Arizona to voters taken off the rolls in Brooklyn.

There was no evidence to connect Clinton to any of these — and in fact there was often clear evidence of local election boards and state legislatures behind the moves — but it didn’t stop Bernie Sanders supporters from alleging that Clinton was committing massive election fraud.

Some even pointed to exit poll discrepancies as a sign that Clinton was committing state-by-state election fraud. One blogger, Richard Charnin, gained popularity by claiming that the exit polls were proof that Clinton was “stealing” the election. But experts rebuffed these claims as well, noting that exit polling in the United States is far from accurate and used as a way to gauge demographics rather than as a check against election results.

But on Sunday, for the first time there was evidence of one party directly intervening to reduce poll places — and it was allegedly Bernie Sanders who did it. Nate Cohn of the New York Times tweeted that it was actually Sanders who asked for a reduction in polling places as they did not have sufficient volunteers to fill their role of monitoring voting counts.

Odd reporting on MSNBC: Sanders requested lower number of poll places in Puerto Rico, bc they had insufficient volunteers to monitor count
There had already been hints of frustration from the Vermont Senator’s Puerto Rico campaign staff to Sanders himself. During a visit to the island in May, Bernie Sanders was met with complaints from staff and volunteers regarding the resources devoted to the race there, MSNBC reported.

Bernie Sanders has not yet responded to the reports that his campaign asked for a reduction in polling places in Puerto Rico.

[Photo by Ron Jenkins]

Flagrantly biased and dishonest article, and I wouldn't have used it if I could have found a better source. It dismisses the Sanders side's allegations as conspiracy theories yet all but accepts at face value an accusation against Sanders' campaign based on a poorly-sourced accusation by one person based on an unnamed official, for a start. The article is structured to paint Sanders supporters as in the wrong. And it of course repeats the nigh-omnipresent lie of counting super delegates as definite Clinton votes, while misreporting (if I recall correctly) the tally for delegates from the Virgin Islands (last I heard, Sanders got one).

Still, it seemed only fair to show both sides, for whatever they're worth.

Sanders has also now come out and denied it:

https://berniesanders.com/press-release ... ng-places/

SAN DIEGO – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign issued the following statement Sunday on long lines at polling places in Puerto Rico’s Democratic Party presidential primary election:

“Some Puerto Rico Democratic officials are claiming that the Sanders campaign requested fewer polling places in today’s primary contest. That’s completely false. The opposite is true. In emails with the party, Sanders’ staff asked the party to maintain the 1,500 plus presidential primary locations promised by the Puerto Rico Democratic party in testimony before the DNC in April, when the party was asking to have its caucus changed to a primary. They cannot blame their shoddy running of the primary on our campaign. This is just one example of irregularities going on in Puerto Rico voting today. We are the campaign that has been fighting to increase voter participation.”

Meanwhile, all over the media people are crowing about how Clinton has almost won the nomination, based on super delegates that do not vote and can change their position right up to the convention, and in contradiction to the Democratic Party's own rules. The decision has already been made- Clinton will be falsely declared the nominee by fiat when the results from New Jersey come in tomorrow night.

The likely intent, of course, is to suppress turnout in California.

Is this likely to change the ultimate outcome? Perhaps not. But it is a further infuriating example of the way certain people have tried to treat this primary as a coronation pretty much from the start, and of the contempt many in the media have for the process.

God, I am so tired of this sorry clusterfuck of a primary.

[maraxus2]

Flagrantly biased and dishonest article, and I wouldn't have used it if I could have found a better source. It dismisses the Sanders side's allegations as conspiracy theories yet all but accepts at face value an accusation against Sanders' campaign based on a poorly-sourced accusation by one person based on an unnamed official, for a start. The article is structured to paint Sanders supporters as in the wrong. And it of course repeats the nigh-omnipresent lie of counting super delegates as definite Clinton votes, while misreporting (if I recall correctly) the tally for delegates from the Virgin Islands (last I heard, Sanders got one).

Still, it seemed only fair to show both sides, for whatever they're worth.

There's a very simple and obvious reason why nobody's running with this story; it's bullshit. The Clinton campaign isn't accusing Bernie of anything untoward in Puerto Rico. In fact, the campaign's been more or less avoiding engaging with Bernie's campaign directly, and she doesn't have to. She's 28 pledged delegates away from winning a majority of delegates, and therefore winning the nomination.

Meanwhile, all over the media people are crowing about how Clinton has almost won the nomination, based on super delegates that do not vote and can change their position right up to the convention, and in contradiction to the Democratic Party's own rules. The decision has already been made- Clinton will be falsely declared the nominee by fiat when the results from New Jersey come in tomorrow night.

The likely intent, of course, is to suppress turnout in California.

Is this likely to change the ultimate outcome? Perhaps not. But it is a further infuriating example of the way certain people have tried to treat this primary as a coronation pretty much from the start, and of the contempt many in the media have for the process.

God, I am so tired of this sorry clusterfuck of a primary.

Jesus christ, she is about to win the nomination! She only needs 28 pledged delegates in order to do so. Poll watchers might decide to wait until all of NJ is in before declaring her the presumptive nominee, but they really don't need to. Just wait for Jersey City, Newark, and Patterson to come in, and that's very likely to be enough votes to win the nomination right there.

Despite all the whining about superdelegates on the Sanders side, they do, y'know, count towards her nomination. And they are not going to switch their support from Clinton to Bernie. This isn't the media trying to suppress the vote; this is the media accurately portraying what's going on in the primary.

Just because you don't like the superdelegates doesn't make their votes null. Nor does it make your argument any less dense. Obama won the 2008 nomination on the back of superdelegates and a majority of pledged delegates. Hillary is about to do the same on Tuesday. You don't like it? Tough shit. Believe what you want, but you're setting yourself up for unnecessary disappointment.

[The Romulan Republic]

There's a very simple and obvious reason why nobody's running with this story; it's bullshit. The Clinton campaign isn't accusing Bernie of anything untoward in Puerto Rico. In fact, the campaign's been more or less avoiding engaging with Bernie's campaign directly, and she doesn't have to. She's 28 pledged delegates away from winning a majority of delegates, and therefore winning the nomination.

I don't see Clinton or her top surrogates saying this, and if I somehow gave a different impression, I'm sorry.

Just some of the partisans in the trenches, as it were.

As to Clinton being 28 delegates away from winning the nomination, however, that is a lie, for obvious reasons that have been clearly explained, and your' repeating the lie again won't make it any less dishonest.

The way you worded your post also made it sound as though you're saying that she's 28 pledged delegates away from a majority of pledged delegates, which is even more false.

Jesus christ, she is about to win the nomination! She only needs 28 pledged delegates in order to do so.

Again, and for the last time, super delegates are not decided votes until the convention, and if Sanders somehow took the lead in pledged delegates (or Clinton was indicted), they'd potentially be under massive pressure to switch sides.

This has been explained again and again, and it is in accordance with the DNC's own fucking rules, so I give you no benefit of the doubt as to ignorance or confusion. This is a lie.

Poll watchers might decide to wait until all of NJ is in before declaring her the presumptive nominee, but they really don't need to. Just wait for Jersey City, Newark, and Patterson to come in, and that's very likely to be enough votes to win the nomination right there.

Despite all the whining about superdelegates on the Sanders side, they do, y'know, count towards her nomination.

Disingenuous attempt to play the victim and paint Sanders supporters as dishonest.

Nowhere have I (nor, to my knowledge, Sanders or any of his supporters) said that super delegates do not count.

They count at the convention, when their votes are actually counted as per Democratic Party rules.

Don't like it? Take it up with the DNC.

And they are not going to switch their support from Clinton to Bernie.

First of all, not all super delegates do support Clinton. Some support Bernie, and some are still undecided.

As to those who back Clinton, they are unlikely to switch sides in large numbers, but could do so if Sanders took the lead in pledged delegates or Clinton was indicted.

This isn't the media trying to suppress the vote; this is the media accurately portraying what's going on in the primary.

No, it is many in the media treating probability as certainty and ignoring the Democratic Party's own rules to do so. It is declaring Clinton the winner prematurely by fiat.

Just because you don't like the superdelegates doesn't make their votes null.

Funny, I never said that their votes didn't count. Its almost as if your argument is based on lies.

They count, as I have always said, at the fucking convention.

Quote where I said otherwise now, or concede that you are lying.

And while you're at it, quote the place in the Democratic Party rules where it says that super delegates are officially counted as part of a candidate's total his stage in the race.

Nor does it make your argument any less dense. Obama won the 2008 nomination on the back of superdelegates and a majority of pledged delegates. Hillary is about to do the same on Tuesday. You don't like it? Tough shit. Believe what you want, but you're setting yourself up for unnecessary disappointment.

Condescension does not substitute for having an actual strong argument.

Seriously, are you getting paid to write this shit, or do you have zero integrity pro bono?

Oh, and if Clinton ultimately takes the majority of both pledge and super delegates, fine. Hell, I've said before that Sanders ought to concede if she takes the majority of pledged delegates (barring a Clinton indictment, anyway).

But she will not have done so on Tuesday. The super delegates, as a matter of fact, completely detached from partisan preferences, will not be decided, official votes for her until the convention floor.

You have a problem with that, take it up with the DNC. Its their fucking rules.

[maraxus2]

Sigh. Can't debate someone when you can't agree on what reality looks like. And it's not that you're ignorant, although when it comes to practical politics, you clearly are. It's that you know so much that just isn't so.

Anyway, in other news, The LA Times has endorsed Clinton ahead of Tuesday's primary

Hillary Clinton is the better candidate to take on Trump
June 3, 2016 2 min read original
For Republicans in California, Tuesday’s presidential primary will be an excruciatingly empty exercise: Donald Trump has disposed of his rivals and is assured of the party’s nomination. But the Democratic primary – which is open to registered Democrats and voters with no party preference – remains closely contested.

This will be the most populous and among the last states to vote, giving extra symbolic heft to the dramatic clash here between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist from Vermont. Despite the many points of agreement between the two, they have come to epitomize the long-running and occasionally bitter battle within the party between idealistic liberals (championed by Sanders) and the party’s more pragmatic, moderate establishment (embodied by Clinton).

Both candidates have campaigned aggressively in the state despite its lateness on the campaign calendar and Clinton’s nearly insurmountable lead in delegates. A first-place finish in California would enable Clinton to strengthen her moral as well as mathematical claim to the nomination. But if Sanders were to prevail, even narrowly, he would be emboldened in his effort to convince so-called super-delegates to shift their support from Clinton to him.

That is a long-shot campaign even if Sanders finishes first in California, not because the nomination process is rigged in Clinton’s favor -- it isn’t – but because she has been more successful in appealing to voters. She has dominated the primaries, amassing 3 million more votes than Sanders (who has fared much better in caucuses) and she leads in pledged delegates. For that reason, some argue that Sanders supporters in this state should resign themselves to the inevitable and vote for Clinton on Tuesday.

We don’t agree. Voters should choose the candidate they consider best qualified. This page has endorsed Clinton not because she is more likely to win the nomination but because she is vastly better prepared than Sanders for the presidency.

We say that with full recognition that Sanders has captured the imagination of many Democrats with his articulate attacks on economic inequality and his talk of a political revolution. He can take credit for pressing Clinton to champion the interests of those who have been left behind in this economy.

But Clinton is not only more knowledgeable about domestic and international affairs than Sanders, but also more likely to achieve objectives they have in common. Her speech last week on foreign policy in San Diego -- in which she skillfully skewered Trump for his ignorance and recklessness -- was a reminder of the breadth of her understanding of international affairs. On domestic policy, her positions on issues such as healthcare and financial regulation are less utopian than what Sanders has proposed but also more realistic.

Some compare Sanders to President Obama, and there are similarities: Like Obama, Sanders opposed the war in Iraq while Clinton as a senator voted to authorize it. Sanders speaks in visionary terms and so did Obama in 2008 when he wrested the nomination from then-Sen. Clinton. But Obama’s vision was of bipartisan cooperation, not a political revolution in which, as Sanders has naively suggested, Republicans would simply capitulate to a Democratic president because a million young people would be massed outside the Capitol.

It’s true that Republicans often rebuffed Obama’s offers of cooperation, but it’s hard to imagine a President Sanders engaging any more successfully with them. Clinton, who as a senator and secretary of State was able to work cooperatively with Republicans, strikes us as being better equipped to reach across the partisan divide, something that will be necessary even if the Democrats regain control of Congress. A Clinton presidency would be more prosaic than a Sanders administration, but it also is likely to be more effective.

Clinton has her liabilities as a candidate, including a penchant for secrecy and self-protection that was reflected in her decision to maintain a private email server as secretary of State and her continued refusal to acknowledge that it ran afoul of State Department policy. In a year in which many voters crave novelty, she is a familiar face. But she has formidable assets that would be especially important in a general-election campaign against Trump: steadiness, seriousness and a commanding grasp of issues about which the blowhard businessman is dangerously ignorant.

Voters in California’s Democratic primary owe a debt of gratitude to Bernie Sanders for a campaign that has emphasized issues that otherwise might have been ignored. But they should cast their votes for Hillary Clinton.

[The Romulan Republic]

I ask for you to back up your arguments after I have explained, yet again, why they are false.

You reply with nothing but patronizing insults and a refusal to debate.

Concession accepted.

[Patroklos]

So I don't watch much network/cable TV as I on the Netflix/Hulu/Amazon kick for half the price, but I finally saw my first Bernie commercial here in CA when flipping through basic today. Followed immediately by Hillary of course. Every commercial break was a repeat it seemed.

Not news, but it was interesting to see my local media finally get taken over by the election cycle when I am engaged in it so often in sites like this. Bernie himself was here in Monterey last week to much local carnival like fan fair. Hillary did her usually secluded private donor thing in nearby Salinas. The only local news out of that was all the Congressional and state office holders trying to hitch their wagon (nobody has mentioned Bernie in their adds as far as I can tell). Trump made it no closer than San Jose it seems with the most local attention thanks to violent leftists. Monterey is very much a military town and that played very positively for him here. Few of the military residents are local voters though.

I fully expect the election to disappear after the primary vote as CA is obviously no battleground state. I have lived in VA for most presidential elections in my living memory and we get a lot of attention throughout the election cycle. It will be nice to be ignored by the campaigns again

[Vendetta]

I ask for you to back up your arguments after I have explained, yet again, why they are false.

You reply with nothing but patronizing insults and a refusal to debate.

Concession accepted.

Whilst you still cling to the mathematical possibility of Sanders coming out ahead in delegates, you're too far disconnected from reality to have a debate with.

It's not going to happen.

Even if he wins in California it will be by a small margin which will not be enough to reduce the enormous lead that Clinton has built up by the devious strategy of persuading more people to vote for her.

He cannot win the delegate count, no, the fact that it is mathematically possible does not mean anything, it's about as likely as my ass growing wings and flying me to Hawaii. He also cannot win the popular vote, because he's even further behind in that than he is in delegates.

Without one of those two things, which are not going to happen, he will not attract any more superdelegates because the will of the party is crystal fucking clear to everyone but Bernie himself (and you), and the will of the party is that Bernie will not be their candidate this year.

[The Romulan Republic]

I will reiterate what I have said again and again. I recognize it is very unlikely for Sanders to win. It is technically possible for him to win. Their is no contradiction between those positions, and both are based in fact.

You might also want to consider the fact that you are defending someone who literally has no argument and refuses to offer one.

And that's the last I'll say on it because you're not really giving me much to respond to other than personal sniping, and I'd rather not start another round of substance-less insults.

I expect we'll know who wins the pledged delegates tomorrow, one way or another, in any case.

Though it would be hilarious if it came down to DC (and very frustrating for Sanders supporters, as I fully expect Clinton to top sixty, maybe even seventy percent their).

[Vendetta]

I will reiterate what I have said again and again. I recognize it is very unlikely for Sanders to win. It is technically possible for him to win. Their is no contradiction between those positions, and both are based in fact.

Again you keep clinging to this "technical possibility" as if it actually means anything.

It doesn't.

Possibilities that are that far along the bell curve are not talked about as realistic even if they might technically be possible because everyone else realises they aren't going to happen.

The only reasons to mention it at all are to sarcastically mock people who believe it might happen or to reveal yourself as a deluded fool.

You might also want to consider the fact that you are defending someone who literally has no argument and refuses to offer one.

I should also consider the fact that I'm talking to someone who believes that aliens built the pyramids.

What? It's about as likely as Sanders winning the delegate vote and you believe that.

And that's the last I'll say on it because you're not really giving me much to respond to other than personal sniping, and I'd rather not start another round of substance-less insults.

Whilst you still think it's worth talking about the possibility of a Sanders victory in the delegate vote, there's nothing else to do. Debate requires at least some common agreement on what reality is. You are a True Believer, you can't debate true believers because they put their belief first and reality a distant second.

[Flagg]

He reminds me of me after the 2004 election with clear election fraud in Ohio. I lost sight of the forrest for the trees: Ok so election fraud, how are you going to give the race to Kerry by proving election fraud in Ohio 2 months after the fact? Looking for any angle to de legitimize the election as if doing so would change another 4 years of Bush.