“Out-of-touch aristocrats in a dying aristocracy”

One of the interesting features about Bernie Sanders’s rise in the Democratic race is that in addition to the panic that it is causing in the party and media establishments and the oligarchy, one also senses a deep sense of puzzlement. In a political and media environment that has been dominated by political and media consultants who carefully polish and market test the image and words of candidates, how can a cranky, disheveled, old person who calls himself a socialist be generating such enthusiastic support across such a diverse population, especially the young?
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Fascinating documentary on the north and south poles

In a break from the ‘all Bernie, all the time’ mode that this blog has been in recently, I want to alert readers to the PBS documentary series Nova that has produced a fascinating two-hour documentary titled Polar Extremes about how the polar regions have experienced dramatic shifts during the history of the Earth. There have been periods when the poles had warm climates and consisted of swamps and forests and at other times when the entire Earth was covered with a sheet of ice.
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Bernie Sanders and the nuances of socialism

On Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman moderates a 28-minute discussion between two economists, New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman and professor emeritus Richard Wolff, about the nuances of socialism. Unlike most ‘debates’ on TV that are really shouting matches, since this is on Democracy Now!, you get a sober and thoughtful discussion about what Bernie Sanders’s democratic socialism means.


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Chris Christie was right? Who would have guessed?

I never thought I would say this but Chris Christie gave a pretty good evaluation of last night’s debate and of Bernie Sanders performance in it and why Elizabeth Warren is struggling.

File this under “I thought it was a good idea at the time”

In his never-ending quest to show that he is always in the middle of any two positions, in the debate yesterday Pete Buttigieg came out with a line that clearly had been carefully rehearsed, like pretty much everything that he says. That it had been planned and that he was proud of it can be seen by the fact that his campaign tweeted it out during the debate right after he said it.


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Reflections on yesterday’s Democratic debate

The debate yesterday involve a lot of cross talk, people speaking over each other and not allowing the person who was asked a question to speak uninterrupted. The moderators did not seem to make a strong enough effort to stop people talking simultaneously so that it was hard to make out what was said. The worst culprit when it came to interruption was Pete Buttigieg, who perhaps should be called Pete Buttinsky in future. It was clear that he sees himself as the establishment hatchet man to go after Bernie Sanders. Even when the moderators directly asked Sanders a question, Buttigieg would start talking immediately over Sanders to try and drown him out. To my mind, he came off as somewhat desperate, knowing that this was his last chance to make an impact. Buttigieg avoided getting into it with Amy Klobuchar this time, since the sharp exchanges last time did not seem to have reflected well on both of them.
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Wow, that was some interview!

Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept interviewed Bernie Sanders’s top national surrogate Sen. Nina Turner and campaign press secretary Briahna Joy Gray about what they experience during the campaign and the racist, misogynistic attacks they face on a regular basis from the media and from members and supporters of rival campaigns, even being called ‘misfit black girls’. You can listen to the 45-minute interview here. I found it utterly gripping. A transcript will soon be added to the link.

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Spinning down Sanders success

It is interesting to watch the media’s attempts to spin Sanders’ third consecutive win in the first three contests (something that has never happened before for either the Democratic or Republican primaries), and especially his runaway win in Nevada, as somehow not being significant.

(Tom Tomorrow)

The satirical publication The Onion has been mocking the mainstream media’s attempts at downplaying the success of the Sanders campaign, with ‘headlines’ such as:

“MSNBC Poll Finds Support For Bernie Sanders Has Plummeted 2 Points Up”

and

“Bernie Sanders Holds Secret Campaign Meeting With 15,000 Working-Class Democratic Donors”

But this is my favorite.

“DNC Mulls Asking Donald Trump To Run As Democrat In Effort To Stop Sanders”

The reason why Nevada union workers defied their leadership

Despite all the buzz over the Culinary Workers Union being critical of the implications of Bernie Sanders’s Medicare For All proposal on their hard-won own health care plans (which Pete Buttigieg absurdly but typically described as Sanders waging on the union) it looks like he won a plurality of the union vote and some of them gave their reasons for bucking the leadership.
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