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n2doc's Journal3 reasons Bernie Sanders is now the Democratic front-runner
By H.A. Goodman,
In 2008, Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to then-Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). In 2015, another senator is giving the Clinton campaign a headache; however, this election cycle has an additional cast of characters that normally isn't a part of any presidential rivalry. Because of a federal judge, the FBI and Justice Department investigations, and an energized base of progressive voters throughout the nation voting for Sanders, it's evident Clinton has lost her status as the leading presidential candidate for Democrats. Although many Democrats still won't admit the obvious, below are three reasons why Sanders has become the new Democratic front-runner in 2016.
1. Within a surprisingly short time period, increased name recognition and an energized base of Democratic voters have allowed Sanders to compete and even surpass Clinton in various polls.
Sanders formally announced his run for the presidency on May 26, 2015. Since then, Clinton's lead in nationwide polls has dwindled. This paradigm shift has been fueled primarily because of scandals, Clinton's inability to answer questions in a forthright manner, and the energy exhibited by Sanders's supporters. Furthermore, CNN cites a recent Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll that reports Sanders ahead of Clinton in New Hampshire. Even when acknowledging that Clinton still leads Sanders in various other polls, CNN writes that "polling has also shown Clinton's vulnerabilities as voters question her honesty and trustworthiness." Echoing CNN, Quinnipiac University issued a report in July titled "Clinton In Trouble In Colorado, Iowa, Virginia, Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll Finds." This Quinnipiac poll explains that Sanders now performs as well, or even better than Clinton, in various scenarios:
Clinton gets markedly negative favorability ratings in each state, 35-56 percent in Colorado, 33-56 percent in Iowa and 41-50 percent in Virginia.
'Hillary Clinton's numbers have dropped among voters in the key swing states of Colorado, Iowa and Virginia. She has lost ground in the horserace and on key questions about her honesty and leadership,' said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
True, there is a poll among Democrats where Clinton still has a wide lead, however, this poll doesn't ask voters about "honesty." Whenever a poll is narrowed down to issues like trustworthiness, then data from Quinnipiac University's Swing State Poll and CNN's findings illustrate that voters in swing states (Democrats can't win the White House without winning a majority of swing states) simply do not trust Clinton.
more
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/251860-3-reasons-bernie-sanders-is-now-the-democratic-front
Europe Doesn’t Share U.S. Concerns on Iran Deal
PARIS — Given the sound, fury and millions of dollars swirling around the debate in Washington over the Iranian nuclear deal, the silence in Europe is striking. It’s particularly noticeable in Britain, France and Germany, which were among the seven countries that signed the deal on July 14.
Here in France, which took the toughest stance during the last years of negotiation, the matter is settled, according to Camille Grand, director of the Strategic Research Foundation in Paris and an expert on nuclear nonproliferation.
“In Europe, you don’t have a constituency against the deal,” he said. “In France, I can’t think of a single politician or member of the expert community who has spoken against it, including some of us who were critical during the negotiations.”
Mr. Grand said the final agreement was better than he had expected. “I was surprised by the depth and the quality of the deal,” he said. “The hawks are satisfied, and the doves don’t have an argument.”
more
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/world/europe/europe-doesnt-share-us-concerns-on-iran-deal.html?smid=re-share&_r=1
Tuesday Toon Roundup 3: The Rest
Heroes
The Issue
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Refugees
Deal
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RIP
Dr. Shock
How an apartheid-era psychiatrist went from torturing gay soldiers in South Africa to sexually abusing patients in Alberta
BY RICHARD POPLAK
INSPECTED from above, there is nothing—just the converging serpents of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers, and a plateau surrounded by endless tracts of veld. In 1970, a military camp was built here, overseen by a psychiatrist who believed firmly in the curative power of pain. In apartheid’s darkest corners, he was known as die Kolonel, his camp was christened Greefswald, and no two terms inspired more dread in the members of the South African Defence Force, themselves experts in the creation and dissemination of terror.
Hundreds of white teenage boys were processed through Greefswald in the 1970s, and its survivors still drift through the country like ghosts. I recently met one, who insisted I refer to him only by his Hebrew name, Itiel. He was born in 1951, he told me, and in his teens succumbed to the Aquarian drug warp. Through a scrim of hallucinogens, he watched the apartheid regime congeal around him. “I was basically psychotic,” he said. “I felt as though I’d come to a strange planet.”
South Africa in the ’60s was the strangest planet. The Sharpeville massacre, in which the regime killed sixty-nine unarmed black protesters, served as the decade’s bloody opening allegro. Black opposition parties were banned, dissenters filled the prisons, and in 1964 Nelson Mandela was sentenced to a life term. Two years later, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the so-called architect of apartheid, was stabbed to death by a parliamentary messenger who claimed to take orders from a tapeworm in his stomach. As if serving the same parasite, the government introduced universal conscription in 1967. Almost every white male in his late teens was churned through the SADF’s meat grinder, and if any failed to emerge as “normal,” he was processed again until he did.
Itiel’s conscription papers ordered him to a Pretoria drill hall in January 1971. For a habitual drug user quitting cold turkey, basic training made for a cruel comedown. He committed a near-fatal error: after deciding that he no longer wanted to be in the military, he informed a solicitous officer about his substance abuse. A week or so later, without warning or explanation, he was sent to 1 Military Hospital, or 1 Mil, the SADF’s sprawling medical campus in Pretoria. Within its austere fortifications lurked the psychiatric wards, infamous throughout the army as the loony bin, the nuthouse, the abyss within the abyss. Military psychiatric hospitals were first established to mend minds damaged by war, but only a few of the wards’ inmates had experienced combat. Instead, about half the forty beds were occupied by gays, rock ’n’ rollers, and dope heads—the counterculture’s ragged foot soldiers. “They were most interested in what songs we listened to,” a former patient named Gordon Torr told me. “What they feared most were people who didn’t think the way they did.”
more
http://thewalrus.ca/doctor-shock/
Scott Walker’s stunning implosion: Can this dope’s campaign be saved?
The impression is fast setting in that Scott Walker, former King of Iowa, is a nonsense person and a ridiculous presidential candidate.
What’s been the hot topic over the past week? Ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. That’s what Donald Trump wants to do, either through constitutional amendment or aggressively court-challenging statute. This isn’t a new conservative idea, and it’s something that plenty of other candidates have happily subscribed to for a conservative leg-up in the field. It’s definitely not what RNC chairman Reince Priebus wants them talking about right now, but Reince Priebus can go suck an egg.
Where’s Scott Walker been on this? Unclear. While many outlets interpreted him earlier this week saying that he did support ending birthright citizenship in an interview with NBC’s Kasie Hunt, to us it read as more of a dodge. The “yeah” below was more of an acknowledgement that a question was directed towards him, rather than a positive reply to that question.
SCOTT WALKER: Well, like I said, Harry Reid said it’s not right for this country — I think that’s something we should, yeah, absolutely, going forward —
HUNT: We should end birthright citizenship?
WALKER: Yeah, to me it’s about enforcing the laws in this country. And I’ve been very clear, I think you enforce the laws, and I think it’s important to send a message that we’re going to enforce the laws, no matter how people come here we’re going to enforce the laws in this country.
HUNT: And you should deport the children of people who are illegal immigrants?
WALKER: I didn’t say that — I said you have to enforce the law, which to me is focusing on E-Verify.
His campaign later “clarified” Walker’s rambling mess by certifying the nonsensical dodge: “We have to enforce the laws, keep people from coming here, enforce E-Verify to stop the jobs magnet, and by addressing the root problems we will end the birthright citizenship problem.”
more
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/24/scott_walkers_stunning_implosion_can_this_dopes_campaign_be_saved/
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