Category: Democrats

Nancy Pelosi Interrupts CNN’s Christiane Amanpour To Claim Trump Was Never Acquitted In Impeachment Trial

Posted on by LifeZette

By PoliZette Staff | February 17, 2020

During an interview with CNN host Christiane Amanpour on Saturday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bizarrely claimed that President Donald Trump was never actually acquitted in his Senate trial earlier this month. Of course, this is a blatant lie, as Trump was indeed acquitted by the Senate in 52-48 and a 53-47 votes.

While taking part in the CNN interview, Pelosi desperately tried to argue that Trump had not been acquitted because the Senate never called for more documents and witnesses during the trial.

“What about, though, the fact that the president seems liberated, and this is about democratic politics so I’m not asking you to criticize here, but he was acquitted, his poll ratings are high—” Amanpour began, before Pelosi interrupted her.

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After awkwardly stammering for a few seconds, Pelosi said, “You can’t have an acquittal unless you have a trial, and you can’t have a trial unless you have witnesses and documents.

“So he can say he’s acquitted, and the headlines can say ‘acquitted,’ but he’s impeached forever, branded with that, and not vindicated,” she added, “and even the senators were saying, ‘Yes, it wasn’t right,’ but they didn’t have the courage to act upon that.”

If this is not fake news, I don’t know what is!

This is not the first time Pelosi has lied about Trump’s acquittal in this way. Before the trial ended, when it was clear an acquittal was coming, Pelosi said that the acquittal would not be valid unless Republicans senators called more witnesses, as Democrats had asked them to do.

“You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial,” Pelosi said, according to The Blaze. “And you don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation.”

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Given how Democrats behaved after Trump won the 2016 election, this new strategy of theirs when it comes to impeachment should come as a surprise to nobody. When an election or trial results in an outcome that Democrats do not like, they immediately refuse to accept it and argue that the entire process was never legitimate in the first place.

Regardless of what Pelosi says, the American people know that Trump was acquitted fair and square. The more she tries to say otherwise, the more likely it is that the majority of Americans will respond by voting to reelect Trump in November.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
US Navy seizes Iranian weapons bound for Yemen, no Obama surrender to Iran this time
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San Fran Democrats admit to various sexcapades, an affair that helped Kamala Harris

The post Nancy Pelosi Interrupts CNN’s Christiane Amanpour To Claim Trump Was Never Acquitted In Impeachment Trial appeared first on The Political Insider.

Bernie Sanders Thrives On Young Voters Not Educated On The History And Consequences Of Socialism

Posted on by Wayne Dupree

All of you young people need to remember that when you vote for people who want to give what we have away, loan forgiveness, Medicare for All, increased welfare, open borders, etc., all come at a price for someone.

Sooner or later, YOU are the ones who will have to pay for it all. Congress and the President cannot give anything away without first taking it from someone else. That someone else is YOU. Think about the things you are voting for and the costs.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is looking for young voters who haven’t been taught the history and consequences of socialism. If they think forgiving their school loan debt will improve their financial situation, wait until retirement.

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Be very scared of people who cannot tell you how they are going to pay for something and if they say tax the rich listen to those of us who know. The rich will leave. There are plenty of Caribbean islands willing to take every one of our rich people and not tax them at all. You only need to look to states like NY and CA to understand the problems with many of these programs.

Many billionaires in NY have moved their residency to places like FL. Also, providing illegals with driver’s license has screwed hundreds of thousands of NY residents because now the Federal Gov’t, and rightfully so, have said they will no longer accept the NY state driver’s license and other things like global entry. This stuff has real impacts – like 30,000 truckers no longer being able to speed through the US border in Canada.

Free SUNY tuition has made those schools impossible to get into for anyone who wanted an affordable education but had slightly more than the amount you need for free education. Every day, working-class people are being screwed over. Look at the homeless problem in CA. Bernie doesn’t have any solutions for any of this stuff that will work.

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We now live in a ‘Post-Democrat Party Era.’ Perhaps their voters may not realize this yet, but the outside world has seen their demise openly on display this week.

  • Iowa Caucus chaos;
  • Pres. Trump acquittal;
  • Rep. Nancy Pelosi temper tantrum;
  • Michael Bloomberg buying the DNC to change his Nevada rules;
  • Expulsion of CIA insiders from the National Security Council;
  • Democrat House members who refused to stand for Tuskegee airman;
  • Mean-spirited Democrats who refused to clap for a grammar school girl;
  • 20 to 30% of Trump rallies are made up of registered Democrats;
  • Trump raises $100 million war chest during impeachment,
  • Gallup now polls Trump higher than Obama, etc.

This is a complete collapse of the Democrat Party. The DNC’s (and their corporate handlers) only option now is to take over the nomination regardless if it heaps great contempt upon the Democrat voters.

The DNC has already said they do not want Bernie Sanders, but they allowed him to run on their party platform. Bernie is pulling the wool over some, but I hope the masses will realize there is no such thing as a free lunch. His plan will raise taxes to an ungodly amount. Is that free?

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Here’s something that I have been wondering. If America is so broken, how come, Bernie, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and the others didn’t fix it while they were already in office? How come they can’t fix America unless they are elected President?

Name one thing Bernie has done during his time in office, because I can name at least 10 Trump promised to deliver on and did in just three years.

Take a long serious look at these Democratic politicians, whom many have been in politics for a long time, and ask yourselves these questions. What contributions have they made that improved the lives of Americans, what have they done with their time in serving the American people, and is one of them capable of doing half of what Pres. Trump has already done in improving our lives and serving the American people.

It’s only fair that the people with the least life experience, inherit the mess they voted for. The sad thing is, Sanders won’t be around to answer for the mess he’s left them with.

What Others Are Reading At WayneDupree.com

 

The post Bernie Sanders Thrives On Young Voters Not Educated On The History And Consequences Of Socialism appeared first on The Political Insider.

Democratic Convention Headed Towards Mayhem

Posted on by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | February 11, 2020

Have you seen the television series “Veep”? I haven’t.

But my college sophomore eldest daughter has seen it. She, who I programmed…er…um…cough…helped to raise well, tells me one of the last episodes is a hilarious rendition of a brokered convention.

If it actually happens in July in Milwaukee, it won’t be so funny for the Democrats.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a brokered convention, it means no candidate gets to the convention with enough delegates to win on the first ballot. Then, the back stabbing begins.

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Since it’s up close and personal retail politics, it gets vicious and easily melodramatic.

In other words, everybody from candidates, to the press, to staffers, start acting like telenovela villains. The resultant grudges are not exactly conducive to a united party going into the fall.

At a brokered melee it’s not “listen to my ideas.” The time for that is well past. It’s pushing a state party chairman into a corner and saying, “This can go one of two ways. Either you get a bridge named after you or I make sure your spouse learns about the male stripper on your staff. You know, the one you share hotel rooms with to ‘economize.’ Your call.”

Anybody from the front runners to the also rans, to the unknown compromise candidates, can walk away with the nomination. The 1924 Democratic convention in NYC went for 103 ballots over 16 days. The compromise candidate won.

The 1940 GOP convention in Philadelphia went 6 ballots and the dark horse guy won after the galleries went bonkers for him. The 1976 GOP convention in Kansas City almost went to a second ballot, but Ford edged out Reagan in the first. Not even close to a brokered convention since then.

Why is this year different?

The Democrats are so abnormally diffused by ideology and faction, even for them, that one candidate may not be able to unite everyone under their tent by July. The party establishment is behind Pete, Joe, and maybe Amy. The hard left wants Bernie or Liz. Then there’s Mike. And if Hillary gets in?

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Their attitude towards each other is best typified by paraphrasing Tom Wolfe in “Back to Blood.” When a character is explaining the collective attitudes of South Florida Latins towards each other he says, “One thing you gotta remember. Here, everybody hates everybody.”

That also may be the reigning ethos in Milwaukee in July. At least, we hope it is.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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The post Democratic Convention Headed Towards Mayhem appeared first on The Political Insider.

After This Criminal Abuse By Lawmakers, We Have To Send A Deafening Defeat To Dems In November

Posted on by Wayne Dupree

No matter the fake narrative you are probably hearing from the media, the criminal abuse of American intelligence started before President Trump was elected.

Under the Obama administration, our government resources were used to spy on and to slander Trump’s campaign to prevent his election. Failing that, the Russian collusion, Mueller investigation, and bogus impeachment were deployed to distract from the many crimes committed under Obama and Hillary, to give time to destroy such evidence, and to undermine and remove Trump.

All the above criminal abuse of our government was executed under the direction of the Obama administration and the Clintons with major cooperation and support from the MSM. And that doesn’t count the many crimes committed before Trump’s 2016 campaign by all of the above, and also by individual politicians guilty of less audacious graft and treasonous corruption.

All of these parties would like to see a disrupter like Trump removed.

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In other words, there is a far more criminal activity that needs to be investigated and purged than a phony Russian investigation and bogus impeachment plot.

The media and Democrats are taking up the cause of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman because Trump just gave him the pink slip. But an example needed to be set for what happens when one conspires against a sitting president while in the military. Some might call it treason.

Our Commander-in-Chief should have that little twerp “re-assigned” to Ice Station Zebra to inventory snowflakes at 30 below zero for a couple of years. And that would be the start of his punishment. Leftists have destroyed the lives of people loyal to Trump to discourage others from considering working for successful conservatives in the future. It’s time to return the favor.

My advice to the President is to correct the one major mistake of his administration, and that is to accept the resignations of all Obama holdovers in the executive branch as of noon tomorrow or fire them if the paperwork isn’t in on time. Do it now, before those loyal to the last President do him and the country more damage.

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Probably most of those jobs could be left empty, and the country would still function. After all, most would be classified as unnecessary during a budget impasse and partial government shutdown.

Backfill here and there if necessary with people who’ll implement the President’s policies, not their own.

Democrats have been doing anything they want to do, knowing that they will be protected by the Deep State and the Democrat’s propaganda media. And knowing, based on previous experience, that Republicans will not retaliate.

Unless they see that there are repercussions for their hatred, corruption, and lies, they will continue to do what they have been doing. Voters have to make up in their minds whether they want to accept the failed policies of the Democrats or try to run this country with the conservative mindset of putting away for later and addressing things now on the local and stateside while removing the federal government out of our everyday lives.

What People Are Reading On WayneDupree.com:

 

The post After This Criminal Abuse By Lawmakers, We Have To Send A Deafening Defeat To Dems In November appeared first on The Political Insider.

Love at first sight, using music to activate young voters, and more—this week’s Community Picks

Posted on by Jessica Sutherland

Oh, dearest Community. It has been A. Week. I feel like it’s A Week every week, but this week was a horrible week. Iowa. That SOTU circus. The cowardice of every Senate Republican but one. The coronavirus. What. A. Week. 

Yet still we must fight. We must fight for those who come after us, and we must fight for ourselves. I’ll get to this week’s great writing in a moment, but first I want to talk about persistence.

I still remember the first time I became aware of politics. It was the 1988 election, I was 8 years old, and I remember seeing Jesse Jackson on the debate stage, and SNL’s brutal “Dukakis After Dark” parodies. I remember the Gary Hart scandal, though I was far too young to understand it. We had family over for a Democratic debate watch party, and I remember my mother telling me that I could make history in 2016 if I wanted to ... by becoming the first black, Catholic woman president. The men in the room laughed. 2016 seemed so far away at the time, but we did get our first black president after all.

I digress. 2000 was the first presidential cycle where I was eligible to vote; I was devastated by the “hanging chad” debacle and genuinely worried for our country under Dubya’s leadership, even before 9/11. By 2004, I was almost old enough to rent a car and definitely ready to help defeat Bush II; I joined Sean “Puffy” Combs’ “Vote or Die” movement, and learned how to leverage both my blackness and my youth to engage first-time voters who looked like me. 

On Election Day 2004, I took off work and drove elderly people to their polling places all morning. In the afternoon, it became my job to protect voters in line at an understaffed polling center on the east side of Cleveland. I paced the long line for hours, giving people free umbrellas to help them stay dry, and as it got colder, I handed out paper cups of hot cocoa and coffee, all in an effort to encourage people to stay in line, and make it worth the wait to exercise their right to vote. Eventually, I dropped my car at home and cabbed downtown to watch returns at the Democratic Party’s official watch party. I switched hats yet again, and interviewed politicians like Dennis Kucinich and Sherrod Brown for our local NBC affiliate. I binged on hors d’oeuvres and free booze.  Then … John Kerry was not elected president. The ballroom filled with despair, then cleared out long before all the returns came in. I lingered waiting for a surprise that didn’t come until 2008.  By then, I lived in California, and I was in grad school, so burdened by academic obligations that I barely had time to vote, much less donate my time to the Obama campaign. My polling place was at the bottom of the Hollywood hill where I lived, and it took two hours to cast my ballot. But oh, what a delightful two hours it was. People were so excited to vote for Barack Obama. People passed out water and sweets, much like I passed out cocoa and umbrellas four years earlier. We sang songs and played goofy games with our neighbors. Suddenly, in a city where nobody makes eye contact, we were a community! 2016 was brutal. My polling place in Berkeley, where I lived at the time, was a ghost town. At the watch party at my office, the joyous “first woman president” vibes quickly turned dark as we realized the impossible had happened: Donald Trump won the Electoral College. It was then that “closeted” Trump supporters back in Ohio posted jubilant “coming out” treatises to their social media, suddenly spewing Trumpian rhetoric that they’d secretly embraced. “I voted for Trump! Deal with it,” they crowed. 

I still haven’t forgiven them.  But 2018 brought the Blue Wave. 2020 must be a Blue Tsunami. A Blue Deluge. A Blue Eagre, which is a word I just learned today. We must foster community in the party, and persist in getting out every vote we can. We must unite behind the nominee—blue no matter who—and come together as the inclusive party that we are. As Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said time and time again during Friday’s debate, “We’re the Democrats.” We are the Democrats, dearest ones. Let’s do what we do.  Thanks for reading all of that. Let’s get to this week’s stellar stories for you, that show who we are and what we can do. Why is Taylor Swift the lead image? Because she’s using her platform to get out the youth vote, much like Puffy did when I myself was a young voter. You’ll see. Without further delay, here are this week’s Community Picks!  

Diary of a recovering Republican By WastedPotential

“The way our country looks now, I can’t imagine ever casting another R vote.”  There are people without a party out there. Let’s bring ‘em over to Team Blue.

Clemson University honors our white supremacy heritage

By Thoth777

This look at the well-documented racist vitriol of Ben "Pitchfork" Tillman will make you wonder how one of the nation’s top universities can continue to honor him. 

The Trump recession is already happening

By voidstuff

Trump is touting the supposedly great economy every chance he gets … but like almost everything else that comes out of his mouth, it’s a lie.

Silencing corporate bullies

By Tom Conway

Union-busting is alive and well in Ohio.

GOP admits climate plan is messaging to appease voters, not policy to reduce fossil fuel use

By ClimateDenierRoundup

True to form, Republicans have crafted “a plan that doesn’t actually address climate change by reducing fossil fuel use, but merely sounds like it would while in fact promoting fossil fuels.”

The urgency of remembering the Holocaust

By eclift

Ignorance of the Holocaust is rising right alongside acts of anti-Semitism. Both must be confronted.

Fifty years ago today as I stepped onto the balcony barefoot, something incredible happened

By FishOutofWater

This adorable story of love at first sight will warm your heart, even if you’re braving a winter storm. 

Let's remember the heroes of the Greensboro sit-ins on its 60th Anniversary

By AKALib 

They just wanted a cup of coffee, but they ended up making history.

Taylor Swift is working hard to get out the youth vote

By progressive2016

The Christian-country-pop superstar stopped singing about high school a long time ago … but now she’s using her talents to activate her huge and devoted fanbase of young people.

Broken jaw, Johnny Bright, football helmets, and this impeachment is just like the good ole days

By CA148 NEWS

This amazing and appalling story of Jim Crow bigotry in college football will blow your mind.

That’s it for this week, friends! How’d we do? As always feel free to share great writing we may have missed, and sound off on pretty much anything, really, in the comments. I say it every week, but it feels truer than ever this week: Thank you for being a part of the Daily Kos Community. We’re so glad you’re here. 

Donald Trump feels invincible. He isn’t

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

The day after the GOP-led Senate acquitted him, Donald Trump held a White House rally packed with all his besties and sycophants to assure Americans he was even crazier than they had remembered. Still seething from the visible shredding of his speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the body blow of being the only president in history to draw a bipartisan conviction vote, Trump vomited venom for more than an hour, spewing words and phrases like, liars and leakers, scum, bullshit, sleazebag, phony, rotten, evil and sick.

By Friday, a newly emboldened Trump initiated his post-acquittal massacre, firing not only Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who provided impeachment testimony regarding his work on the White House National Security Council, but also Vindman's twin brother who similarly worked on the council and then Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who perhaps provided the most damning testimony that all of Trump's top advisors were "in the loop" on the Trump-Giuliani Ukraine scheme.

It's a scary moment for the country, especially as we watched Democrats devolve into mayhem following Monday's caucus. And far from learning some sort of "lesson" from the whole impeachment episode that would rein him in, Trump learned that Senate Republicans were too cowardly to ever provide a check on him. He was now unbridled and free to act on his every impulse without any fear of consequence. 

Worse yet, the media got hung up on one Gallup poll showing Trump at 49% job approval and I'll be damned if that number wasn't bandied about as the absolute truth all week. Between acquittal, that singular poll, and higher job creation than anticipated in January (225,000 jobs v. 158,000 expected), many political analysts declared this one of the best weeks of Trump's presidency.

Not to worry. Trump is already stepping on his coattails with his unhinged rally and campaign of retribution. Instead of basking in the glow of turning the page, letting bygones be bygones, and making a renewed call for unity, Trump is responding like the grievance-ridden, petulant child he always proves to be. Once more, the polling pundits latched onto that's surely pushing Trump to feel especially emboldened is most likely an inflated outlier. His unusually high approval (still low by most standards) is likely being driven by a phenomenon that happens when one party or certain voters suddenly feel enthused, making them more open to talking to pollsters and telling them how they feel.  As researchers at Columbia University write, "Some of that shift can be explained by differential nonresponse: more Republicans and fewer Democrats answering the poll. This explanation for the change is not mentioned in the Gallup report, but we can read between the lines and see it." In fact, you can actually see that differential based on the variation in trend lines between phone polling right now (in gold below) and online polling (in blue), which tends to be a more stable representation of shifting attitudes over time.

Flagging this again: We're seeing very large differences in Trump's approval ratings by poll mode right now � perhaps the biggest of his presidency so far. We have some suggestive evidence that partisan non-response bias is artificially inflating his numbers in some phone polls. pic.twitter.com/H89RFXn47s

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) February 5, 2020

It also possible that as we head into an election year, some Republicans are simply starting to come home in the run up to November. Whatever the case, the Trump bump doesn't seem tied to any real appreciation in his standing with most voters. His cultists just appear to be ecstatic at the moment. They really do love those vendetta rallies. ;)

But as Democrats eye November, it's important to be clear-eyed about the over-hyped economy and the very real way in which it's failing the vast majority of Americans. First, it's true that Obama's last three years of job growth all beat Trump's best year so far. And while perception matters, actual pocket books matter a lot more. As Annie Linskey reported this week in a must-read piece for The Atlantic, "Beyond the headline economic numbers, a multifarious and strangely invisible economic crisis metastasized: Let’s call it the Great Affordability Crisis." 

Linskey notes that what Americans are earning only tells half the story. What they had to spend of those earnings is both the other half of the story and arguably the most important part. 

In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry by landlords, hospital administrators, university bursars, and child-care centers. For millions, a roaring economy felt precarious or downright terrible. ... Fully one in three households is classified as “financially fragile.”

This is the crux of the matter. No matter what the statistics on the stock market, job creation, or even wage growth suggest, many Americans are still struggling mightily. The average American isn't necessarily experiencing a moment of glorious expansion, instead they're slogging through a wilderness of anxiety producing unknowns.

That truth, as unfortunate as it is, leaves plenty of room for Democrats to reach voters where they actually are and make a more reality-based case for boosting the fortunes of both working- and middle-class Americans to a brighter and more inclusive future.

Democrats seek to make a move in New Hampshire debate: Live coverage #1

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Between Iowa’s confusion and unclear result and the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 11, we have a Democratic debate. Your cast of characters for the evening, in alphabetical order: former Vice President Joe Biden, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Bernie Sanders, rich guy Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and online fave Andrew Yang.

Per CNN: “The debate will air live nationally on ABC and locally on WMUR-TV. ABC News will livestream the debate on ABC News Live, featured on Apple News, Roku, Hulu, AppleTV, Amazon Fire TV, Xumo, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, the ABC News site and mobile phone apps. WMUR-TV will livestream the debate on www.WMUR.com and WMUR's mobile app.”

Daily Kos will have live coverage.

Coverage continues here.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:05:42 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

And the candidates come onto stage. Elizabeth Warren certainly gets an enthusiastic greeting, as do Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Andrew Yang. That’s not to say that Joe Biden wasn’t welcome, just that his supporters in the room may have been less shouty.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:08:08 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Biden gets the first question—why did Pete and Bernie win in Iowa, and are voters taking a risk going for them. Biden’s response seems a bit hurried and bland, already talking about the “first four” debates. Stephanopoulos forces Biden to take a swing at Bernie and Pete. Which gets a mention of Democratic socialism, and inexperience, but it’s pretty bland.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:10:00 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Sanders gets a chance to defend himself, says that Trump shouldn’t be trusted when he says he wants to run against the “democratic socialism” label because “Donald Trump lies all the time.” Sanders is lays claim to Iowa popular, defends a shot from Stephanopoulos about the failure to pump up turnout numbers in Iowa.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:11:06 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Klobuchar rises to Stephanopoulos’ invite to attack the “democratic socialist” label. Klobuchar is clearly a candidate on the bubble here, so it makes sense for her to look for any opportunity to squeeze in.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:12:34 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Steyer gets to talk … and says that we need to get out a diverse base, then claims he’s pulling better numbers with blacks and Latinos than I’ve seen in polling. But at least he can point at the Democratic base.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:13:44 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Yang is the next to get a chance to talk, I’m not sure there was actually a question here. At this point Stephanopoulos seems to be just letting him talk about AI, capitalism, etc. without making him come back to any of the points as he did Biden and Sanders.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:14:56 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

For Warren, Stephanopoulos tries to reframe the questions as “her vs. Bernie,” but Warren pushes past that quickly and says that the issue that Democrats can agree on is fighting against corruption, and that this is something that can bringing in independents and Republicans.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:18:10 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

For Buttigieg, Stephanopoulos makes the question about the word “socialism,” rather than pressing him to attack Sanders … but Stephanopoulos didn’t need to, because Buttigieg goes there on his own by immediately claiming that Sanders “goes all the way to the edge” and says that people shouldn’t even be Democrats if they don’t agree 100%.

Stephanopoulos is clearly happy to see some sparks, and invites Sanders to join in. Sanders does a good job in replying about “bringing people together” with better wages, fair taxes, better healthcare. 

On this exchange, Sanders did much better than Buttigieg.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:20:43 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Stephanopoulos gives Buttigieg another shot to say he will “galvanize and energize but not polarize.” And defends his health care plan.

Then Biden gets a chance to jump on Sanders. Biden gets extremely angry / shouty immediately as he bellows about the cost of Medicare for All. Not a good look, but he definitely paints himself as the guy “who got Obamacare passed.”

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:22:31 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Sanders gets the chance to defend Medicare for All, point out the true cost of healthcare as it exists. Stephanopoulos gives Biden a chance to swing again — funny, it already seems like we’ve spent a lot of time allowing Biden, Buttigieg, and Sanders to talk.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:25:01 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Klouchar presenting herself as the person who understands “what leadership is about” … which is not providing universal healthcare of making any changes that would seriously change anything.

Warren finally gets a chance to talk again, gets in a slight dig at Klobuchar by saying she can define her plan for herself. And because it’s Elizabeth Warren, she does that.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:28:42 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Buttigieg pushing himself as the “outsider” who is there to fight against the “politics of the past.”

Biden “I don’t know what about the past of Barack Obama and Joe Biden was so bad” rattles off a list of legislative accomplishments. 

Buttigieg gets another chance to reply to Biden, talking about “meeting the moment” without giving specifics.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:30:19 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Klobuchar gets a chance to talk about the impeachment hearing, giving praise to Doug Jones and Mitt Romney and for showing political courage. She drubs Buttigieg for running against Washington, points out that Trump is also the “newcomer” and in general does a helluva job on that response. Points to Klobuchar.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:35:00 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Sanders gets the chance to talk again and returns to talking about healthcare, and specifically drug companies. It’s energetic … but it’s kind of a speech. I’m still giving points to Klobuchar for recognizing that this debate isn’t debate #1, or #2, or  #3. 

Steyer “all the healthcare plans are better, a million times better.” Has praise for all the candidates—though takes a knock at Buttigieg’s experience.

Buttigieg’s turn to talk and … wow, did you know he lives in the Midwest? A half point to Buttigieg for mentioning Trump’s National Prayer Breakfast, then take away that point for doing all but jumping into bothsiderism.  

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:35:55 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Yang … makes Yang supporters happy. 

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:42:19 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Warren confronted by charges that she’s being divisive in saying she wants to investigate Trump. Brings it to her “government that works great if you’re [rich / lobbyists / etc]” point and manages to swing her entire pitch into the response. 

Unhappy with the response, Hernandez gives Yang a chance to refute Warren. Which he kind of sorta does.

Sanders gets his chance to respond and does an pretty darn good of talking about the reason Trump needed to be impeached, and the sadness of the Republican rolling over for Trump.

Steyer says “is he a crook? I knew that two years ago. Is he going to be more of a crook? Of course he is.” Steyer has really had some pretty good lines tonight, but keeps coming back to an electability issue that doesn’t really favor him.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:43:26 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Buttigieg is pitched the idea that Biden shouldn’t be nominated because Republicans are threatening to investigate Hunter Biden. Buttigieg gives an emphatic response. His best of the night by far.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:44:30 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Biden brings up Lt. Col. Vindman and encourages the whole room to stand and applaud Vindman. It’s a little bit of a stunt, but also not a bad move.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:45:34 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

I’m going to credit Buttigieg with that response on Hunter Biden. With it, some of the tension seems to have broken and there’s more camaraderie in the room as Klobuchar handles the next issue.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:49:04 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Klobuchar talks up her ability to “work with people” and the newspaper endorsements she has received.

Sanders notes that he doesn’t get many newspaper endorsements. He moves past a Hillary moment quickly, saying that he hopes that everyone will look to 2020 rather than 2016. Speaks a moment to his own claims of being able to work across the aisle.

Saturday, Feb 8, 2020 · 1:51:54 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Muir’s first question to Buttigieg speaks to the war in Iraq, Trump’s killing of Soleimani, and the situation in the Middle East. Buttigieg gets in several good lines here, and handles the issue well.

Muir comes right back to Buttigieg and give him more time to expand on this, and again Buttigieg is doing a good job on the issues of intelligence and military.