SEPTEMBER 11 AND 12, 2019
NEWS AND VIEWS
WHEN I WAS YOUNG IT WAS HELD, BY SOME ANYWAY,
TO BE A SIGN OF POOR CONVERSATIONAL SKILLS TO TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER. NOW IN
THE USA, OR IN THE WHITE HOUSE AT ANY RATE, IT HAS BECOME CONTROVERSIAL AS WELL.
I MEAN, WE CAN MENTION THE WEATHER, BUT WE DARE NOT DRAW ANY CONCLUSIONS FROM
IT. SEE THIS LATEST ALAMO STAND BY THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ON THE WEATHER,
FIRST FROM RACHEL MADDOW AND THEN FROM THE WASHINGTON POST.
ON THE SUBJECT OF TALKING ABOUT WEATHER IN
SCOTLAND, GO TO THIS ARTICLE ON THE MANY WEATHER TERMS IN SCOTLAND: http://www.rampantscotland.com/parliamo/blparliamo_weather.htm
Roiled by Trump politics, NOAA seeks
accountability, atonement
Rachel Maddow reports on the backlash within
the weather science community over an unsigned statement from NOAA
supporting Donald Trump's false claims about the path of Hurricane Dorian,
praise for the team that stood up to Trump's misinformation, and the
investigation into the genesis of the unsigned statement. Sept. 9, 2019
Tweets, a Sharpie and the NOAA: The domino
effect of Trump's false Dorian claim
Trump pushed
staff to deal with NOAA tweet that contradicted his inaccurate Alabama
hurricane claim, officials say
Lawmakers, Commerce Department launch
investigations into NOAA’s decision to back the president over forecasters.
Juliet
Eilperin and
September 11 at 7:13 PM
President Trump
told his staff that the nation’s leading weather forecasting agency needed to correct a statement that
contradicted a tweet the president had sent wrongly claiming that Hurricane
Dorian threatened Alabama, senior
administration officials said.
That led White House acting chief of staff Mick
Mulvaney to call Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to tell him to fix the
issue, according to the officials, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
talk publicly about the issue. Trump had
complained for several days that forecasters from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration contradicted his Sept. 1 Alabama tweet, the
officials said.
Mulvaney then called Ross, who was traveling
in Greece, and told
him that the agency needed to fix things immediately, the officials said. Mulvaney did not instruct Ross to threaten
any firings or offer punitive actions. But Ross then called NOAA acting
administrator Neil Jacobs, the officials said. That led to an unusual, unsigned
statement from NOAA released on Sept. 6 that backed Trump’s false claim about
Alabama and admonished the National Weather Service’s Birmingham, Ala.,
division for speaking “in absolute terms” that there would not be “any” impacts
from Dorian in the state. The Weather Service is an arm of NOAA, which is
an agency within the Commerce Department. The New York Times first reported some elements of the White House
involvement.
Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he did not
direct NOAA to issue such a statement. “No, I never did that,” he said. “I
never did that. It’s a hoax by the
media. That’s just fake news.”
But the apparent
political pressure on a group of scientists who are supposed to be independent led House Democrats on Tuesday to launch an
investigation into the Commerce Department’s involvement in NOAA’s unusual decision to side with Trump
over its scientists.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.),
chairwoman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and Rep.
Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), chairwoman of the oversight and investigations
subcommittee, sent a
letter to Ross requesting information related to the department’s dealings with
NOAA and Dorian.
The Science Committee, which has jurisdiction
over NOAA, is
requesting a briefing with Commerce Department staff who may have been involved in issuing instructions to NOAA that led to
several directives being sent to Weather Service staff and culminated in the Sept. 6 unsigned
statement.
The imbroglio began Sept. 1, when Trump
tweeted that a number of states, including Alabama, were at risk from Dorian.
Trump falsely asserted that the state would “most likely be hit (much) harder
than anticipated” by the powerful hurricane. A short time later, the Weather
Service’s Birmingham office tweeted: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts
from #Dorian. We repeat, no
impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will
be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.”
Jacobs has since said that the forecasters
were not aware of the Trump tweet and were responding to a flood of calls from concerned residents.
“We are deeply disturbed by the
politicization of NOAA’s weather forecast activities for the purpose of
supporting incorrect statements by the president,” Johnson and Sherrill wrote
to Ross. The House members want to know who ordered
and helped draft the Sept. 6 statement and whether Commerce Department or White
House staff members were involved in threatening NOAA leadership.
“We are committed to supporting the
activities of the NWS and its dedicated staff. During your Senate confirmation
hearing, you committed to allowing federal scientists to ‘be free to
communicate data clearly and concisely’ and that you would ‘not interfere with
the release of factual scientific data,’ ” Johnson and Sherrill wrote.
They noted that
based on news reports, it appears that
Ross violated the “values of scientific integrity.”
The Science Committee is requesting all records of communication among Commerce Department officials, NOAA
and the White House between Sept. 1 and Sept. 9 pertaining to the
president’s tweet and NOAA’s Sept. 6 statement.
The committee
also wants to hear from three Commerce officials in particular by Sept. 30: NOAA deputy chief of staff
Julie Kay Roberts, Commerce chief of staff Michael Walsh Jr. and Commerce
policy director Earl Comstock.
At the time Trump
sent the Sept. 1 tweet, the only hurricane forecast product that was showing
potential impact in Alabama noted the probability of seeing
tropical-storm-force winds, and even that showed about a 5 percent chance of
such conditions in a small portion of the state. The official track forecast at
the time of his tweet showed the storm moving up the southeastern coast, away
from Alabama.
But between Sept. 1
and the statement of Sept. 6, Trump issued several more tweets trying to
justify his original statement.
Rep. Paul Tonko
(D-N.Y.), who serves on the Science Committee and chairs a subcommittee on the
House Energy and Commerce Committee, called for Ross to resign and for an
investigation into whether Ross and other political appointees violated NOAA’s
scientific integrity policy.
Commerce Department
probes
In addition to the
Science Committee’s investigation, others are initiating probes into NOAA’s
decision to back Trump’s claim. These include the Commerce Department’s
inspector general and NOAA’s acting chief scientist.
A spokesman for the
Weather Service confirmed Tuesday that the Commerce Department inspector
general had launched a probe. The spokesman said two senior leaders had
received notice of the investigation.
In addition, NOAA
acting chief scientist Craig McLean wrote an email Sunday, saying he would open
an investigation into whether the agency’s Sept. 6 statement, as well as
previous emails to Weather Service staff, violated the agency’s scientific
integrity policy.
“The content of
this news release is very concerning as it compromises the ability of NOAA to
convey lifesaving information necessary to avoid substantial and specific
danger to public health and safety,” he wrote. “If the public cannot trust our
information, or we debase our forecaster’s warnings and products, that specific
danger arises.”
— NOAA
Communications (@NOAAComms) September 6, 2019
As a result, McLean
told his staff that “I am pursuing the potential violations of our NOAA
Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity."
“I have a
responsibility to pursue these truths,” he added. “I will.”
The scientific
integrity policy includes a provision that states, “In no circumstance may any
NOAA official ask or direct Federal scientists or other NOAA employees to
suppress or alter scientific findings.”
These
investigations are taking shape as outside groups call for inquiries and
circulate letters of support for Weather Service scientists.
Jane
Lubchenco, head of NOAA
under President Barack Obama; Richard
W. Spinrad, NOAA’s chief scientist
under Obama; and Andrew
Rosenberg, director of the
Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, filed a
joint request for NOAA to initiate an investigation into possible violations of
its scientific integrity policy, Lubchenco wrote in an email.
Andrew FreedmanAndrew Freedman edits and reports on weather,
extreme weather and climate science for Capital Weather Gang. He has covered
science, with a specialization in climate research and policy, for Axios,
Mashable, Climate Central, E&E Daily and other publications. He was among
the first contributors to Capital Weather Gang, starting in 2004. Follow
Josh DawseyJosh Dawsey is a White House reporter for The
Washington Post. He joined the paper in 2017. He previously covered the White
House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
for the Wall Street Journal. Follow
Juliet EilperinJuliet Eilperin is The Washington Post's
senior national affairs correspondent, covering the transformation of federal
environmental policy. She's authored two books, "Demon Fish: Travels
Through The Hidden World of Sharks" and "Fight Club Politics: How
Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives." and has worked
for The Post since 1998. Follow
Jason SamenowJason Samenow is The Washington Post’s
weather editor and Capital Weather Gang's chief meteorologist. He earned a
master's degree in atmospheric science and spent 10 years as a climate change
science analyst for the U.S. government. He holds the Digital Seal of Approval
from the National Weather Association. Follow
The NOAA
officials defending Trump's bogus Hurricane Dorian Alabama claim
By Olivia Paschal September
9, 2019
PHOTOGRAPH -- Acting
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration head Neil Jacobs, left, and
communications director Julie Kay Roberts, right, were reportedly involved in
drafting a statement backing President Donald Trump's false claim that
Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama. (Official Commerce Department portraits).
Last week, as
Hurricane Dorian moved toward the Bahamas and the Carolina coast, President
Donald Trump sent out a tweet warning that it might also
hit Alabama "(much) harder than anticipated." His prediction was
wrong, according to forecasts from his own federal agencies and meteorologists
in the state. The hurricane would miss Alabama, everyone but Trump agreed
— and it did. Faced with a flood of calls
from worried Alabamians, the National Weather Service (NWS) in Birmingham
issued a tweet affirming that "Alabama
will NOT see any impacts from Dorian." But Trump then doubled down, issuing statements, doctoring maps, and castigating the media for
reporting on his erroneous claim.
And then things got
really strange. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the
federal agency that oversees the NWS, reportedly issued an internal
directive to employees telling NWS scientists to "stick to official
[National Hurricane Center] forecasts" if reporters called asking about
"national level social media posts" (i.e., Trump's tweets) and
to "not provide any opinion" about the tweets. Five days after the
NWS tweet, NOAA issued a statement that appeared to back Trump. The NWS
tweet, it said, "spoke in absolute terms
that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products
available at the time."
NWS employees were
reportedly livid. "Shocked, stunned, and irate" was how the president
of the union representing the workers described them. "When the NWS
issues a hurricane warning or flash flood warning — it's very important [that]
everyone is on the same page," Dan Sobien, president of the NWS
Employees Organization, told The Daily Beast. "It's hard enough to
convince people to evacuate or take cover. If you have confusion, it could be
very bad." At a Sept. 9 meeting of the National Weather Association,
the head of the NWS defended the Birmingham
forecasters, asking them to stand and saying they "did what any office
would do to protect the public."
The NWS has
historically been one of the most apolitical branches of the federal
government. But as the Union of Concerned Scientists noted in a Sept. 7 blog post, the NOAA
has been dogged by worries of political interference in scientific activities
before — though it's worked to overcome them. A 2007 report and investigation by the
UCS and the Government Accountability Project found that while government
scientists believed that the quality of their research on climate change was
high, "there is broad [political] interference in communicating scientific
results." In the years since then, however, UCS notes that the
agency's Scientific Integrity Policy, which allows NOAA scientists free rein to
communicate with the media and the public, had allayed these concerns.
But recent events
indicate that this stance may be changing under the Trump administration.
NOAA has not had a confirmed leader since
Trump took office in January 2017. Since February of this year,
the agency has been led by Neil Jacobs,
the acting undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, the NOAA
branch that oversees the NWS. Jacobs grew up surfing the Outer Banks,
earned undergraduate degrees in math and physics at the University of South
Carolina, and received his master's and doctoral degrees in atmospheric science
from North Carolina State. His wife, a biologist, currently works at Duke
University in Durham, North Carolina. Jacobs and NOAA Chief of Staff and
Communications Director Julie Kay Roberts were reportedly involved
in drafting the statement disputing the NWS tweet.
Before joining
NOAA in 2017, Jacobs worked in the private weather forecasting industry as the
chief atmospheric scientist at Panasonic Weather Solutions. He was nominated alongside Barry Myers, the CEO of
AccuWeather, whose nomination to oversee the NOAA is still pending because
of concerns that
his company has tried to undercut the ability of the NWS to do its job. Some
critics who were worried about Myers' ties to the private forecasting
industry, including Andrew Rosenberg of UCS, had similar concerns about Jacobs
serving as NOAA's acting head.
"Do people have a right to accessible
weather information that they pay for with their tax dollars? Myers and
AccuWeather, as well as Jacobs and Panasonic appear to think
not," wrote Rosenberg.
Upon his
nomination to NOAA last year, Jacobs told Surfline, a company that provides ocean-related forecasts, that he
believes there could be greater collaboration between public agencies and
private weather industry, though he said criticism that he was
pro-privatization was off the mark. "I would like to see NOAA harness the
capabilities in the private industry through
public/private partnerships working together in a collaborative versus
competitive relationship," he said. "It's different from
privatization, which is just replacing the public sector with the private
sector."
'Try to keep politics
out'
Since assuming
his acting position, Jacobs has appeared before several congressional panels on
behalf of the agency. In climate-related
testimony, he has avoided outright denying climate science as the president
does, but he has also avoided using the phrase "climate change." In
testimony delivered to a House panel during a February hearing on climate
change and research, for example, Jacobs focused not on climate change but on short-term forecasting.
"Because so
many factors influence the Earth's climate, and these factors can be highly
variable, accurate and long-term observations of the current state of the
Earth’s environmental conditions are critical," he said. "To derive meaningful information on trends and interactions
from all of these observations, they must be monitored without interruption for
many decades or longer." By contrast, NASA's director of Earth
Science Research opened his testimony at the same hearing by
talking about rising sea levels, rising
global temperatures, diminishing sea ice cover, and the increased frequency of
severe weather events.
Jacobs was also
asked about the dire conclusions of the most
recent National Climate Assessment, a behemoth
report released by the federal
government in November 2018 and signed off on by 10 agencies. When asked
whether he agreed with its first sentence, that "Earth's climate is now
changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization,
primarily as a result of human activities," he seemed to
agree. "If you remove natural variation … then the
remaining trend is anthropogenic," Jacobs said. That echoed previous comments he made to
Surfline that climate change is indisputably real but the science is not
settled on "how much influence are humans having on it versus how much is
from natural variability and natural signals." Jacobs gave a straight "yes" or
"no" answer to just one of the subcommittee chair's
questions about whether he
agreed with specific findings of the report; he also said it was beyond the scope of his agency
to comment on some of its findings.
At a House
budget hearing in March, Jacobs defended the Trump
administration's proposal to cut 18 percent, or about $1 billion, from the
NOAA's budget. The bulk of those cuts would come from the Climate Program
Office, slashing climate research programs and funding for competitive climate
research grants. At the
hearing, Jacobs also said that it wouldn't make a difference if a proposed
National Security Council panel to reassess climate science was led by a
climate skeptic. "As long as they stick to the peer-reviewed
literature, personal views really don't matter," he said. "If
you go through the peer review process, it's designed to eliminate personal
bias."
Jacobs' efforts to toe the administration's
line on climate change is not out of step with the NOAA’s trajectory under
Trump. Last summer under then-acting administrator Tim Gallaudet, the agency
considered reorienting its
mission away from understanding and predicting changes in the climate to
observing, understanding, and predicting atmospheric and ocean conditions.
After criticism from scientists around the country, including a former NOAA
head, Gallaudet quickly walked back the
proposed changes. But they
fit with a broader shift under the Trump administration to downplay climate
science and the effects of global warming.
During Gallaudet's tenure, for example, Trump was reportedly not briefed on climate
change and stated publicly that
he did not "believe" the results of his government's own
National Climate Assessment.
In the
Surfline interview, Jacobs said everything is
political in Washington. "I'm fortunate that NOAA's basically a science
agency, and I’m going to do my best to keep politics out of it," he said.
"We've got a job to produce the most accurate, robust and defendable
science ... We have to make sure that everything is objective and transparent
and try to keep politics out of that, which is fine by me."
But
Jacobs' partner in drafting the controversial NOAA statement comes from a
more explicitly political background.
Roberts served as the deputy director of
internal and diplomatic affairs on Trump's inaugural committee and before that
worked for the Trump campaign doing advance work for Mike Pence. She previously
served in several federal agencies during the George W. Bush administration and
worked in emergency management in Florida during Obama's second term. Her
Facebook profile includes two photos of her with Vice President
Pence.
In late August, as
Hurricane Dorian headed toward the U.S. Southeast, Roberts changed her Facebook
cover photo to an Aug. 29 White House image showing Jacobs briefing
Trump on Hurricane Dorian. On Sept. 5, the same day Business Insider reported that the photo confirmed
Trump had been briefed with a map showing Alabama was outside of Dorian's
impact cone, Roberts changed her Facebook cover image to
one reading "Fearless."
It appears that
the controversy over the Dorian misinformation is not over yet. This week, the
Washington Post reported that Craig McLean, the NOAA's acting chief scientist, told colleagues he
would be investigating the agency's "political" response as a
violation of the NOAA's ethics policy, calling it a "danger to public
health and safety."
Olivia is an staff
reporter with Facing South whose work forces on democracy, money in politics,
the census and agriculture.
Related Articles
May 17, 2017
April 14, 2017
December 15,
2016
November 30,
2016
Poll: Bernie
Sanders leads Biden in Nevada
The latest CBS News
Battleground Tracker poll shows Bernie Sanders leading among Democrats in
Nevada. Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren appear to be making the state's February
primary a three-way contest. Las Vegas Review-Journal politics and government
editor Steve Sebelius joined CBSN to discuss the state of the race there. SEPT 11, 2019
I DON'T UNDERSTAND BIDEN'S STATEMENT BELOW ABOUT
"THE EMPLOYER" GIVING MONEY BACK TO PRODUCE SAVINGS. MAYBE IT WAS
JUST A VERBAL VEHICLE FOR BIDEN TO GIVE HIM A JAB OVER BEING A SOCIALIST. AT
ANY RATE, I DIDN'T THINK THE SANDERS PLAN WOULD HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH
EMPLOYMENT, AS THE GOVERNMENT IS THE PAYER AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE UNIVERSAL
COVERAGE WHETHER THEY WORK OR NOT. INCLUDING WITHIN THE PROGRAM PEOPLE WHO
DON'T WORK, LIKE THAT VANISHING SPECIES, THE "HOUSEWIFE," OR THOSE
WHO JUST HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO FIND A JOB, SURELY INVOLVES SOME OTHER WAY OF COVERING
THEM IN THE PROGRAM. ACTUALLY, I'M UNAWARE OF HOW MCR AS WE HAVE IT TODAY WORKS
WITH SUCH PEOPLE. FOR THOSE WHO DO WORK, IT IS A PAYROLL TAX. IT'S POSSIBLE
THAT THEY JUST AREN'T COVERED UNDER MCR IF THEY DO GET SICK. OF COURSE, NOW
THERE IS THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT WHICH WILL COVER MORE OF THEM. OTHERWISE, I
THINK THEY HAVE TO GO TO MEDICAID IF THEY CAN EVEN QUALIFY FOR THAT.
BERNIE ACKNOWLEDGES THAT EVERYBODY'S TAXES
WILL BE HIGHER. I THOUGHT THAT SANDERS, BY REFERRING TO "SAVINGS"
UNDER MCR4ALL, WAS TALKING ABOUT THE PATIENT'S NOT HAVING TO PAY OUT OF POCKET
FOR THINGS, LIKE COPAYS, AND THE GOVERNMENT'S NEGOTIATING LOWER DRUG COSTS AND
MEDICAL FEES. I KNOW THAT EVERY TIME I SEE A SPECIALIST FOR CONSULTATION IT
COSTS ME $50.00 OUT OF POCKET. THE COPAY FOR DOCTORS OF LESSER RANK IS $15.
WITH BERNIE'S PLAN IT WOULD BE NOTHING. NOW THAT, TO ME, IS AN APPRECIABLE
SAVINGS.
AND, YES, BIDEN DID CALL SANDERS
"PRESIDENT," THOUGH HE QUICKLY CORRECTED IT.
Joe Biden
accidentally refers to Bernie Sanders as 'president'
Nicholas Wu, USA TODAY
Published 8:54 p.m. ET Sept. 12, 2019
While debating Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former Vice President Joe Biden accidentally referred to
the senator as "president" rather than a senator.
"If you
notice, nobody's yet said how much it's going to cost the taxpayer. I hear
this, large savings, the president thinks – my friend from Vermont thinks that the employer is going to give
you back if you negotiate," said Biden, referring to projections of
reduced costs in Medicare for All plans.
Biden continued
his attack on Sanders by calling him a "socialist."
"For a socialist, you've got a lot more
confidence in corporate America than I do," Biden quipped.
The former vice
president has staked out a position closer to the center on the Democratic Party's
current debate over the future of its health care policy that is based on
strengthening Obamacare, a position that has drawn fire from other candidates
that have rolled out more progressive health care plans.
WHEN THE NYT AND WAPO FAIL US, I TEND TO GO
TO PLACES LIKE MOTHER EARTH NEWS, THE ROLLING STONE, COMMON DREAMS, THE LA
TIMES AND SLATE. THIS ARTICLE IS ONE OF THE BEST WRITTEN AND HONEST THAT I'VE
SEEN ABOUT BERNIE SANDERS, OR AS THE WRITER BEN
MATHIS-LILLEY CALLS HIM, "BERNARD (BERNIE) SANDERS." AS
MICHAEL MOORE SAID IN A VIDEO INTERVIEW FAIRLY RECENTLY, AND I AM PARAPHRASING
IT, "DONALD TRUMP IS A STREET FIGHTER," GOING ON TO SAY THAT WE NEED
TO NOMINATE A STREET FIGHTER TO OPPOSE HIM, AND WHO WOULD THAT BE? BERNIE
SANDERS."
I BELIEVE MOORE IS CORRECT ABOUT THAT, AS HE
IS ABOUT MANY THINGS. I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT SANDERS IS HONEST, KIND,
INTELLIGENT UNLIKE SOMEONE ELSE WE KNOW, AND CARES ABOUT PEOPLE. I THINK HE
PROBABLY HAS NOT SPENT A LIFETIME PHILANDERING, CHEATING, LYING AND STEALING,
EITHER. YOU NEVER KNOW ABOUT MEN, OF COURSE, BUT HE REALLY DOESN'T STRIKE ME
THAT WAY. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS BECOME SO UNDEMOCRATIC THESE LAST COUPLE OF
DECADES, AS THEY HUNGERED AND THIRSTED AFTER "MO' MONEY," AND SO LACKING
IN SIMPLE COURAGE -- WITH THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY PROVIDING A RESPITE, OF COURSE
-- THAT THEY COULD FIND THEMSELVES WITHOUT A VOTING BASE.
Bernie Sanders
Could Be the Next President
It’s time to start focusing on serious
candidates—like the socialist.
SEPT 12, 201912:57 PM
Sanders in Denver
on Sept. 9.
Michael
Ciaglo/Getty Images
Recently in The Slatest
- Triple Crown Winner Justify Reportedly Failed a
Drug Test Before the Kentucky Derby
- Israel Was Reportedly Known to Be Spying on White
House Cellphones, and Trump Didn’t Do Anything About It
- Supreme Court Allows Trump to Deny and Deport
Asylum-Seekers
- Purdue Pharma Reaches Tentative
Multibillion-Dollar Deal to Settle Thousands of Opioid Lawsuits
Some criticisms of the political media, like
that it fabricates allegations and makes up sources in order to embarrass our
great president, are bogus. Others, such as that it oversells new “characters”
and conflict-oriented storylines at the expense of conveying the full,
contextualized totality of some situations, can be fair. And that critique
is particularly fair right now in regard to the coverage of Bernard “Bernie”
Sanders, the Brooklyn-Vermont “democratic socialist” who takes the debate stage
Thursday night as one of the three leading candidates to become the Democratic
Party’s presidential nominee.
Given that debate
performances are scrutinized for how they shape the primary “narrative,”
Sanders is at a disadvantage. He’s not the Establishment Favorite—that would be
Joe Biden—and he’s not the Surging Insurgent, Elizabeth Warren. He’s not An
Inspiring Resistance Leader Who Might Appeal to Centrists (Kamala Harris),
and he is certainly not An Uncannily Articulate 14-Year-Old Mayor Who Likes
Radiohead (that would be Pete Buttigieg).
He is, instead, The Exact Same Guy He Was
Last Time—a fiery leftist who has a substantial, if not primary-majority-size,
base of committed supporters who believe in his ambitious plans to bring
justice to a “rigged” society by sticking it to the damn fat cats. A Sanders
presidency would, guaranteed, involve an attempt to raise taxes on top earners
in order to institute single-payer universal health coverage and make college
free.
It’s reasonable to
be interested in seeing how Biden and Warren fare when they finally meet
head-to-head in a debate. Biden, after long consideration or dithering, jumped
into the race late and immediately became the front-runner; Warren has been the
only challenger who’s risen consistently in the polls since she began
campaigning. Sanders, meanwhile, has about the same amount of support now as he
did in May, after Biden announced and started taking up polling space.
And while the Vermont senator has changed his
rhetoric and his platform since 2016 to acknowledge and decry the role that
race plays in economic disparities, he’s done so in a way that fills out,
rather than erases and redraws, his public meaning. He hasn’t done anything, since the last time
he ran for, and did not win, the nomination, to radically change the public’s
established impression of who he is, what he believes, and how he would behave
as president. If you liked him in 2016, you probably still do; if not, you
still don’t. Relatedly, the press may be less inclined to speculate about
Sanders’ momentum because of the fact
that the U.S. has never had a socialist chief executive, even one who
means socialism in the sense of expanding existing
public-welfare programs rather than the sense of eliminating private property
and assigning all economic decisions to bureaucrats in the Consolidated
Uni-Department of Industry, Agriculture, and
Proletarian Thought.
None of this is
Sanders’ fault, or even a bad thing. Politicians being clear and consistent
about what they want to do … is good. But it also to some extent justified the lack of hype that he got during the
initial months of the campaign.
Now that it’s
finally less than one full football
season until actual voting starts, though, it might be time to start looking through the lens not of narrative and
potential but of which candidate is going to secure the nomination by winning
the most party delegates through the primary process. And from that
perspective, Sanders is doing pretty well. The first four states to hold
primaries or caucuses are Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina; this week Sanders has led a New
Hampshire poll and a Nevada poll, and been within the margin of error of Biden
in another New Hampshire poll and an Iowa poll.
Democratic
voters are notoriously concerned with “electability” this cycle, and
while the socialism thing makes that fraught
for Sanders, if he starts winning elections and continues beating Trump in every head-to-head poll,
he will start seeming more “electable.” (Even
now, Democrats, at least by one measure, see him as more electable than
any other candidate except Biden.) According to Morning Consult polling, Sanders is also
the preferred “second choice” candidate of a majority of Biden and Warren
supporters, which means he’d surge if one of those individuals were to, say, be
heckled out of the race for, hypothetically, referring repeatedly to Beto
O’Rourke as “Bobby” during a debate and claiming to have hosted Medgar Evers in
the White House in 2011.
Sanders can stay in the race long enough to
let bad things happen to the less-tested candidates, because he has a
tidy $27 million in cash on hand and a deep
e-Rolodex of small donors. Also, compared with him, the “less-tested candidates” are all of them:
No one has been as recently vetted or run as large of a national campaign as he
has, and he’s been rock-solid in
debates. (Knowing what you believe and want to do is actually a good way of
coming off well in superficial,
theatrical situations, it turns out.)
And then, if he won the primary, he’d be
running in a general election against Donald Trump—an unpopular president who’s
overseeing a shaky economy—as a candidate with a history of appealing to the kind of lower-income, less educated voters that
were key to Trump’s win in 2016.
It could happen!
Support our 2020
coverage
Slate is covering
the election issues that matter to you. Support our work with a Slate Plus
membership. You’ll also get a suite of great benefits.
Is Sanders
Surging?
- September 12, 2019 1:49 PM
PHOTOGRAPH -- Sen.
Bernie Sanders speaks at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum in Des Moines, Iowa,
August 10, 2019. (Gage Skidmore)
Two new polls show
the Vermont senator gaining strength in Iowa and New Hampshire. Watch out,
Elizabeth Warren.
Much of the
media has been so excited to crown Elizabeth Warren the progressive alternative
to Joe Biden that you could be forgiven for forgetting that Bernie Sanders is
still around and very much alive in the race for the 2020 Democratic
presidential nomination.
While a narrative has developed that Warren
is a clear second in the Democratic race, she
has actually been effectively tied with Sanders in the RealClearPolitics average
of national polls since
the beginning of July.
Warren drew a lot
of attention when an early August Monmouth
poll of Iowa showed her jumping into second place: She trailed Biden 28 percent
to 19 percent, with Sanders in third at 9 percent. But the latest CBS News/YouGov poll, conducted August 28 to September
4, suggests that Sanders is the one surging in Iowa: He sits in second place at 26 percent, three points behind Biden and
nine points ahead of Warren in third. In the previous edition of the same
poll, conducted in July, Biden sat at 24 percent, Sanders at 19 percent, Warren
at 17 percent, and Kamala Harris at 16 percent.
In New Hampshire,
meanwhile, a Boston Herald poll
released on Tuesday showed Sanders jumping out to an eight-point
lead over Biden, 29 percent to 21 percent, with Warren in third
place at 19 percent. Other recent
surveys of New Hampshire Democrats have varied, but the average of polls
shows a three-way race between Biden, Sanders, and Warren. One advantage for
Sanders, of course, is that he defeated Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire by 23
points during the last presidential-primary cycle.
If Sanders is
really surging in the Democratic primary, one big question is what exactly
Warren is going to do about him.
The
Massachusetts senator’s strategy so far has been to hug her
democratic-socialist colleague as closely as possible. “I’m with Bernie on
Medicare for All,” Warren said at the Democratic debate in Miami this summer. She is obviously operating on the theory
that if she stands with Sanders and can outlast him, she might inherit many of
his supporters.
Volume 90% WATCH:
0:30
Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren Beat Joe Biden in Recent Poll
That strategy
didn’t play out too well in the 2016 Republican primary for Ted Cruz, who
called populist outsider Donald Trump “terrific” early in the campaign with the
hope of inheriting Trump’s supporters if he dropped out later. When Cruz
finally turned on Trump shortly before the Iowa caucuses, it was too late.
But maybe Warren
will have better luck. Sanders does appear, after all, to be more concerned
with ideology and policy than Trump ever was. It’s entirely possible that he
could ultimately endorse Warren if he thinks she is the best vessel to defeat
Joe Biden and advance progressivism.
Besides which, it’s
not quite clear how Warren would even begin to attack Sanders if she wanted to.
She calls herself a capitalist, while Sanders calls himself a socialist, but
the two agree on most important matters of policy, including Medicare for All,
free college, and the Green New Deal. Sanders supports voting rights for all felons in
prison, including the Boston Marathon bomber, while Warren is undecided on the
matter.
Warren could try to
attack Sanders on the issue of electability, but he actually polls a bit
better than she does in head-to-head match-ups against Trump, and putting
electability front-and-center might only help Biden.
Tonight will be the
first time that Biden and Warren are on the same stage together. The media is
hoping for fireworks, and may get them. But be sure to keep an eye on Sanders
as well. Even if he’s not ultimately the nominee, he might play a key role in
deciding who is.
JOHN
MCCORMACK is the Washington correspondent for National
Review and a fellow at the National Review Institute. @mccormackjohn
Poll: Biden,
Sanders top Dem field among Latinos
09/10/2019 01:27 PM EDT
PHOTOGRAPH -- Joe
Biden took 22 percent and Bernie Sanders took 20 percent support from Latinos
in the Univison poll. | Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
Former Vice
President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders are the top choices for Latinos
planning to vote in the Democratic presidential primary, according to a newly
released Univision poll ahead of Thursday’s debate in Houston.
Biden took 22 percent and Sanders took 20
percent support from Latinos in the poll, while former Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Julian Castro — the only Latino running for the
Democratic nomination — got 12 percent, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala
Harris got 11 percent and 8 percent, respectively, and former Texas Rep. Beto
O'Rourke scored 6 percent. No other candidates scored more than 2 percent with
Latinos.
A large majority of Latinos, 73 percent, say they plan to vote for the Democratic
nominee in the general election next year, while 16 percent said they plan to vote for President Donald Trump and
another 11 percent are undecided. In head-to-head matchups with the
president, Biden and Sanders performed marginally better than other Democrats
among Latinos, garnering 71 percent
support each.
The poll,
conducted by Univision Noticias surveyed
1,043 registered Latino voters nationally between Aug. 31 and Sept. 6.
The survey also
found 69 percent of Latino voters
nationally think Trump’s language in speeches and on Twitter bears a “great
deal” or “good amount” of responsibility for the mass shooting in El Paso last
month. A similar percentage said they think the El Paso shooter was
influenced by the president.
Additionally, 74 percent of Latinos believe white
supremacist groups present a threat to the country, and 92 percent of those surveyed support
Congress passing expanded background checks for all gun sales and
transfers.
Latinos are on
track to be the largest nonwhite ethnic
group eligible to vote in 2020, and they are an especially critical
demographic in the early Nevada caucuses, as well as delegate-rich Super
Tuesday states like California and Texas.
Biden’s campaign has focused on Latino voters of late, after
taking heat for lack of outreach
to Latinos and for
saying undocumented immigrants need to "get in
line" during the second
debate. Biden recently hired a Latinx outreach director, Laura Jiménez. On
Tuesday, Biden unveiled a slate of endorsements from past and present Texas
officials, including former Democratic Rep. Gene Green, an Anglo congressman
who represented a majority-Latino Houston district for years.
Los Angeles County
Supervisor Hilda Solis, a Biden surrogate who served as secretary of labor in
the Obama administration, sat down with Latino leaders in Nevada two weeks ago
and was pressed on how a Biden presidency would be different than the last
Democratic administration on immigration and deportations, according to a
person in the meeting.
In addition to the
national survey of Latinos, Univision and its polling partners also conducted a
statewide poll of Texas including all racial groups, showcasing the
fast-shifting political landscape there and suggesting the state’s 2020 Senate
race could be competitive.
The survey showed
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn in a tight race with a generic Democratic
opponent, taking 41 percent support to 40 percent for the Democrat. The same poll
showed a generic Democrat leading Trump in Texas, 47 percent to 42 percent — a
more negative result than other recent polls of Texas.
Among Democrats of
all races in Texas, Biden got 20 percent support, O'Rourke got 19 percent,
Sanders got 13 percent and Castro and Warren scored 12 percent each.
The Tricky Line Joe Biden Faces If He Enters
| Morning Joe | MSNBC
Published on Apr 8, 2019
The panel discusses
recent allegations against Joe Biden, President Obama's remarks about
'rigidity' among liberal Democrats and Bernie Sanders.
Howard Dean: Trump Has Been 'Corrupt Since He
Was Born' | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC
Published on Sep 11, 2019
Former DNC Chairman
Howard Dean calls President Trump 'corrupt' as House Democrats prep for an
impeachment probe vote. It comes as Democrats call on an independent
investigation into government money spent at Trump resorts. Dean adds 'Pence’s
trip' to Ireland is ‘not the problem,’ but rather ‘a well respected
organization’ like the military ‘and encouraging them to be corrupt.’ »
Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth
analysis of politics headlines, as well as commentary and informed perspectives.
Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, Meet
the Press Daily, The Beat with Ari Melber, Deadline: White House with Nicolle
Wallace, Hardball, All In, Last Word, 11th Hour, and more.
LOOK AT THE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS OF THIS
ARTICLE. DOES THE PUBLIC VOTE FOR SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE? I THOUGHT THE HOUSE DID
THAT, AND IF THE HOUSE DOES IT I WOULDN'T EXPECT THIS SAME STATISTICAL SPREAD,
THOUGH THE HOUSE IS POSSIBLY MORE LIBERAL THAN THE SENATE. SO, THIS IS AN
INTERESTING ARTICLE, BUT DOES IT BEAR ANY RELATIONSHIP TO REALITY?
I PERSONALLY WOULD VOTE FOR AOC IN A
HEARTBEAT OVER MANY CANDIDATES, AND ESPECIALLY PELOSI. I THINK SHE IS DANGEROUS
FOR THE COUNTRY, IN THAT SHE KEEPS DRAGGING HER FEET ON THE IMPEACHMENT MATTER,
POSSIBLY FOR THE SAME REASON THAT MCCONNELL IN THE SENATE DOES -- TOO MUCH
MONEY IN HER POCKETBOOK AND HER CAMPAIGN FUNDS COMING FROM THE RIGHTIST
SOURCES.
SHE CLAIMED THAT SHE WANTS TO BEAT TRUMP IN
THE GENERAL ELECTION, BUT WHO KNOWS FOR SURE THAT WE CAN DO THAT? AN ELECTION
IS SOMETHING CAN'T BE CONTROLLED, BECAUSE IT OCCURS AT THE GRASSROOTS UNLESS
EXTRAORDINARY MEANS SUCH AS TAMPERING WITH VOTING MACHINES AND VOTER ROLLS IS
BRAZENLY USED. MEANWHILE, EVERY DAY UNTIL TRUMP IS REMOVED FROM OFFICE, HE DOES
SOMETHING NEW AND DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR WAY OF LIFE AND GOVERNMENT. A LARGE PART
OF OUR POPULATION IS PRETTY WELL BRAIN-WASHED. THAT'S WHY I SAY IMPEACH HIM NOW,
THEN LATER IF THAT DOESN'T WORK WE CAN HOPE TO BEAT HIM.
Bernie Sanders
jumps to the lead in NH: Franklin Pierce-Herald poll shows
By JOE BATTENFELD | joe.battenfeld@bostonherald.com and JOE DWINELL | joed@bostonherald.com |
Boston Herald
PUBLISHED: September 11, 2019 at 12:58
pm | UPDATED: September 11, 2019 at 2:49 pm
Former Vice
President Joe Biden has lost his lead in New Hampshire with U.S. Sen Bernie
Sanders jumping ahead in what is now clearly a three-person race for the
Democratic primary, a new Franklin
Pierce University-Boston Herald poll shows.
Sanders tops the poll at 29% of likely
Democratic primary voters.
Biden comes in
second with 21% of the vote and
Massachusetts U.S. Sen Elizabeth Warren is third in the poll with 17%.
The telephone poll was conducted Sept. 4-10
of likely N.H. primary voters and has a margin of error of +/- 4.8%.
The poll shows
that the top tier of 2020 Democratic primary candidates is far ahead of the
pack, with California U.S. Sen. Kamala
Harris landing a distant fourth with 6% of the primary vote, the FPU-Herald
polls shows.
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang is next at 5% and
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg lands next at a mere 4%.
On the Republican
side, President Trump’s approval rating
is very solid at 83 percent and he holds a commanding lead over former
Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld 88-3%, the poll shows. Former Illinois
Representative Joe Walsh is a very distant 1%.
The poll also asked Granite State voters if
they prefer House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership of the Democratic party or
a “more progressive” brand exhibited by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Out of the 425 likely Democratic primary voters
surveyed, 34% said Ocasio-Cortez with 30% choosing Pelosi. Another 19%
responded “neither” and 17% answered “unsure.”
100 POLITICAL CARTOONS OF THE 2020
PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
Cartoons on the
2020 Presidential Election
BILL
BRAMHALL/TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY
SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
HERE IS THE VIDEO OF TONIGHT'S DEMOCRATIC
PARTY DEBATE FOR THOSE WHO FAILED TO WATCH IT AS IT OCCURRED -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve5dh-d-8BM.
Comments
Post a Comment