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March 2016

Welcome to our Super Tuesday live blog. Be sure to refresh your browser for the latest updates. If you have questions, please post them in the comment section below, and I'll do my best to answer them for you. Twelve states are in play and approximately 600 delegates up for grabs. 1,237 delegates are required to clinch the GOP nomination (baring any convention shenanigans, which we'll worry about if they become an issue). (added by WAJ, 2nd update) While the final delegate numbers might change, this is the NY Times estimate for tonights voting, as of almost 1:30 a.m. Eastern. A win for Trump, but not as overwhelming in terms of delegates at the headlines would suggest based on number of states won: Super Tuesday Delegate results

Andrew Breitbart died four years ago today:
Very sad news to report, just breaking. Andrew Breitbart is dead.... There are few people who are irreplaceable, but Andrew may have been one of those few.
I really can't add a lot to what I wrote the day of his death, A personal note on the death of Andrew Breitbart:
I only spoke once with Andrew Breitbart. He reached out to me, and we spoke by phone. The topic is not important, but I was shocked that he even knew who I was; but as I’ve come to learn, Andrew seemed to know who everyone was in the conservative blogosphere. He was just that way. Since my wife called this morning to let me know of Andrew’s death, it has been hard to focus on anything else. In her words, we don’t have that many bright media lights, and to lose him hurts.

Hillary Clinton is expected to clean up today which means unless she suffers any consequences for her questionable decisions while serving at the State Department, which let's face it - she won't, she will be the Democratic Party nominee. Knowing that, Bernie Sanders supporters will surely be excited to know that the Hillary Campaign has planned a little after party for Super Tuesday. The International Business Times reports:
Hillary Clinton 2016: DC Lobbyists Set To Raise Cash For Hillary Victory Fund The Democratic National Committee’s recent move to end its ban on contributions from federal lobbyists was widely seen as a boost to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which has ties to the Washington lobbying community. Clinton already appears to be taking advantage of the shift.

While much recent media attention has been focused on mosquitoes and the Zika virus they transmit, another pest is now crawling into the news cycle. Lice have mutated to resist the pesticide that has been effectively used against them for years, and 25 states are experiencing infestations with "super lice".
A strain of so-called ‘super lice’ has hit a reported 25 states, causing concern and frustration among parents because the bugs can’t be killed with most over-the-counter treatments. The treatments, known as pyrethroids, had a 100 percent success rate in 2000 against lice but now only work in 25 percent of cases, KSDK.com reported.

According to recent news reports, the Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq and Syria seems to have intensified its efforts to build a “dirty” bomb. The reports coming from Iraq indicate that the terrorist group might already be in the possession of required radioactive material. The material was reportedly stolen from an oil facility in southern Iraq and was part a monitoring system used to detect structural flaws in oil and gas pipelines. Reuters news agency writes:
Iraq is searching for "highly dangerous" radioactive material whose theft last year has raised fears among Iraqi officials that it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State. (...) The [UN nuclear watchdog] IAEA said the material is classed as a Category 2 radioactive source, meaning that if not managed properly it could cause permanent injury to a person in close proximity to it for minutes or hours, and could be fatal to someone exposed for a period of hours to days.
Radioactive material is often part of diagnostic tools used in medical treatments and industrial monitoring around the world. The same material however can be used by terrorists to make a “dirty” bomb capable of contaminating several city blocks, causing wide-scale fatal radiation sickness and financial losses worth billions.

For months now, Donald Trump has spouted the same line on immigration, promising to build a border wall and deport people here illegally.  Last night, he admitted he would not deport the 11 million people in the United States illegally.  It was posturing. Trump appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News.  Here's the video:

Last week The Tower magazine broke the story of a "social justice writing" professor at Oberlin, Joy Karega, who engaged in some bizarre anti-Semitic and anti-Israel commentary on Facebook. The short version is that Karega, at least based on what she posts on Facbeook, sees Zionist and Jewish conspiracies almost everywhere, including claiming Israel was behind 9/11, and that the Charlie Hebdo attack and downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 were Mossad false flag operations. She also circulated and posted about the Rothschild family controlling the media and seeking global domination, so no mere anti-Zionist loon here. Karega Oberlin Netanyahu ISIS

When Bernie Sanders honeymooned in the Soviet Union in 1988, Andrei Sakharov had already been released from internal exile, Refusniks were allowed to leave the country, the press were discussing the legacy of Stalinism and the state was allowing elements of the free market to take hold. The country was in the midst of perestroika, which generated excitement both in the Soviet Union and abroad. Many foreigners came to visit, among them my future brother-in-law, (more about that later) and we were clamoring to meet them, Americans especially.  And sure, it was still the Soviet Union and the GULAGS were still functioning, but without a doubt, things were going in the right direction.  I don't fault the then-Burlington mayor for visiting USSR, it's his ego, his intent and his conclusions that I find problematic. Sanders took his new bride on a trip to Yaroslavl, a historic city on the Golden Ring of Russia, a region known for the quiet exotic charm of onion-domed churches and ornate wooden cottages.  Avert your eyes from the glib Soviet projects --and you got yourself a perfect backdrop for a radical chic honeymoon circa 1988. Bernie played up the radical chic aspect in his book boasting of "a very strange honeymoon". Strange it was because, lets face it, not all  newlyweds surround themselves with an entourage of 10, hob-nob with provincial nomenclatura and tour Lenin's tomb.

I was a Russian Studies Major in college. It involved the study of Russian language, literature and culture, as well as the Soviet State. Among other things, I studied in Moscow. It was an academic endeavor, not political activism. That was old school "ethnic" studies. New school ethnic studies is social justice warfare. Student's at San Francisco State University's College of Ethnic Studies are upset that there might be some programming cuts as a result of overall budget problems. And true to their curriculum, they took up protest. Golden Gate Express reports on a meeting hosted by SFSU President Leslie E. Wong, Potential Cuts Loom for Ethnic Studies:
Within an hour, the courtyard in front of Ethnic Studies was flooded with students, faculty and other members of the community, many wearing black with red accessories in solidarity with the potential faculty strike in April. Peppered among the sea of black and red were white signs and banners with messages of unity....