Bernie Sanders Tag

I will admit I have a taste for sweet schadenfreude. After nearly a year of the elite media's reporting breathlessly on the war among Republicans, social media is now covering veritable insurrection occurring among the Democrats because of primary system shenanigans. Last week, we covered the Iowa Caucus coin flips that garnered Hillary Clinton more delegates than Bernie Sanders (despite the veritable tie). Now after trouncing Clinton in New Hampshire by a straight-up popular vote total difference over 20% points, Sanders will be leaving the state with an equal number of delegates.

...Sanders had won 13 delegates with his 20-point victory on Tuesday and is expected to raise that total to 15 by the time all of the votes are counted.

During the MSNBC Democratic debate, Chuck Todd asked if Hillary would release the transcripts of her paid speeches, particularly the three Goldman Sachs speeches for which she was paid $675,000 total. As the question was being asked, you could see Hillary's mental wheels spinning until she came up with the response she needed: I'll think about it. Hillary then quickly moved on to her robotic stump speech: After that awkward moment, Hillary deflected in classic Clintonian fashion, by setting preconditions she knew no one could or would meet -- everyone who ever gave a speech had to release all transcripts for all speeches. Hence, Hillary deflects from her massive Wall Street speaking fees:

There is an old adage that bad things come in threes. Today, there are three omens showing that Hillary Clinton's campaign may be floundering worse than previously imagined. We have covered two of those signs already: Donors wanting to Draft Vice President Joe Biden for the party's nomination and Gloria Steinem indicating women who vote for Senator Bernie Sanders are actually after men. Unexpectedly, that last bit is not playing too terribly well among progressive women.

Thursday, The Des Moines Register's Editorial Board called for an audit of Iowa's Democratic Caucus results.

...too many questions have been raised. Too many accounts have arisen of inconsistent counts, untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations, a lack of voter registration forms and other problems. Too many of us, including members of the Register editorial board who were observing caucuses, saw opportunities for error amid Monday night’s chaos.

Hillary Clinton was declared the winner with a minuscule two-tenths of 1% victory over Bernie Sanders and some incredibly lucky coin tossing. Because Iowa's Democratic Party chair has refused to audit the caucus results. Bernie Sanders' campaign is doing their part to recount the ballots. Friday, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian reports that the Iowa Democratic Party changed the altered a precinct's caucus results, giving a Sanders delegate to Clinton.

Welcome to our live coverage of tonight's Democratic presidential debate. The debate begins at 9:00 PM ET on MSNBC and will be moderated by NBC's Chuck Todd and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. With Martin O'Malley out of the race, the Democratic presidential primary is officially a showdown. Just saying'...

They could’ve had this, but nooooooooo, Democrats want scandal and socialism, apparently. pic.twitter.com/8GoMQD86EM

— Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) February 2, 2016

How to watch the debate:

Something is rotten in Iowa and it's the results of Monday night's Democratic Caucus. Hillary won by the skin of her teeth and with the help of some incredible luck in a half-dozen coin tosses. Thursday, the editorial board of the Des Moines Register called for an audit of Monday night's Democratic Caucus results. It's worth noting the DMR's endorsed Hillary Clinton as their Democratic candidate of choice. "Something smells in the Democratic Party," they wrote.

Once again the world is laughing at Iowa. Late-night comedians and social media mavens are having a field day with jokes about missing caucusgoers and coin flips. That’s fine. We can take ribbing over our quirky process. But what we can’t stomach is even the whiff of impropriety or error.

Back at the first Democrat debate, Bernie famously said people were sick of hearing about Hillary's "damn emails" but now he's acknowledging that it's a serious issue. When CNN's Jake Tapper asked about it, Bernie also insisted that he's not politicizing the issue. David Rutz of the Washington Free Beacon:

Sanders on Clinton Emails: ‘I Think This Is a Very Serious Issue’ Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) said he considered Hillary Clinton’s private email server investigation to be “a very serious issue” Sunday on CNN, while also adding there was a legal process taking place that he did not want to politicize. At the conclusion of their interview, State of the Union host Jake Tapper reminded Sanders of his famous remarks at the first Democratic debate in October, when he told Clinton the American people were “sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”

With her poll numbers cratering, Hillary Clinton and her team have evidently caved to the reality that the thin debate schedule designed to hide her from the public eye and let her coast to the Democrat nomination is actually, as Kemberlee noted earlier this month, hurting her and her campaign. As a result, the Clinton team and the Sanders team have agreed to four more debates this campaign season, a decision the DNC still has to approve (and likely will). Politico reports:

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders’ campaigns have agreed in principle to attend four more debates, starting with a proposed New Hampshire event next week, a Clinton campaign aide confirmed Saturday.