Sanders and Trump: Magic sells

. . . "Look at New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton had made a strategic decision, as highlighted in the debates, to wrap herself in the mantle of the Obama presidency. She lost New Hampshire by three touchdowns."

Charles Krauthammer

"The New Hampshire results have solidified the reigning cliche that the 2016 campaign is an anti-establishment revolt of both the left and the right. Largely overlooked, however, is the role played in setting the national mood by the seven-year legacy of the Obama presidency.

"Yes, you hear constant denunciations of institutions, parties, leaders, donors, lobbyists, influence peddlers. But the starting point of the bipartisan critique is the social, economic and geopolitical wreckage all around us. Bernie Sanders is careful never to blame President Obama directly, but his description of the America Obama leaves behind is devastating — a wasteland of stagnant wages, rising inequality, a sinking middle class, young people crushed by debt, the American Dream dying.

. . . "In truth, Trump and Sanders are soaring not just by defying the establishment, but by defying logic and history. Sanders’ magic potion is socialism; Trump’s is Trump." . . .

. . . "The result is a politics of high fantasy. Things can’t get any worse, we hear, so why not shake things to their foundation? Anyone who thinks things can’t get any worse knows nothing. And risks everything."  Emphasis mine, TD

Tonight: Clinton, Sanders To Debate After Splitting* Contests

Yeshiva News  . . . "For Clinton, that means bolstering her appeal with minorities, particularly black and Hispanic voters. Hours before the debate, a coalition of black lawmakers endorsed her, calling her a long-term partner who understands racial divides in America.

“ 'African-Americans can’t wait for solutions — they need results now,” Clinton said in a statement welcoming the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus’ political action committee." . . .

"Clinton so far holds a commanding lead in the overall delegate race due to her strong support from superdelegates, the party officials who can back the candidate of their choice.

"Overall, Clinton has 394 delegates Sanders has 44. It takes 2,382 to win the Democratic nomination for president."  Emphasis added. TD

2016 Primary Delegate Count   "As the primaries progress, the Democratic and Republican nomination will be decided by which candidate totals up the largest number of awarded state delegates from each caucus or primary vote. The complete delegate counts are listed below and updated frequently after each primary or caucus date. Each party has its own set of rules governing the number of delegates."

"For a list of how many delegates are at stake in each state, see the 2016 Primary Schedule." Below.

2016 Primary Schedule  Only February shown here. All others at the link.

Open – Voters may vote in either party primary but can choose only one
Closed – Only voters registered in their respective party may vote in the party primary
Mixed – "A semi-open or semi-closed environment, unaffiliated voters can choose to vote in either primary or can switch registration the day of voting"
Tuesday, February 23 Nevada caucus (R) 30 Closed Saturday, February 27 South Carolina (D)59 Open

Complete primary schedule here.

* That's "SPLITTING", not "spitting". TD

Hillary and Goldman Sachs

. . . "She is so surrounded by sycophants and so contemptuous of those who criticize her that she is unaware of how damaging her secrecy will be."

Hillary’s no-win situation at Goldman Sachs worsening as content of her paid speeches leaking out  "Poor Hillary! It turns out that there is a price to being a lying hypocrite.  That’s just so unfair. After all, Bill got away with posing as a feminist champion while assaulting, groping, and exploiting women for decades.  But when Hillary tries to match Bernie Sanders on a comparable pose as anti-Wall Street, she gets herself in a no-win situation.

"Goldman Sachs people are leaking out what she said in her $675,000 worth of three paid speeches, and it is now clear that releasing the transcripts of her talks will expose her hypocrisy. But of course, refusing to release them raises all sorts of worse suspicions. Shades of Nixon’s missing 13 minutes of tape.

"Ben White of Politico reports on the leaks from Goldman:. . . "

Madame Hillary's protection not so effective . .. . "But such miraculous windfalls for the Clintons have been pooh-poohed by the Democrat establishment and the media, who slobber like Pavlov's dogs when they hear "President Hillary."  Until now, that is.  The issue of Hillary's extortionist speaking fees is back in the news cycle, and this time it's not about the money...but, if you can believe it, the content of her speeches.  Hillary, who constantly bashes Wall Street as being the evil puppeteers who pull the economic strings of this nation to their constant advantage, apparently has been a bit duplicitous between her public denunciations and her more, shall we say,intimate dealings with Wall Street."

Hillary changed her tune during her concession speech Tuesday night, saying “no executive too powerful to jail.” 
. . . "And Clinton’s change in wording -- Lord, how those Clintons love to parse* words -- followed by less than 48 hours release of an FBI letter confirming that it is investigating Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.
. . . "Clinton, no doubt, was reacting to widespread commentary that her earlier declaration could actually be applied to, well, you know, uh … her." . . . 

*Parse: . . .to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning:Political columnists were in their glory, parsing the president's speech on the economy in minute detail.

Hillary Clinton, blind to her own greed, makes another blunder

Rubio Is Right: Obama Is Betraying America

Noisy Room

". . . Those “populist rightwing parties” have their counterpart in the United States, in the form of the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign. Curiously, he is anti-Muslim immigrant while pro-Russian. The candidate who failed to understand a question about the nuclear triad during one debate seems willing to let Putin run rampant in the Middle East, oblivious to the fact that Russia is making the refugee problem Trump complains about far worse.

"Trump may not know what’s he’s saying or doing, but Obama clearly does. He cut a nuclear deal with Iran that has emboldened the main allies of Russia in the Middle East.

“ 'Without Washington’s interference,” reports Avi Issacharoff, the Middle East analyst for The Times of Israel, “Moscow continues its incessant bombing of Aleppo, killing hundreds of innocent civilians. And Iran is taking over large parts of Syria and in the future may establish strongholds that will threaten Israel, whether in northwestern Syria or in its next target, the Deraa area close to the border with Israel and Jordan.”

"Rubio kept saying, “Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

"Rubio keeps saying this because it’s true. " . . .

SCOTUS Stops Obama’s Clean Power Plan

"Once again the judiciary stops Obama’s runaway regulatory state."

Legal Insurrection  "Yet another Obama administration initiative was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The Clean Power Plan (CPP) was a far-reaching effort by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to control greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act (CAA). If implemented, the CPP would have closed hundreds of coal-fired plants across the country and increased the production of wind and solar power, which are significantly more expensive to produce.

"The CPP was challenged in  court by energy companies, industry groups, and a coalition of 29 states, led by West Virginia. The litigants filed multiple applications for a stay, which would block the CPP from being implemented while the case proceeded.

. . . 

"In a follow-up article at the Post, Adler described the legal challenges as attacking the EPA not just for improperly exercising their legal authority, but as arguing that the EPA lacked any authority to impose the CPP in the first place:

It is not only the most ambitious climate-related initiative undertaken by the EPA, but it also relies upon unprecedented assertions of legal authority. And, to be clear, by “unprecedented” I mean just that — without precedent. This is not the same thing as saying that a specific argument or action is unlawful or wrong, only that it raises new legal questions that courts have not had cause to answer before.

Hillary and the Suspension of Disbelief

Victor Davis Hanson

"In a September 2007 congressional inquiry about the ongoing surge in Iraq, then Senator Hillary Clinton all but called Gen. David Petraeus a liar. After Petraeus gave a cautiously optimistic—and prescient—appraisal of the growing quiet in Iraq, Clinton curtly dismissed him with the literary term “suspension of disbelief,” which describes the creation of a fantasy world.

"Clinton sarcastically rebutted Petraeus’s quite accurate data with the curt dismissal, “I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.”

But Iraq was no make-believe place. Petraeus went on to quiet Iraq and it stayed that way until President Obama, with eyes on the 2012 election, yanked all peacekeepers out in December 2011—with the full support of Hillary Clinton.

"In ironic fashion, Hillary’s own vocabulary best describes her conduct. A “willing suspension of disbelief” most aptly sums up Hillary Clinton’s disastrous 2016 primary campaign, which so far seems more disastrous than her 2008 disastrous campaign." . . .