thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-12--'Disgusting attack': Ad accuses Montana GOP Sen. Steve Daines of not caring about coronavirus victim

'Disgusting attack': Ad accuses Montana GOP Sen. Steve Daines of not caring about coronavirus victims

The coronavirus pandemic is the subject of a new television advertisement that attacks Montana Sen. Steve Daines for his position on healthcare .
The 30-second spot from the liberal group , Protect Our Care , uses the Republican ’ s opposition to Obamacare to accuse him of dismissing voters ’ concerns about COVID-19 and other healthcare-related issues .
In a press release Thursday , Protect Our Care announced it was spending $ 250,000 on the ad-buy , a significant investment in Montana ’ s small media markets .
“ Too many Montana families go to sleep at night worried about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fear of coronavirus , ” a voice-over says , as the advertisement opens .
“ That doesn ’ t worry Steve Daines.
” Daines is up for reelection this year and is favored to win — Montana is a red state that supports President Trump .
However , Democratic Sen. Jon Tester won reelection there in 2018 , and Democrats are confident that Gov .
Steve Bullock , Daines 's opponent , is the sort of Democrat who could win in Montana .
Bullock , who briefly ran for president , announced his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican Senatorial Committee swiftly came to Daines 's defense , while accusing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York , and the Democratic Party broadly , of playing petty politics with a serious health threat .
On Wednesday , the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic .
The virus has forced the cancellations of dozens of public events across the United States and is threatening to push the American economy into recession .
“ Less than 24 hours after the WHO declared the Coronavirus a pandemic , Chuck Schumer ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ads that politicize a disease that knows no party , '' NRSC spokesman Jesse Hunt said in a statement .
`` If Democrats want to be seen as working toward a bipartisan solution on this incredibly serious issue then they should cease using it to try to score cheap political points . ''

The coronavirus pandemic is the subject of a new television advertisement that attacks Montana Sen. Steve Daines for his position on healthcare.
The 30-second spot from the liberal group, Protect Our Care, uses the Republican’s opposition to Obamacare to accuse him of dismissing voters’ concerns about COVID-19 and other healthcare-related issues. In a press release Thursday, Protect Our Care announced it was spending $250,000 on the ad-buy, a significant investment in Montana’s small media markets.
“Too many Montana families go to sleep at night worried about healthcare; coverage, costs, now fear of coronavirus,” a voice-over says, as the advertisement opens. “That doesn’t worry Steve Daines.”
Daines is up for reelection this year and is favored to win — Montana is a red state that supports President Trump. However, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester won reelection there in 2018, and Democrats are confident that Gov. Steve Bullock, Daines's opponent, is the sort of Democrat who could win in Montana. Bullock, who briefly ran for president, announced his Senate campaign on Monday.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee swiftly came to Daines's defense, while accusing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and the Democratic Party broadly, of playing petty politics with a serious health threat. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The virus has forced the cancellations of dozens of public events across the United States and is threatening to push the American economy into recession.
“Less than 24 hours after the WHO declared the Coronavirus a pandemic, Chuck Schumer’s dark money allies launched disgusting attack ads that politicize a disease that knows no party," NRSC spokesman Jesse Hunt said in a statement. "If Democrats want to be seen as working toward a bipartisan solution on this incredibly serious issue then they should cease using it to try to score cheap political points."


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-12--Biden shake-up: New campaign manager formerly ran Beto O'Rourke bid

Joe Biden has a new campaign manager , a major change as he moves into presumptive nominee mode and hopes to address concerns of organizational errors that plagued him during early primary contests .
New Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon previously ran former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke 's presidential campaign .
Greg Schultz , who was campaign manager from the start of Biden 's campaign , is expected to take a new top role in the campaign focused on organizational planning and donor outreach , according to the Washington Post .
Observers long raised concerns about Biden 's poor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two early nominating states , Iowa and New Hampshire , where Biden placed in disastrous fourth and fifth place .
After Iowa , Biden adjusted his campaign staff structure and elevated longtime Democratic operative Anita Dunn 's role in the campaign to reshape overall campaign strategy and fundraising .
O'Malley Dillon , 43 , is a longtime Democratic operative .
Previously , she was a deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama 's reelection campaign in 2012 and executive director for the Democratic National Committee .
After O'Rourke dropped out of the race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for senior Biden campaign officials .

Joe Biden has a new campaign manager, a major change as he moves into presumptive nominee mode and hopes to address concerns of organizational errors that plagued him during early primary contests.
New Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon previously ran former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke's presidential campaign. Greg Schultz, who was campaign manager from the start of Biden's campaign, is expected to take a new top role in the campaign focused on organizational planning and donor outreach, according to the Washington Post.
Observers long raised concerns about Biden's poor fundraising and staff structure in the first two early nominating states, Iowa and New Hampshire, where Biden placed in disastrous fourth and fifth place.
After Iowa, Biden adjusted his campaign staff structure and elevated longtime Democratic operative Anita Dunn's role in the campaign to reshape overall campaign strategy and fundraising.
O'Malley Dillon, 43, is a longtime Democratic operative. Previously, she was a deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama's reelection campaign in 2012 and executive director for the Democratic National Committee. After O'Rourke dropped out of the race, she became an informal campaign adviser for senior Biden campaign officials.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-12--Democratic Party moves primary debate from Arizona, moderator pulls out over coronavirus

The Democratic Party wo n't host this weekend 's head-to-head primary debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in Arizona .
The Democratic National Committee , the party 's organizing body , originally scheduled the election cycle 's 11th debate in Phoenix .
But it decided Thursday to move the event to Washington , D.C. , amid the coronavirus outbreak .
“ Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel , all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday ’ s debate at CNN ’ s studio in Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa wrote in a statement .
The DNC this week decided to scrap plans to have the debate in front of a crowd , while hosting partners CNN and Univision nixed the traditional press filing center and spin room .
On Thursday , Hinojosa also announced Univision anchor and moderator Jorge Ramos `` was in proximity with someone who was in direct contact with a person that tested positive for coronavirus . ''
`` Both Mr. Ramos and the person he was in contact with are in good health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` Univision ’ s News Anchor Ilia Calderón will moderate the debate in his place . ''
The plans are likely to disappoint the Arizona Democratic Party , which issued a statement after the first changes saying it was `` deeply disappointed that the upcoming debate in Phoenix will not have a live audience , '' but understood and appreciated `` that the public 's health comes first . ''
The spread of the respiratory illness has caused havoc on the primary .
Both Biden and Sanders canceled rallies this week in Ohio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of its events to a virtual setting ahead of the next round of voting on Tuesday .

The Democratic Party won't host this weekend's head-to-head primary debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in Arizona.
The Democratic National Committee, the party's organizing body, originally scheduled the election cycle's 11th debate in Phoenix. But it decided Thursday to move the event to Washington, D.C., amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington, D.C., with no live audience," DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa wrote in a statement.
The DNC this week decided to scrap plans to have the debate in front of a crowd, while hosting partners CNN and Univision nixed the traditional press filing center and spin room.
[Click here for complete coronavirus coverage]
On Thursday, Hinojosa also announced Univision anchor and moderator Jorge Ramos "was in proximity with someone who was in direct contact with a person that tested positive for coronavirus."
"Both Mr. Ramos and the person he was in contact with are in good health and symptom-free," Hinojosa said. "Univision’s News Anchor Ilia Calderón will moderate the debate in his place."
The plans are likely to disappoint the Arizona Democratic Party, which issued a statement after the first changes saying it was "deeply disappointed that the upcoming debate in Phoenix will not have a live audience," but understood and appreciated "that the public's health comes first."
The spread of the respiratory illness has caused havoc on the primary. Both Biden and Sanders canceled rallies this week in Ohio, with Biden's campaign shifting some of its events to a virtual setting ahead of the next round of voting on Tuesday.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-12--What will Biden look for in a running mate?

Joe Biden knows something about the vice presidential selection and vetting process .
He went through it himself 12 years ago when Barack Obama tapped the 36-year Delaware senator as his understudy .
Now , after the pair served together in the White House for eight years , Biden is the one doing the choosing for vice president .
He has n't yet clinched the nomination against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders , who is staying in the race despite a poor showing in this week 's primary elections .
But facing the likelihood of strong Biden finishes in next week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Florida , Illinois , and Ohio , Biden can turn his attention to finding a running mate .
For Prime Policy Group 's Charlie Black , a top aide to former Presidents Ronald Reagan , George H.W .
Bush , George W. Bush , as well as Arizona Sen. John McCain during his 2008 White House bid , his best advice to Biden was to select somebody `` you know you can work with . ''
Downplaying the importance of geographical balance in modern politics , Biden , 77 , may need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make the Sanders supporters happy , '' according to Black .
`` In his case , a younger person makes better sense than an older person , '' he said .
Black , however , warned `` a lot more VP nominees have hurt tickets than have ever really helped , '' not providing examples .
Shortly after her unveiling in 2008 , then-Alaska Gov .
Sarah Palin boosted McCain by countering the excitement generated by Obama .
But while she remained popular with the Republican base , her inexperience in foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long shot at electoral success that November .
After that losing national campaign , Palin quit the Alaska governorship eight months later , and she has effectively dropped out of national politics .
She was last seen Wednesday on the television show The Masked Singer , where she rapped `` Baby Got Back '' while dressed as a furry bear .
Biden himself sometimes consumed a news cycle in the 2008 and 2012 general elections with gaffes on the campaign trail .
It ’ s a habit he ’ s carried over into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House .
`` The biggest mistake you can make is to not vet someone properly .
You do not want surprises , '' Black said .
Bipartisan Policy Center 's John Fortier , whose team published a report in 2016 about vice presidential nominee selection reform , emphasized that most voters cast their ballots for the top of the ticket since it is n't a `` co-presidency . ''
Yet , Fortier said it was important to choose somebody who `` is seen as capable of stepping in , '' particularly given Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recommendations from the report was to start the selection process early , allowing eight weeks to comb through potential nominees ' public records , have lawyers grill them , and for the candidate to get to know them personally .
`` The tradition has been in recent years to name them roughly in the week before the convention , '' Fortier said .
Adding that Biden had more leeway to pick an outsider or someone with less experience based on him being in politics for nearly half a century , the political scientist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ list '' of possible running mates , that list signaling `` to different constituencies that , 'Hey , look , I 'm interested in all of the parts of the Democratic Party . '
'' `` There is a good chance he 'll select a woman .
Women are a larger part of the Democratic Party than men , '' he said .
Biden has floated a number of hypothetical vice presidents , stressing his desire for a person who was `` in simpatico '' with him : Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jeanne Shaheen , and Sally Yates , even Michelle Obama or a Republican .
Some , such as former Democratic rivals Sens .
Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota , have already joined him on the stump after suspending their own bids , an audition of sorts to see how they 'd fare as a partner again Trump and his No .
2 Mike Pence .
Harris is the odds-on favorite to earn the nod , according to betting aggregator US-Bookies.com , though she struggled with black Democrats over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state is n't a battleground .
Harris is followed by Klobuchar , Abrams , and Warren .
In last Tuesday 's primaries , Biden asserted himself in Michigan , the prize of the night with 125 pledged delegates .
He also dominated in Mississippi and Missouri , increasing the likelihood of a swift end to a once-fluid primary boasting a historically wide field of candidates .

Joe Biden knows something about the vice presidential selection and vetting process. He went through it himself 12 years ago when Barack Obama tapped the 36-year Delaware senator as his understudy.
Now, after the pair served together in the White House for eight years, Biden is the one doing the choosing for vice president. He hasn't yet clinched the nomination against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is staying in the race despite a poor showing in this week's primary elections. But facing the likelihood of strong Biden finishes in next week's round of voting in megastates Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio, Biden can turn his attention to finding a running mate.
For Prime Policy Group's Charlie Black, a top aide to former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, as well as Arizona Sen. John McCain during his 2008 White House bid, his best advice to Biden was to select somebody "you know you can work with."
Downplaying the importance of geographical balance in modern politics, Biden, 77, may need to pick someone for philosophical balance "to make the Sanders supporters happy," according to Black.
"In his case, a younger person makes better sense than an older person," he said.
Black, however, warned "a lot more VP nominees have hurt tickets than have ever really helped," not providing examples.
Shortly after her unveiling in 2008, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin boosted McCain by countering the excitement generated by Obama. But while she remained popular with the Republican base, her inexperience in foreign policy became a drag on McCain's long shot at electoral success that November.
After that losing national campaign, Palin quit the Alaska governorship eight months later, and she has effectively dropped out of national politics. She was last seen Wednesday on the television show The Masked Singer, where she rapped "Baby Got Back" while dressed as a furry bear.
Biden himself sometimes consumed a news cycle in the 2008 and 2012 general elections with gaffes on the campaign trail. It’s a habit he’s carried over into the 2020 Democratic race for the White House.
"The biggest mistake you can make is to not vet someone properly. You do not want surprises," Black said.
Bipartisan Policy Center's John Fortier, whose team published a report in 2016 about vice presidential nominee selection reform, emphasized that most voters cast their ballots for the top of the ticket since it isn't a "co-presidency." Yet, Fortier said it was important to choose somebody who "is seen as capable of stepping in," particularly given Biden's age.
One of the key recommendations from the report was to start the selection process early, allowing eight weeks to comb through potential nominees' public records, have lawyers grill them, and for the candidate to get to know them personally.
"The tradition has been in recent years to name them roughly in the week before the convention," Fortier said.
Adding that Biden had more leeway to pick an outsider or someone with less experience based on him being in politics for nearly half a century, the political scientist predicted there would be "a long list" of possible running mates, that list signaling "to different constituencies that, 'Hey, look, I'm interested in all of the parts of the Democratic Party.'"
"There is a good chance he'll select a woman. Women are a larger part of the Democratic Party than men," he said.
Biden has floated a number of hypothetical vice presidents, stressing his desire for a person who was "in simpatico" with him: Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren to Stacey Abrams, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, and Sally Yates, even Michelle Obama or a Republican.
Some, such as former Democratic rivals Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, have already joined him on the stump after suspending their own bids, an audition of sorts to see how they'd fare as a partner again Trump and his No. 2 Mike Pence.
Harris is the odds-on favorite to earn the nod, according to betting aggregator US-Bookies.com, though she struggled with black Democrats over the course of her campaign and her home state isn't a battleground. Harris is followed by Klobuchar, Abrams, and Warren.
In last Tuesday's primaries, Biden asserted himself in Michigan, the prize of the night with 125 pledged delegates. He also dominated in Mississippi and Missouri, increasing the likelihood of a swift end to a once-fluid primary boasting a historically wide field of candidates.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-12--Former Warren staffers face blowback for tattoos resembling Holocaust markings

Twitter users condemned former staffers from Elizabeth Warren ’ s failed presidential campaign over tattoos they claim resemble markings forced @ @ @ @ @ the Holocaust .
Two former staffers , Raquel Breternitz and Eric Ziminsky got tattoos to @ @ @ @ @ Massachusetts senator ’ s ended campaign for the White House .
People on Twitter , @ @ @ @ @ tattoos for being reminiscent of Holocaust tattoos .
The tattoos were styled after the color @ @ @ @ @ Green ” color used by Warren ’ s campaign , reading “ # B7E4CF.
” @ @ @ @ @ former staffers did n't even have the right code tattooed .
Both former staffers eventually @ @ @ @ @ tattoos and apologized .
“ I do not want to evoke or make light of @ @ @ @ @ for missing the mark , ” Breternitz said .
Ziminsky said he would modify his @ @ @ @ @ campaign on March 5 following a weak Super Tuesday performance and has yet to endorse @ @ @ @ @ .

Twitter users condemned former staffers from Elizabeth Warren’s failed presidential campaign over tattoos they claim resemble markings forced upon Jews held captive during the Holocaust.
Two former staffers, Raquel Breternitz and Eric Ziminsky got tattoos to celebrate their time on the Massachusetts senator’s ended campaign for the White House.
People on Twitter, however, swiftly condemned the tattoos for being reminiscent of Holocaust tattoos.
These two things might not look exactly alike, but they are *enough* alike that the people who got them or the artist who tattooed them should have given it a second thought. I know it's too late now, but maybe folks should rethink their @ewarren tattoo choices in the future? pic.twitter.com/MFOy6RaXqr — Rabbi Andy Kahn (@rabbiandykahn) March 10, 2020
can't believe warren's campaign didn't have a quiz training staffers on how not to get a holocaust tattoo — Naomi LaChance (@lachancenaomi) March 10, 2020
my takeaway from the multiple warren tattoo debacles is that none of her holdout supporters have good taste, self awareness or vision, nor do they have any honest friends in their small, isolated, inward facing community of objectively lame, nervous and out of touch opportunists — keith buckley (@deathoftheparty) March 11, 2020
Getting a short series of numbers and letters tattooed in black ink on your arm is certainly one way to own Bernie — David Klion (@DavidKlion) March 10, 2020
this is literally the first thing I saw when logging on so I'm logging off pic.twitter.com/Vam282NlFL — i bless the rains down in castamere (@Chinchillazllla) March 10, 2020
The tattoos were styled after the color code for the “Liberty Green” color used by Warren’s campaign, reading “#B7E4CF.”
One Twitter user claimed the former staffers didn't even have the right code tattooed.
lmao the warren hex tattoo isn’t even the right hexadecimal code pic.twitter.com/nwA7fdEMzP — Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) March 10, 2020
Both former staffers eventually deleted their tweets announcing the tattoos and apologized.
Thanks to all who called me on this. I do not want to evoke or make light of the Holocaust. I apologise for missing the mark. I am here to listen and will strive to be better at living in solidarity with my Jewish friends. I'm sorry, and I will take steps to modify the tattoo. — Raquel Breternitz ❦ 🩸🦷🌹 (@RaquelDesigns) March 10, 2020
“I do not want to evoke or make light of the Holocaust. I apologise for missing the mark,” Breternitz said.
Ziminsky said he would modify his tattoo.
Hey y’all, I’m sorry as well, and will be making modifications. Thank you for holding us accountable on our mistakes. I would recommend for folks who are thinking of a similar tattoo, please look for alternatives such as, pinky promise, logo, persist, or DBFH. https://t.co/3OyGfg6JqL — eric (@ericziminsky) March 10, 2020
Warren ended her campaign on March 5 following a weak Super Tuesday performance and has yet to endorse any of the remaining candidates.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-12--'Too much at stake': Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates endorses Biden

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is throwing her support behind Joe Biden 's 2020 White House bid .
Yates , a career federal prosecutor who was fired in 2017 for refusing to enforce the Trump administration 's travel ban on Muslim-majority countries , announced her endorsement on Thursday , emphasizing that there is `` too much at stake '' to remain apolitical .
“ I am supporting Joe Biden for President because I trust him .
I trust him to always put the country ’ s interests before his own ; to tell us the truth ; to appeal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , instincts ; to unite rather than divide us ; and to always treat the presidency as a privilege rather than an entitlement , '' she said in a statement released by the Biden campaign .
“ I am not a political person .
But there is too much at stake now for any of us to sit on the sidelines , '' she continued .
`` This is indeed a battle for the soul of America — who we are , or at least who we have always aspired to be .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our current president , at the end of eight years , I fear that we will not recognize the nation that we have become .
But the future of our country is up to us .
We have a choice . ''
Yates added , “ Our country needs Joe Biden .
And I am proud to support him.
” The former vice president , who is rumored to be considering Yates as his attorney general pick and once floated her as a possible running mate , currently holds the lead in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is in second with 691 , and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard remains in last with only two delegates .
Prior to Super Tuesday , Biden was endorsed by a slew of centrist Democrats who ended their own presidential campaigns , including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar , former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg , and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke .
Yates , who was appointed deputy attorney general by Barack Obama , was temporarily in the attorney general position during the early days of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confirmation .

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is throwing her support behind Joe Biden's 2020 White House bid.
Yates, a career federal prosecutor who was fired in 2017 for refusing to enforce the Trump administration's travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, announced her endorsement on Thursday, emphasizing that there is "too much at stake" to remain apolitical.
“I am supporting Joe Biden for President because I trust him. I trust him to always put the country’s interests before his own; to tell us the truth; to appeal to our best, not our worst, instincts; to unite rather than divide us; and to always treat the presidency as a privilege rather than an entitlement," she said in a statement released by the Biden campaign.
“I am not a political person. But there is too much at stake now for any of us to sit on the sidelines," she continued. "This is indeed a battle for the soul of America — who we are, or at least who we have always aspired to be. While our country can survive four years of our current president, at the end of eight years, I fear that we will not recognize the nation that we have become. But the future of our country is up to us. We have a choice."
Yates added, “Our country needs Joe Biden. And I am proud to support him.”
The former vice president, who is rumored to be considering Yates as his attorney general pick and once floated her as a possible running mate, currently holds the lead in the Democratic nominating process with 838 delegates. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is in second with 691, and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard remains in last with only two delegates.
Prior to Super Tuesday, Biden was endorsed by a slew of centrist Democrats who ended their own presidential campaigns, including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke.
Yates, who was appointed deputy attorney general by Barack Obama, was temporarily in the attorney general position during the early days of the Trump administration while then-nominee Jeff Sessions awaited confirmation.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-12--DNC chairman says convention won't be canceled or moved online over coronavirus outbreak

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said canceling the Democratic convention this summer or replacing it with an online event is not under consideration .
`` We are working with our state and local partners , and I 'm confident that we can work a plan that will enable us to have our convention , '' he told Axios HBO on Monday in an interview that will air in full on Sunday .
The spread of the coronavirus has led cities and states across the United States to declare a state of emergency .
Festivals , sporting events , conferences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the wake of the outbreak .
More than 1,300 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the U.S .
The convention is scheduled for July 13 through July 16 in Milwaukee .
Perez said the committee is monitoring the situation `` every single day ” and has been in contact with public health officials .
He also said an online convention , where delegates would vote remotely , is not on the table .
`` We 'd have to change the rules , '' he said .
`` We 're not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials have urged elderly people to stay at home and to avoid crowds .
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have already canceled rallies and other campaign events out of a concern for public safety .

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said canceling the Democratic convention this summer or replacing it with an online event is not under consideration.
"We are working with our state and local partners, and I'm confident that we can work a plan that will enable us to have our convention," he told Axios HBO on Monday in an interview that will air in full on Sunday.
The spread of the coronavirus has led cities and states across the United States to declare a state of emergency. Festivals, sporting events, conferences, and other activities have been canceled in the wake of the outbreak. More than 1,300 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the U.S.
The convention is scheduled for July 13 through July 16 in Milwaukee. Perez said the committee is monitoring the situation "every single day” and has been in contact with public health officials. He also said an online convention, where delegates would vote remotely, is not on the table.
"We'd have to change the rules," he said. "We're not contemplating rule changes."
Public health officials have urged elderly people to stay at home and to avoid crowds. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have already canceled rallies and other campaign events out of a concern for public safety.


Revolution, interrupted

Near the start of the Russian Revolution , in 1918 , Leon Trotsky called democracy a “ less perfect medium for the expression of class struggle under revolutionary circumstances ” that was open to manipulation by “ the propertied classes ” that subvert “ the will of the toilers.
” It would be no surprise to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders , who campaigned for the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party in 1982 and 1986 , sharing similar thoughts following his apparently decisive defeat in the Democratic presidential primaries to former Vice President Joe Biden .
And like Trotsky , who fell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and was forced into exile , Sanders was betrayed by those , in the form of white , working-class Democrats , he needed most to fulfill his promise of global socialism .
The warning signs for Sanders ’ s eventual defeat in the primary were there from the start .
The Vermont socialist lost Iowa to 38-year-old former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg .
It became increasingly obvious that his base of support was shrinking , rather than expanding , from his galvanizing run in 2016 .
Hillary Clinton narrowly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a percentage point , and Sanders was now performing worse in rural districts than Buttigieg or Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar .
New Hampshire , where Sanders won by 40 points against Clinton last time , went even worse .
Although he managed to win , his coalition there looked nothing like that of an unstoppable front-runner .
He eked out a win with less than 26 % , barely more than a percentage point above Buttigieg , the runner-up .
Despite promising supporters that only his campaign `` is the campaign of energy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the campaign that can bring millions of people into the political process who normally do not vote , ” things were going horribly wrong .
Turnout wasn ’ t increasing in the places Sanders promised , which meant his campaign hadn ’ t cracked the code on generating class consciousness within the lumpenproletariat .
Of course , Sanders is n't a true revolutionary in the model of Fidel Castro or Toussaint L ’ Ouverture .
He ’ s a politician .
College debt relief won ’ t come from the barrel of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ways and Means Committee .
That meant it was time for some spin .
“ The young vote , of people under 29 years of age , increased by 33 % over where it was four years ago and was even higher than Obama ’ s extraordinary victory in 2008 , '' Sanders told reporters after Iowa , before adding that it was `` a great omen for the 2020 campaign ” and that he earned “ huge voter turnout.
” But that wasn ’ t really the case .
Sanders was only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who participated in the caucuses this year , not the total numbers .
As many as 10,300 fewer young voters showed up to caucus locations than in 2016 .
In New Hampshire , voter turnout set new records .
But exit polls showed the electorate significantly less liberal than in 2016 , meaning it was candidates such as Klobuchar and Buttigieg who were the ones bringing in new voters , and this time , those voters were mostly composed of former Republicans .
Sanders ’ s roughly 1-point margin of victory was fueled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , single men .
Sanders supporters hand-waved all of these facts away by pointing out that there were simply more candidates this time around .
But that 's misleading : Buttigieg , Biden , and Klobuchar don ’ t represent the kind of left-wing political factions that stop European leaders such as Jean-Luc Antoine Pierre Melenchon from gaining power .
Leftist infighting is a tale as old as 1789 , but that isn ’ t what was happening here .
And then there was Elizabeth Warren , the establishment pick to carry on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dreaded S-word ( socialism ) .
But talking to Sanders supporters , she may as well have been a general in the White Army .
She was no radical , they said , and her appeal was limited to those who prioritized supposed technical expertise over class struggle .
An October essay in the socialist monthly Jacobin said a potential Warren nomination represented “ an unconditional surrender to class dealignment.
” In other words , her supporters were fundamentally different from Sanders ’ s , and thus never truly in play .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan went , Warren voters would serve as the rear guard — a fancy Marxist way of describing middle-class voters who begrudgingly back socialists because of the barbarism of the right wing .
Early primary data mostly supports this , with Warren voters almost entirely representing college-educated-and-beyond members of the professional middle class .
Gender had little to do with Warren ’ s electoral failures : A majority of female voters picked other candidates .
She did better with college-educated men than with working-class women .
But Sanders kept chugging along .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , he ’ d point to his crowd sizes , the surge of donations , the energy , the hip rock bands that came out to perform in small towns throughout Iowa and New Hampshire .
In a callback to George McGovern ’ s 1972 loss , no one on social media seemed to support any candidate but Sanders .
After his resounding Nevada victory , I was most impressed by the campaign 's show of support from Latino voters .
There , over half of Hispanics backed him at 4-1 margins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close to the campaign the parallels between Sanders ’ s potential general-election coalition of the downwardly mobile and second-generation immigrants with President Franklin D. Roosevelt , who helped him sail to the presidency in part thanks to the backing of families up north who recently arrived from Italy .
While rivals such as Warren shamelessly spoke about the plight of transgender “ Latinx ” janitors and migrant workers , Sanders ’ s message remained consistent : Socialism will deliver you the future , what ’ s rightfully yours .
Biden didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the caucus .
A modified coalition of the ascending seemed poised to bring America closer to its first socialist president than ever before , in the form of a 78-year-old Jewish man from Vermont .
Sanders ’ s savvy , Hispanic senior adviser , Chuck Rocha , had managed to mobilize Latinos en masse away from establishment-backed candidates .
Sanders ’ s performance in Nevada was even more astounding when one considers that all political forces in the state were working against him .
Former Sen. Harry Reid , who an individual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to endorse Warren or Biden before their dismal performances in New Hampshire , spoke out in interviews against two of Sanders ’ s key platforms : Medicare for All and decriminalizing illegal border crossings .
When he met with unions in the state , Sanders would find himself interrupted by protesters concerned about losing their healthcare plans under his administration .
Clinton won the state by more than 5 points in 2016 .
None of that mattered , however , when it was time to caucus .
I spoke with Sanders campaign manager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soft-spoken Harvard-educated son of Pakistani immigrants who once worked for establishment figures such as Reid and Nancy Pelosi , following the Nevada Democratic debate about how he was feeling about the state of the race .
Every state that sees increased voter turnout , he confidently declared , will mean good news for Sanders .
He excitedly gamed out the prospect of Michael Bloomberg being Sanders ’ s new main competitor .
Their future debates , he said with glee , would be a preview of the general-election strategy against Trump .
South @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Shakir went as far as to say that he believed the party would likely have its nominee after Super Tuesday , or the week after .
He was right .
It just wasn ’ t Sanders .
Biden ’ s incredible Super Tuesday success lacks any comprehensive explanation .
No , most Democrats aren ’ t socialists .
But polls show an overwhelming number of them don ’ t mind voting for one , and a majority support Medicare for All over Biden ’ s healthcare plan .
Biden ’ s favorable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him around for over a year on the trail , I ’ m not sure what his candidacy represents other than “ No malarkey , ” a slogan routinely contradicted by Biden ’ s famous penchant for tall tales .
Instead , it ’ s likely that in a two-man race in which both candidates have high name recognition , Democratic voters will go with whom they are most comfortable with .
And that means someone who doesn ’ t praise Fidel Castro , someone who voters can conceivably imagine working with Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t making promises to erase all student debt magically when most people just want a president who just doesn ’ t conduct international relations by tweet .
In terms of turnout on Super Tuesday , Biden seemed to be the one generating it , not Sanders .
Biden won more voters in Virginia than Barack Obama in 2008 , and Sanders ’ s share of black voters actually decreased in some states .
The last-minute gambit of accepting the endorsement of Jesse Jackson had absolutely no impact on the race .
To put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sanders fared in this primary : As of right now , he ’ s on track to win fewer states than Jackson did in his own 1988 presidential run .
Some of Sanders ’ s supporters say he erred by compromising his decadeslong positions on issues such as immigration and gun control .
Yet the candidates ’ extremity on endorsing de facto open borders or door-to-door gun confiscation reflects how many Democratic primary voters actually feel about these things .
Does anyone believe Sanders would have performed better in a place like California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ O ’ Rourke , if he campaigned on “ If you like your gun , you can keep your gun ” ?
Sanders ’ s rivals were already feeding streams of opposition research to me on his past rhetoric on immigration for months , and there 's no way he would 've won the Democratic nomination had he embraced his past messaging , such as saying the Democratic Party ’ s line on amnesty was a result of capitalist infiltration .
Much of his campaign was staffed by young activists , including a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ covered by Obama ’ s Dreamer program .
Who , exactly , would work for this campaign if he flip-flopped back to his older positions on the topic ?
Perhaps Jeff Sessions needs a job .
In May 2019 , Sanders filed to run for reelection in Vermont as a Democrat and an independent , a peace offering with the political establishment .
`` I am a member of the Democratic Party , '' a pledge signed by Sanders said .
`` I will run as a Democrat , accept the nomination of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a Democrat if elected . ''
His second presidential primary washout means Sanders won ’ t have to violate his conscious any longer .
For someone who so stubbornly prized political authenticity and consistency for over half a century , it ’ s a small victory .
Joseph Simonson is a political reporter for the Washington Examiner .

Near the start of the Russian Revolution, in 1918, Leon Trotsky called democracy a “less perfect medium for the expression of class struggle under revolutionary circumstances” that was open to manipulation by “the propertied classes” that subvert “the will of the toilers.”
It would be no surprise to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders, who campaigned for the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party in 1982 and 1986, sharing similar thoughts following his apparently decisive defeat in the Democratic presidential primaries to former Vice President Joe Biden. And like Trotsky, who fell out of favor with the Communist Party and was forced into exile, Sanders was betrayed by those, in the form of white, working-class Democrats, he needed most to fulfill his promise of global socialism.
The warning signs for Sanders’s eventual defeat in the primary were there from the start. The Vermont socialist lost Iowa to 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. It became increasingly obvious that his base of support was shrinking, rather than expanding, from his galvanizing run in 2016. Hillary Clinton narrowly won Iowa in 2016 by less than a percentage point, and Sanders was now performing worse in rural districts than Buttigieg or Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
New Hampshire, where Sanders won by 40 points against Clinton last time, went even worse. Although he managed to win, his coalition there looked nothing like that of an unstoppable front-runner. He eked out a win with less than 26%, barely more than a percentage point above Buttigieg, the runner-up.
Despite promising supporters that only his campaign "is the campaign of energy, is the campaign of excitement, is the campaign that can bring millions of people into the political process who normally do not vote,” things were going horribly wrong.
Turnout wasn’t increasing in the places Sanders promised, which meant his campaign hadn’t cracked the code on generating class consciousness within the lumpenproletariat. Of course, Sanders isn't a true revolutionary in the model of Fidel Castro or Toussaint L’Ouverture. He’s a politician. College debt relief won’t come from the barrel of the gun, but from the House Ways and Means Committee. That meant it was time for some spin.
“The young vote, of people under 29 years of age, increased by 33% over where it was four years ago and was even higher than Obama’s extraordinary victory in 2008," Sanders told reporters after Iowa, before adding that it was "a great omen for the 2020 campaign” and that he earned “huge voter turnout.”
But that wasn’t really the case. Sanders was only referring to the proportion of new voters who participated in the caucuses this year, not the total numbers. As many as 10,300 fewer young voters showed up to caucus locations than in 2016.
In New Hampshire, voter turnout set new records. But exit polls showed the electorate significantly less liberal than in 2016, meaning it was candidates such as Klobuchar and Buttigieg who were the ones bringing in new voters, and this time, those voters were mostly composed of former Republicans. Sanders’s roughly 1-point margin of victory was fueled almost entirely by college students and young, single men.
Sanders supporters hand-waved all of these facts away by pointing out that there were simply more candidates this time around. But that's misleading: Buttigieg, Biden, and Klobuchar don’t represent the kind of left-wing political factions that stop European leaders such as Jean-Luc Antoine Pierre Melenchon from gaining power. Leftist infighting is a tale as old as 1789, but that isn’t what was happening here.
And then there was Elizabeth Warren, the establishment pick to carry on the Sanders mantle who shrewdly avoided the dreaded S-word (socialism). But talking to Sanders supporters, she may as well have been a general in the White Army. She was no radical, they said, and her appeal was limited to those who prioritized supposed technical expertise over class struggle.
An October essay in the socialist monthly Jacobin said a potential Warren nomination represented “an unconditional surrender to class dealignment.” In other words, her supporters were fundamentally different from Sanders’s, and thus never truly in play. After Sanders won the nomination, so the plan went, Warren voters would serve as the rear guard — a fancy Marxist way of describing middle-class voters who begrudgingly back socialists because of the barbarism of the right wing.
Early primary data mostly supports this, with Warren voters almost entirely representing college-educated-and-beyond members of the professional middle class. Gender had little to do with Warren’s electoral failures: A majority of female voters picked other candidates. She did better with college-educated men than with working-class women.
But Sanders kept chugging along. And who could blame him? Like President Trump, he’d point to his crowd sizes, the surge of donations, the energy, the hip rock bands that came out to perform in small towns throughout Iowa and New Hampshire. In a callback to George McGovern’s 1972 loss, no one on social media seemed to support any candidate but Sanders.
After his resounding Nevada victory, I was most impressed by the campaign's show of support from Latino voters. There, over half of Hispanics backed him at 4-1 margins over Biden. I discussed with some close to the campaign the parallels between Sanders’s potential general-election coalition of the downwardly mobile and second-generation immigrants with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who helped him sail to the presidency in part thanks to the backing of families up north who recently arrived from Italy.
While rivals such as Warren shamelessly spoke about the plight of transgender “Latinx” janitors and migrant workers, Sanders’s message remained consistent: Socialism will deliver you the future, what’s rightfully yours. Biden didn’t even bother sticking around Nevada the night of the caucus.
A modified coalition of the ascending seemed poised to bring America closer to its first socialist president than ever before, in the form of a 78-year-old Jewish man from Vermont. Sanders’s savvy, Hispanic senior adviser, Chuck Rocha, had managed to mobilize Latinos en masse away from establishment-backed candidates.
Sanders’s performance in Nevada was even more astounding when one considers that all political forces in the state were working against him. Former Sen. Harry Reid, who an individual close to him told me was ready to endorse Warren or Biden before their dismal performances in New Hampshire, spoke out in interviews against two of Sanders’s key platforms: Medicare for All and decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
When he met with unions in the state, Sanders would find himself interrupted by protesters concerned about losing their healthcare plans under his administration. Clinton won the state by more than 5 points in 2016. None of that mattered, however, when it was time to caucus.
I spoke with Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir, an incredibly bright and soft-spoken Harvard-educated son of Pakistani immigrants who once worked for establishment figures such as Reid and Nancy Pelosi, following the Nevada Democratic debate about how he was feeling about the state of the race.
Every state that sees increased voter turnout, he confidently declared, will mean good news for Sanders. He excitedly gamed out the prospect of Michael Bloomberg being Sanders’s new main competitor. Their future debates, he said with glee, would be a preview of the general-election strategy against Trump. South Carolina even seemed to be in play.
Shakir went as far as to say that he believed the party would likely have its nominee after Super Tuesday, or the week after.
He was right. It just wasn’t Sanders.
Biden’s incredible Super Tuesday success lacks any comprehensive explanation. No, most Democrats aren’t socialists. But polls show an overwhelming number of them don’t mind voting for one, and a majority support Medicare for All over Biden’s healthcare plan.
Biden’s favorable ratings are high, but after following him around for over a year on the trail, I’m not sure what his candidacy represents other than “No malarkey,” a slogan routinely contradicted by Biden’s famous penchant for tall tales.
Instead, it’s likely that in a two-man race in which both candidates have high name recognition, Democratic voters will go with whom they are most comfortable with. And that means someone who doesn’t praise Fidel Castro, someone who voters can conceivably imagine working with Senate Republicans, and someone who isn’t making promises to erase all student debt magically when most people just want a president who just doesn’t conduct international relations by tweet.
In terms of turnout on Super Tuesday, Biden seemed to be the one generating it, not Sanders. Biden won more voters in Virginia than Barack Obama in 2008, and Sanders’s share of black voters actually decreased in some states.
The last-minute gambit of accepting the endorsement of Jesse Jackson had absolutely no impact on the race. To put things in perspective regarding just how poorly Sanders fared in this primary: As of right now, he’s on track to win fewer states than Jackson did in his own 1988 presidential run.
Some of Sanders’s supporters say he erred by compromising his decadeslong positions on issues such as immigration and gun control. Yet the candidates’ extremity on endorsing de facto open borders or door-to-door gun confiscation reflects how many Democratic primary voters actually feel about these things. Does anyone believe Sanders would have performed better in a place like California or even Texas, home of Beto O’Rourke, if he campaigned on “If you like your gun, you can keep your gun”?
Sanders’s rivals were already feeding streams of opposition research to me on his past rhetoric on immigration for months, and there's no way he would've won the Democratic nomination had he embraced his past messaging, such as saying the Democratic Party’s line on amnesty was a result of capitalist infiltration. Much of his campaign was staffed by young activists, including a senior official who was an illegal immigrant covered by Obama’s Dreamer program. Who, exactly, would work for this campaign if he flip-flopped back to his older positions on the topic? Perhaps Jeff Sessions needs a job.
In May 2019, Sanders filed to run for reelection in Vermont as a Democrat and an independent, a peace offering with the political establishment.
"I am a member of the Democratic Party," a pledge signed by Sanders said. "I will run as a Democrat, accept the nomination of my Party, and I will serve as a Democrat if elected."
His second presidential primary washout means Sanders won’t have to violate his conscious any longer. For someone who so stubbornly prized political authenticity and consistency for over half a century, it’s a small victory.
Joseph Simonson is a political reporter for the Washington Examiner.


Joe Biden's resurrection

And then there were two .
With apologies to Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard , the Democratic presidential race , which once featured more than 20 contestants of some notoriety , is now down to former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders .
The fight for the Democrats ’ presidential nomination has essentially returned to where it was for most of 2019 now that real voting has started , with Barack Obama ’ s two-term vice president and the runner-up from the 2016 primaries battling it out — though the race isn ’ t nearly as close as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In a stunning comeback , Biden has a commanding advantage in this two-way matchup .
He may have even sealed the deal with an easy double-digit win in Michigan , where Sanders had gotten his campaign back on track with an upset four years ago .
Missouri and Mississippi were called for Biden moments after the polls closed .
He finally had momentum , and small state caucuses aside , nowhere looked safe from Biden dominating .
After finishing fourth in Iowa , fifth in New Hampshire , and a distant second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first place in the national polls , and his long career in politics appeared finished .
“ Blood in the water , ” read one major national outlet ’ s headline ; “ doomed , ” said another .
Then , Biden rebounded with a decisive victory in South Carolina .
A win there was expected — the Palmetto State was Biden ’ s firewall , after all — but the margin of nearly 30 points was not .
Sanders , and even billionaire candidate Tom Steyer , appeared to be gaining on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , South Carolina began a run of sustained Biden success that extended through the Super Tuesday and Mini Tuesday primaries .
He has regained his lead in the national polls , beating Sanders by 16 points , according to CNN and Morning Consult , by 19 points , according to Quinnipiac , and 21 points in the Reuters/Ipsos survey .
The RealClearPolitics national polling average has Biden leading Sanders by 18 points , 53.5 % to 35.5 % .
“ Biden had as good a four-day stretch as any presidential candidate ever has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a strategist who advises progressive candidates and causes .
“ After Nevada , he was hanging on by his fingernails , but he turned everything around with his big victory in South Carolina .
He has assembled an impressive coalition of African American and moderate white Democratic primary voters , and he did it without hardly any money.
” Biden ’ s “ Joe-mentum ” has n't shown any sign of letting up since .
The former vice president undoubtedly deserves some credit for this stunning turn of events , a political revival @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from having a nearly broke campaign to winning the Republican nomination in 2008 ( before losing to Obama and Biden in November ) .
But so does the other candidate in the race .
Sanders was ever so briefly the Democratic front-runner himself , despite never having previously run in a general election with a “ D ” next to his name , and pundits swooned after he won the Nevada caucuses by a landslide nearly as impressive as Biden ’ s in South Carolina .
There were many assertions that it would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Sanders in the delegate hunt .
Then , key Democratic constituencies — mainly African Americans , especially in the South , and the white suburbanites who gave Democrats their House majority in the 2018 midterm elections — recoiled .
Democratic voters turned massively against Sanders .
Some did so over ideology : Democrats over age 40 weren ’ t ready to rush headlong into the socialist revolution .
Others were primarily concerned with electability and feared the rest of the country would not embrace the socialist label as eagerly as Bernie himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do himself any favors with attacks on the Democratic establishment that offended elected Democrats .
After enjoying some success rebranding his “ democratic ” socialism as either Scandinavian welfare statism or a more muscular New Deal liberalism , Sanders began praising the literacy programs of communist despots in Cuba .
Sanders supporters thought this was unfair , with one source stressing to me that these were responses to television interview questions , not some proactive campaign by the candidate to rehabilitate Fidel Castro ’ s reputation and legacy .
Sanders tried in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argue that some ( since vanquished ) rivals were closer to China than he ever was .
Nevertheless , his praise for Chinese efforts to eliminate extreme poverty — more than had been done by “ any country in the history of civilization , ” he said — continued .
The comments and the ( mainly Republican ) responses attacking them didn ’ t bother the young voters and activists flocking to Sanders ’ s candidacy , but a lot of people are still alive who remember the Cold War , and many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primaries .
Biden ’ s support among African Americans in South Carolina had been surprisingly resilient , but in national polls and some state surveys , there were indications that when his campaign started to struggle , some of these voters were beginning to gravitate toward other Democrats .
The shift of black voters to Biden and away from Sanders recreated an old problem for the Vermont socialist .
In 2016 , Sanders ’ s backing was too limited to white liberals for him to put together a base big enough to beat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This time around , Sanders appeared to have diversified his coalition .
That was why a majority of `` the Squad , '' the quartet of left-wing congresswomen led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , endorsed Sanders , even when Elizabeth Warren was flying high in the polls .
Progressive journalist Ryan Grim described Sanders in the Intercept as the “ ideal leader of [ a ] multiracial , working-class movement.
” Sanders has improved with Latinos .
They powered his win in Nevada , where he beat Biden among Hispanics , 51 % to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well in California , winning 49 % percent of Latinos and the statewide contest , beating Biden with this demographic by 27 points .
Sanders also led Biden by 13 points among Latinos in Texas , though he was not as lucky in terms of winning the primary .
But many of the Latino-heavy states on the calendar have passed , with Texas a big missed opportunity and Florida less welcoming territory ahead , and Sanders is back to losing the black vote in Southern primaries almost as badly as Republicans tend to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general election .
Biden won black voters in Mississippi by more than 70 points , taking African Americans over age 60 with 96 % of the vote .
There is some evidence in the exit polling in states such as South Carolina that some black voters thought Sanders was repudiating parts of Obama ’ s legacy , including Obamacare , the first African American president ’ s biggest legislative accomplishment .
About 60 % of Mississippi Democrats said they wanted to return to Obama 's policies , more than four-fifths of whom voted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have considered a primary challenge against Obama in 2012 .
Why not vote for Obama ’ s No .
2 instead ?
Biden may have done better in assembling a multiracial centrist coalition than Sanders did in forming a diverse , progressive , working-class one .
If that holds , Biden will likely be the Democratic nominee .
That doesn ’ t mean the former vice president doesn ’ t have any remaining problems .
“ After a big Super Tuesday and endorsements by Bloomberg , Buttigieg , and Klobuchar , Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the media like to build up a candidate , then turn around and knock him down , ” said Bannon , the Democratic consultant .
“ So , there will still be lots of twists and turns on the road to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee.
” It ’ s possible Democrats are underestimating Biden ’ s electoral liabilities after having finally given serious thought to Sanders ’ s .
He is old , and it shows on the campaign trail .
He is more given to verbal slips than Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than he has been over the course of a particularly gaffe-prone career .
President Trump has been hammering him as a doddering figurehead who will let radical leftists govern the country while he languishes in “ a home ” somewhere .
The playbook Trump used against Clinton — running against the Iraq War vote , the 1994 crime bill , and support for various trade deals , alongside an overall narrative of D.C. insiderism and family corruption — is at least as applicable to Biden .
Against Sanders , some of these dogs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will have to justify his failure to keep his more populist campaign promises to the Upper Midwestern voters who may decide this election , just as they did in 2016 .
What Biden offers is normalcy , a safe return to pre-Trump political norms , a break from the loudness of the past four years .
Democrats who are supporting him are betting “ Sleepy Joe ” may in fact be what the country wants and needs after the endless din and tumult of Trump .
Biden could more easily make the general @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president ’ s tweets , his temperament , his handling of the coronavirus , his various scandals — while Trump versus Sanders would surely be a binary choice in which voters could decide to reject the more radical changes Sanders is proposing .
The largest challenge Biden may face is how to beat Sanders without alienating his supporters , some of whom , like the Vermont lawmaker himself , are more committed progressives than Democrats .
After feeling cheated by Clinton and the Democratic National Committee in 2016 , they stayed home , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Trump in numbers sufficient to help turn the Rust Belt red .
These voters will be sensitive to any similar perceived mistreatment this time around , and some are already sensing it .
“ This race has been pretty unpredictable so far , so take this all with a grain of salt , but it seems like Biden should be in a good position to get more delegates than Sanders moving forward and going into the convention with a strong plurality at a minimum , ” said Stefan Hankin , a Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nasty do the Sanders campaign and supporters get over the next few weeks .
If the goal is to win in November , everyone will put their swords away and stick to the positive arguments of why your candidate should be the nominee .
I expect the Biden campaign to act this way .
The question is , will the Sanders campaign ?
” So far , there is nothing like the DNC interventions against Sanders teased in the WikiLeaks email dumps of 2016 .
We haven ’ t seen any reports of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign , for example .
And Biden is better suited to be the “ Not Bernie ” candidate than other contenders who aspired to the mantle .
Biden might clearly defeat Sanders at the ballot box through the primary process , while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ’ s entire strategy was based on besting Sanders at a contested convention in Milwaukee — something guaranteed to look like the Democratic establishment quelling a progressive insurgency or pilfering the nomination from the lead vote-getter .
The problem for Biden is that Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quashing their insurgency .
And in a manner of speaking , that ’ s true : The consolidation of centrist support around Biden in just a few short days after South Carolina did not happen entirely organically .
Except in the absence of any evidence of a corrupt bargain , which no one is even seriously alleging , this is all normal politics .
The most pragmatic Democrats decided to unite around the candidate they thought best positioned to win .
Candidates more sympathetic to Biden ’ s approach than to Sanders ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the nomination but enough remaining support to siphon votes away from Biden .
That basic political reality seems like a more apt explanation for the conveniently timed Biden endorsements from Pete Buttigieg , Amy Klobuchar , and Bloomberg than any conspiracy .
On the eve of Mini Tuesday , they were joined by Kamala Harris .
As the returns from Michigan rolled in , Andrew Yang also endorsed Biden .
Still , it shows what Biden is up against as he seeks to unify the party .
What Sanders wanted to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accomplish by temperament , personality , and cultural solidarity .
As the Week 's Damon Linker pointed out on Twitter , Michigan Democrats did not have the same distaste for Biden that cost Clinton the state in the primary four years ago .
Biden hopes this will remain true in the general election against Trump .
On his third attempt at capturing his party ’ s presidential nomination , Biden is closer than ever before .
At the moment , it is difficult to see how he will be denied , even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this time magnified by age and an even speedier news cycle , manifest themselves in the campaign .
In a race against an aging socialist , at a moment when Trump is being widely criticized for his handling of the coronavirus , Biden looks like the safe choice for Democrats who are voting scared .
These Democrats may be right that the country is ready to turn to the most elderly of elder statesmen in a time of trouble .
Or an unpredictable presidential campaign that has brought Biden back from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic nomination could still have a few more surprises in store for us all .
W. James Antle III is the editor of the American Conservative .

And then there were two. With apologies to Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic presidential race, which once featured more than 20 contestants of some notoriety, is now down to former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The fight for the Democrats’ presidential nomination has essentially returned to where it was for most of 2019 now that real voting has started, with Barack Obama’s two-term vice president and the runner-up from the 2016 primaries battling it out — though the race isn’t nearly as close as it would seem from the delegate math.
In a stunning comeback, Biden has a commanding advantage in this two-way matchup. He may have even sealed the deal with an easy double-digit win in Michigan, where Sanders had gotten his campaign back on track with an upset four years ago. Missouri and Mississippi were called for Biden moments after the polls closed. He finally had momentum, and small state caucuses aside, nowhere looked safe from Biden dominating.
After finishing fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire, and a distant second in Nevada, Biden tumbled out of first place in the national polls, and his long career in politics appeared finished. “Blood in the water,” read one major national outlet’s headline; “doomed,” said another. Then, Biden rebounded with a decisive victory in South Carolina. A win there was expected — the Palmetto State was Biden’s firewall, after all — but the margin of nearly 30 points was not. Sanders, and even billionaire candidate Tom Steyer, appeared to be gaining on him in South Carolina polling.
Instead, South Carolina began a run of sustained Biden success that extended through the Super Tuesday and Mini Tuesday primaries. He has regained his lead in the national polls, beating Sanders by 16 points, according to CNN and Morning Consult, by 19 points, according to Quinnipiac, and 21 points in the Reuters/Ipsos survey. The RealClearPolitics national polling average has Biden leading Sanders by 18 points, 53.5% to 35.5%.
“Biden had as good a four-day stretch as any presidential candidate ever has had,” said Brad Bannon, a strategist who advises progressive candidates and causes. “After Nevada, he was hanging on by his fingernails, but he turned everything around with his big victory in South Carolina. He has assembled an impressive coalition of African American and moderate white Democratic primary voters, and he did it without hardly any money.” Biden’s “Joe-mentum” hasn't shown any sign of letting up since.
The former vice president undoubtedly deserves some credit for this stunning turn of events, a political revival that may even exceed John McCain going from having a nearly broke campaign to winning the Republican nomination in 2008 (before losing to Obama and Biden in November). But so does the other candidate in the race. Sanders was ever so briefly the Democratic front-runner himself, despite never having previously run in a general election with a “D” next to his name, and pundits swooned after he won the Nevada caucuses by a landslide nearly as impressive as Biden’s in South Carolina. There were many assertions that it would be difficult for Biden to keep up with Sanders in the delegate hunt.
Then, key Democratic constituencies — mainly African Americans, especially in the South, and the white suburbanites who gave Democrats their House majority in the 2018 midterm elections — recoiled. Democratic voters turned massively against Sanders. Some did so over ideology: Democrats over age 40 weren’t ready to rush headlong into the socialist revolution. Others were primarily concerned with electability and feared the rest of the country would not embrace the socialist label as eagerly as Bernie himself does. The Vermont lawmaker did not do himself any favors with attacks on the Democratic establishment that offended elected Democrats. After enjoying some success rebranding his “democratic” socialism as either Scandinavian welfare statism or a more muscular New Deal liberalism, Sanders began praising the literacy programs of communist despots in Cuba.
Sanders supporters thought this was unfair, with one source stressing to me that these were responses to television interview questions, not some proactive campaign by the candidate to rehabilitate Fidel Castro’s reputation and legacy. Sanders tried in the last Democratic debate before Super Tuesday to argue that some (since vanquished) rivals were closer to China than he ever was. Nevertheless, his praise for Chinese efforts to eliminate extreme poverty — more than had been done by “any country in the history of civilization,” he said — continued. The comments and the (mainly Republican) responses attacking them didn’t bother the young voters and activists flocking to Sanders’s candidacy, but a lot of people are still alive who remember the Cold War, and many of them vote — even in Democratic primaries.
Biden’s support among African Americans in South Carolina had been surprisingly resilient, but in national polls and some state surveys, there were indications that when his campaign started to struggle, some of these voters were beginning to gravitate toward other Democrats. The shift of black voters to Biden and away from Sanders recreated an old problem for the Vermont socialist. In 2016, Sanders’s backing was too limited to white liberals for him to put together a base big enough to beat Hillary Clinton and win the nomination. This time around, Sanders appeared to have diversified his coalition. That was why a majority of "the Squad," the quartet of left-wing congresswomen led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, endorsed Sanders, even when Elizabeth Warren was flying high in the polls. Progressive journalist Ryan Grim described Sanders in the Intercept as the “ideal leader of [a] multiracial, working-class movement.”
Sanders has improved with Latinos. They powered his win in Nevada, where he beat Biden among Hispanics, 51% to 13%. He did nearly as well in California, winning 49% percent of Latinos and the statewide contest, beating Biden with this demographic by 27 points. Sanders also led Biden by 13 points among Latinos in Texas, though he was not as lucky in terms of winning the primary.
But many of the Latino-heavy states on the calendar have passed, with Texas a big missed opportunity and Florida less welcoming territory ahead, and Sanders is back to losing the black vote in Southern primaries almost as badly as Republicans tend to lose African Americans to Democrats in the general election. Biden won black voters in Mississippi by more than 70 points, taking African Americans over age 60 with 96% of the vote.
There is some evidence in the exit polling in states such as South Carolina that some black voters thought Sanders was repudiating parts of Obama’s legacy, including Obamacare, the first African American president’s biggest legislative accomplishment. About 60% of Mississippi Democrats said they wanted to return to Obama's policies, more than four-fifths of whom voted for Biden. Sanders was also rumored to have considered a primary challenge against Obama in 2012. Why not vote for Obama’s No. 2 instead? Biden may have done better in assembling a multiracial centrist coalition than Sanders did in forming a diverse, progressive, working-class one.
If that holds, Biden will likely be the Democratic nominee. That doesn’t mean the former vice president doesn’t have any remaining problems. “After a big Super Tuesday and endorsements by Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar, Biden is now the front-runner, but voters and the media like to build up a candidate, then turn around and knock him down,” said Bannon, the Democratic consultant. “So, there will still be lots of twists and turns on the road to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee.”
It’s possible Democrats are underestimating Biden’s electoral liabilities after having finally given serious thought to Sanders’s. He is old, and it shows on the campaign trail. He is more given to verbal slips than Sanders, and even more prone to them than he has been over the course of a particularly gaffe-prone career. President Trump has been hammering him as a doddering figurehead who will let radical leftists govern the country while he languishes in “a home” somewhere. The playbook Trump used against Clinton — running against the Iraq War vote, the 1994 crime bill, and support for various trade deals, alongside an overall narrative of D.C. insiderism and family corruption — is at least as applicable to Biden. Against Sanders, some of these dogs won’t hunt, and Trump will have to justify his failure to keep his more populist campaign promises to the Upper Midwestern voters who may decide this election, just as they did in 2016.
What Biden offers is normalcy, a safe return to pre-Trump political norms, a break from the loudness of the past four years. Democrats who are supporting him are betting “Sleepy Joe” may in fact be what the country wants and needs after the endless din and tumult of Trump. Biden could more easily make the general election a referendum on Trump — the president’s tweets, his temperament, his handling of the coronavirus, his various scandals — while Trump versus Sanders would surely be a binary choice in which voters could decide to reject the more radical changes Sanders is proposing.
The largest challenge Biden may face is how to beat Sanders without alienating his supporters, some of whom, like the Vermont lawmaker himself, are more committed progressives than Democrats. After feeling cheated by Clinton and the Democratic National Committee in 2016, they stayed home, voted third-party, and even cast ballots for Trump in numbers sufficient to help turn the Rust Belt red. These voters will be sensitive to any similar perceived mistreatment this time around, and some are already sensing it.
“This race has been pretty unpredictable so far, so take this all with a grain of salt, but it seems like Biden should be in a good position to get more delegates than Sanders moving forward and going into the convention with a strong plurality at a minimum,” said Stefan Hankin, a Democratic strategist. “The question is how nasty do the Sanders campaign and supporters get over the next few weeks. If the goal is to win in November, everyone will put their swords away and stick to the positive arguments of why your candidate should be the nominee. I expect the Biden campaign to act this way. The question is, will the Sanders campaign?”
So far, there is nothing like the DNC interventions against Sanders teased in the WikiLeaks email dumps of 2016. We haven’t seen any reports of debate questions getting leaked to the Biden campaign, for example. And Biden is better suited to be the “Not Bernie” candidate than other contenders who aspired to the mantle. Biden might clearly defeat Sanders at the ballot box through the primary process, while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s entire strategy was based on besting Sanders at a contested convention in Milwaukee — something guaranteed to look like the Democratic establishment quelling a progressive insurgency or pilfering the nomination from the lead vote-getter.
The problem for Biden is that Sanders supporters already see the Democratic establishment as quashing their insurgency. And in a manner of speaking, that’s true: The consolidation of centrist support around Biden in just a few short days after South Carolina did not happen entirely organically. Except in the absence of any evidence of a corrupt bargain, which no one is even seriously alleging, this is all normal politics. The most pragmatic Democrats decided to unite around the candidate they thought best positioned to win. Candidates more sympathetic to Biden’s approach than to Sanders’s found themselves with no viable path to the nomination but enough remaining support to siphon votes away from Biden.
That basic political reality seems like a more apt explanation for the conveniently timed Biden endorsements from Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Bloomberg than any conspiracy. On the eve of Mini Tuesday, they were joined by Kamala Harris. As the returns from Michigan rolled in, Andrew Yang also endorsed Biden. Still, it shows what Biden is up against as he seeks to unify the party.
What Sanders wanted to do through policy, Biden will seek to accomplish by temperament, personality, and cultural solidarity. As the Week's Damon Linker pointed out on Twitter, Michigan Democrats did not have the same distaste for Biden that cost Clinton the state in the primary four years ago. Biden hopes this will remain true in the general election against Trump.
On his third attempt at capturing his party’s presidential nomination, Biden is closer than ever before. At the moment, it is difficult to see how he will be denied, even if the same flaws that hobbled him before, this time magnified by age and an even speedier news cycle, manifest themselves in the campaign.
In a race against an aging socialist, at a moment when Trump is being widely criticized for his handling of the coronavirus, Biden looks like the safe choice for Democrats who are voting scared. These Democrats may be right that the country is ready to turn to the most elderly of elder statesmen in a time of trouble. Or an unpredictable presidential campaign that has brought Biden back from the political dead to the brink of the Democratic nomination could still have a few more surprises in store for us all.
W. James Antle III is the editor of the American Conservative.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-13--Chelsea Manning ordered released from jail after refusing to testify about WikiLeaks

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was released from prison Thursday after being held behind bars since last May for refusing to testify before a grand jury about WikiLeaks .
Manning , who attempted suicide on Wednesday , according to the whistleblower 's legal team , was stuck with a $ 256,000 fine .
“ Needless to say , we are relieved and ask that you respect her privacy while she gets on her feet , ” Manning ’ s lawyers said .
Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia released a three-page opinion on Thursday finding the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , dismissing the grand jury , canceling the Friday hearing , and ordering Manning released from prison .
Trenga denied the motion from Manning ’ s lawyers to waive the more than quarter-million dollars in penalties that Manning had accrued at $ 100 per day for refusing to testify .
“ It is hereby ordered that Chelsea Manning shall be , and she hereby is , immediately released from the custody of the Attorney General , ” Trenga said .
“ It is further ordered that judgment be , and the same hereby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the amount of $ 256,000.
” The judge said “ enforcement of the accrued , conditional fines would not be punitive but rather necessary to the coercive purpose of the Court ’ s civil contempt order.
” Manning , 32 , previously known as Bradley Manning , was convicted at a court martial trial in 2013 of leaking a trove of documents to WikiLeaks .
Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of 22 charges , including five counts for espionage .
Sentenced to 35 years in prison , the former intelligence analyst 's sentence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before the end of his presidency in January 2017 .
Manning has been imprisoned and released twice now after declining to provide testimony in relation to WikiLeaks and its founder , Julian Assange , whom the United States is seeking to extradite from the United Kingdom .
Manning was brought to a Virginia hospital on Wednesday after an apparent suicide attempt , and Alexandria sheriff Dana Lawhorne said it was “ handled appropriately by our professional staff and Ms. Manning is safe.
” '' She remains unwavering in her refusal to participate in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sees as highly susceptible to abuse , '' Manning ’ s lawyers said Wednesday .
`` Ms. Manning has previously indicated that she will not betray her principles , even at risk of grave harm to herself . ''
Manning previously made two suicide attempts while in solitary confinement while held on the original charges , and appeared to be threatening to commit suicide on Twitter in May 2018 .
Manning ’ s legal troubles stem from contact with WikiLeaks and Assange .
Assange , 47 , was arrested at Ecuador ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ connection to a single U.S. charge of conspiring to hack a classified Pentagon computer network in 2010 by agreeing to help Manning crack a password .
Federal prosecutors later accused the WikiLeaks founder of violating the Espionage Act as part of a new superseding indictment last May , charging him on 17 new counts .
There are no publicly known charges against Assange for his role in exposing the CIA ’ s “ Vault 7 ” program in 2017 or his connection to Russia ’ s election interference in 2016 .
After a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a three-week evidentiary hearing won ’ t begin until May .
The Justice Department said the charges “ relate to Assange ’ s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.
” Describing Assange as `` the public face of WikiLeaks , '' the Justice Department said he founded the website with the purpose of it being `` an intelligence agency of the people . ''
The Justice Department said “ Manning responded to Assange ’ s solicitations by using access granted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for United States classified documents , and provided to Assange and WikiLeaks databases containing approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports , 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports , 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs , and 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables.
” The indictment also said the information that WikiLeaks published `` included names of local Afghans and Iraqis who had provided information to U.S. and coalition forces , '' which prosecutors alleged `` created a grave and imminent risk that the innocent people he named would suffer serious physical harm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department said the disclosures from WikiLeaks put sources working with the U.S. “ at great risk to their own safety , '' including `` journalists , religious leaders , human rights advocates , and political dissidents who were living in repressive regimes and reported to the United States the abuses of their own government.
” '' I object to this grand jury , '' Manning wrote to Trenga last year , `` as an effort to frighten journalists and publishers , who serve a crucial public good .
I have had these values @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve had years of confinement to reflect on them .
For much of that time , I depended for survival on my values , my decisions , and my conscience .
I will not abandon them now . ''
Manning was found in contempt of court on March 8 , 2019 , and had been in jail ever since .

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was released from prison Thursday after being held behind bars since last May for refusing to testify before a grand jury about WikiLeaks.
Manning, who attempted suicide on Wednesday, according to the whistleblower's legal team, was stuck with a $256,000 fine.
“Needless to say, we are relieved and ask that you respect her privacy while she gets on her feet,” Manning’s lawyers said.
Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia released a three-page opinion on Thursday finding the business of the grand jury had concluded, dismissing the grand jury, canceling the Friday hearing, and ordering Manning released from prison. Trenga denied the motion from Manning’s lawyers to waive the more than quarter-million dollars in penalties that Manning had accrued at $100 per day for refusing to testify.
“It is hereby ordered that Chelsea Manning shall be, and she hereby is, immediately released from the custody of the Attorney General,” Trenga said. “It is further ordered that judgment be, and the same hereby is, entered against Chelsea Manning in the amount of $256,000.”
The judge said “enforcement of the accrued, conditional fines would not be punitive but rather necessary to the coercive purpose of the Court’s civil contempt order.”
Manning, 32, previously known as Bradley Manning, was convicted at a court martial trial in 2013 of leaking a trove of documents to WikiLeaks. Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of 22 charges, including five counts for espionage. Sentenced to 35 years in prison, the former intelligence analyst's sentence was commuted by Barack Obama just days before the end of his presidency in January 2017.
Manning has been imprisoned and released twice now after declining to provide testimony in relation to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, whom the United States is seeking to extradite from the United Kingdom.
Manning was brought to a Virginia hospital on Wednesday after an apparent suicide attempt, and Alexandria sheriff Dana Lawhorne said it was “handled appropriately by our professional staff and Ms. Manning is safe.”
"She remains unwavering in her refusal to participate in a secret grand jury process that she sees as highly susceptible to abuse," Manning’s lawyers said Wednesday. "Ms. Manning has previously indicated that she will not betray her principles, even at risk of grave harm to herself."
Manning previously made two suicide attempts while in solitary confinement while held on the original charges, and appeared to be threatening to commit suicide on Twitter in May 2018.
Manning’s legal troubles stem from contact with WikiLeaks and Assange.
Assange, 47, was arrested at Ecuador’s Embassy in London early last year in connection to a single U.S. charge of conspiring to hack a classified Pentagon computer network in 2010 by agreeing to help Manning crack a password. Federal prosecutors later accused the WikiLeaks founder of violating the Espionage Act as part of a new superseding indictment last May, charging him on 17 new counts.
There are no publicly known charges against Assange for his role in exposing the CIA’s “Vault 7” program in 2017 or his connection to Russia’s election interference in 2016.
After a week of legal arguments in February, a three-week evidentiary hearing won’t begin until May. The Justice Department said the charges “relate to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”
Describing Assange as "the public face of WikiLeaks," the Justice Department said he founded the website with the purpose of it being "an intelligence agency of the people."
The Justice Department said “Manning responded to Assange’s solicitations by using access granted to her as an intelligence analyst to search for United States classified documents, and provided to Assange and WikiLeaks databases containing approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables.”
The indictment also said the information that WikiLeaks published "included names of local Afghans and Iraqis who had provided information to U.S. and coalition forces," which prosecutors alleged "created a grave and imminent risk that the innocent people he named would suffer serious physical harm and/or arbitrary detention."
The Justice Department said the disclosures from WikiLeaks put sources working with the U.S. “at great risk to their own safety," including "journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents who were living in repressive regimes and reported to the United States the abuses of their own government.”
"I object to this grand jury," Manning wrote to Trenga last year, "as an effort to frighten journalists and publishers, who serve a crucial public good. I have had these values since I was a child, and I’ve had years of confinement to reflect on them. For much of that time, I depended for survival on my values, my decisions, and my conscience. I will not abandon them now."
Manning was found in contempt of court on March 8, 2019, and had been in jail ever since.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-03-13--Trump zigs and zags as he tries to balance coronavirus demands

The visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters was a move straight from the presidential playbook for a public health emergency .
It was a chance to show a panicking nation that the commander in chief was on top of the coronavirus crisis , working closely with medical experts and confident enough to make the trip to Atlanta just as some areas were considering quarantine measures .
What happened next was anything but a textbook example .
President Trump condemned the Democratic governor of Washington state as a `` snake , '' proclaimed his grasp of scientific @ @ @ @ @ @ @ natural ability '' — and mused on his recent performance on Fox News .
All while wearing a Keep America Great campaign hat .
For any president , the unfolding coronavirus pandemic would offer a searching test of that person 's ability to lead a fearful nation through uncertain times .
The challenge is to walk the fine line between projecting confidence while raising enough alarm to persuade a nation of freedom-loving individuals to self-isolate at the sign of a dry cough and fever .
That path is even more fraught for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his populist disdain for experts , a skepticism for multilateral projects , and a direct , unfiltered style of communication .
`` He 's not well-matched to the crisis .
He 's not the type of president that goes into the CDC and makes the watching public feel comfortable , '' said Jeanne Zaino , professor of political science at Iona College in New York state .
`` He 's not an empathetic president by nature . ''
A rebalancing came five days later .
Trump sat at the Resolute Desk in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This time , he spoke slowly and gravely , as if weighing the import of every word as he announced a ban on travel from most of Europe and offered assistance to small businesses .
`` This is not a financial crisis , '' he said .
`` This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world . ''
This time , he came closer to what is expected of crisis presidents .
Whether travel bans do more harm than good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but Trump was showing that he understood the gravity of the moment .
At times like this , the president has to be trustworthy and credible , said presidential historian Barbara Miller of the University of Virginia .
`` The president himself has to be a voice reaching to the American people and , if it 's a pandemic , to the rest of the world , to calm people , to tell people what the administration is doing , and to give people information that they need to rely on to act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' she said .
For some presidents , that has meant leading by example .
President Gerald Ford tried to kick-start an immunization drive to control an outbreak of swine flu amid fears the world was heading for a repeat of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic .
`` I can well remember going to the high school near our home in Louisville , Kentucky , to get my swine flu vaccine , '' said Miller .
`` That was something that was burdening us , that it was something we should all do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his injection from the White House doctor . ''
`` He wanted to show that he was doing it , and it was important for everyone to be inoculated , '' she added .
But his example backfired .
Although a quarter of the population was vaccinated within 10 months , it turned out that the circulating H1N1 virus was a different strain than the 1918 incarnation , and the dreaded pandemic never materialized .
Worse , the use of a live virus in the vaccine was associated with a surge in cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was suspended .
For his part , confronted with a choice between carrying on as usual or acting as an exemplar , Trump has gone first one way , then the other .
For two weeks , he promised to carry on with campaign rallies and plunged into crowds offering handshakes , before abruptly canceling trips planned for Colorado and Nevada .
The result initially was a flurry of mixed messages reaching the public , said Dr. Jason Farley , a nurse epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ our leaders to follow the public health recommendations that the CDC , the government , public health are recommending and to emulate those practices , '' he told the Associated Press .
That was consistent with his view that the threat was minimal .
`` It 's really working out .
And a lot of good things are going to happen , '' he said after meeting Republicans on Capitol Hill .
A day later , everything had changed .
`` This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told the nation in his Oval Office address .

The visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters was a move straight from the presidential playbook for a public health emergency. It was a chance to show a panicking nation that the commander in chief was on top of the coronavirus crisis, working closely with medical experts and confident enough to make the trip to Atlanta just as some areas were considering quarantine measures.
What happened next was anything but a textbook example. President Trump condemned the Democratic governor of Washington state as a "snake," proclaimed his grasp of scientific matters — "maybe I have a natural ability" — and mused on his recent performance on Fox News. All while wearing a Keep America Great campaign hat.
For any president, the unfolding coronavirus pandemic would offer a searching test of that person's ability to lead a fearful nation through uncertain times. The challenge is to walk the fine line between projecting confidence while raising enough alarm to persuade a nation of freedom-loving individuals to self-isolate at the sign of a dry cough and fever.
That path is even more fraught for a president elected, in part, for his populist disdain for experts, a skepticism for multilateral projects, and a direct, unfiltered style of communication.
"He's not well-matched to the crisis. He's not the type of president that goes into the CDC and makes the watching public feel comfortable," said Jeanne Zaino, professor of political science at Iona College in New York state. "He's not an empathetic president by nature."
A rebalancing came five days later. Trump sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office for a prime-time television address. This time, he spoke slowly and gravely, as if weighing the import of every word as he announced a ban on travel from most of Europe and offered assistance to small businesses.
"This is not a financial crisis," he said. "This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world."
This time, he came closer to what is expected of crisis presidents. Whether travel bans do more harm than good to the economy will be debated, but Trump was showing that he understood the gravity of the moment.
At times like this, the president has to be trustworthy and credible, said presidential historian Barbara Miller of the University of Virginia.
"The president himself has to be a voice reaching to the American people and, if it's a pandemic, to the rest of the world, to calm people, to tell people what the administration is doing, and to give people information that they need to rely on to act appropriately in a situation like this," she said.
For some presidents, that has meant leading by example. President Gerald Ford tried to kick-start an immunization drive to control an outbreak of swine flu amid fears the world was heading for a repeat of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
"I can well remember going to the high school near our home in Louisville, Kentucky, to get my swine flu vaccine," said Miller. "That was something that was burdening us, that it was something we should all do after seeing pictures of President Ford getting his injection from the White House doctor."
"He wanted to show that he was doing it, and it was important for everyone to be inoculated," she added.
But his example backfired. Although a quarter of the population was vaccinated within 10 months, it turned out that the circulating H1N1 virus was a different strain than the 1918 incarnation, and the dreaded pandemic never materialized.
Worse, the use of a live virus in the vaccine was associated with a surge in cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and the program was suspended.
For his part, confronted with a choice between carrying on as usual or acting as an exemplar, Trump has gone first one way, then the other. For two weeks, he promised to carry on with campaign rallies and plunged into crowds offering handshakes, before abruptly canceling trips planned for Colorado and Nevada.
The result initially was a flurry of mixed messages reaching the public, said Dr. Jason Farley, a nurse epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
"I think it's beholden upon our leaders to follow the public health recommendations that the CDC, the government, public health are recommending and to emulate those practices," he told the Associated Press.
That was consistent with his view that the threat was minimal. "It's really working out. And a lot of good things are going to happen," he said after meeting Republicans on Capitol Hill.
A day later, everything had changed. "This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history," he told the nation in his Oval Office address.