Hunger Games

Dancing with the Democrats:  So much for the Democratic debate series being all about elimination.  The endless saga now has a new character, none other than Former Mayor/Multi billionaire Mike Bloomberg.  He qualified for tomorrow night’s debate by achieving more than 10% in four polls, a criteria he met after the results of last night’s NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed him at 19%, second only to Bernie Sanders’ 31%. The same poll shows Biden down to 15%, Warren down to 12%, Klobuchar up to 9% and Buttigieg down to 8%.  The debate should be riveting assuming that you think that watching a Mike feeding frenzy, one where everyone on stage pulls apart everything he’s ever done or said, is must see TV. For his part Bernie Sanders has got to be relieved, as the front runner he and his “progressive” positions should be taking all the heat from the gaggle of more moderate candidates but with Bloomberg on the stage Sanders may well get a pass despite all the hateful attacks being pushed by his Bernie Bros, the guys he continues to disavow with a wink. Well, at least a partial pass, Bloomberg’s ad machine is already going after the Bernie Bro’s hateful and harassing tweets.   No doubt Trump will be happy too, because what’s more fun for him than watching his competitors eat each other alive. Getting back to Bernie, although he continues to do well versus Trump in national polls, moderate Democrats and the outspoken crowd of former Republicans who dominate mainstream punditry remain very concerned that his presence at the top of the ticket will make it virtually impossible for Democrats to take over the Senate and could even put the House majority at risk. That fear was further fueled yesterday after Jane Sanders, Bernie’s wife, slammed former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper who is viewed as the Democrat’s best chance for winning the Colorado Senate seat currently held by vulnerable Republican Cory Gardner.  She did that by essentially saying that Hickenlooper wasn’t progressive enough for her.  Although early voting is underway, the Nevada caucus formally takes place on Saturday.  Bloomberg will not be on the ballot because he didn’t register to participate.  As of now all indications are that Sanders will emerge from the caucus on top of the leader board. For now?  

Barring Barr:  To the extent that it matters, Attorney General Barr’s reputation continues to circle the drain.  Yesterday the Federal Judges Association, an independent group headed by US District Judge Cynthia Rufe,  a George W Bush appointee, called an emergency meeting to address “growing concerns” about the Department of Justice, Barr, Trump and their “intervention in politically sensitive cases.”  Judge Rufe said that the group couldn’t wait until their regular April meeting because the situation is very concerning.  In the meantime, the list of former Department of Justice officials who’ve signed onto the letter condemning Barr’s actions with regard to the Roger Stone sentencing recommendation has grown to over 2000. Additionally Donald Ayer, a former US Deputy Attorney General under George HW Bush, who has known and supported Barr for 40 years, has written an op-ed published in The Atlantic calling for Barr’s resignation.  To drive his point home, Ayer also showed up on several news shows yesterday.   Of course, Trump is still fully behind Barr because with the exception of his failure to indict former FBI guy Andrew McCabe, Barr is doing all the things he wants him to do and because Roy Cohns are hard to find.  On the Roger Stone front, Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s all hands phone call, the one where she is expected to ask the Justice Department to do lots of ‘splaining about its “odd” behavior, is scheduled for later today and, assuming nothing changes on the schedule, she is expected to sentence Stone on Thursday.

Et Cetera:  In other news at the end of last week the Senate passed an Iran war powers bill.  Basically, the bill, which passed by 55 to 45 with the support of all the Democrats and Republican Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, Bill Cassidy, Todd Young, and Jerry Moran, is intended to stop Trump from going to war with Iran without Congressional authorization, a fear that was further fueled after Trump’s assassination of Iran’s General Soleimani brought us to the brink of war not to mention the 100 plus soldiers who suffered head injuries during Iran’s retaliatory attack against the US base in Iraq. As to that Soleimani “take out,” despite the administration’s initial claim that his killing was necessary because he represented an imminent threat to the US, a memo delivered by the White House to Congress admits that there was no imminent threat.  Of course Trump plans to veto the bill when it comes to his desk.