Citizens United which props up many candidates without much oversight. Bottom line- there is too much money from Corporate/wealthy undividuals promoting their oen candidates.
Bold move and it would be great to change this arrangement.
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I love videos like this one, in which Warren reads notes from her supporters. I’d love to see more of this from all the candidates. Click tweet for video. 
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Pete Buttigieg responds to the President’s new nickname, referring to him as 'Alfred E. Neuman from Mad Magazine. Click tweet for video.
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A bit of light humour but very pertinent to the issue here:
But recently, I’ve noticed that there’s an emerging group of women who barely have to deal with any attention from men at all. I wanted that for my life, so I decided to be one of those women. And that’s why I’m announcing that I’m running for president of the United States.
It may seem far fetched, but just look at the proof: Even though there are more than 20 candidates currently running in the Democratic primary, almost no men are paying any attention to the six that happen to be women. That’s amazing! These are women with decades of political experience in their respective careers, with platforms and policies that could enact real, substantial change in this country. But you’d have no idea that they are so accomplished because their presence in the presidential race is being completely overlooked by half of the population!
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She did very well in West Virginia.
“She’s a good ol’ country girl like anyone else,” she said of Warren, who grew up in Oklahoma. “She’s earned where she is, it wasn’t given to her. I respect that.”
But Warren didn’t come to rural West Virginia primarily in search of votes. The tiny state likely won’t decide the nomination, and is all but certain to back Trump in the general election.
Instead, Warren was here to try to send a message that she’s serious about tackling the problems of remote communities like this one.
The “opioid war” is a medical problem rather than a behavioral or law enforcement one, Warren argued. Her plan is modeled on the government’s response in 1990 to the HIV/AIDS crisis, as she explained in a Medium post earlier this week.
“But we got a second problem in this country and it’s greed,” she said. “People didn’t get addicted all on their own, they got a lot of corporate help. They got a lot of help from corporations that made big money off getting people addicted and keeping them addicted.”
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Joe is killing it in Florida.
Florida, with its hordes of older voters and establishment-oriented Democratic Party, doesn’t just look like Biden Country. Judging from the initial reaction to his presidential bid in the nation’s third-largest state, it’s shaping up to be his firewall.
Joe Biden is crushing the Democratic field here, including Bernie Sanders, in the latest polling. More than one-third of Democratic state legislators endorsedhim almost as soon as he announced his candidacy, a testament to state political ties that stretch back decades and span generations.
“Biden is in a class all on his own in Florida,” said pollster Ryan Tyson, who just completed a survey of Florida Democrats.
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Hey 2020 Dems, please visit Wisconsin!
I have a feeling they haven’t heard from a Democrat since 2012.
(I was with her in the primary, don’t @ me, yes I can make these jokes)
The robust financial numbers have emboldened Mr. Trump to adopt a tough stance on trade with China this week, and he imposed steep new tariffs on Friday. Mr. Trump is confident the economy can withstand retaliatory action from China, but farmers and manufacturers in this region are among those most likely to be hurt by increased tariffs on American goods.
Still, if the economy remains strong, it could be Mr. Trump’s best argument as he tries to replicate his narrow path to victory in the Electoral College in 2016, which ran straight through rural areas like Colfax in northwestern Wisconsin. Whatever faults people attribute to the president personally, even his critics say he could easily retain the loyalty of swing voters like Mr. Benson — those who see an economy that is stable, robust and meaningfully, if marginally, benefiting their lives.
The message of a thriving economy — assuming that Mr. Trump sticks to it, as aides and allies have been urging him to do — could leave Democrats especially vulnerable when coupled with Republicans’ relentless attacks on their rivals as radicals who hold extreme positions on health care, abortion and the environment.
“Whoever our nominee turns out to be, they will end up with high negatives come the election,” said Diane Feldman, a Democratic pollster who has worked in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest.
She believes that Wisconsin — where 22,000 votes separated Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 — “could go either way” in next year’s election, and could favor Mr. Trump if voters see their decision as a choice between one candidate whose beliefs and motivations they do not fully trust and another whose flaws they have come to accept.
“There isn’t the anger and anxiety there was before when plants were shutting down and people were losing their pensions,” Ms. Feldman added.
These voters might ready for a new message.
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Trump sizes up Biden as the Democratic 2020 frontrunner. He also lies about his 2016 polling data. Just another crazy and infuriating interview… so I only quoted the funny bits below.
In an interview with POLITICO on Friday afternoon, Trump cast the former vice president as a clear, if flawed, front runner, noting that Biden had recently flubbed the name of Britain’s prime minister. And he compared Biden’s early success in a heavily crowded field to his own entry and rapid ascent in the 2016 Republican campaign.
“I look at it like my race” in 2016, the president said in a phone interview, predicting that Biden will remain at the head of the pack of 22 Democrats running for president.
Recalling his June 2015 campaign announcement at Trump Tower, he boasted, “If you remember, from the day I came down the escalator until the end of the primaries, I was in the number-one position. I was center stage every debate. And, you know, nobody came close.”
Trump actually polled near the bottom of the then twelve-candidate Republican primary field when he first joined the race in mid-June 2015. But he became the clear GOP front runner within several weeks, and no other candidate ever decisively claimed that mantle from him.
Trump appeared to be following Biden’s early days on the campaign trail closely. At one point, he mocked the former vice president for last week mistakenly referring to Margaret Thatcher instead of the current British prime minister, Theresa May. Biden quickly corrected himself, calling it a “Freudian slip.”
“Is that a good front runner? I don’t know. That was a beauty,” Trump said.
He suggested that he doesn’t see his other Democratic rivals as serious threats. “It seems that many of them aren’t registering with, you know, the public,” Trump said. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), he added, “seems to be going in the wrong direction.”
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Or Harris/Biden. Lots of dream team combos in this race. It’s exciting.
The Congressional Black Caucus may have found an answer to its Joe Biden dilemma: Vice President Kamala Harris.
Some black lawmakers are agonizing over whether to back Biden or two members of the close-knit caucus — Sens. Harris and Cory Booker — who are also vying for the White House, according to interviews with a dozen CBC members.
But with the former vice president jumping out to a huge, if early, lead in the polls, several CBC members are warming to the idea of a Biden-Harris ticket to take on President Donald Trump.
“That would be a dream ticket for me, a dream ticket!” said Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.). “If she is not the nominee, that would be a dream ticket for this country.”
Harris is everything the 76-year-old Biden is not. The freshman senator from California is younger, a woman and a person of color. As Biden gets dinged for his bipartisan bromides, Harris is winning applause from progressives for her merciless cross-examination of Trump officials.
[…]
“Either combination there, I’d love,” said Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.). “I think he’s going to look to balance his ticket so that the ticket itself is more appealing. … I think it would make sense and it wouldn’t surprise me if he picked a woman of color.”
No one in the caucus is declaring Biden the winner of a presidential race that has nearly two dozen candidates and is still nine months away from the first primary contest. And Democrats cautioned that they’re not counting out Harris or Booker and would be thrilled if either won the Democratic nomination. Both senators have actively courted members of the CBC.
Yet there is no question that Biden — thanks in part to his close relationship with Obama — is popular with African-American voters, according to several polls since he entered the race. That support inside the black community translates into backing from black lawmakers as well.
“But for the fact that we have two of our own who are both quite capable of being president, I’d say probably a lot of the members would’ve already announced for Biden,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).
Were Biden to prevail in the fight for the nomination, Harris would be many members’ preferred vice presidential pick.
“If [Biden] becomes the nominee, that certainly would be my choice,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), a senior member of the caucus. “Right now, I’m still believing that Harris can be the top of the ticket.”
“It would absolutely be a very strong ticket, no question about that,” Fudge added. “1 and 2, 2 and 1. Either way, it would be great.”
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California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris said she believes the standoff between the Trump administration and Congress could mean the US has reached a “constitutional crisis.”
“I think it is fair to say that we are looking at a crisis, not only of confidence, but potentially a constitutional crisis,” Harris said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
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This study is fascinating.
Broadly the Same Prioritization of Issues in 2019 as in 2016
The questions about issue importance were also asked in the 2016 VOTER Survey. By and large, Americans’ prioritization of issues looks roughly the same in 2019 as it did just after the 2016 presidential election.
That said, there have been relative increases and drops in the importance of some issues.(4)Compared to 2016, Americans are now less likely to say that the economy (74 percent in 2016 vs. 68 percent in 2019) and jobs (69 percent vs. 63 percent) are “very important” issues. By contrast, Americans are now more likely to say that immigration (45 percent vs. 51 percent), the environment (42 percent vs. 51 percent), infrastructure investment (40 percent vs. 45 percent), racial equality (38 percent vs. 48 percent), climate change (37 percent vs. 45 percent), and gender equality (34 percent vs. 39 percent) are “very important” issues.
These shifts were not the same for Democrats and Republicans. Even prior to a Green New Deal resolution being introduced in early February 2019, Democrats had already shifted on environmental issues. Compared to 2016, Democrats are now more likely to say that environmental issues (65 percent vs. 75 percent) and climate change (63 percent vs. 73 percent) are “very important.” Democrats also became more likely to prioritize health care (79 percent vs. 84 percent), education (68 percent vs. 73 percent), and the budget deficit (31 percent vs. 39 percent).
Democrats and Republicans are both now more likely to say that immigration and racial equality are more important issues than they were two years ago.
Compared to 2016, Democrats are now less likely to say the economy (71 percent vs. 60 percent) and jobs (66 percent vs. 56 percent) are “very important issues.” Among Republicans, terrorism (75 percent vs. 69 percent), the budget deficit (68 percent vs. 56 percent), health care (63 percent vs. 52 percent), and Social Security (62 percent vs. 57 percent) are now seen as less important.
Here’s the divide.
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I love these 2020 ladies taking the lead on this. 
“I think we have to seriously take a look at that (breaking up Facebook), yes,” Harris said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. She said very few people can get by in their communities, business or commerce without somehow using Facebook. “So we have to recognize it for what it is. It is essentially a utility that has gone unregulated.”
Facebook has been under scrutiny from regulators around the world over data sharing practices as well as hate speech and misinformation on its networks.
Some other U.S. lawmakers, including Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, have pushed for action to break up big tech companies as well as federal privacy regulation.
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Presidential candidate Julián Castro unveiled an estimated $1.5 trillion education plan Monday that starts with what he’s most known for — early learning — but follows with detailed ideas for updating the nation’s public education system and making it more accessible, including college.
The broad plan includes proposals for pre-K to high school and into college or trade school.
Castro calls for creating a “universal, high-quality, publicly funded, full-day Pre-K” for 3- and 4-year-olds, through grants to state and local governments. He calls for eliminating tuition at public colleges, universities, community colleges and technical and vocational schools, and raising the maximum Pell grant to $10,000.
The plan seems to go into the most detail on ways to help students pay off debt, which he said now tops $1.5 trillion.
His plan is something of a critique of the nation’s education system, including the continued segregation that keeps opportunities out of reach for many.
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President Donald Trump said Monday that he would agree not to use any information hacked or stolen by foreign adversaries in his 2020 re-election campaign.
“I would certainly agree to that,” Trump told reporters during an event with the Hungarian prime minister at the White House, when asked if he would make that commitment. “I don’t need it. All I need is the opponents that I’m looking at. I’m liking what I see.”
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Why should we believe a known liar?
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Elizabeth Warren turned down a Fox News invitation Tuesday for a televised town hall and denounced the cable network as a “hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.”
The network has been inviting Democratic presidential candidates to participate in town halls moderated by its news reporters. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar already done the events, while Pete Buttigieg and Kirsten Gillibrand are scheduled to. All of them have criticized the network’s coverage of the Trump administration but defended going on the network as a means to reach voters.
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All lies, all the time.
A Ukrainian lawmaker accused his country’s top prosecutor of manufacturing a “conspiracy” about U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, adding to a political intrigue playing out from Kiev to Washington.
The lawmaker, Serhiy Leshchenko, said he had been given parts of a letter written by the prosecutor with the intent of currying favor with the Trump administration.The letter was sent by the prosecutor through unofficial channels to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the lawmaker told journalists on Monday in Kiev as he distributed copies of two pages.
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Green New Deal
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), and others discussed the “Green New Deal” and climate change.
Click link to watch full video.
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I have mixed feelings on this. I don’t want to enable FOX News because I do think they are playing g the public. At the same time, it is a way to reach a group of people whose only exposure is FOX.
Repetition influences choice. Think in terms of commercials… so if enough of the democratic candidates say similar things MAYBE a few would could be swayed.
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