Bret: Gee, Gail, this is all starting to freak me out. Between the deadly threat of a pandemic, a wobbly world economy, quarantines galore, the madness of King Donald, craven Senate Republicans, our favorite Democrats knocked out of the race and a vulnerable front-runner, I’m looking for signs of hope. Is Netflix the only thing left to live for?

Gail: This is why God created sports. Although I am wistfully remembering the days when March Madness was only about basketball.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/opinion/biden-trump.html

Comics, aren't they? Boy, do I hate "basketball"...

The handful of American citizens who have by some miracle escaped the wave of death caused by the coronavirus will be braving the toilet-paper maddened crowds to vote in the latest round of Democratic primaries today.

There’s several more rounds of voting before the convention in July, but this is the last before the next debate on March 15th.

The process is kinda moot at this point.

The weight of the establishment has thrown itself – for some reason – behind Joe Biden.

Since his “miraculous” wins on Super Tuesday we’ve been treated to dozens of stories praising his “decency”, happy that “angry politics” lost, and calling for the party to “unite behind” Biden. And that’s just The Guardian.

Jonathan Freedland, in his special brand of smug establishment boot-licking, suggested that Biden being a long-term establishment democrat is his strength in these times of crisis. You have to wonder if that crisis wasn’t awful convenient for Joe, in that instance. 

None of the mainstream media have questioned the validity of results or the fairness of the electoral process, although given the DNC’s history you’d be forgiven for doing so.

After Biden’s win, Trump immediately went on the offensive (so to speak), questioning Biden’s mental acuity. This is likely just a taste of things to come.

It has to be said, Biden is vulnerable in this area. Seeing as he seemingly can’t go a single public appearance without forgetting what day it is, what position he’s running for, the words of the Declaration of Independence, who his wife is, or his own name.

Given this, you have to wonder what the point of the exercise is. Biden will likely be mauled by Trump, so are the Democrats even trying to win? Is the plan for Biden to have “health problems” before the convention, forcing the DNC to pick its own candidate? Or is the plan to have him run, win and then get Ned Starked by his vice-president whoever he or (more likely) she may be?

Whatever the plan turns out to be, progressives and leftists all over America will likely be disappointed in Bernie. If last time is anything to go by, no matter how obviously he (and more importantly his voters) get screwed over, Sanders will just let it happen.

It seems like Bernie is a serial offender here. Setting up hope only to fold faster than Superman on laundry day when the pressure is on. You wonder if he’s being used as a tool to engage the youth vote, or just a puppet designed to funnel all real leftist thinkers into a political cul-de-sac.

The other Great White Hope of American leftists – or should that be “Great Native American hope”? – Elizabeth Warren, dropped out last week…but is yet to endorse her fellow “progressive”, Bernie Sanders. This could mean she’s spiteful, or it could mean she’s angling to be Biden’s VP nominee. Either way, no real surprise and no real loss. Warren always talked a better game than she played…and she didn’t talk all that well.

Oh, and the DNC changed their debate eligibility rules to exclude Tulsi Gabbard. Something both the other candidates and the vast majority of the mainstream media have been quiet about.

Questions arise…

• Are the democrats really rallying behind Joe Biden?
• …why?!
• Are they planning to throw the race?
• Is Joe Biden going senile?
• Who will each candidate pick as a running mate?
• Will the DNC ever acknowledge Tulsi Gabbard exists?

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/10/discuss-latest-democratic-primaries/

Of course, Tulsi is more sane and far more capable than Trump, Biden and Joan of Arc put together... and she is YOUNGER than all of them... But this is insane America where even a liar... what am I saying? ... when one needs to be a liar to win a Democrat's nomination... to become in charge of solving the toilet paper shortage of a nation...

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President Trump suggested in an early morning tweet on Wednesday that Elizabeth Warren worked with Democratic Party leaders to hurt Bernie Sanders’ chances of beating Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

Trump, who called Warren “Pocahontas” in the tweet, claimed she purposefully stayed in the race on super Tuesday to peel voters away from Sanders.

“Pocahontas, working in conjunction with the Democrat Party, totally destroyed the campaign of Bernie Sanders,” Trump wrote.

“If she would have quit 3 days earlier, Sanders would have beaten Biden in a route, it wouldn’t even have been close,” he added.

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2020/03/11/trump-says-warren-destroyed-bernie-sanders...

NBC said it would suspend production of its two flagship late-night programs for a period of at least two weeks, the latest bit of fallout around wee-hours TV related to the spread of coronavirus.

Starting Friday, “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night” will suspend production through a previously planned hiatus, which had been scheduled for the week of March 23. “We will continue to monitor the situation closely and make decisions about future shows as we get closer to the start of production,” NBC said in a statement.

Both shows had planned to start broadcasting Monday without a live, in-studio audience, a nod to the new requirements of life under the spread of coronavirus. All of the nation’s late-night programs had made similar decisions, which means every national late-night program will proceed without one of the format’s bedrock elements – a live crowd that can react to all the jokes and sketches, and even influence the host’s actions and tone over the course of a segment or a night.

“Tonight” will tape an original episode for Thursday night without an audience, NBC said. Guests include Dr. Oz, Mandy Moore, and Dane DeHaan. “Late Night with Seth Meyers” will air an encore tonight, but post an original “Closer Look” segment – one of the show’s signature features – for digital consumption.

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/the-tonight-show-late-night-suspended-over...

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Did you wash your hands, Mr Biden?...

Disney has temporarily closed its California theme parks because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The move to shutter the venues comes as the novel virus continues to rapidly spread across the United States.

Over the past week it has officially become a pandemic, with cases increasing in the US, Asia and across Europe.

It’s only the fourth time in history that Disneyland in Anaheim, California, has fully suspended operations. The other instances were the September 11 attacks, the morning after JFK’s assassination and the Northridge earthquake.

It’s unclear if Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, will remain open.

Disney said in a statement, “While there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 at Disneyland Resort, after carefully reviewing the guidelines of the Governor of California’s executive order and in the best interest of our guests and employees, we are proceeding with the closure of Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure, beginning the morning of March 14 through the end of the month”.

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/coronavirus/2020/03/13/disneyland-shuts-...

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How did the Democrats end up with Joe Biden as their presumptive nominee?

After three years of preparatory media fire about diversity and change, and chumming the electorate with promises of free college alongside all the health care-they-care-to-eat, Democrats started with six women, a couple of black people, the gay guy, and progressive ideas ranging from the necessary to the kooky. The full list included 30 players.

They ended up choosing a candidate left over from 1958. Joe Biden is old, he’s tired, he lost the race for president twice already (once for plagiarism and once for lying about his education), and he appears to be in some state of cognitive decline. Between the hair plugs and the botox, he looks waxy, like grandpa putting himself out there for one last fling after Grandma Obama passed away, God rest her soul.

The Democrats’ entire premise is false. They misunderstood Trump’s election as a fluke if not an outright scam. This was sustained by a relatively small group of disconnected people who, through cancel culture, peer pressure, and the need to fill a 24/7 media vacuum, convinced each other they were right.

So when a mediagenic Hispanic woman won a nothing race with few votes cast against a sleepy incumbent in the ever-Democratic Bronx, they told each other they were right and AOC is the living proof. The echo chamber backed them up as they serially proclaimed new saviors, offstage The Squad, onstage Beto! and Pete, though Booker, Harris, Klobuchar, and others were granted mini-moments after a decent debate performance or some minor splash. Some call it the “pundit fallacy,” the belief that Americans are at heart progressives who just haven’t been educated to vote the way they really should.

The problem was that as soon as the actual people were allowed a word, it all fell apart. The primary narrowed quickly. White voters didn’t like the black candidates. Novelties like Yang and Steyer sucked up bandwidth and confused the electorate. Midwesterners were terrified of initiatives aimed at transgender, reparation, and illegal immigrant support blocs that existed only in the minds of those who read The Atlantic and The Nation. Everyone wanted better health care but very few agreed that a massive upheaval of our capitalist economic system was the way forward. The candidates went out of their way to ignore public opinion on these issues and alienate voters, especially purple voters.

...

One writer called Biden’s success the product of the “politics of exhaustion.” This sees a Democratic electorate not anxious for change, but just tired of being tired. The unrelenting apocalyptic news cycle burned them out, and all they want is to put someone acceptable enough in charge. When Nancy Pelosi declared the morning of Super Tuesday, “Civilization as we know it is at stake in the 2020 election,” they had had it.

You end up with Joe Biden, running on three things: 1) he’s not Trump; 2) maybe he’ll die in office and his VP will take over early in his term; and 3) Joe’s cognitive decline appears slightly less severe than Trump’s. Not exactly “Hope and Change.”

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/joe-biden-the-democrats...

See also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35235

The party is over. The Democrats’ dishing of Bernie Sanders for the second time makes a second Trump Term "highly likely".

Joe Biden will be dribbling at the mouth come November, possibly having committed an assault or two along the way, and Trump will have played with him as the cat plays with the mouse, before killing and eating it.

The polite way of putting it is "cognitive difficulties," but Donald Trump and his gang are far from polite. They will call it what it is, however "deplorable." It is senility. A disqualification for having your finger on the nuclear button even more serious than the offence of being Donald Trump. His face appears made of wax, his eyes bloodied during one debate and his dentures flying out and across the studio floor in another.

The Democrats are about to field a candidate from a rigged contest, who can't say his own name or that of his closest people reliably, who forgets where he is and what he's running for, confuses his wife with his sister, and who regularly asks the voters out for a fight, calling them liars, a POS, and full of s***.

His creepy Joe record is as bad as his sleepy Joe. For a family audience, let me just put it this way: if you left your daughter or even your granddaughter on the lap of Joe Biden, you'd be as daft as he is.

And all this is before we consider his political record over 5 decades, from which he carries more baggage than UPS. And it’s the same color.

From his close friendship with segregationists, earlier support for the death penalty and role in the incarceration of a small nation of black people in America, through his witch-hunting of social security recipients, his part in the NAFTA de-industrialisation of the likes of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, his membership — as a kind of mascot — of the DNC elite and the Clinton and Obama Families, his support for the Iraq War and his subsequent lies (though he may have forgotten all about it) about his role in it. Biden IS the swamp.

Bernie Sanders, and even more so Tulsi Gabbard, have been systematically rigged out of the "Democratic" Party's contest, right down to the good old Tammany Hall counting (or not counting) of their votes. The movement of millions Sanders has built has been kicked in the guts and yet are to be asked to vote for the machine which did it. An even bigger proportion of them will decline the invitation this time than opted out the last time this happened, in 2016.

Which brings me to the Lady MacBeth, whose bloodied hand can be clearly glimpsed now amidst the Democratic carnage. 

Believe it or not, there is growing speculation that just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, like the shark in ‘Jaws,’ Hillary Clinton is back. 

Never reconciled to her defeat by Trump in 2016, she has nursed her wrath, against her enemies real or imagined, it doesn't matter which, for four long years.

She and her husband's closeness and financial relationship with both Weinstein and Epstein, the complete collapse of the Russiagate hoax, the discrediting of the Steele Dossier, the embroiling of the Biden branch of the Clinton Crime Family in the deep and murky waters of the Ukraine, all have failed to budge her from her entitled belief that she is the anointed one. 

It is distinctly possible now, that Hillary will be on the Biden ticket as his Vice-Presidential nominee. Given his parlous mental-health, she believes that should he win she, like Lady MacBeth, will rise from being the power behind the throne, to sit on the throne herself. Indeed she may now be considering, that at the rate of decline of the ‘Ukrainian’ Candidate Joe Biden, the Democratic Convention, with or without Biden's agreement might remove him from the ticket altogether. Cut out the middle-of-the-road man so to speak.

On the face of it, nothing could energize the Donald Trump "basket of deplorables" more than this whole farrago. But the stock-markets are tumbling now, the oil-price on the skid. The impact of the virus and how it could hit under-prepared America with its Third-World health services for the poor and the uninsured cannot for now be safely calculated.

Politics in the time of the Corona may just be about to change everything. And not for the better.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/483044-hillary-clinton-joe-biden/

All Trump has to do is pick his daughter Ivanka as VP and Gus' wild prediction (at 21 Jun 2017) could come true...

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Tony Blair has warned Democrats in the US that nominating Bernie Sanders to face Donald Trump for the presidency would be “an enormous gamble”, risking defeat on a similar scale to that suffered by the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

The former prime minister told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: “When I hear the rhetoric around Bernie Sanders, who by the way is obviously a very capable guy, it’s eerily familiar to anyone who’s just watched the debacle unfold in the British Labour party and our election defeat in the UK which is essentially the worst in our 120-year history.”

In December, in an election primarily centered on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, Corbyn’s Labour Party was beaten heavily by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/15/ex-british-pm-tony-blair...

First, the defeat of Corbyn WAS NOT AS BAD AS BLAIR MAKES OUT.

Second, Brexit was a bastard (UNSOLVED AS YET) decision which played into Johnson's hands, after his supporters defeated May, many times, despite her workable proposals.

Third, Blair is a Tory in disguise. He is a warmonger, a liar and a thief who should be in prison for war crimes.

Fourth, Corbyn was facing many foes (mostly Tory Blairites) from within his party while they should have aligned behind him.

Fifth, Sanders is far more honest than Biden.

Six, Biden is slipping into dementia...

Seven, apart from Sanders, the decent alternative for the democrats is Tulsi Gabbard, a clever woman who has been rejected by the machine of the DNC, that always wanted Biden as front-runner, possibly to open the road to Hillary Clinton, via a VP job.

Eight, I will be surprised if, come November, Biden's mind is 40 per cent of what is required to be "President", despite taking "memory pills".

Nine, Biden can easily be defeated by Trump...

See also: 

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/brexit/budget-2020-what-boris-johnson-has-delivered-since-winning-the-general-election-2445847

Former US Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders debates each other at the CNN studios in Washington DC for Sunday's 11th presidential Democratic debate. The event is the first to feature just two candidates, the final contenders to outlast 20 fellow party opponents.

The previous Democratic debate in South Carolina featured seven candidates on stage. Five - Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer and Elizabeth Warren have all since dropped out, following poor showings in earlier state primaries.

The venue for the two-hour Sunday debate - which will also be televised by Univision - was relocated from Phoenix, Arizona, to Washington DC, after organizers decided to conduct the event without an audience amid the spread of the Chinese COVID-2019 virus.

One moderator scheduled to assist at the event has chosen to step down because he was allegedly in proximity to a person who had been in direct contact with an individual who tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus, NBC News said.

Hawaii Senator Tulsi Gabbard, while still officially a candidate, did not qualify for the 15 March event because participants must show at least 20 percent of the delegates that have been allocated to date. Gabbard has claimed just two delegates. According to the latest data, Biden has 860 delegates and Sanders 706.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202003151078574131-live-updates-joe-biden-ber...

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