Death is no respecter of persons

Elizabeth Warren's oldest brother dies of coronavirus

The Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren made public the news on Thursday that one of her brothers died of coronavirus earlier this week.

Warren made the announcement on Twitter, saying: “My oldest brother, Don Reed, died from coronavirus on Tuesday evening. 

"He joined the Air Force at 19 and spent his career in the military, including five and a half years off and on in combat in Vietnam. 

"He was charming and funny, a natural leader.”

She posted family pictures and a shot of him serving in the air force. 

. . . .

Warren had not previously disclosed her brother had tested positive for the virus. 

According to the Boston Globe, he was hospitalized for pneumonia in February and then moved to a rehabilitation center, which had seen other cases of coronavirus. 

He was later brought to the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital, where he died.

Warren quits, endorses nobody, blames sexism, men, glass ceiling

Elizabeth Warren quitting 2020 Democratic presidential race

Biden had a good Super Tuesday

Bloomberg quits, backs Joe Biden after former VP wins Texas in Super Tuesday breakout

The New Yorker spent half a billion on his campaign and won American Samoa.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrestled with the embarrassment of losing at home in Massachusetts. Biden’s win amounted to a major upset over both her and Sanders, who had led Warren in polls just days earlier. She planned to spend Wednesday assessing her options.

The other major candidate, billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg, a former New York mayor, spent $500 million from his vast personal fortune, with little to show for it but a stack of invoices from TV networks and Facebook, though he did win American Samoa and at least four delegates there – small consolation on a night when Democrats parceled out 1,344 pledged delegates, a third of the total.

He joins a list of candidates through history who tried to bypass the initial small state contests without success. He did top the 15% threshold in Texas needed to get some statewide delegates.

“I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden,” he said.

National Results & Map

Are people too stupid to suggest the obvious?

All screening and all care for Coronavirus ought to be fully paid for and jobs of the sick need to be guaranteed by the federal government as necessary public health measures to ensure nobody sick and contagious fails to seek testing or care for fear of the costs or keeps going to work for fear of job loss.

Shouldn't the Democrats be calling for this?

Well, whaddayaknow?

Elizabeth Warren Announces Plan For Swift Federal Action On Coronavirus

She wants free tests and treatment, and paid leave for patients and caregivers.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday will lay out a detailed plan for swift federal action to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

The proposed initiative, which Warren’s presidential campaign shared with HuffPost on Sunday evening, is not another item on Warren’s agenda for what she would do if she becomes president. 

It is, instead, a list of steps that she would like to see Congress and President Donald Trump take right now, in order to contain the outbreak, to help those affected by it, and to stop the economy from falling into a recession.

Key actions would include making tests and treatments free to anybody who needs them, providing paid leave to people who must miss work or care for relatives, and propping up the economy with about $400 billion in new government spending.

Amy K withdraws, will endorse Joe B tonight at rally

With her 'Klomentum' gone, Amy Klobuchar ends her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who pitched herself as a moderate with Midwestern appeal and the political "grit" to beat President Donald Trump, ended her presidential bid Monday, her campaign said in a statement.

Klobuchar will endorse former Vice President Joe Biden at at rally tonight in Dallas, her campaign said. 

Will Mayor Pete show up at that rally?

Will Tom Steyer?

Bloomberg should drop out now, too, and throw his money and his ads behind Joe B.

But I don't think he will.

Nor will Warren withdraw and throw her support to Bernie.

Warren says Bloomberg funded Lindsey Gragam right now on CBS

And many other Republican senate candidates against Democrats.

Screw him.

Warren on All In attacks the Billionaires, Bloomberg in particular

She's really doing this well.

Does Sanders beat Biden if Warren is out?

Top progressives back Sanders as skirmish with Warren rumbles on

He's a real socialist who hates capitalism and covers it up, she's a pro-capitalist lying opportunist weasel.

Maybe best not Bernie

Bernie Sanders' real problem isn't Elizabeth Warren. It's Donald Trump

Oh?

She orchestrated this whole thing, including the scene at the end.

Even the moderator "called him a liar" and sided totally with her.

[Update 1/18. Feminist Democrats are totally covering this up and making Bernie the liar.]

'You called me a liar on national TV'

Pocahontas really let him have it.

Bernie has too much bad baggage and she's a vicious snake and an unscrupulous liar consumed with ambition.

Both are committed to left reforms that will not get passed even if they win the White House and the Democrats win both houses.

Trump aims to win another Electoral College victory.

And he might do it.

Warren v Biden

See especially the part about bankruptcy law.

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren: A short guide to big differences

The thug in the White House

We have known since the 2016 campaign he approves of the third degree, police brutality, torture, and war crimes like murdering the families of terrorists.

His voters like him because they share those attitudes.

Trump issued direct order to halt disciplining of Navy Seal Edward Gallagher

Hitler's Nazis had a mass following. The Italian Fascists were a mass party.

Brutality was part of their appeal, and is still essential to the appeal of modern authoritarians and so-called "populists" in America, Europe, and around the world.

Lindsey Graham and others of the fucking bastard party are now talking about the need to cut, if not to outright privatize, Social Security and to cut Medicare benefits so money gathered by the relevant dedicated taxes can be diverted to deal with the shortfall in general tax revenues created by the Republican wet dream tax cuts so long wanted by the plutes and so well fronted by that pal of the common man, the forgotten man, Bozo the Liar, the Mini-Mussolini in the White House.

Plutes gonna plute.

An entire party whose central task is to fuck over everybody who isn't really, really rich, on behalf of those who are.

And they are delighted to find a front as effective as Trump.

They are like German and Italian plutes and capitalist sympathizers between the wars happy to find so effective a bulwark against the dreaded socialists and communists.

Warren and Sanders are, on this matter of excessive individual wealth, right, just as both Roosevelts were.

And I could live with a cap on individual private wealth.

Might be a good idea, like trust busting.

Too much individual wealth is also too much market power as well as too much political power.

And that's why Obamacare for all is better than Medicare for all.

Not a good idea for just one insurer to be effectively the only customer of all medical providers in the country, and that one under the direct, immediate, and constant control of bourgeois politicians of only weak, unreliable, minority, and limited loyalty to the masses.

Still, he's wrong to urge actual socialism as better than capitalism and she's right to urge what's needed is capitalism run by progressives for the social good.

All the same, a lot more Americans need to learn that Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, and libertarian ideology are just bullshit really handy for the plutes.

They need to stop thinking, in effect, that the rich have every right to screw them to the wall.

Marx was certainly right that the moral and political convictions of the many are to far too great an extent a duperie, a false consciousness, an ideological smokescreen that makes the 90% - or more like 99.99% - their own class enemies.

But this is not.

There is no reason for the 90% to accept any version of capitalism that doesn't work as well as possible for them.

Even such a capitalism will work just swell for the remaining 10%, don't you worry about that.

Not as much as they want, but then there is no limit to what they want.

It goes way, way beyond anything remotely like rational self-interest, except on the most ludicrous construals of what is or might be rational.

Homo homini lupus, not because of need, but because of human nature.

The idea that there is no human nature, that "socialist man" is a social creature so much superior to "capitalist man", is part of the bullshit the left, unwilling to face the horrid truth, have sold themselves.

That it's all nurture, the stuff that matters, and none of it nature.

Why it's maybe NOT such a great idea

It sounds great, single payor socialized health insurance, Medicare for All, right up until you realize the very same Democrats who want this are already planning to starve the healthcare industry for funds beginning on the very first day.

If you want the country to have the best medical care, and if you want medical care to continue to progress and do ever more and better things for our health, then you DON'T want cheapo health care.

You want to be reality based? Then suck on that reality.

Top Democrats criticize Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All plan

Undermining NATO?

Setting a moral view above realism and practicality?

Sanders backs Warren after Liz Cheney attacks 'no first use' nuclear policy

This issue was fought out during the Cold War, when the view emerged that a first use of nukes would be immoral and the US and NATO publicly and even ostentatiously refused any commitment to a "no first use" policy.

Both they and the Warsaw Pact nations knew the latter would quickly crush the former in a purely conventional war.

The only way NATO could effectively deter that was by leaving the door open to first use of nukes on the battlefield.

And so they did.

The issue was not, I must say, first use of strategic nuclear weapons against anybody, against any Warsaw Pact nation or, in particular, against the Soviet Union.

Lacking a first strike capability as everybody then was, a threat of that sort would be (a) a threat to commit suicide and hence (b) not very credible.

The NATO theory was that first use of tactical nukes on the battlefield would cause any Warsaw Pact invasion of the West to fail without so endangering the Soviet Union as to provoke them into use of strategic nukes against anyone on the NATO side and setting off a global thermonuclear war.

And that the Russians, knowing this, would not launch such an invasion.

Reagan's deployment of cruise missiles was also a necessary piece of the deterrence puzzle, given the unwillingness or inability of the NATO countries to match or surpass the conventional forces on the Soviet side.

Maybe all that has changed with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the partial dismemberment of the Soviet Union, leaving behind a considerably smaller and less powerful Russia with a much enlarged NATO crowded right up against its borders, but I don't know that it has.

Anyway, the current flap seems to be about a different issue, first use of strategic nuclear weapons, what people used to call a first strike.

And that seems odd.

Nation A was said to have a first strike capability against nation B just in case A could launch a strike that would prevent significant nuclear retaliation by B.

Back in the day, it was considered destabilizing and hence highly undesirable that either side, NATO or the Warsaw Pact, should have such a capability.

So far as I know, that is still the standard view and nobody actually has a first strike capability.

So I don't really see what this is about or how it fits into the strategic picture.

Bernie Sanders has defended his rival for the Democratic presidential 2020 nomination, Elizabeth Warren, after her policy against pre-emptive use of America’s nuclear weapons was attacked by the daughter of one of the architects of the Iraq war.

Warren reiterated her support for a “no first use” policy on nuclear weapons during the second round of Democratic presidential debates this week.

“It makes the world safer,” the Massachusetts senator said during the debate. “The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively, and we need to say so to the entire world.”

Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, attacked Warren’s policy on Twitter, asking “which American cities and how many American citizens are you willing to sacrifice with your policy of forcing the US to absorb a nuclear attack before we can strike back?”

Cheney's attack was inconsequent enough, but Sanders' rejoinder was equal to it.

“Taking national security advice from a Cheney has already caused irreparable damage to our country,” Sanders wrote on Friday, in response to Cheney’s attack on Warren.

Cheney’s attack on Warren echoed the [equally mystifying- PV] response of one of Warren’s Democratic rivals during the debate, the Montana governor, Steve Bullock, who said he did not support a “no first use policy” because, “I don’t want to turn around and say, “Well, Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that.”

With boring predictability . . . .

. . . . the Dem blogs this morning are crowing a big victory for their long-established favorites, the beloved leftists, over the klutzy, hated DINOs on the stage, heretofore known as "moderates", "centrists", or . . . "Democrats".

As for Chuck Todd "using Republican framing" isn't that what he's supposed to do?

Or did you think he was supposed to lob softballs right into the zone all night?

Oddly, the Times' headline - not so much, the story - is the least left-spinning of those in Dem media I have seen, today.

Sanders and Warren Battle Accusations of ‘Fairy Tale’ Promises as Intraparty Rift Flares

There was former Representative John Delaney of Maryland, who accused Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren of making “fairy tale” promises; Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, who lamented liberal “wish-list economics”; and former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, imploring the left not to overreach and “FedEx the election to Donald Trump.”

Arguing in somewhat subtler terms was Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who declined multiple chances to lash her liberal rivals by name but questioned the viability of their progressive stances on health care and education.

“I have bold ideas,” Ms. Klobuchar said, “but they are grounded in reality.”

With Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren refusing to yield an inch, the debate laid bare the stark choice before Democratic primary voters: whether to embrace an agenda of transformational economic change in an effort to motivate young and nonwhite voters, or to proceed more cautiously by embracing more incremental appeals that could win over moderates.

Or, here's a radical thought, the Dem voters could support candidates whose advertised agendas comport with their (the voters') own politics rather than so obviously playing bare-naked horse-race politics, treating agendas and aspirations as of no intrinsic importance, at all.

Though of course each group insisted a candidate (and party) with their type of agenda would do better in the general against the Duce (and the GOP on the whole).

<snip>

The most protracted exchanges of the night, and by far the most substantive ones, concerned Mr. Sanders’s signature proposal to replace private health insurance with a single-payer system of the kind employed in Canada and a number of European countries. 

Mr. Delaney and the other moderates attacked the proposal from the first minutes of the debate, calling it a politically toxic idea that would void the health care plans of union members and of employees of private businesses.

“We don’t have to go around and be the party of subtraction, and telling half the country, who has private health insurance, that their health insurance is illegal,” Mr. Delaney said.

Mr. Sanders defended his plan ferociously, with periodic help from Ms. Warren. 

He cast Mr. Delaney and other Democratic doubters as champions of an indefensible system, and argued that opponents of the single-payer format tended to brand it with traits — like costliness and unpredictability — that the American health care system already possesses.

“The answer,” Mr. Sanders said, “is to get rid of the profiteering of the drug companies and the insurance companies, move to ‘Medicare for all.’”

Spoken like "profit" is a dirty word, in the manner of a true socialist in the real sense of the word, entailing and usually motivated by anti-capitalism.

Visceral, in Sanders' case.

Both he and Ms. Warren depicted skeptics of single-payer health care as being in league with the G.O.P.: Mr. Sanders accused a CNN moderator, Jake Tapper, of using a “Republican talking point” when raising questions about his plan, and noted that “the health care industry will be advertising tonight on this program.” 

In a similar complaint, Ms. Warren urged Democrats to “stop using Republican talking points” on the issue.

. . . .

The harshest counterattack on the moderates, however, may not have come from Mr. Sanders or Ms. Warren.

“I wonder why you’re Democrats,” said Marianne Williamson, the author and spiritualist. “You think there’s something wrong about using the instruments of government to help people.”

. . . .

The same center-versus-left divide evident on health care was also on display as the candidates clashed over trade and immigration, and whether some of the proposals offered by the liberal candidates would represent a boon to Mr. Trump.

“We got a hundred thousand people showing up at the border right now,” said Mr. Bullock. “If we decriminalize entry, if we give health care to everyone, we’ll have multiples of that.”

Turning to Ms. Warren, he accused her of “playing into Donald Trump’s hands” for wanting to make illegal immigration a civil penalty and seeking to provide federal benefits to undocumented migrants.

Ms. Warren fired back that “seeking refuge, seeking asylum” is “not a crime.”

A similar crossfire unfolded on trade, as Mr. Hickenlooper and Mr. Delaney accused Ms. Warren of pursuing a trade agenda closer to Mr. Trump’s than to that of the last Democratic president, Barack Obama. 

Ms. Warren’s agenda, Mr. Delaney said, “would isolate America’s economy around the world.”

. . . .

The evening seemed to expose the rifts in the party that might ultimately define the Democratic race once the party’s primary field narrows, and Mr. Biden comes face to face in future debates with Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren.

. . . .

Ms. Warren ignored a question about her boasts that she’s a proud capitalist — a barely-veiled contrast with Mr. Sanders, a democratic socialist — and used the prompt instead to talk of her battles with Wall Street. 

Mr. Sanders even praised his colleague at one point, echoing her tough talk on corporate America.

“Elizabeth,” he said, “is absolutely right.”

Of wolves in sheep's clothing, one thinks, thinking about her protestations of non-socialism, of commitment to capitalism.

What we are looking at is a small group of fierce anti-capitalists who really are socialists in their hearts masquerading as capitalism-preferring and -loyal progressives, vs a coterie of actual progressives whom they are trying to portray as Republican bare-knuckle reactionaries.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, Marooned Together on Fantasy Island

Of course, Bernie and Pocahontas are perfectly right that those candidates who belabored their agendas as fantasies oppose them, and would react with horror if they turned out not to be so fantastic, after all.

And the same is generally true, I suppose, in the commentariat.

But I am not at all sure about Frank Bruni.

Kamala Harris, racial imposter? No. But there is nuance.

Quick fact check with Wikipedia.

Kamala Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to a Tamil Indian mother and a Jamaican father. 

Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was a breast cancer scientist who immigrated to the United States from Madras (present-day Chennai) in 1960.

Her father, Donald Harris, is a Stanford University economics professor who emigrated from Jamaica in 1961 for graduate study in economics at University of California, Berkeley.

Recalling the lives of his grandmothers, Donald Harris wrote that one was related to a plantation and slave owner while the other had unknown ancestry.

Looks like most of her coloredness comes from her mother's side.

Anyway, she is not descended from American slaves, or indeed American Negroes, at all.

And it looks like at least some of her ancestors owned slaves.

(As is undoubtedly true of many American blacks, come to that, given that before the Civil War free blacks or even slaves in some states could and did own black slaves, themselves.)

In a 2019 interview, Kamala Harris said, "'I am black and I am proud of it.'"

Harris's family lived in Berkeley, California, where both of her parents attended graduate school.

She was close to her maternal grandfather, P. V. Gopalan, an Indian diplomat.

As a child, she often visited her extended family in the Besant Nagar neighborhood of Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

She grew up going to both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple.[12] She has one younger sister, Maya Harris.

They both sang in a Baptist choir.

Personally, I would say she is an American with an obvious dose of non-white ancestry.

Is she in any shape or form an African-American?

Ali himself admits she is.

People (on the Left and Right) need to stop sharing this picture. This is not her father, Donald Harris, Jr. 

Her father is a mix of Afro and white Jamaican.

Her mother is Tamil Indian (upper caste).

Kamala Harris is Indian-Jamaican and a first generation American.

So, less than half African, but truly African in part.

Yet neither she nor her supporters have pointed that out.

So who cares? you might ask.

Why all the fuss?

Well, Ms Harris, her supporters, leading Democrats, and the PC police are all wedded to the claim she is, entirely sans nuance, an African American.

She who so clearly wants and really, really needs to play that race card; and they, who so want her to be able to - though preferably not against other Democrats.

Anyway, "Death to deniers!", say she and they.

"Birther" tweet targets Kamala Harris. 2020 Democrats rushed to her defense.

2020 Democratic hopeful Kamala Harris was the target of a birtherism-like attack — retweeted and then deleted by President Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. — targeting her identity as "not an American Black."

. . . .

Harris was born in Oakland, California to parents who had emigrated to the U.S. from India and Jamaica. 

The viral tweet by right-wing personality Ali Alexander — whose Twitter bio claims that he "exposed" Harris and includes the hashtag #NeverKamala — mentioned her parents' background and said 

"I'm so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history. 
"It's disgusting. Now using it for debate time at #DemDebate2? These are my people not her people."

The tweet appeared to get the attention of Donald Trump Jr., who has more than three million followers. 

Trump Jr. wrote "Is this true? Wow" on Thursday, but soon deleted it. 

A spokesman told The New York Times Trump Jr. was "asking if it was true that Kamala Harris was half-Indian because it's not something he had ever heard before."

Yes, it is true.

But AA was accusing her of being a racial imposter even while admitting her African ancestry, far more substantial (apparently) than Elizabeth Warren's Indian ancestry.

She is more Indian than African, sure.

But still.

If KH were an American with one African grandparent and the other three snow-white Swedes, would she count as African-American?

God, what do we say to that, in an America apparently still wed to the one-drop rule for blackness?

Harris' campaign manager, Lily Adams, said in a statement to CBS News "this is the same type of racist attacks used to attack Barack Obama. It didn't work then and it won't work now." 

Harris' husband, Douglas Emhoff, expressed his gratitude on Twitter to those who came to his wife's defense. "...Thx to all the 2020 candidates and everyone else for calling out this crap for what it is"... Emhoff tweeted.

On Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was the first 2020 candidate to tweet in support of Harris. 

"The attacks against @KamalaHarris are racist and ugly. We all have an obligation to speak out and say so. And it's within the power and obligation of tech companies to stop these vile lies dead in their tracks," Warren tweeted.

Pocahontas Warren, American Indian by the tiniest of hairs (and since when is there a one-drop rule for Indian-ness? Is half the NHL Indian?), defends Harris from the accusation of being a racial imposter?

What will the right make of that, eh?

And look at her, calling for the tech companies to collude in suppression of the charge.

A charge Ms. Warren just barely escaped, herself, by proving herself to be a thousandth, or hundred thousandth, or millionth red Indian with a DNA test, to pretty much universal laughter on the right and universal condemnation on the left.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey chimed in with a tweet saying "@kamalaharris doesn't have sh[**] to prove." 

Strong remarks also came from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. 

Biden, the current frontrunner, tweeted on Saturday "The same forces of hatred rooted in 'birtherism' that questioned @BarackObama's American citizenship, and even his racial identity, are now being used against Senator @KamalaHarris. 

"It's disgusting and we have to call it out when we see it. Racism has no place in America."

Trillions indefensibly squandered on the already privileged? Or a sensible step toward social justice?

Does social justice require that education be free at all levels?

Then this is perhaps defensible as a step toward that.

Or are we about to spend a trillion or so making life a lot easier for people who are going to become doctors, lawyers, and other rather well-heeled types?

People whose ability to acquire these debts in the first place is already a measure of the extent of their privilege?

A pile of loot that real social justice would have us spend on a whole lot of folks who are and will all their lives be far less privileged?

If it isn't all rather too much, anyway.

I mean, in addition to the Green New Deal and Medicare for All?

Really?

Bernie Sanders Unveils Sweeping Bill To Cancel All Student Debt

Pardon me if I say this looks a lot like a bidding war for the votes of the young, and especially the young already in or heading toward college.

The Hyde Amendment

In my view, this and such other bits as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment forbid both too much and too little; they prohibit expenditure of federal funds for any abortions except if the mother's life is in danger (too much) or the pregnancy arises from rape or incest (too little), as well to support insurance plans that ignore this same rule (too much, again).

But forced to choose up or down I would play along, since the absence of these restrictions would doubtless enable far more objectionable abortions than allowable ones (those that would be allowed, were it up to me, as of course it is not and will never be) while, of course, disenabling none.

And, anyway, the allowable ones are, generally, merely that, and rarely particularly desirable (yes, of course, according to me).

So it does not disturb me that Joe Biden supported such things, when first proposed, and may still do so.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Slams Joe Biden's Support Of Hyde Amendment

Three Democrats promise constitutional nonsense

After Alabama Abortion Law, 3 Democrats Propose a New Strategy

And the constitutional basis for this stuff would be what, assuming the Supremes overturned Roe?

Responding to a series of highly restrictive abortion laws aimed at overturning Roe v. Wade, several Democratic presidential candidates have called on Congress to codify abortion rights, signaling a newly aggressive approach in a debate whose terms have long been set by conservatives.

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey was first out of the gate on Wednesday, telling BuzzFeed News that if elected president, he would pursue legislation to guarantee abortion rights nationwide, superseding state restrictions, even if the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York promised the same on Thursday, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts came forward Friday morning with a more detailed plan.

The three senators also called for repealing the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions.

The vast Democratic field has been essentially unanimous in condemning the near-total abortion ban Alabama lawmakers passed on Tuesday, which is part of a string of state efforts to compel the Supreme Court to re-examine Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy.

But Mr. Booker, Ms. Gillibrand and Ms. Warren went significantly further than other candidates, calling for expanding access to abortion instead of just preserving existing access, which has already been eroded in many places.

. . . .

In an essay published Friday, Ms. Warren proposed legislation that would forbid states to interfere with abortion providers or access. 

She also called on Congress to prohibit state measures that do not technically restrict abortion services but make them harder to provide in practice, like laws that require providers to have hospital admitting privileges or regulate the width of clinics’ hallways.

. . . .

Ms. Warren, Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Booker argued that by passing a law affirming abortion rights, a future Democratic Congress could provide a backstop that would endure even if the justices overturned Roe. 

But such a law would almost certainly face its own legal challenges, and barring further changes in the court’s composition, it would have to survive review by that same conservative majority.

Acts of Congress supersede state laws, but the Constitution limits the sorts of laws Congress can pass. 

The main question for the courts would be whether Congress has the right to make laws about abortion.

Ms. Warren wrote that a law guaranteeing access to abortion would be legal under the Constitution’s commerce and equal protection clauses. 

But David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who studies abortion issues, said the commerce clause argument was probably the only viable one.

Phooey.

And they complain the Republicans are constitutionally unscrupulous.

Bernie is third?

Quinnipiac

Former Vice President Joe Biden still commanded a sizeable lead, earning 38% of support among respondents. 

Second place went to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who enjoyed a light surge to earn 12% in the poll. 

Sanders earned 11%, just enough to place third, according to the poll published by Quinnipiac University Tuesday.

Harvard, two days later.

Forty-four percent of Democratic voters surveyed said they are most likely to vote for Biden in the 2020 Democratic primaries. 

Sanders comes in second place at 14 percent, while Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) places third with just 9 percent, the poll found. 

Joe still ahead, and he's not even in it yet

It may be that Biden has the best chance of winning, but he does not seem likely to be able to do anything with the victory.

He is too wedded to all that obsolete "across the aisle" and "bipartisan" bullshit.

He will not pack the court.

He may not even try to roll back the GOP tax cuts.

Still, any Democrat is better than any Republican, and at least his victory would get the Duce out of the White House.

Biden Still the Leader with 27%

In a field of 24 announced and potential contenders, Joe Biden currently has the support of 27% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, which is similar to his 28% support in March and 29% in January, according to this morning’s Monmouth University Poll. 

Support for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is currently at 20%, which is down slightly from 25% in March, but still higher than his 16% support in January.

. . . .

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg currently has 8% support. He registered less than 1% in prior Monmouth polls. 

California Sen. Kamala Harris has 8% support, off just slightly from 10% in March and 11% in January. 

Rounding out the field of top contenders are Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 6% (from 8% in both March and January) and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke at 4% (6% in March and 7% in January).

Others who score at least 1% include New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (2%, from 5% in March and 4% in January), former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (2%, from 1% in priorpolls), Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (1%, from 3% in March and 2% in January), and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (1%, from 1% in March).  

The remaining 14 names asked about in the survey receive support from less than 1% of Democratic voters at this time, which is basically unchanged from their support levels in prior national Monmouth polls.

. . . .

Race and gender do not seem to be important factors for Democratic voters when considering who the party should choose to run against Trump. 

Fully 87% say the race of the nominee does not matter. 

Just 5% say it would be better for Democrats to nominate a person of color, which is offset by 6% who say it would actually be better for the party to nominate a white candidate. 

Similarly, 77% say the gender of the nominee does not matter. 

Just 7% say it would be better for Democrats to nominate a woman, while slightly more (12%) say it would actually be better for the party to nominate a man.