The Democratic Party Establishment, worried that too much democracy could upset their profitable little racket, instituted the idea of "super-delegates" in 1982 to gives themselves some control over the nomination process. Originally the party bosses demanded 30% of all the delegates but today the super-delegates-- current and former Democratic Party officials-- comprise 20% of the convention delegates.
Outside of Mississippi, not many people know who GOP backbencher Steven Palazzo is. He beat the odious Blue Dog Gene Taylor in southeast Mississippi's deep red district (R+21) and then faded away, except for one ugly incident. His district-- which includes Biloxi, Pascagoula and Gulfport, his hometown-- was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Over 200 people died and dozens are still listed as missing. Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties looked like war zones and the economic consequences are still barely calculable, tens of billions of dollars just in Palazzo's district.
There's a sickening rush by cowardly/opportunistic politicians to demonize refugees-- fleeing for their lives from these ISIS monsters-- as, in Trump's words, "Trojan Horses" who will come here and murder us.
It must be frustrating for Alan Grayson, in his run for the open Florida Senate seat that Rubio is giving up-- see the clip of Grayson above explaining Rubio's dreadful Senate record to Chris Hayes-- to have Wall Street's Senator, Chuck Schumer, pushing Wall Street's favorite candidate in the primary, "former" Republican Patrick Murphy.
When Trump mentioned that he thought grasping, greed-driven hedge-fund managers and banksters should pay their fair share of taxes, the grasping, greed-driven hedge-fund managers and banksters doubled down on sabotaging his campaign. They are getting slime-ball lobbyists, like Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth, to "work on" the congressmembers the banksters own or rent.
The release this morning of NBC/Marist polls for Iowa and New Hampshire confirmed Trump as the odds-on favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination.
Judging strictly by his voting record in the House and Senate, freshman Senator Tom Cotton would be dismissed as a brainless extremist bent on demagoguing himself into power. But "brainless" doesn't work smoothly in describing graduates of Harvard-- let alone magna cum laude graduates of Harvard, like Cotton.
On his MSNBC show Friday, Chris Hayes, talked with socially conscious celebrity chef Tom Colicchio about the new food guidelines from the U.S.D.A. (above). Does anyone care what the U.S.D.A. suggests? Or, is there a way to implement their guidelines as part of social policy? As a society, for example, we eat way too much sugar. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died every year because over sugar over-consumption. Diabetes and cancer are rampant. As many as two-thirds of Americans are obese now.
“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.” (Christopher Hitchens)
By Missouri standards, Kander is a progressive. The NRA gave him a "D" and the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition has ranked him between 86 and 100% since 2009. At 33, he's the youngest statewide-elected official in the whole country-- and he's very popular in Missouri and was expected to skate to reelection next year.
