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27 January 20
Joe Biden's Confounding Candidacy
Walter Shapiro, The New Republic
Shapiro writes: "Joe Biden is perhaps the most confounding candidate in this Democratic race."
lunchtime town meeting in the college town of Ames, home to Iowa State, should attract a sizable crowd less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses—especially when a former vice president, who is leading in some of the recent Iowa polls, headlines the event.
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Walter Shapiro, The New Republic
Shapiro writes: "Joe Biden is perhaps the most confounding candidate in this Democratic race."
The former vice president is drawing tiny, unenthused crowds in Iowa. So why is he still one of the front-runners?
lunchtime town meeting in the college town of Ames, home to Iowa State, should attract a sizable crowd less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses—especially when a former vice president, who is leading in some of the recent Iowa polls, headlines the event.
But Joe Biden is perhaps the most confounding candidate in this Democratic race. By my charitable count, only 250 would-be caucus-goers attended his event in Ames on Tuesday.
They were treated to such Biden staples as a paean to dead senators he once worked with: Iowa’s John Culver died in 2018, Ted Kennedy in 2009, and Tom Eagleton in 2007. He offered a somewhat exaggerated version of Richard Nixon’s victory margin in Delaware in 1972, the year that the 29-year-old Biden upset expectations, winning his Senate seat by a narrow margin. And there was a moving reference to his late son Beau’s military service in Kosovo during the NATO military operations in the 1990s.
As is typical with Biden, the applause after an hour of stump speech and questions was affectionate yet perfunctory. On the way out, I ran into Alan Vandehaar, a retired adult education professor, whose opening words were, “That was uninspiring.”
This is the Biden perplex.
As Jeff Link, a leading Iowa Democratic strategist who is neutral in the presidential race, put it, “The curious thing to me is that Biden continues to be so resilient in the polls because the other indicators are a mixed bag.” And a key figure in a rival Iowa campaign said, “We just aren’t seeing Biden organizers.”
Maybe Biden can win Iowa with a stealth campaign that depends heavily on TV ads and the warm feelings that almost all Democrats have for him, despite some mild sniping from a few Sanders surrogates. But, despite the aura of inevitably that has come to surround Biden as he has held onto his lead in most of the national polls, I wonder if the former vice president is more vulnerable than he seems.
Biden, for example, is drawing significantly smaller Iowa crowds than Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren. In fact, Biden may have played to more packed rooms in the run-up to the 2008 caucuses in which he limped home with an embarrassingly weak fifth-place finish.
The traditional justification for the privileged position of the Iowa caucuses is that, unlike primaries, they measure the enthusiasm of party activists. Even in the record turnout year of 2008 (with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vying for supremacy) fewer than 30 percent of Iowa Democratic voters ventured out on a wintry Monday evening to invest an hour or two in attending a caucus.
Crowd size is often over-hyped in politics (see Trump, Donald), but turnout at candidate events matters in Iowa and New Hampshire. A significant fraction of early-state voters go out of their way to see candidates in person. The respected Iowa Poll, conducted earlier this month, found that 33 percent of Democrats say that an “extremely important” factor in making their decision is how a “candidate has engaged with caucus-goers at events.”
Biden supporters would argue that turnout at town meetings represents a flawed gauge since Iowa voters know him so well. But Sanders is also a familiar political figure—he is even recycling many of the same lines he used on the campaign trail in 2016—and yet he still draws huge crowds. His familiarity hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm for his candidacy. (A New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday morning showed him pulling ahead of the other candidates.)
The Impeachment Factor also hangs over the Biden campaign. The legal wizards running President Trump’s defense team have signaled that Biden and his son Hunter will be at the center of their high-decibel rebuttal early next week.
Forget, for the moment, the merits of the Democrats’ steel-trap case against Trump and the false equivalence of the Republicans’ vicious attacks on the Biden family. Instead, focus on the short-term political question: How will Iowa Democrats react on caucus night February 3?
Will the Republican “But the Bidens...” drumbeat make caucus-goers nervous about nominating the former vice president? Or will the screeds and screams convince Iowans, questing after the most electable pick, that Biden is the candidate the Trump team fears more than any other Democrat?
Turnout estimates for the caucuses range from a low of 225,000 (a tad under the 2008 record) to almost 300,000. I find the argument for lower turnout persuasive; it is easy to imagine Iowa Democrats—many of whom are still undecided about the candidates—staying home when the babysitter doesn’t show up, a child gets the flu, or they feel overwhelmed by work.
All surveys, even the respected Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa Poll, which is due to be released on the eve of the caucuses, involve guesswork about the rate of participation. With the plausible range in turnout varying by almost 25 percent, polling is an even less reliable crutch in Iowa than it is in most presidential primaries.
As a result, reporters have to rely more on instinct than hard data in deciphering the caucuses. This is not to encourage the kind of voice-of-God predictions that fill dead spots on cable TV. But there is value in leaning into a few hunches as long as you approach them with humility.
One of mine relates to Pete Buttigieg, who shot to the top of the pack in Iowa last fall. I have attended two large Buttigieg rallies over the past 10 days—one in Des Moines earlier this month and the other in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday night. Despite the crowds (and more than half the roughly 1,000 people in Cedar Rapids stood for nearly an hour as they listened to him), I had a sense that the former Indiana mayor wasn’t quite closing the deal.
Maybe I have heard the stump speech once too often, with Buttigieg talking about “the first time that the sun comes up over Cedar Rapids and Donald Trump is no longer president.” Maybe it’s the disembodied way that Buttigieg pulls written questions out of a hat rather than calling on the questioners directly as Warren and Biden do. Or maybe Buttigieg (like Howard Dean in 2004) is beginning to suffer from the Icarus Problem as a once unknown candidate who flew too near the sun.
The Iowa airwaves have been mercifully free of attack ads, with their grainy pictures and the-end-is-nigh voiceover suggesting that a rival candidate has cloven feet. In fact, most Iowa Democrats whom I have interviewed offer positive assessments about most presidential candidates, which is why they find it so difficult to make a decision.
In contrast, Twitter, as well as a significant percentage of the pundits who write op-eds and engage in online commentary, appears to be feeding a Democratic outrage machine. Left-wingers denounce moderates, and establishmentarians moan that the Democrats are yielding to extremists. The scrum online leads me to worry that these attacks will become bitter and shrill as Iowans prepare to caucus.
At this point, there is little we don’t know about the leading candidates. On Friday night, CBS News trumpeted an interview with Sanders in which the Vermont socialist confessed that it is “impossible to predict” the cost of his Medicare for All health-care plan.
A gotcha moment?
Not really, since, when it comes to issues, Sanders has always believed in magical realism. Actually, it’s more magic than realism. Speaking Monday at a rally in Des Moines, Sanders promised, “Within the first week of our administration, we will introduce and we will finally pass a Medicare for All single-payer plan.” Left unmentioned is how Sanders intends to pass this landmark legislation with a (best case) 51-to-49 Senate majority and many Democrats staunchly opposed to eliminating private health insurance.
Four decades ago, I first came to Iowa to cover a candidate named George Bush who did push-ups at the downtown YMCA in Des Moines to show that he was “up for the Eighties” unlike 68-year-old Ronald Reagan.
In that time, I have never seen an Iowa caucus as baffling as this one (not even in 2004, when the Democrats had four serious candidates). My hope is that the candidates win and lose the caucuses on their merits rather than falling victim to some last-minute media controversy or a long-ago news clip dramatically revealed through opposition research in the final hours.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Iowa. (photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
AOC is Campaigning for Bernie Sanders In Iowa and Voters Are Falling in Love
Nidhi Prakash, BuzzFeed
Prakash writes: "With Sen. Bernie Sanders largely stuck in DC in the days leading up to the first contest of the 2020 election, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is storming across Iowa for his campaign and making a big name for herself in the process."
EXCERPT:
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Nidhi Prakash, BuzzFeed
Prakash writes: "With Sen. Bernie Sanders largely stuck in DC in the days leading up to the first contest of the 2020 election, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is storming across Iowa for his campaign and making a big name for herself in the process."
EXCERPT:
During a stop at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, a woman stood up and told Ocasio-Cortez a story about her wages being garnished because of medical debt.
“I’m going to try not to cry because you’re right there,” the woman said, before she started crying. After hugging her, Ocasio-Cortez told her own story of not being able to afford blood tests her doctor said she needed — while she was running for Congress.
“It is so wrong. This is so wrong,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “To garnish a person’s wages because they needed to go to the doctor is morally wrong.”
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John Bolton. (photo: Jose Luis Magana/AP)
Bolton Book Pressures GOP to Allow Senate Witnesses
Eric Tucker, Zeke Miller and Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Pressure is increasing on senators to call John Bolton to testify at President Donald Trump's impeachment trial after the revelation that a draft of a book by the former national security adviser undercuts a key defense argument - that Trump never tied withholding military aid to Ukraine to his demand the country help investigate political rival Joe Biden."
Eric Tucker, Zeke Miller and Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Pressure is increasing on senators to call John Bolton to testify at President Donald Trump's impeachment trial after the revelation that a draft of a book by the former national security adviser undercuts a key defense argument - that Trump never tied withholding military aid to Ukraine to his demand the country help investigate political rival Joe Biden."
EXCERPTS:
Bolton writes in the forthcoming book that Trump told him he wanted to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid from Ukraine until it helped him with investigations into Biden. Trump’s legal team has repeatedly insisted otherwise, and Trump tweeted on Monday that he never told Bolton such a thing.
Republican senators faced a pivotal moment as they arrived on Capitol Hill to resume Trump’s trial. Democrats are demanding sworn testimony from Bolton and other key witnesses, and pressure is mounting on at least four Republicans to buck GOP leaders and form a bipartisan majority to force the issue.
“John Bolton’s relevance to our decision has become increasingly clear,” GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told reporters. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she has always wanted “the opportunity for witnesses” and the report about Bolton’s book “strengthens the case.”
But several GOP senators who met privately with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said nothing had changed. McConnell declined comment.
“Really, there’s nothing new here,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican. He dismissed the new information as an “effort to sell books.”
Before any vote on witnesses, Trump’s legal team was to make its case in depth on Monday, turning to several high-profile attorneys to argue against impeachment.
Democrats are saying that Trump’s refusal to allow administration officials to testify in the impeachment proceeding only reinforces that the White House is hiding evidence.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said: “We’re all staring a White House cover-up in the face.”
Schumer drew on polls that show the public wants to hear from witnesses. “We want the truth,” he said. “So do the American people.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, who is leading the House prosecution team, called Bolton’s account a test for the senators sitting as jurors.
“I don’t know how you can explain that you wanted a search for the truth in this trial and say you don’t want to hear from a witness who had a direct conversation about the central allegation in the articles of impeachment,” Schiff said on CNN.
Four Republicans would have to break ranks to join Democrats to call any witnesses, which would extend the trial, which has been expected to conclude fairly rapidly. The Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority.
Bolton’s account was first reported by The New York Times and was confirmed to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the manuscript on the condition of anonymity. “The Room Where It Happened; A White House Memoir” is to be released March 17.
John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council that Bolton used to lead, said the manuscript was submitted to the NSC for “pre-publication review” and had been under initial review.
“No White House personnel outside NSC have reviewed the manuscript,” he said.
When the Times report went online Sunday night, the seven House Democratic managers immediately called on all senators to insist that Bolton be called as a witness and provide his notes and other relevant documents. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, issued the same call.
Trump denied the claims in a series of tweets early Monday.
“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” Trump said. “If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.”
Trump said people could look at transcripts of his call with Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelinskiy to see there was no pressure for such investigations to get the aid. In that call, Trump asked Zelinskiy to “do us a favor” with the investigations as he was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to the U.S. ally at war with Russia.
Trump falsely claimed Monday that the Democrat-controlled House “never even asked John Bolton to testify.” Democrats did ask Bolton to testify, but he didn’t show up for his deposition. They later declined to subpoena Bolton, as they had others, because he threatened to sue, which could lead to a prolonged court battle.
Schiff said Bolton — known to be a copious notetaker — should also provide documents.
Bolton, who sent this book manuscript to the White House for review, is now enmeshed in a legal dispute with the White House over the manuscript’s use of direct quotes and other material from meetings and foreign leader discussions. That’s according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak on the record.
The White House has requested that Bolton remove material it considers classified, the person said, which has the book behind schedule.
Bolton acrimoniously left the White House a day before Trump ultimately released the Ukraine aid on Sept. 11. He has already told lawmakers that he is willing to testify, despite the president’s order barring aides from cooperating in the probe.
Eventual acquittal is likely in a Senate where a two-thirds majority vote would be needed for conviction. Still, the White House sees its Senate presentation this week as an opportunity to counter the allegations, defend the powers of the presidency and prevent Trump from being weakened politically ahead of November’s election.
Trump faces two articles of impeachment. One accuses him of abusing his power by asking Ukraine to investigate while withholding military aid. The other alleges that Trump obstructed Congress by directing aides to not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
Monday’s presentation was expected to include appearances by Alan Dershowitz, who will argue that impeachable offenses require criminal-like conduct, and Ken Starr, the independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is also expected to make arguments.
Democrats argued their side of the impeachment case for three days last week, warning that Trump will persist in abusing his power and endangering American democracy unless Congress intervenes to remove him before the 2020 election.
People watch as smoke rises from the scene of a helicopter crash that killed basketball star Kobe Bryant in Calabasas, California, on Jan. 26, 2020. (photo: Ringo Chiu/Reuters)
Helicopter Carrying Kobe Bryant Made Climbing Turn Before Rapid Dive
Paula Lavigne, ESPN
Lavigne writes: "The helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant and eight other passengers that crashed into a hillside in Southern California on Sunday was in a climbing left turn about 2,400 feet high before it dove to the ground, a person familiar with preliminary investigative information about the fatal crash told ESPN."
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Paula Lavigne, ESPN
Lavigne writes: "The helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant and eight other passengers that crashed into a hillside in Southern California on Sunday was in a climbing left turn about 2,400 feet high before it dove to the ground, a person familiar with preliminary investigative information about the fatal crash told ESPN."
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'As Congress debates reauthorization of the expiring Patriot Act provisions, there are many important reforms it should enact.' (photo: Slate/Nazar Abbas/Moment/Getty Images Plus/Daniel Schweinert/Westend61)
Congress Needs to Throw This Surveillance Program Away
Sharon Bradford Franklin, Slate
Franklin writes: "It's an ineffective, cumbersome system that even some of the nation's brightest minds haven't been able to legally wield in nearly five years."
Sharon Bradford Franklin, Slate
Franklin writes: "It's an ineffective, cumbersome system that even some of the nation's brightest minds haven't been able to legally wield in nearly five years."
EXCERPT:
emember the Snowden disclosures? It may seem like an eternity ago, but it was in 2013 that Edward Snowden revealed to the public the government’s extensive warrantless domestic surveillance program. After he disclosed that the National Security Agency was scooping up millions of phone records showing Americans’ calling patterns, Congress responded appropriately by ending that bulk collection program through the USA Freedom Act in June 2015.
But Congress never actually finished the job. It replaced the bulk program with one that is narrower, yes, but that continues to allow the government to invade our privacy by collecting massive amounts of phone records. Now, it’s time for Congress to finish what it started almost five years ago.
In Colombia's capital city of Bogota, and in Medellin thousands gathered with lit candles to reject incidents of violence. (photo: Colombianos por el Mundo)
Colombia: Ex-FARC Member and Peace Deal Signatory Assassinated
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia member and peace agreement signatory John Freddy Vargas was murdered Saturday after attending a meeting in a church in Huila."
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia member and peace agreement signatory John Freddy Vargas was murdered Saturday after attending a meeting in a church in Huila."
Vargas, 42, was shot multiple times while he was on a motorcycle with his girlfriend, after the meeting with officials from the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization (ARN).
"The event took place when the victim was riding a motorcycle and two subjects hit him twice with a firearm, dying immediately on the spot," the Deputy commander of the Huila Police Nestor Florez informed, adding that Vargas "was in the process of being reinstated with the RNA."
#AtencionJhon Fredy Vargas Rojas, firmante de Paz y asociado a la cooperativa Cooagropaz, fue asesinado ayer 25 de enero en Pitalito Huila. La paz no son "árboles de patilla" Sr. Duque, son hechos reales. #NoMasFirmantesDePazAsesinados
#Attention Fredy Vargas Rojas, Peace Agreement signatory and associated with Cooagropaz, was murdered yesterday Jan. 25 in Pitalito, Huila. #NoMorePeaceSignatoriesMurdered
The former combatant, who was accredited by the National Reincorporation Agency, was developing agricultural projects in the rural area of that town.
For his part, Ramiro Duran, a representative in Huila of the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force party (FARC) , rejected this crime and indicated that as ex-members of FARC they fear for their safety.
Colombia continues to be one of the most unstable countries in the region due to the insecurity experienced by social leaders and former members of armed groups who signed the peace agreement.
In 2020, more than 20 social activists have been murdered in Colombia, and according to the United Nations, since the peace agreement signing, more than 300 murders of human rights leaders have occurred.
So far, including Vargas, another four ex-FARC members and peace agreement signatories have been murdered in 2020.
A baby burrowing owl perched outside its burrow on Marco Island, Florida. (photo: LagunaticPhoto/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Florida Town Will Pay Residents to Help Burrowing Owls Find a Home
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Burrowing owls, which make their homes in small holes in the ground, are having a rough time in Florida. That's why Marco Island on the Gulf Coast passed a resolution to pay residents to start an owl burrow in their front yard."
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Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Burrowing owls, which make their homes in small holes in the ground, are having a rough time in Florida. That's why Marco Island on the Gulf Coast passed a resolution to pay residents to start an owl burrow in their front yard."
That's why Marco Island on the Gulf Coast passed a resolution to pay residents $250 to start an owl burrow in their front yard, as the Marco Eagle reported.
The city council's resolution earmarks $5,000 a year to create a home for the struggling birds. That doesn't mean that residents can just take a shovel and dig out a piece of their yard. The starter burrow has to be created by wildlife crews from the Audubon of the Western Everglades, according to the City Council.
The Audubon of the Western Everglades has to build the burrow since they understand best what appeals to the finicky birds. The burrows cannot be too close to a tree nor to a house, nor can they nick a pipe accidentally, as CNN reported.
Alli Smith, a biologist with Audubon of the Western Everglades, a conservation group said that there are about 500 burrowing owls that live on Marco Island, but they are increasingly rare in the rest of the state, as CNN reported. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission designated the burrowing owl as "state-threatened" in 2017.
"Marco Island is the first in the state to enact a program designed to expand the habitat of a threatened species (while) rewarding citizens who wish to participate voluntarily," said Jared Grifoni, Marco Island's City Council vice-chair, in an email to the Marco Eagle. "We will be an example of positive and cooperative action to the entire state."
Griffoni added that he expects the program to start next week. "The goal was to have everything in place by the start of nesting season," Grifoni wrote to the Marco Eagle. Nesting season for the burrowing owl starts in February and ends in July.
Alli Smith told CNN that the small owls usually live in the grasslands of central Florida that have disappeared thanks to development and commercial farming. Consequently, the owls have moved to more urban spaces, like the empty lots in Marco Island.
Marco Island and Cape Coral, about 45 miles north of Marco Island, host the two largest burrowing owl populations. The burrowing owl is the official bird of Cape Coral.
Last week, activists and residents demonstrated against a new development called Sands Park on Pine Island, off the coast of Cape Coral, which they claim will threaten the burrowing the owls there.
"We're here to save this park from being developed in a way that will affect wildlife. We have four active nests and some other ones we want to save, and they put a jogging path there that will collapse those burrows," said activist Carl Veaux, as the Pine Island Eagle reported. "We've talked to the city council on this and will talk with them again."
"This is a time when starter burrows should be in full force in parks and government entities, in our front yards and in our schools," said Pascha Donaldson, vice president of Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife, as the Pine Island Eagle reported. "We shouldn't be collapsing burrows. Our builders do enough of that."
"We need to learn to live in harmony with our wildlife friends, not to destroy them," Donaldson said.
In Marco Island, nearly 95 percent of the burrowing owls live in vacant lots. Owners who want to build on the empty lots are able to remove the burrows after obtaining a permit, ruining some of the few burrows that are left in Florida, as CNN reported.
"We're just trying to give them some extra places to live," said Smith to CNN.
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