January 1, Bernie Sanders Wins New Hampshire

This Day in History | 1999

President Bill Clinton is acquitted on both articles of impeachment he faced for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Good Morning Middle Americans, 

They may actually do it. Democrats are seriously flirting with the idea of nominating a Democratic Socialist for the presidency of the United States. Bernie Sanders has notched his second finish at or near the top of the pack – winning New Hampshire by the slimmest of margins. But lurking over Sanders shoulder are Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Both also finishing near the top and right behind Sanders. While Buttigieg claims to be a moderate, his positions on health care and gun control are anything but moderate.  Which makes Klobuchar the one to watch as a real threat to Sanders front-runner status.  As fo Joe Biden, well – there’s not much to say. He’s campaign is all but dead. The only hope is a surprise resurgence in South Carolina. But right now that seems highly unlikely. 

There is also some new polling date worth checking out from Gallup.  It shows that 76% of Democrats would vote for a socialist, but only 35% of the American population as a whole feel the same way.  That means Bernie might have a shot at the nomination, but he’d be facing a very steep up hill climb against president Trump. 

Mike Bloomberg is also someone who could factor heavily into the Democratic primary – in a few weeks, when his campaign is more than tv and digital commercials and he’s actually campaigning on the trail. Which hasn’t started yet.  And a newly re-surfaced audio recording of Bloomberg talking about NYC’s controversial stop and frisk program could hurt his chances with minority voters. 

Also today, actor Jussie Smollett has been indicted again for the fake hate crime he reported last winter. 

Read all about it. 

– Fraser Dixon

Senate GOP Blocks Three Election Security Bills

(The Hill) – Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to unanimously pass three election security-related bills Tuesday, marking the latest attempt to clear legislation ahead of the November elections

Democrats tried to get consent to pass two bills that require campaigns to alert the FBI and Federal Election Commission (FEC) about foreign offers of assistance, as well as legislation to provide more election funding and ban voting machines from being connected to the internet.

But Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) opposed each of the requests. Under the Senate’s rules, any one senator can ask for unanimous consent to pass a bill, but any one senator can object and block their requests.

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Gallup Poll: 76 % of Democrats Say They’d Vote for a Socialist for President

(Newsweek) – Just over three-quarters of Democratic voters said that they would vote to elect a socialist president, according to poll results from Gallup released Tuesday.

The poll, conducted between January 16 and 29, asked respondents whether they identified as Republican, Democrat or independent and questioned them about their willingness to vote for candidates with “diverse characteristics.”

“Between now and the 2020 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates—their education, age, religion, race and so on,” read the poll question, according to Gallup. “If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be (characteristic), would you vote for that person?”

When it came to candidates who were socialists, Democrats were most likely to answer that they would vote for them. Seventy-six percent of Democrats said they would back a socialist candidate, compared with 17 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of independents.

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Bloomberg in Leaked 2015 Clip: ‘95% of Murderers Fit One Description, Xerox It‘

(New York Post) – Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly claimed that cops across the country could use a “Xerox” description to identify suspected murderers — and also admitted that his “stop-and-frisk” policy led the NYPD to target minority kids in minority neighborhoods, a newly unearthed recording revealed Tuesday.

“Ninety-five percent of murders, murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take a description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops,” Bloomberg told the Aspen Institute in 2015.

“They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city (inaudible).”

Bloomberg — who apologized for “stop-and-frisk” last year, shortly before becoming a Democratic candidate for president — said that “one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’”

Read more here

Actor Jussie Smollett Indicted Again in 2019 Fake Hate Crime Case

(AJC) – Actor Jussie Smollett was indicted Tuesday on new charges related to an alleged racist attack he reported to police in January 2019, according to news reports. 

At the time, the “Empire” actor called police and reported he was the victim of a hate crime as he walked along a dark street in Chicago. Investigators later accused Smollett of hiring his attackers and concocting the whole story as a way to boost his public profile. 

Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts, but weeks later prosecutors dropped all the charges. The city’s police department later filed a lawsuit against him, seeking to recover more than $130,000 to cover the cost of the investigation. Smollett maintains his innocence.

Find out more here