How many current registrations of people (surrogates) does DU have now?

How do the surrogates fall? The only option I have is to check the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton groups, but many surrogates (people) choose not to belong to one group or the other. Last I remember, there were over 100,000 registered surrogates here.

2016 National Democratic Primary - Sanders 49%, Clinton 48% (Ipsos/Reuters (Web) 4/9-4/13)

New Reuters Poll Shows Bernie Sanders Taking National Lead

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday shows Bernie Sanders beating Hillary Clinton by one point with registered Democratic voters.

The survey of 1,680 registered voters, 635 of whom identified as Democrats, was conducted between April 9 and April 13. Among all Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters, Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton by a 47-42 margin, with 11 percent of respondents saying they wouldn’t vote for either candidate. Sanders beats Clinton by a narrow margin of 49-48 among registered Democrats, and he demolishes Clinton by 16 points among self-identified independents. The poll’s margin of error is 2.7 percent.

Among all respondents, 36 percent identify as Democrats, 28 percent affiliate with the Republican Party, and 12 percent listed themselves as independents, with 9 percent leaning toward Democrats, 5 percent toward Republican, and 7 percent favoring a third party. Finally, only 2 percent of those surveyed said they were unsure of their party affiliation.

This latest poll is the third to show Sanders leading Clinton this month. A poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Atlantic between March 30 and April 3 showed Sanders beating Clinton by one point, along with a McClatchy/Marist poll conducted between March 29 and March 31 that had Sanders up by two points.

http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-sanders-leads-new-national-poll/

Definition: Corporate Whore

One who prostitutes their position of power to the Corporate State in exchange for favors.

There, I hope this helps.

Democratic Wave Building As 13 More House Seats Move Toward The Democratic Party

The Republican House majority could be washed out to sea as 13 more House are shifting towards the Democratic Party.

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball has changed the ranking on 14 House seats, and 13 of the changes are bad for the Republican Party.

According to Sabato’s Crystal Ball:

In many states, Republican-controlled legislatures drew a large number of marginally Republican seats in order to maximize the number of seats the party could control. But a relatively large Democratic wave could inundate even some supposedly safe GOP seats, overcoming a seemingly high floodwall. Whereas a one-point increase over 2012 would result in nine net seats being won by the Democratic presidential nominee, a two-point increase (54% nationally) quickly raises that net advantage to 35 seats. Suddenly Republicans would be defending 50 seats in districts won by the Democratic presidential nominee, and two Democratic-held Romney seats would become slightly more blue than not. This would give Democrats a substantial target list to get to the necessary 30-seat gain they need to take back the lower chamber. And a three-point Democratic increase to 55%, a reasonable upper limit in our eyes, would leave 56 GOP-held seats in blue territory. Overall, Democrats would hold a presidential vote edge in 241 seats. This would be similar to the 2008 presidential vote: That year, Obama won the two-party vote in 242 congressional districts as currently drawn.

…..

That is roughly what our outlook is right now — a small Democratic gain of about 5-10 seats — but as we showed earlier, the presidential math could change that calculation, swelling Democratic gains. On the flip side, Republicans still have a chance to hold Democrats to single-digits gains. A Republican net gain seems exceedingly unlikely at this point, but in this crazy cycle one cannot completely rule it out with seven months to go.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/04/14/democratic-wave-building-13-house-seats-move-democratic-party.html

Sanders is the Most Liked Candidate, and His Popularity is Growing: Poll

Published on
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
byCommon Dreams
Sanders is the Most Liked Candidate, and His Popularity is Growing: Poll
Survey finds 48 percent of Americans have favorable view of Sanders, contrasting with 55 percent who hold unfavorable view of rival Hillary Clinton
byNadia Prupis, staff writer

Bernie Sanders is the most-liked presidential candidate in the race—and the more people get to know him, the more they like him, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

The Associated Press-GfK survey found that 48 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of Sanders, compared with 39 percent who view him unfavorably, giving him the best "net-positive" rating in the field, and that his likeability score has increased since previous polls.

Sixty-one percent of registered voters said they would consider voting for him in November. Among Democrats alone, he has a 72 percent favorability rating.

Meanwhile, Sanders' Democratic rival Hillary Clinton got 55 percent unfavorability versus 40 percent favorability ratings among all survey respondents, and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump scored 69 unfavorability to 29 favorability. In addition, 51 percent of respondents said they would never vote for Clinton and 63 percent said the same of Trump.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/12/sanders-most-liked-candidate-and-his-popularity-growing-poll

(cross post from Bernie Sanders group)

Sanders is the Most Liked Candidate, and His Popularity is Growing: Poll

Published on
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
byCommon Dreams
Sanders is the Most Liked Candidate, and His Popularity is Growing: Poll
Survey finds 48 percent of Americans have favorable view of Sanders, contrasting with 55 percent who hold unfavorable view of rival Hillary Clinton
byNadia Prupis, staff writer

Bernie Sanders is the most-liked presidential candidate in the race—and the more people get to know him, the more they like him, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

The Associated Press-GfK survey found that 48 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of Sanders, compared with 39 percent who view him unfavorably, giving him the best "net-positive" rating in the field, and that his likeability score has increased since previous polls.

Sixty-one percent of registered voters said they would consider voting for him in November. Among Democrats alone, he has a 72 percent favorability rating.

Meanwhile, Sanders' Democratic rival Hillary Clinton got 55 percent unfavorability versus 40 percent favorability ratings among all survey respondents, and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump scored 69 unfavorability to 29 favorability. In addition, 51 percent of respondents said they would never vote for Clinton and 63 percent said the same of Trump.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/12/sanders-most-liked-candidate-and-his-popularity-growing-poll

These 8 Senate Races Are Shaping Up To Be Barnburners

Here at First To Last, we’ve largely been laser-focused on the weekly goings-on in the presidential primary. But the election cycle is not just about who will one day sit in the Oval Office, it’s also about who will win seats in the legislature and make sitting in the Oval Office a constant nightmare. So this week, we’re getting out in front of some of the key downticket races that are shaping to be interesting, contentious barnburners of their own.

Of course, the downticket races are not in any way divorced from the activity at the presidential level. As the presidential fields have winnowed, party leaders are already starting to game out how well the would-be standard-bearers atop the ticket will enable — or imperil — the fortunes of those writhing down below.

That the GOP is faced with the prospect of a choice between Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz means that those running House and Senate campaigns have their work cut out for them. Yes, Trump would be a widely despised general election candidate, but Cruz would not be much better — a problem Republican leaders have been forced to confront for many months.

But the recent Wisconsin primary brought Democrats face to face with some potential coattails problems of their own, after a massive victory for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) failed to produce a win for the Democrats’ favored state Supreme Court candidate, JoAnne Kloppenburg. That result further fueled Clinton allies, who have painted Sanders as a candidate who is either unable or unwilling to help with party-building.

more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-races_us_5707efe8e4b0447a7dbc38f1

The Senate’s Draft Encryption Bill Is ‘Ludicrous, Dangerous, Technically Illiterate’

AS APPLE BATTLED the FBI for the last two months over the agency’s demands that Apple help crack its own encryption, both the tech community and law enforcement hoped that Congress would weigh in with some sort of compromise solution. Now Congress has spoken on crypto, and privacy advocates say its “solution” is the most extreme stance on encryption yet.

On Thursday evening, the draft text of a bill called the “Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016,” authored by offices of Senators Diane Feinstein and Richard Burr, was published online by the Hill.1 It’s a nine-page piece of legislation that would require people to comply with any authorized court order for data—and if that data is “unintelligible,” the legislation would demand that it be rendered “intelligible.” In other words, the bill would make illegal the sort of user-controlled encryption that’s in every modern iPhone, in all billion devices that run Whatsapp’s messaging service, and in dozens of other tech products. “This basically outlaws end-to-end encryption,” says Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It’s effectively the most anti-crypto bill of all anti-crypto bills.”

Kevin Bankston, the director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, goes even further: “I gotta say in my nearly 20 years of work in tech policy this is easily the most ludicrous, dangerous, technically illiterate proposal I’ve ever seen,” he says.

The bill, Hall and Bankston point out, doesn’t specifically suggest any sort of backdoored encryption or other means to even attempt to balance privacy and encryption, and actually claims to not require any particular design limitations on products. Instead, it states only that communications firms must provide unencrypted data to law enforcement or the means for law enforcement to grab that data themselves. “To uphold the rule of law and protect the security and interests of the United States, all persons receiving an authorized judicial order for information or data must provide, in a timely manner, responsive and intelligible information or data, or appropriate technical assistance to obtain such information or data.”

more: http://www.wired.com/2016/04/senates-draft-encryption-bill-privacy-nightmare/

Court Strikes Down Scott Walker's Right-To-Work Law As Unconstitutional

Source: Talking Points Memo

BySCOTT BAUERPublishedAPRIL 8, 2016, 5:38 PM EDT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin court has struck down the state's right-to-work law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, calling it unconstitutional.

A Dane County Circuit Court judge issued the ruling Friday in a lawsuit filed by local unions. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel promised to appeal the order, saying: "We are confident the law will be upheld on appeal."

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO, Machinists Local Lodge 1061 in Milwaukee and United Steelworkers District 2 in Menasha filed the lawsuit last year.

The groups argued that the law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property because it required unions to extend benefits to workers who don't pay dues.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/scott-walker-right-to-work-law-unconstitutional