Just came across my phone.

I'm just an old man who once worked in an elections office before the days of online voter rolls. When residents had questions about their voter registration,s they would call us, we'd hunt down their registration card, and voila, question answered. Nowadays we have this newfangled thing called the internet and, I suppose, it's easier to type on a keyboard than it is to lift a phone to one's ear and call their local county or municipal clerks. I guess t's also easier to rant on DU or Reddit about alleged tampering by the DNC (which is surprising to hear because I never saw any party officials behind our counters). But I have an idea. If you go online and find something not right about your online registration record, and you think you're about to pop a blood vessel, call your county or municipal clerk. I'm willing to bet that, in 99 of 100 cases, they're going to have your correct record. And no, they don't give a damn whether you support Bernie, Hillary or the Rent Is Too Damn High Party guy. Just give them a call.

Maddow said that she spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s 2016 primary opponent, and that Sanders was critical of Trump’s remark but he also thinks it’s another “Donald Trump stupid” remark that will be covered by the media ad nauseam as opposed to issues like taxes, climate change, minimum wage that might be more deserving of extended attention.

Maddow asked Clinton if she agreed, and Clinton said she doesn’t think the media is making too much of this, “No, absolutely not. I’ve been on the front lines of the fight to preserve a woman’s choice and ability to make these difficult decisions… I’ve been a leader in trying to make sure that our rights as women were not in any way eroded.”

“To think that this is an issue that is not deserving of reaction just demonstrates a lack of appreciation for how serious this is,” Clinton said. “This goes to the heart of who we are as women, what kinds of rights and choices we have, it certainly is as important as any economic issue because when it’s all stripped away so much of the Republican agenda is to turn the clock back on women.”


http://www.politicususa.com/2016/03/30/hillary-clinton-punches-hard-women.html

In addition to, you know, risking World War III, allowing Trump to become president would damage the economy and international relations to the point of embarrassing the United States on the world stage, while bankrupting millions, and killing tens of thousands more. Before Obamacare, which Trump would repeal, Harvard determined that there were as many deaths from a lack of health insurance as there were on 9/11 — every month. Trump will take us back to that. Likewise, millions of minorities in America, be they Muslim or Mexican, could be rounded up and treated like prisoners. Yes, maybe there’d be a revolution at the tail end of this hellscape, but (1) we don’t know for sure, and (2) what sorts of madness would have to take place to get there.

The alternative is electing a competent Democrat who would at least maintain and in some cases improve upon the progress that’s been made so far, allowing another chance at this so-called revolution on another day — without destroying everything in the process.

Will Susan Sarandon be personally impacted by any of this? Perhaps a little — maybe — but nowhere near as badly as the families whose sons and daughters will be marched off to a Trump war to defend the integrity of his stupid combover. Sarandon likely won’t lose her health insurance and be bankrupted due to obscene medical bills. Sarandon might not realize that millions of Americans with health insurance under Obama have received it due to the Medicaid expansion. So much for the bottom 90 percent that Bernie talks about at his rallies. And what about access to affordable abortion services, which would continue to be eroded under Trump? So much for that.

Sarandon has millions of dollars between her and poverty. She’s the one percent, and perhaps that’s why she’s not troubled by the idea of using poor and middle class workers as human shields in her plan to get to achieve a revolution.

Beyond Sarandon’s rant, reality mandates that anyone who’s politically left-of-center needs to vote with the bigger picture in mind. A hundred years ago, when the parties were more interchangeable and compromise was an accepted part of the game, voting one’s conscience was fine. Today, allowing a Republican extremist like Trump or Cruz to win the presidency by refusing to vote or by casting a protest vote is objectively reckless. It shows a total disregard for the millions of Americans who would be literally destroyed by a GOP president. Your personal political agenda is not nearly as crucial as helping to maintain an electoral bulwark against an apocalyptic Republican victory, and the only way to achieve this is by voting for the Democratic nominee. Even Republican voters have a responsibility to make sure Trump, in particular, isn’t even allowed to take the White House tour much less occupy the Oval Office next January.

The stakes are too high, and throwing a temper tantrum at the polls will only bring about the worst case scenario. Nothing more.


http://www.salon.com/2016/03/30/yes_susan_sarandon_is_guilty_of_blind_privilege_why_her_comments_about_trump_the_revolution_are_so_wrong/

Brooklyn native Bernie Sanders may sound like more of a New Yorker, and even look like more of a New Yorker, but he still faces a steep challenge in overcoming Hillary Clinton’s deep roots with Democrats in this crucial state that votes April 19.

“She may not always ‘tawk’ like we Brooklynites ‘tawk,’” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said as he laid on a thick hometown accent while introducing Clinton at a spirited rally at the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem. “But when she speaks out, she changes minds, she changes hearts.”

The crowd delighted in Schumer’s reminder that Bill Clinton, who could have relocated anywhere in the world upon leaving the White House, adopted Harlem as his headquarters – not that the crowd needed any reminding.

It was Hillary Clinton, the former senator from the state, who helped lead New York in rebuilding after Sept. 11, they said. It was Clinton, they added, who was unyielding in support of gun control on behalf of an urban constituency that has little love for the National Rifle Assn., as Sanders sometimes wavered.

“I love her to death,” said Stanley Watt, an 81-year-old Harlem resident, reflecting an exuberance one does not often encounter at Clinton rallies.

“I love her more than anybody loves her, from the Senate to when she was a big shot in the, what do you call it? Oh yes, the secretary of State.”

Watt went on: “This is Bill Clinton’s home,” he exclaimed, pointing outside the theater. “He has an office right down there!”



http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-new-york-20160330-story.html

A Central Texas mother was taken into custody after allowing her young children to be tattooed. Police say the mom was intoxicated at the time and let her boyfriend's brother do the work. Now the three children each have tattoos on their ankles.

The father is the one who called police. We're told the kids went to his ex-wife's home after school. When he went to pick them up, he was in shock with what he saw.

Three kids, all under 13 years old, now have tattoos permanently imprinted on their ankles. Tattoo artist Kate Hellenbrand has been in the business for more than 40 years. She says there's a reason the law prohibits children from getting the art work done.

Well it's unethical, it's immoral. It's everything I can think of that is a travesty against empathy, against caring for a human, a child. I mean yea, it's everything that's important to me as an artist in this field," says Kate Hellenbrand, owner, Shanghai Kate's Tattoos.

Lago Vista Police say it was on Monday when the incident was reported. Court documents show that the three children arrived at their mother's home after school.

They called their father to pick them up and when he did, he saw that each had fresh tattoos on their ankles. One tattoo was of a cross, another of an infinity symbol with a cross and also a heart with an arrow.
The children reported to police that their mother, 31-year-old Ashley Weir, told them to get the tattoos but not to cry or whine about it when it hurts.

The brother of the mother's boyfriend is the one who reportedly did the artwork. We also learned he is a registered sex offender.


http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/114473761-story

After a trio of landslide wins in Washington, Alaska and Hawaii on Saturday — the best single day of his campaign — Bernie Sanders narrowed his delegate deficit with Hillary Clinton. But he still has a lot of work to do. Sanders trails Clinton by 228 pledged delegates and will need 988 more — a bit under 57 percent of those available — to finish with the majority.

That alone wouldn’t be enough to assure Sanders of the nomination because superdelegates could still swing things Hillary Clinton’s way in a close race, but put aside that not-so-small complication for now. The much bigger problem is that it isn’t easy to see where Sanders gets those 988 delegates.

If you’re a Sanders supporter, you might look at the map and see some states — Oregon, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Montana and so forth — that look pretty good for Sanders, a lot like the ones that gave Sanders landslide wins earlier in the campaign. But those states have relatively few delegates. Instead, about 65 percent of the remaining delegates are in California, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland — all states where Sanders trails Clinton in the polls and sometimes trails her by a lot.

To reach a pledged delegate majority, Sanders will have to win most of the delegates from those big states. A major loss in any of them could be fatal to his chances. He could afford to lose one or two of them narrowly, but then he’d need to make up ground elsewhere — he’d probably have to win California by double digits, for example.

Sanders will also need to gain ground on Clinton in a series of medium-sized states such as Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky and New Mexico. Demographics suggest that these states could be close, but close won’t be enough for Sanders. He’ll need to win several of them easily.

None of this is all that likely. Frankly, none of it is at all likely. If the remaining states vote based on the same demographic patterns established by the previous ones, Clinton will probably gain further ground on Sanders. If they vote as state-by-state polling suggests they will, Clinton could roughly double her current advantage over Sanders and wind up winning the nomination by 400 to 500 pledged delegates.


http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-really-hard-to-get-bernie-sanders-988-more-delegates/

Setting aside the polemic, however, is Sarandon especially representative? Polls consistently show Clinton leading Sanders nationally, and more votes have been cast for her in the primary so far. In a tight election, though, a bloc of Democrats who refused to vote for Clinton or crossed over could cost her a win. Are there really “a lot” of people who support Sanders now but who, given a choice between Clinton and Trump, would either sit on their hands or pull the lever for Trump?

The answer is almost certainly no.

For example, take a Quinnipiac poll released last week. In that poll, 78 percent of Democrats said they had a favorable view of Sanders. But 80 percent had a favorable view of Clinton. Now, more had an unfavorable view of Clinton than of Sanders—15 to 9—but that doesn’t suggest there’s a huge groundswell of anti-Clinton Democrats.

The latest CBS News/New York Times poll suggests something similar. There’s a definite enthusiasm gap between Clinton and Sanders. Forty percent of Democrats said they were “enthusiastic” about a Sanders candidacy, versus just 34 percent who felt the same way about Clinton. But add in the number who say they’d be satisfied with Clinton and the gap shrinks to almost nothing: 81 percent would be enthusiastic or satisfied with Sanders, while 79 percent feel the same way about Clinton. (And that’s with a +/-4.5 percent sampling error.)

The Republican Party is encountering a parallel dynamic with the #NeverTrump movement, but it looks far more real. In the same CBS/NYT poll, a full 20 percent of Republicans said they’d be actively dissatisfied with a Trump candidacy, and 35 percent said they’d want a Republican to run as a third-party candidate against him in a general election. Other surveys have found even higher totals. Some political scientists maintain, based on past experience, that many of these people will rally around the eventual nominee even if it’s Trump, thanks to the polarized partisan climate.

In any case, there’s no polling to suggest any such groundswell on the Democratic side. Of course, you don’t have to go very far back to remember something akin to what Sarandon is describing in the Democratic Party—but last time around, it was in support of Clinton, not against her. The PUMAs (“People United Means Action” or, by some accounts, “Party Unity My Ass”) were such diehard Clinton supporters that they flatly refused to support the upstart Barack Obama eight years ago. So how did that turn out in 2008? Obama cruised to victory with the highest popular vote total in U.S. history, and a nearly 10 million vote lead over Senator John McCain. Sarandon is feeling the Bern, but perhaps there’s more heat than light to her claims about Sandersistas sitting 2016 out.


http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/susan-sarandon-bernie-sanders/475875/

According to an Associated Press analysis, Sanders needs to win 67 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates through June to be able to clinch the Democratic nomination. So far he’s only winning 37 percent.

The difficult math is, at least in part, a reflection of how Clinton learned from her 2008 mistakes. One of her first hires was Jeff Berman, Obama’s delegate guru. Her campaign invested early in their delegate strategy, a tactic that seems to have paid off. Her current lead of 268 pledged delegates is nearly double the margin that Obama held over Clinton during the 2008 primary.

Clinton’s campaign believes they can knock out Sanders by the end of next month, arguing they will have racked up enough delegates after the April 26 contests in five northeastern states to make it mathematically impossible for him to win.

“He’s going to contest these states, we’re going to contest these states, but the truth is that after April 26 there is just not enough real estate for Senator Sanders to contest the lead that we’ve built,” said Joel Benenson, Clinton’s senior strategist.



http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/03/29/sanders-clinton-deleagates-fight/

This week actress and Bernie Sanders supporter Susan Sarandon told Chris Hayes that she was not sure if she could bring herself to vote for Hillary Clinton if she wins the nomination. Instead of committing to backing the Democrat nominee to prevent a Republican president whose beliefs are antithetical to all socialist, progressive, and liberal ideals, Sarandon said, “I don’t know. I’m going to see what happens.”

What she is unsure about, and what she is waiting “to see what happens,” is unknown and unclear, but the apparent reasoning behind her hesitation is absurd—not only from the point of view of the Democratic Party, but also, and even especially, for the socialist revolution Sanders wants to create and Sarandon says she supports.

When Hayes asked Sarandon what she thought Sanders would do if he did not win the nomination, she said, “I think Bernie would probably encourage people, because he doesn’t have any ego in this thing, but I think a lot of people are, ‘Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to [vote for Clinton].’”

Sanders has already said that he would support Clinton if she won the nomination.

Now this statement from Sarandon displays a disturbing flaw that may be at the heart of the thinking of many Sanders supporters. Sanders may be campaigning as a true socialist on an egoless mission to create a better, more equitable America, but many of his supporters, including Sarandon, appear fully committed to allowing their egos to play a vital role in this election.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/29/susan-sarandon-and-the-berniacs-who-wanna-watch-the-world-burn.html