This is my Martin Luther King Day news roundup.
Sanders Marks King Holiday on Civil Rights Tour in South, Addresses 7,000 at Birmingham Rally
From Senator Sanders’ press release:
“The senator stopped beside a plain marker along the side of the church commemorating four girls who were killed in a 1963 bomb blast at the church where King often preached.
“The vision he had for the future in many ways remains unfulfilled,” Sanders said. “If we are serious about remembering his legacy, we will continue the fight for racial justice, economic justice and for a nation in which all people live with dignity. We still have a long way to go.”
Sanders also stopped at the Civil Rights Institute, a museum where he touched the bars of the Birmingham jail cell where King was held.
Sanders later addressed a packed nighttime rally at Birmingham’s Boutwell Auditorium. There were 5,700 supporters jammed inside. Another 1,400 braved unusual sub-freezing weather to watch on a jumbo TV in an overflow area outside. “There must be a mistake. Somebody told me Alabama is a conservative state,” Sanders said to loud cheers.”
NBC’s Chuck Todd expresses his disbelief at Bernie Sanders Google Searches during the Democratic debate:
Who Won the Democratic Debate? Viewers Lean Toward Bernie Sanders
The final Democratic presidential debate before the first states begin voting was marked by heated exchanges between Hillary Clinton and SenatorBernie Sanders on Wall Street regulation, guns and who would best preserve the legacy of President Obama. Many commentators from across the web thought that a more aggressive Mr. Sanders gave himself a boost by taking Mrs. Clinton on more forcefully. She scored points on his shifting positions on guns and taxes, but was not seen as dealing any decisive blows. Martin O’Malley, meanwhile, was most notable for his unsuccessful efforts to get a word in.
Read the rest of this article on NewYorkTimes.com
Sanders surges in debate that gets at core of Democratic divide
01/18/16
By
CHARLESTON, South Carolina – Bernie Sanders dominated Sunday night’s Democratic debate here, overpowering Hillary Clinton in a format she typically controls. With polls showing Clinton on the ropes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders’ strong performance may have further imperiled Clinton’s once-inevitable path to her party’s presidential nomination.
Touting his surging poll numbers in the two key early states, Sanders was prepared and in command throughout the two-hour debate sponsored by NBC News and YouTube. In previous appearances, Clinton has easily dominated the stage. But turning in his strongest debate performance yet, Sanders drove the conversation – brushing aside her attacks as he doggedly returned to his core message of political revolution.
Read the rest of this article on MSNBC.com
Sanders Suggests Clinton Wouldn’t Have Gotten Iran Deal, Prison Swap
She called Obama naïve in ’08, he reminded viewers.
01/17/2016
The statement on “Meet the Press” came just hours after the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran had complied with the conditions of the deal struck with world powers last summer, and as the hostages were en route back to the United States.
“If you think back to, I think it was 2007, during the campaign in which Secretary Clinton ran against Barack Obama, she was critical of him. A question was asked to Obama and said, “Would you sit down and talk to the Iranians?” And he said, “Yeah, I would.” Point being that you talk to your adversaries. You don’t run away from that,” Sanders said.
“Secretary Clinton, I think, called him naïve. Turns out that Obama was right. So clearly, we have many, many issues and many concerns with Iran. But clearly also, we want to improve our relationships with this very powerful country.”
Read the rest of this article on HuffPo.
Health Reform Realities
Paul Krugman
January 18, 2016
Health reform is the signature achievement of the Obama presidency. It was the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare was established in the 1960s. It more or less achieves a goal — access to health insurance for all Americans — that progressives have been trying to reach for three generations. And it is already producing dramatic results, with the percentage of uninsured Americans falling to record lows.
Obamacare is, however, what engineers would call a kludge: a somewhat awkward, clumsy device with lots of moving parts. This makes it more expensive than it should be, and will probably always cause a significant number of people to fall through the cracks.
The question for progressives — a question that is now central to the Democratic primary — is whether these failings mean that they should re-litigate their own biggest political success in almost half a century, and try for something better.
Read the rest of this op-ed and my comment at The New York Times.
It’s time to start taking Bernie Sanders seriously
Like most journalists, I’ve been covering Bernie Sanders’s 2016 primary campaign as fundamentally more about making a point than about electing a president. He’s out there to talk about his issues, to shift the terms of the debate, and to force Hillary Clinton to commit herself to progressive causes.
And it’s been working.
Working so well that polls show Sanders steadily narrowing the gap with Clinton in national polls, while pulling even with her in Iowa and ahead in New Hampshire. Working so well that Sanders’s once-amateurish debate performances have now turned much sharper, more detailed, and on point.
My analysis of both Paul Krugman and Matthew Yglesias’ op-eds:
“I’ve followed Yglesias’ economic analysis work for some years now and I know for a fact that he is both capable of more serious efforts at extrapolation, and deeper analyses. This piece attempts neither, and begins with an assertion that is patently biased. While it is Yglesias’ right to cover Bernie Sanders any way he wishes, it isn’t a fact that Sanders has been running only to push Clinton to the left. In fact, we’ve known for some time that Sanders is running to win.”
and
“Unsurprisingly, Paul Krugman’s op-ed for January 18th, echoes Clinton’s debate answers on healthcare, just as Yglesias attempted to bolster them. You shouldn’t do more because we already have more and pushing for the rest is risky.”
Read the rest of my analysis here.
Bernie Sanders: DOJ should “automatically” investigate police-related deaths
During Sunday’s Democratic debate in South Carolina, Bernie Sanders proposed the Justice Department should “automatically” investigate any incidents where an individual is killed in police custody.
“This is a responsibility for the U.S. Justice Department to get involved,” Sanders said on the debate stage. “Whenever anybody in this country is killed while in police custody, this should automatically trigger a U.S. Attorney General’s investigation.”
Read the rest of this article on CBSNews.com
Miss the debate? Watch it right here: