Category: 2020 election

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Sanders Staffer Fired For Homophobic, Misogynistic Twitter Attacks On Opponents

Photo of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Photo of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg
L-R Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg
If you follow politics on Twitter, you know folks can be absolutely brutal lobbing shade about this or that political candidate. For some time now, some have noted that a cadre of supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) can be rather vicious in their comments. While Sanders has attempted to tamp down accusations that his supporters are any more sharp-tongued than other candidates’ followers, The Daily Beast reports one Twitter account that has spent months smearing Sanders’ opponents in a particularly ugly vein. It turns out the account was being run by Sanders’ regional field director in Michigan, Ben Mora. As The Daily Beast’sScott Bixby wrote, “At least some of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ most toxic support is coming from inside the house.” Using the Twitter handle @perma_ben, Mora was particularly ugly in going after openly gay Pete Buttigieg tweeting the former mayor of South Bend “is what happens when the therapist botches the conversion.” He also called Buttigieg “psychotic” for deploying to Afghanistan. In another tweet, Mora told his followers he could “never trust Buttigieg because he combined the natural devious disposition inherent in gay men with a bloodthirsty careerist drive.” The Sanders staffer also went after Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, tweeting, “Chasten Buttigieg has the vibes of a housewife whose slow burning repression is leading to an inevitable psychotic break, mark my words in 10 years he will go missing and then resurface in Ft Lauderdale after getting busted for running a meth racket w a bunch of Guatemalan twinks.” Mora dragged Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) writing, “When [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren talks about how she knows she’s Native American because of her ‘high cheekbones’ where sis? Another lie. You look like shit.” He also accused her of being “an adult diaper fetishist.” He mocked Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) comparing her face to “that optical illusion where it’s an old lady but also a young woman depending on how you look at it but with her it’s just two different old ladies.” Mora also said Klobuchar “looks like her name: pained, chunky, [and] confused origin/purpose.” Mora didn’t keep his attacks limited to just his boss’s opponents. He trolled the cast of Netflix’s Queer Eye as “neoliberals,” and said openly gay statistician Nate Silver “starts to make a lot more sense when you realize he is probably the ugliest gay man to ever live.” Another tweet about Buttigieg seemed to allude that Mora might have been running a Twitter account with the username @FagsAgainstPete, which has since been shut down. According to Bixby, screenshots of the tweets were shared with The Daily Beast by one of Mora’s followers hoping their publication would help Sanders to understand how ugly folks on his team can be. Mora apparently joined the Sanders campaign last fall. He locked his Twitter account nearly six months ago so only folks who were already following him could see his tweets. But the avatar for the account clearly shows his face and links to his personal Instagram account. Prior to the publication of the story, Bixby reports the Sanders campaign did not respond to requests for comment on the report. The Sanders campaign has since announced Mora has been fired. A statement from Mike Casca, Sanders’ communications director, read, “We are running a multiracial, multigenerational campaign for justice where disgusting behavior and ugly personal attacks by our staff will not be tolerated.” Sanders was asked about the tone of some of his supporters on Twitter last week during the Democratic debate in Las Vegas. “I’m not going to tell you we don’t have some jerks out there,” Sanders said. “I do want to say to those folks: We do not want your support. If you think that what our campaign is about is making ugly attacks on other candidates, we don’t want you.” Since the report went up on The Daily Beast, Bixby has tweeted he’s been on the receiving end of thousands of attacks.

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Sanders Picks Up 24 Delegates In Nevada Caucus Results

L-R Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders
It took two days but the final results of the Nevada Democratic caucuses have been announced. According to the results, Sen. Bernie Sanders picked up 24 pledged delegates thanks to his overwhelming victory on Saturday. Former Vice President Joe Biden garnered 9 new delegates and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg was awarded 3 delegates. No other candidates’ vote totals were enough to win any delegates.

Of those on the delegate count scoreboard, Sanders now has 45 delegates, while Buttigieg has 25 and former Vice President Joe Biden has 15. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has 8 delegates, and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has 7. In related news, a new poll released Monday from the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs found Biden with 22.5 percent support in the Lone Star State and Sanders with 22.1 percent, a statistical tie. The two were followed by Warren with 18.3 percent. No other candidate cleared the 15 percent threshold necessary to claim delegates in the state.

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9-Year-Old To Buttigieg: ‘Would You Help Me Tell The World I Am Gay? I Want To Be Brave Like You’

L-R Secretary of State Jena Griswold, Zachary Ro, Pete Buttigieg
Addressing supporters at a rally in Aurora, Colorado, on Saturday night, Pete Buttigieg got a question from a 9-year-old boy in Aurora, Colorado, asking for advice on coming out as gay. “Thank you for being so brave,” said Zachary Ro in a question read by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. “Would you help me tell the world I am gay too? I want to be brave like you.” “Well, I don’t think you need a lot of advice from me on bravery,” said Buttigieg as the crowd roared its approval. “You seem pretty strong. It took me a long time to figure out how to tell even my best friend that I was gay let alone to go out there and tell the world. To see you willing to come to terms with who you are in a room full of a thousand people, thousands of people you’ve never met, that’s really something.” Amid the cheers for Ro, Mayor Pete did offer a couple of thoughts to young Zachary. “The first thing is that it won’t always be easy, but that’s OK because you know who you are,” shared the 38-year-old candidate. “And that’s really important because when you know who you are, you have a center of gravity that can hold you together when all kinds of chaos is happening around you.” “The second thing I want you to know is that you’ll never know who’s taking their lead from you, who’s watching you and deciding that they can be a little braver because you have been brave.” “When I was trying to figure out who I was, I was afraid that who I was might mean that I could never make a difference, and what wound up happening instead is it’s a huge part of the difference I get to make,” added Buttigieg. “I never could have seen that coming, and you’ll never know whose life you might be affecting right now just by standing here. There’s a lot of power in that.” Buttigieg closed the moment with the one thing every young LGBTQ kid needs to hear: “The last thing I want you to know is that even if I can’t promise it’s going to be easy, I’m going to promise that I’m going to be rooting for you.” The 9-year-old also gave Mayor Pete with a friendship bracelet, which the candidate proudly put on. #BravoPeteButtigieg

Zachary said he didn’t come to the event planning to ask the question. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing written down on a piece of paper and handed to volunteers collecting questions as he entered the rally Saturday night. Griswold told the Colorado Sun Zachary’s came up randomly. She was pulling questions gathered in a bowl and didn’t know whose questions she was grabbing. Afterwards, a reporter asked young Ro why he sought out Mayor Pete’s advice. “I feel inspired by seeing Pete being openly gay and running for president at the same time, and someday I want to be like him,” said young Zachary. “I feel like he gave me some really good advice.”

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Bernie Sanders Projected Winner Of Nevada Caucuses

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been projected to win the Nevada Democratic caucuses. Sanders will now be able to boast he received the most votes in all the first three contests, he has the most delegates, and that he has widened his appeal beyond just white voters. The race now moves to South Carolina’s primary to be held Saturday, February 28, where the Real Clear Politics average of polls shows former Vice President Joe Biden leading by 3.7 percent over Sanders. UPDATE: The results are slowly coming in (not Iowa slow, but slow) but here’s where things stand at 60 percent results tabulated:

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2020 Caucus: Nevada Registers 10,000 New Democratic Voters

From the Nevada Democratic party:

The Nevada State Democratic Party announced today that more than 10,000 Nevadans registered to vote as Democrats to participate during the historic four-day early voting period. Over the course of four days of early voting, nearly 75,000 Nevadans turned out to participate in the caucus.

Thanks to same-day voter registration, the caucus has already significantly grown the Democratic voter registration advantage over Republicans in Nevada — again — ahead of the 2020 general election.

At the start of 2020, Democrats held a growing statewide registration advantage of more than 80,000, or above 5%. Independent and nonpartisan voters now outnumber registered Republicans in Clark County, relegating the GOP to third-party status in the state’s most populous county.

“With more than 10,000 Nevadans newly registering as Democrats during early voting, it’s clear that we are bringing a wave of new voters into our party and building a growing coalition who will mobilize for our nominee in November,” said Nevada State Democratic Party Chair William McCurdy II. “This is how we beat Donald Trump and elect Democrats up and down the ticket in 2020.”

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San Diego Union-Tribune Endorses Pete Buttigieg For President

(image via Instagram)
The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board endorsed Mayor Pete Buttigieg for president this week.

It’s close, but in the view of The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Buttigieg is best suited to beat Trump because of his centrist policies, his military experience, his (admittedly small-scale) executive experience and the enthusiasm he’s inspired, with better fundraising and national polling, bigger campaign crowds and more news coverage than Klobuchar.

He has shown he can manage a national campaign successfully. And in a nation that only legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, his message of generational change could actually inspire change.

Of the six strong Democratic candidates left, half are 77- or 78-year-old men, two are women, one of whom is 70, and then there is Buttigieg. He may have only been mayor of the fourth-largest city in Indiana, but his fresh approach is transformational.

[sic]

The New York Times Editorial Board asked Buttigieg how he would balance his devout Episcopalian faith with his duties as commander in chief, and he showed both his wisdom and his eloquence: “I think you have to accept the reality that you are living and working in a broken world just as we are all broken human beings and try to order your steps in a way that brings greater good than harm.”

That resonated with us, for its lofty rhetoric and grounding in humanity and hope: “greater good.”

It’s time for a generational change. It’s time to make America good again.

Vote Pete Buttigieg for president of the United States.

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#BeardedButtigieg Pics Go Viral

(images via Jim Fall)
Bearded pics of openly gay White House hopeful Pete Buttigieg hit the internet on Thursday and immediately went viral along with the hashtags #Bearded Buttigieg and #DaddyPete. A quartet of photos was shared by longtime New York City gay blogger kenneth-in-the-212 with the headline “Mayor Woof for President.” Kenneth added the caption, “I’ll bet the gays wouldn’t be complaining about this candidate.” Kenneth was referencing that, even though Buttigieg is the first openly gay viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, he hasn’t been universally embraced by the entire LGBTQ community.

Kenneth revealed they were the creative genius of Jim Fall, film director best known for the classic gay movie romp Trick and the upcoming Trick 2.

Fall told The Advocate he was inspired to beard-up Buttigieg after being “impressed with [Buttigieg’s] ability to stay cool and smart” during Wednesday night’s “fiery debate in Las Vegas.” After coming across a pic of Buttigieg with a mustache Thursday morning, Fall decided to get creative with FaceApp on his own with the former South Bend mayor’s pics. “And damn, he looks good with a full-on beard!” he told The Advocate. Falls says he doesn’t have a favorite in the Democratic primary race just yet, although he admits “both Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren have stayed at the top of my list.” There was no FaceApp time for Warren though. “Elizabeth doesn’t look so good in a beard or mustache, so I didn’t post those,” Fall added.

Fall does hope, though, that perhaps the bearded images might help some folks take a fresh look at the 38-year-old candidate. “It’s like, dang, he’s smart and sexy,” says Fall. “That’s an intoxicating combination.” “It’s amazing to me that we are living in a time where an out gay married man is a serious contender for the presidency,” explained Fall. “No matter what you feel about his specific politics, the LGBTQ community should be celebrating. I see so many gay men on social media knocking him down, and it’s disheartening.” “You don’t have to love him or even support him, but don’t disrespect him,” added the director. “Don’t eat your own.”

(source: The Advocate)

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Report Showing Russia’s Preference For Trump Gets Intel Chief Fired

Donald Trump

And now we know why Donald Trump suddenly fired his acting director of national intelligence and moved German Ambassador Richard Grenell (who has zero experience in national intelligence) to the post. From the Washington Post:

Shelby Pierson, the intelligence community’s election threats executive, participated in a classified briefing on election security last week for the House Intelligence Committee.

Pierson told the lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — that according to the intelligence gathered by U.S. agencies, Russia had “developed a preference” for Trump in 2020, according to an official briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a classified briefing.

Following that, Trump grew angry at his acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, in the Oval Office, seeing Maguire and his staff as disloyal for speaking to Congress about Russia’s perceived preference.

The intelligence official’s analysis and Trump’s furious response ­ruined Maguire’s chances of becoming the permanent intelligence chief, according to people familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Trump says he’s considering Rep. Douglas A. Collins for permanent DNI post; Collins says he doesn’t want it

Trump announced Wednesday that he was replacing Maguire with a vocal loyalist, Richard Grenell, who is the U.S. ambassador to Germany.

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Thoughts On Democratic Debate In Las Vegas

I’m late getting to this but I wanted to put out a few thoughts about last night’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas. First, welcome to the debate stage billionaire and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. After spending nearly half a billion on campaign ads, he finally got on the debate stage and had to face some heat. And boy did he. Within seconds of the beginning of the date, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (who really, really needed a good night) ripped Bloomberg a new one.

“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said. “And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”

Warren followed that up later when the issue of women who had sued Bloomberg were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. Warren was unrelenting.

Needless to say, Warren had that ‘good night’ she was shooting for. Over the next 24 hours, she reportedly raised over $5 million for her campaign. Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg landed some blows on both Bloomberg and Sen. Bernie Sanders for their ‘polarizing’ personas as well as not really being Democrats.

The other ‘big’ clashes of the evening were between Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Buttigieg. When Klobuchar was asked about a recent ‘oopsie’ in an interview when she couldn’t name the president of Mexico, Buttigieg pointed out she sits on important Senate committees that deal with Mexico. And, then Klobuchar started to unravel. I’ll admit I was surprised to see Amy get so rattled, so unnerved. In the video below, her body language and voice really hyper-up as Buttigieg remains calm. At one point, Amy offered a snarky, “I wish everyone was as perfect as you, Pete.” At another turn, she informed him that he hasn’t ‘been in the arena,’ apparently inferring the work mayors do isn’t important.

In reading other outlets today, I came to realize Klobuchar has a particular distaste for Buttigieg. She sees the attention he’s received and his rise in the polls as unfounded, and the result of white, male privilege. I actually have my own idea as to why Buttigieg garnered the attention he did from the start of the race. He was the new unknown. An openly gay, Rhodes scholar, Afghanistan veteran unknown who not only is well-spoken but speaks seven languages. He was a new story for folks to lean in to. Buttigieg turned in good debate performances. And did well in Iowa and New Hampshire. In any case, I think Klobuchar didn’t handle the moment well last night. She could have chosen to take a breath before responding. But, instead, she went on a rant that looked frantic. As an alternative, she could have just stated, in regard to the name of the Mexican president, “I was tired and the name slipped my mind. It happens to everyone.” And then, STOPPED TALKING. She would have served herself better, in my opinion. Along the way, as no one was attacking former Vice President Joe Biden, he had one of his best debates of the primary season. It may help him do fairly well in Nevada and then next week in South Carolina. If Biden comes in second in Nevada, then wins South Carolina, he may recover some of his momentum.

Sanders entered the debate as the newly-anointed front-runner for the nomination and nothing in the debate changed that. It’s worth noting that NBC News sent out a press release announcing the event was the most-watched Democratic debate ever, averaging nearly 20 million total viewers across the two networks, according to Nielsen Fast National Data. The one take-away I have from last night that I think is important is about ‘big-picture.’ There are four moderate Democrats currently competing for the same moderate Democratic voters. And as such, they are getting only about 12-15 percent support each. Meanwhile, Warren kind of faded after her poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire leaving the progressive lane to just Sanders. Thus, his rise in the polls. Each state’s contests divide up delegates proportionately according to the votes received. BUT – delegates are proportionately allocated to candidates getting 15% or more in a primary or caucus. If you don’t get to at least 15% you get nothing. If only one candidate gets 15%, the allocation is effectively winner-take-all. If no candidate meets the 15% threshold, Democratic Party rules state the minimum to receive delegates will be 50% of the vote received by the front-runner. Check out the delegate count below after two states’ contests. Only five candidates have earned delegates to date. Buttigieg and Sanders have nearly 3x the number of Warren or Klobuchar. According to reports, Klobuchar’s surprise third-place finish in New Hampshire was great news for her campaign, but she apparently hadn’t invested in any campaign infrastructure in Nevada having focused on Iowa and New Hampshire. So, many don’t expect her to do well this week. MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki looked at the polling in upcoming states and it looks pretty grim for many of the remaining candidates other than Bloomberg (who’s literally spending millions and millions), Biden, and Sanders. Notice that Harris and Klobuchar aren’t even registering in double-digits. And Buttigieg seems stuck at the 11-12 percent level. That means no delegates from those states if these numbers are even in the ballpark. Take a look at the California numbers. If Sanders walks away with 32% of the delegates, and Warren, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg fail to even be viable gaining zero delegates – Sanders begins to amass a delegate count that could be insurmountable. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has been spending in other states like North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Arkansas – and it’s paying off for him. Now, after last night, we’ll have to see how those numbers stack up on Super Tuesday. Finally, check this last graphic – Bloomberg is virtually the only Democrat with ads up in Virginia.   Needless to say, when you don’t win delegates, the campaign donations dry up. The next two weeks could very well boil this race down to two or three candidates. We shall see.

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Chasten Buttigieg: “I’ve Been Dealing With The Likes Of Rush Limbaugh My Entire Life”

Chasten Buttigieg (screen capture via ABC News Live)
ABC News Live will premiere its new election-cycle interview series “Running Mates” tonight during its primetime newscast at 7:00 p.m. ET Anchored by Linsey Davis, the debut will feature an exclusive interview with Chasten Buttigieg, husband of former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. In an advance clip from tonight’s interview, Davis brings up recent comments by conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh who suggested America is not ready to elect a “gay guy kissing his husband” on the debate stage. Questioning Buttigieg’s electability on his radio show, Limbaugh described the former Indiana mayor as “a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage, next to ‘Mr. Man,’ Donald Trump.” Davis asks Chasten his thoughts on the remarks. “Well, look this isn’t new,” begins the 30-year-old. “I’ve been dealing with this my whole life. I’d I dealt with a multitude of Rush Limbaugh’s when I was walking through the hallways of my high school.” The potential ‘First Gentlemen’ shares that “LGBTQ Americans have to come out every single day.” “When somebody asks who were married to, or asks about your partner, or you’ll feel like you want to share something about yourself but then you have to second guess how that person’s gonna react if I say ‘Well, my husband’ instead of ‘my wife.'” explains Chasten. “I’ve been dealing with the likes of Rush Limbaugh my entire life,” he adds. “What I’m actually worried about are the young people in this country who are watching the historic nature of this campaign. Watching how people talk about it, watching how people react to it and treat it. And wondering if this country is actually safe place for them to be.”

The full interview airs tonight on streaming news channel ABC News Live. Airing two primetime news hours at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. ET, the streaming news channel is available on ABCNews.com, Roku, Hulu, Sling TV, Xumo, the ABC News mobile and OTT apps.