Iowa. Do we forgive? I am not in the mood. I waited for Monday's caucus. I endured months of speculation. And I just had to wait until Monday night. I feel today like Shirley MacLaine near the end of TERMS OF ENDEARMENT when she explodes at the nursing station because her daughter Debra Winger has been waiting for the pain medication and it's finally time but Debra is still waiting.
Frank Bruni (NEW YORK TIMES) observes:
Is Iowa a metaphor? A harbinger?
Either way it’s a mess — and not the way any Democrat wanted the party’s voting to begin in an election year with stratospheric stakes.
To excite the most Americans possible and have its best chance of toppling President Trump, the Democratic Party needs a sorting of candidates that’s coherent, a system that inspires faith, a process that makes participants feel respected and heard.
Iowa provided none of that on Monday night. Instead it staged a baffling spectacle resistant to any timely, definitive verdict. More than 12 hours after the actual, physical caucusing at hundreds of locations across the state had finished, there were still no official results, just resentments, recriminations and reports that a newly intricate manner of counting had proven laborious, a newly developed app for it hadn’t worked as planned, a backup phone line had jammed and the campaigns had been asked to join a pair of emergency conference calls with state Democratic officials.
Jonathan Bernstein (BLOOMBERG NEWS) notes:
I’ve long been a defender of the Iowa caucuses. But a large part of that had to do with the advantages of stability in the nomination process, which allows sprawling, decentralized political parties to work together as they compete and cooperate on choosing a candidate. Obviously, there’s nothing stable as I write this about the Iowa caucuses, which really does rip that argument to shreds. It may be that we’re in for serious change.
The editorial board of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE offers:
Iowans have been caucusing since statehood in 1846. It was Democrats who turned the caucuses into a national spectacle. We’ve explained that it wasn’t until South Dakota’s George McGovern and his campaign manager, Gary Hart, realized how, under new party protocols meant to make the nominating process more inclusive, the state’s 1972 caucuses could launch McGovern’s long-shot presidential bid that the Iowa caucuses rose to prominence. The McGovern campaign recruited many Iowans to participate, and convinced national political reporters to fly to Des Moines and cover the outcome. McGovern, finishing second, stole the show and headlines from front-runner Edmund Muskie. McGovern won the nomination but lost to Richard Nixon in November. In 1976, an obscure Georgian named Jimmy Carter repeated the feat by shocking the Democratic field in Iowa, but he went on to win it all.
So Iowans are likely to continue caucusing. After Monday night’s humiliation of the Democratic candidates, will the rest of us continue to care about future outcomes? To be determined.
At FOX NEWS, Mark Penn notes:
It is undemocratic and the attempt to systematize it through an app has now revealed that the underlying process itself is open to widespread questioning.
We should, at a minimum, replace the Iowa caucuses with a primary. I believe we should switch to a series of regional primaries that rotate so that no one section of the country has any long-standing advantage in the nominating process.
Me? I am screaming, "All she has to do is hold out until ten, and IT'S PAST TEN! My daughter is in pain, can't you understand that! GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!"
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, February 4, 2020. Iowa results have still not been released, a
desperate Joe Biden hopes to fundraise heavily before the results come
out, protests continue in Iraq, the issue of the US leaving Iraq is
discussed in public forums in the US, and much more.
Starting in the US where War Hawk Joe Biden had his "Tyrone" moment last night in Iowa.
Time for Joe to get his s**t and go.
Starting in the US where War Hawk Joe Biden had his "Tyrone" moment last night in Iowa.
So matter of fact, I think ya better call Tyrone (call him)
And tell him come on, help you get your s**t (come on, come on, come on)
You need to call Tyrone (call him)
And tell him I said come on
-- "Tyrone," written by Erykah Badu and Norman "Keys'' Hurt, first appears on her album LIVEAnd tell him come on, help you get your s**t (come on, come on, come on)
You need to call Tyrone (call him)
And tell him I said come on
Time for Joe to get his s**t and go.
I represent the second largest county in Iowa.
Joe Biden was not viable in my precinct. By the second alignment, he had one supporter and received zero delegates.
There’s a lot going on rn, but Biden’s poor performance in MUST-WIN areas should be concerning to Dems. #iacaucus
INTERNAL DATA FROM BERNIE SANDERS
Bernie Sanders 30%
Pete Buttigieg 25%
Elizabeth Warren 21%
Joe Biden 12%
Amy Klobuchar 11%
I'm going to bed, I have class in a few hours 
#NotMeUs #TomPerezResign
#IowaCaucuses
#NotMeUs #TomPerezResign
#IowaCaucuses
We don't know the 'official results.' Why? One reason is Joe Biden learned from Iraq's thug Nouri al-Maliki.
Barack Obama put Joe in charge of Iraq. It was 2010 and elections were held in March. Nouri and the press knew he would win . . . but he didn't. So he immediately threw a fit insisting the results were wrong and whining. Eventually two or three more votes were tossed his way but he still lost.
Joe's doing something similar with his screeching that the Iowa results cannot be released yet.
Whether we're going by THE NEW YORK TIMES' tracking of the caucus or what the heads of various caucuses are saying, Bernie Sanders won.
Joe did very poorly.
Very poorly.\
Why throw a fit?
To delay that reality. The campaign's got orders to spend this morning digging out as much corporate dollars as they can. They're supposed to be sunny and upbeat when the reality is Joe's campaign is cratering financially and if donors realize that and realize how poorly he did in Iowa, it's over for Joe. There's no money to go forward. If donors grasp that Mayor Pete is a better shot than Joe, they will abandon Joe and pour their money into Pete's campaign.
Joe is on the ropes and he knows it. The campaign knows it. Few got any sleep last night. There was a heated strategy session following Joe's live remarks streamed on the net.
A sane person would grasp that it's over and admit it. There aren't any sane people -- including Joe -- in charge at Team Biden.
Say what you will about 2008 Joe, at least he was smart enough to drop out the morning after the Iowa caucus. By the way, NYT and the Sanders campaign both have Joe coming in fifth.
Fifth.
That's where he came in back in 2008. Fifth. Iowa doesn't like him. Fifth, he's not electable. At some point, the results get released and (unless some of the serious issues Max Blumenthal and others are raising bear out) and we see he came in fifth again.
Joe's not likable. Why is that?
Why.
Is.
That?
Maybe because he's disgusting.
Maybe because he's a perv.
The hot mess in Iowa had two specific purposes:
#1) Hide the lack of support for Joe Biden
#2) Ensure Bernie Sanders did not gain momentum...
That's it.
At the end of this predictable rainbow is this:
Chris Matthews called it last night on MSNBC, "I don't know if he [Joe] is going to make it." He wouldn't be around right now if the results had been released.
Bernie won.
Joe's going to lose New Hampshire as well.
Loser Joe. That reality will now impact the polling. People who bought into the media lie that Joe was the most electable will be confronted with the reality that Joe's not all that electable. We saw this in 2008 as well. As 2007 wound down, Hillary Clinton led in the national polls. But then Barack won Iowa and she didn't seem so electable and her support dropped.
Joe should be packing it in right now. Most of his staffers know they can't revive the corpse. Why Joe refuses to admit it is anyone's guess.
Pete and Mike Bloomberg -- because they stand the most to benefit if Joe withdraws -- should be calling for him to drop out. They should be arguing that this election is too important for vanity campaigns and that the voters have spoken so Joe should leave the race.
From snowy Denver, my message is simple: tonite is the beginning. We’re gonna make #PresidentSanders a reality, whether the establishment likes that or not. Stay focused. Redouble your efforts. Let’s do this.
Let’s get #PresidentSanders trending for all the volunteers and staff who worked their hearts out in Iowa — and who launched this amazing grassroots campaign that’s gonna transform this country.
Let's get "loser Joe" trending so that the campaign has no luck this morning trying to scrape up money from various corporate donors.
Joe's not the only one who needs to get their act together. The Democratic Party in Iowa needs to get it together as well. There are no ballots to count. The whole point of the caucus system is that they are open and transparent and, yes, immediate. This is outrageous that they cannot release their results hours after the caucus has ended.
There's no excuse for it.
If they haven't released their results in the next few hours, Iowa needs to be pulled from the front of the 2024 campaign and stuck in a spot sometime after Super Tuesday. If they can't get their act together, that's what needs to happen. Did no one do a dry run on the new software and equipment? Was there no preparation at all?
Sounds like someone's gotten too comfortable with getting the first event every election year. Their actions (inaction) are sewing distrust in the vote. They need to release the totals immediately.
In Iraq, the protests continue.
New painting themed around the ongoing protests in Iraq by Assyrian artist Nenous Thabit, titled "Will of the People."
The Iraqi people are protesting against corruption, they want a responsive government.
Radical cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr has responded to these demands by sending his goons to attack the protesters. See yesterday's "Moqtada's goons attacking Iraqis in the street" and "Editorial: Moqtada is a thug." Moqtada al-Sadr and his cult of thugs are ignoring what Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for in last Friday's prayers. Even some of his most deluded followers must grasp that.
Anti-government demonstrators face off against followers of influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in protest squares across Iraq, a day after one demonstrator was killed in a clash between the two sides.
Iraqi students in #Baghdad are chanting anti Corruption and anti Al-Sader chants this morning #IraqProtests
تابعوا اخر التطورات من كربلاء عبر حساب المصور حازم حمودي
“ Our homeland here is your youth, we came out without the need for a tweet” in direct reference to Muqtada Al Sader’a loyalist who answer to his tweets and calls to protest on twitter: #IraqProtests #Iraq
Iraqi protests swell despite clash with Sadrist supporters almon.co/3bcl via @AlMonitor #IraqProtests #Save_the_Iraqi_people #iraq #IraqiRevolution
At THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NATION's Katrina vanden Heuvel argues:
Trump’s
broken promise on Iraq will hurt him in the 2020 election, and, given
his narrow margin of victory in key battleground states, it could be the
reason for his defeat. But the Democrats should not rest on this
prospect alone. They should actively make it happen by convincing the
public (or more precisely, those Americans who voted for Trump in 2016
because of his position on endless wars) that they can deliver when
Trump could not.
At THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, Charles Ashurst offers:
Many many years ago, before some of you were born, the justification of
the U.S. occupation of Iraq was along the lines of, “We’re there to
assist some people achieve self-determination. Oh my, yes. We just love
peoples’ right to self-determination, and that is why we must occupy
this country to assist them achieve self-determination.”
Does anyone see the irony of the U.S. occupying Iraq against their will
for the purpose of assisting them toward self-determination?
Apparently, we understand their need for self-determination far better
than they do.
Why aren’t we the American public insisting on an explanation for why
we are still occupying Iraq? What earthly good are we getting from it?
What earthly good are Iraqis getting from it? What’s our objective? When
will it be done? In more practical terms, how long will China keep
lending us the money to occupy the Middle East?
New content at THIRD:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: Moqtada is a thug
- TV: America's need for 9-1-1
- Carole King's lost album
- 10 Carole King deep cuts you might not know of
- Jim's World
- Video of the week
- Glenn just cracked her face
- Political Tweet of the week
- This edition's playlist
- Highlights
The following sites updated:
