Yesterday’s Democratic debate

I watched most of the debate yesterday and there was little there to change my mind about my support for Bernie Sanders as my #1 choice followed by Elizabeth Warren as #2. The rest were pretty much a wash, though I thought that Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer had a pretty good night. Elizabeth Warren got relatively little speaking time and while she made use of her time to make her points, did not seem aggressive enough in injecting herself more into the exchanges.
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So much for the awfulness of foreign interference in elections

In the US there has been an outpouring of outrage, especially from the Democratic party establishment, condemning foreign (read Russian) interference in the elections and warning of more attempts this year too. I think it is safe to say that everyone agrees that countries should steer clear of other nations’ elections, though in this internet age and the rise of social media that might well be a forlorn hope because private and quasi-private entities can meddle in many ways. It has reached the stage where any glitch in the process, any irregularity at all, is immediately pointed to as possible sabotage by foreign agents.
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Judge uses RFRA to throw out conviction of humanitarians

You may recall the case of Scott Warren of the humanitarian group No More Deaths who was charged by the federal government because he provided food, water, clothing, and shelter to the undocumented people who crossed the southern border and then undertook a grueling and dangerous trek through the desert. A jury acquitted him of all those charges but in a different case a judge found him guilty on a misdemeanor charge of illegally operating a motor vehicle in a wilderness area in the course of delivering the supplies.
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Presidential Medals of Freedom

Conan O’Brien thinks that Donald Trump has the right idea in giving the highest honor that a president can give to a civilian to war-mongering, possibly draft-dodging, conspiracy-mongering, right-wing radio talk show blowhard Rush Limbaugh. Why reserve these medals just for people who have done something good or honorable? Why not freely distribute them to supporters, like the pens used at signing ceremonies or the t-shirts fired into the crowds at basketball games?

Solid Muslim support for a Jewish candidate should be a big story

The Iowa caucuses had satellite sites for various groups that could not make it to the regular precincts and here is one report from a Muslim Community Center where 99% of the 200 people present voted for Bernie Sanders and awarded him all nine delegates.

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How tax prep companies cheated 14 million people

Even after the private, for profit, tax preparation companies got a sweetheart deal from the federal government that the government would not develop its own software for the free filing of taxes, which would be the logical thing for it to do, the greedy companies wanted even more. As part of the deal, the private companies were required to provide free filing options for lower income people but what they did was make the process of finding and using the free process so complicated that only about 2% of the people eligible to use it actually did so. This resulted in the companies getting about a billion dollars in additional revenue.
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The Iowa mess is still not resolved

It is now almost 48 hours after the Iowa caucuses ended and we still do not have a final vote or delegate count and the media seems to have lost interest in it, since things seem to be so muddled. It is a pretty sad state of affairs.

With results from 75% of state precincts as of Wednesday afternoon, former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg has a slight lead in the percentage of state delegate equivalents, the standard that in the past has determined the caucus winner, while Sanders currently leads in the both rounds of caucus voting, including after the so-called realignment process, when voters backing candidates who don’t reach threshold of 15% support at a caucus may choose to realign with another candidate. Sanders and Buttigieg are at the moment tied in pledged delegates, the measure that ultimately decides the nominee at the Democratic National Convention.
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Catholic church and lack of transparency about abuses

Despite the fact that the Catholic church keeps promising to increase transparency after each successive scandal about abusive priests who have been shielded by the church, ProPublica reports that some bishops continue to be opaque.

Over the last year and a half, the majority of U.S. dioceses, as well as nearly two dozen religious orders, have released lists of abusers currently or formerly in their ranks. The revelations were no coincidence: They were spurred by a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report, which named hundreds of priests as part of a statewide clergy abuse investigation. Nationwide, the names of more than 5,800 clergy members have been released so far, representing the most comprehensive step toward transparency yet by a Catholic Church dogged by its long history of denying and burying abuse by priests.
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Bernie Sanders’ consistency

The Iowa caucuses turned out to be a bit of a mess. This one was caused by the malfunctioning of a new app that was introduced to record and count the precinct results as they were turned in. The decision to create and use the app was the result of a mystifying desire to have the results of elections released as soon as possible though there is absolutely no urgency whatsoever. As a result, the whole process was a massive anti-climax. One benefit is that it reduces the importance of the Iowa results to what it should be, rather than the outsize significance it has been given for simply being the first contest.
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