his last album didn't sell or result in hits. his superbowl performance was trashed.
it's over.
but he doesn't grasp it.
we do, women grasp it's over.
- And Jessica Simpson for bragging to his friend, Ryan Gosling that he won their bet on who would kiss her first.
- trash
- wait ALISHA WAINWRIGHT???
- He got caught holding hands with her last year and blamed it on alcohol in an apology to his wife and family. I don’t think that constitutes as “throwing under the bus” though.
- yup
- Apparently Jessica Simpson too, in her book she mentioned after they kissed (recently after her divorce when they were both single) that he immediately texted Ryan Gosling that he won the bet they had from when they all met her as kids. Sounds kind of like a jerk thing to do.
- trash
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, February 12, 2020. Bernie won New Hampshire. Two campaigns
are over now. No, not Michael Bennett and Andrew Yang who both
announced they were suspending campaigns yesterday. Two campaigns were
killed last night.
Starting in the United States where the New Hampshire primary took place yesterday and Bernie Sanders won it.
Starting in the United States where the New Hampshire primary took place yesterday and Bernie Sanders won it.
Bernie Sanders has won the New Hampshire primary, with Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar currently in second and third.
Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden lag those three and may not hit the vote total that would net them delegates. See the full results: wapo.st/3bvAlsS
Remember how inevitable Kamala Harris was supposed to be?
Remember how inevitable Beto O’Rourke was supposed to be?
Remember how inevitable Joe Biden was supposed to be?
This election has killed any myth that the establishment media knows what the hell is going on.
Bernie won and press proclaimed front runner Joe Biden . . . did very poorly.
1. Bernie Sanders is the front-runner.
2. Joe Biden is in serious trouble.
Read those and more of our takeaways from the New Hampshire primary and what the result means for the rest of the 2020 race.
In fact, Joe came in fifth place in New Hampshire.
Bernie Sanders beats Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire Democratic primary, dealing a setback to Joe Biden, who finished fifth reut.rs/31JY2JG
4th in Iowa, 5th in New Hampshire -- Joe's confident he can deliver South Carolina, and maybe he can (maybe he can't -- he's slipping badly in the latest polls), but can he deliver anything beyond South Carolina. Maybe Joe's confused? He did this poorly in 2008 -- the second time he ran -- but he had dropped out by this point. Maybe he doesn't realize how the process works? Or maybe he thinks if he just keeps campaigning long enough, whoever gets the nomination will be forced to pick him as the running mate?
Joe is a full on failure and this is with the bar being lowered for him so much that a Sunday event did not become big news. Arwa Mahdawi (GUARDIAN) reported yesterday:
Go home, Joe Biden: you may not be drunk, but you are certainly acting like it.
On Sunday, during an event in New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential candidate’s gift of the gaffe struck again. Madison Moore, a 21-year-old student, politely asked Biden to explain why he came fourth in Iowa – a fair question, given he sells himself as the most “electable” candidate. Biden responded by asking Moore if she had been to a caucus before. She said yes; he called her a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier”.
This is how he speaks to voters? This is how he woos voters?
This is unacceptable.
Susan Page (USA TODAY) points out, "From the start, the fundamental premise of Biden's campaign has been that he was the most electable candidate, best able to defeat Trump in November. The problem he faces now is this: The way to demonstrate electability is to win, and he hasn't, at least not yet." POLITICO's Natasha Korecki, Marc Caputo and Maya King report:
“There’s blood in the water,”
said Quentin James, executive director of The Collective, a political
committee that backs African-American candidates. “Black voters are
starting to leave him now … A big reason lots of black voters were with
Biden is they thought he was the best person to beat Trump. And they
thought one reason for that is that he had the support of white voters.
Now they see he has done so poorly with white voters and he no longer
looks like the electability candidate.”
The size and scope of the loss — he
failed to crack double digits or win any sizable city or town —
challenged the wisdom of Biden’s strategy of not competing hard in New
Hampshire. Biden had downplayed expectations of doing well here,
claiming New Hampshire favored politicians from neighboring states, like
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But two politicians from the
Midwest, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, finished ahead of Biden,
undercutting his talking point.
“This is horrendous. We’re all
scared,” said a Biden adviser, speaking anonymously because the comments
conflict with the brave public face the campaign is trying to
broadcast. “I think we’re going to make it to South Carolina. I know
we’re supposed to say we’re going to and we’re going to win. But I just
don’t know.”
Ben Mathis-Lilley (SLATE) offers:
Now there’s Uncle Joe, who seemed to believe his party
connections and public association with Obama would be so strong that
he’d be able to coast to a primary win without having to spend
significantly on ads, develop any signature proposals, or even appear that often in public. There’s still a little time left to, like, start doing that stuff: Biden’s polling leads
in Nevada (Feb. 22 caucus) and South Carolina (Feb. 29 primary) are
shrinking, but they still exist, and wins there could help him keep his
numbers up in the southern Super Tuesday states where he’s been expected
to do well with black voters. But the candidate whose sales pitch was
that he came with forward momentum pre-installed is, so far, completely
inert. If he still wants to win, he’ll have to earn it just like
everyone else, without any help from his important friends.
Jake Novak (CNBC) predicts, "After a humiliating fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary and an apparent fourth-place finish in Iowa, former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential hopes are finished. You can expect him to maybe stay in the race for another three weeks or so until the Super Tuesday primaries are over, but that’s about it." Longtime Biden observer Timothy P. Carney (WASHINGTON EXAMINER) floats, "So when we see that Biden, in his third or fourth attempt at running for president, has yet to finish even third place in a primary, and when we see that he failed to build a network of supporters in Iowa, we need to consider that Biden doesn't win because people don't like him." CANDID CAMERA's Peter Funt is anti-Bernie Sanders and he writes a column for USA TODAY urging Joe to drop out of the race now so that an alternate candidate to Bernie can emerge:
Still, why not let the voters decide? Because Biden is casting a shadow that extends beyond his own candidacy. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, as well as former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, might still be in the race had Biden not been a presumptive favorite among black and brown voters. It becomes critically important to determine sooner rather than later who would get that support if Biden were not a factor.
I wish Joe would announce he was dropping out so I could go home. Instead, we've decided we're staking out South Carolina. We're going there today, we'll be speaking there everyday in the lead up to the primary.
Nidhi Prakash (BUZZFEED) reports on Joe Biden's sparsely attended New Hampshire party (Joe himself had already fled to South Carolina).
Let's talk about Michael Bloomberg.
Now a friend was dating John Mellencamp not long ago and I felt the need to warn her that he has many good qualities and certainly can write a song but you need to watch out. I'm not comfortable -- maybe others are -- with someone who thinks the N-word is something to toss around. And John does. You can go through his SPIN magazine interviews in the 80s and 90s, for example, and come across that.
Now if I felt the need to warn a friend who the hell is vetting for Mike Bloomberg?
What presidential candidate in 2020 would use an artist in commercials if they knew the artist's history of using the N-word is right there in the open, waiting to bite the campaign in the ass.
If you've missed it, John says something at the start of the new commercial for Mike Bloomberg -- a stupid and inane ad -- and then pretends he's playing his hit "Small Town" (he's not playing it) and then it goes back to John at the end with his guitar.
Why?
Why use John Mellencamp?
And why use "Small Town." It was a hit, yes, . . . back in 1985.
The whole commercial is stupid. Mike supposedly knows small towns, the ad insists, and he's going to invest in them and community colleges and . . .
Wait.
Does Mike Bloomberg think community colleges are in small towns?
What world is that idiot living in?
How is he going to address the issues facing small towns if he doesn't even know what a small town is? He's been out of NYC before, right?
Elizabeth Warren. As stated her a month ago when the Michael Traceys were trying to beat up Elizabeth, there was no point, she wasn't doing to do well in Iowa or New Hampshire. From the January 14th snapshot:
Let's set the scene. Senator Bernie Sanders, as of weekend polling, looked to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire. He looked to do so well that many could argue it was over for Senator Elizabeth Warren. In politics, anything can happen, but there was a good chance that in a matter of weeks, Elizabeth would be shutting down her campaign. If that had taken place, what would be the next step?
To ensure Bernie won the nomination by picking up her supporters.
Everyone should have taken a breath and calmed down. But the Michael Tracey's can't calm down.
There's an effort to take offense at Elizabeth right now. Why? Her campaign is in tatters. If she can't place in the top two in New Hampshire, where's she going to win? She's not. She needed to deliver in the first two events -- Iowa and New Hampshire. She didn't. That was obvious looking at the weekend polling back in January.
She needs to drop out. She needs to make that decision herself. Until then, the smart thing to do is to ignore her. It's not easy for her or for her supporters to come to terms with how poorly she's performed. I'm sorry for her. But there is no campaign left for her. It is over. Most likely, the fundraising will make that point clear to her.
In the meantime, there's no reason to gloat. Be happy Bernie won? Absolutely. But there's no reason to bring her loss into his win. If he gets the nomination, he's going to need everyone's support. And to get the nomination, he's going to need her support. If Bernie supporters start attacking Elizabeth right now, it will be very easy for them to move not to Bernie but to Amy Klobuchar. She's personable but she's got lousy policies. That won't matter. Amy knows she has to woo. Bernie supporters need to work on wooing to. Don't think an Elizabeth Warren supporter couldn't run over to Amy. In 2008, you saw some Hillary supporters -- due to the constant sexism from Barack Obama's campaign -- move over to John McCain's campaign.
Turning to Iraq . . .
Baghdad sees snow for the 1st time in 12 years
accuweather.com/en/weather-new…
While snow inside the city limits is a rare phenomenon, northern Iraq does receive snow in the winter months, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls.
While snow is slightly less rare in northern Iraq, for a severe winter system to descend this far south, so as to engulf central and southern regions of the Western Asian nation, really is quite incredible.electroverse.net/incredibly-rar…
Rare snow in Baghdad, Iraq
Iraq's capital of Baghdad awoke to a sight not seen in over a decade — their city covered in snow.
Snow falls on Iraq for the first time in more than a decade
First Time Snow Fall in Holy City Karbala, Iraq ⚘
Electroverse | RECORD COLD, DEADLY BLIZZARDS, AND 6 METER SNOW DRIFTS BATTER TURKEY, SYRIA, IRAN, & IRAQ... iraq.trendolizer.com/2020/02/electr…
New content at THIRD:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: Moqtada a leader?
- TV: The good bones of INDEBTED
- If the Emmys really meant anything . . .
- Roundtable
- Worst shows of 2019
- Music roundtable
- 10 worst elections of the last 100 years
- This edition's playlist
