By Robert Willmann
After Tulsi Gabbard qualified for the next Democratic primary debate on Sunday by getting at least one delegate in the Super Tuesday voting last week, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) un-democratically moved the goal posts and changed the rules to prevent her from being on the debate stage and participating in the "democratic process" for selecting a presidential candidate for that political party [1]. The televised debate is scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday, the 15th.
Sponsored by the Univision and CNN television networks, the presentation originally was going to feature moderators Jorge Ramos of Univision (remember him from when the immigration issue emerged?), and Dana Bash and Jake Tapper of CNN. It is scheduled to be from 8 to 10 p.m., Eastern time [2].
Initially set to be in Arizona with some questions from the audience, the DNC announced that the location is being moved to the CNN studio in Washington D.C., with no live audience [3]–
"Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington, D.C., with no live audience."
And, further: "… Ramos was in proximity with someone who was in direct contact with a person that tested positive for coronavirus. Both Mr. Ramos and the person he was in contact with are in good health and symptom free." However, he is being replaced by Ilia Calderon of Univision.
Jorge Ramos was in "proximity" to someone who was in "direct contact" with a person who "tested positive" for coronavirus. This looks like he was "two hops" and two degrees of separation away. For that, he gets roped into the mess, just like through a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant!
The Ides of March [4].
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1234962318045278208
[2] https://www.univision.com/univision-news/dnc-cancels-audience-for-cnn-univision-debate-video
[3] https://democrats.org/news/dnc-statement-on-sundays-debate/
[4] https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/winedale/Performances-And-Tickets/play-synopses/julius-caesar.php
Ah! La Belle Tulsi!
Somehow it looks like the DemParty is even more scared of letting Gabbard into the debate than it is scared of letting Sanders into the debate.
That makes me think it is even more important to get Gabbard’s name on all 50 state ballots as an independent no-party candidate for President than to get Sanders’s name there.
I don’t have TV so I will probably read about the debate after the fact. My suspicion ( not strong enough to be a prediction) is that Sanders will show Biden a level of respect and caring tenderness which Biden does not deserve. If it happens that way . . . . if it is evident that Sanders failed to “take out a car-antenna/aerial and whip Biden a few hundred times with it” . . . so to speak . . . then a lot of Sanders’s support will get demoralized and demobilized and sit home and sulk. The majority of it? I don’t know.
But if Gabbard could get on all 50 state ballots she would pick up a visible and measurable rage-and-hate vote. Depending on how Sanders performs and the Sandermovement responds, I may look for any traces of a Tulsi-team which may exist in Ann Arbor and see if they will want help petitioning her name onto the Michigan ballot.
And where are women’s voices being raised to protest the exclusion of the only woman remaining in the race?
It is pretty clear that the “woman’s movement” is actually the “left-wing women’s movement.”
It will be interesting to see how Chauncey Gardiner, er, ah, I mean Joe Biden handles Bernie Sanders in the debate. Perhaps he will talk about to need to “stimulate growth” and compare America to the changing seasons in a garden (see Wiki). Then again he may take a less aggressive role because as he often says, “I like to watch.”
Sir;
Changing the rules of a game, and this election is increasingly looking like a game, in the middle of play is, to be polite about it, penny ante and chicken s—.
As I have commented before, if Sanders doesn’t get some “fire in his belly,” and comes out swinging against Biden on Sunday, then he does not deserve to be President.
I can well conclude that Gabbard was denied the spot on the stage because she would not harbour scruples about hitting Biden hard, on several fronts. That Sanders, knowing this, has not complained loudly about Gabbard’s knee capping, does not bode well for Sander’s campaign.
As much as I support Sander’s policy proposals, I am beginning to suspect that he might be a witting sheepdog this election cycle.
Finally, what ever happened to the halcyon days of the League of Women Voters running the debates? At this point, I would accept a Pack of Boyscouts or Girlscouts running the debates. At least the Scouts are learning to be Good Citizens and better people. The pack of grifters presently running the debates are doing the exact opposite.
The Democrat Party and it’s propaganda outlets CNN and MSNBC have effectively erased Tulsi Gabbard from the campaign from the get-go. Her anti-regime change views are not compatible with the agenda of those who control the narrative and therefore she must be erased lest the cattle get the wrong idea and perhaps even start thinking.
This is the contempt the Dems have for the electorate. ALso shown by appointing someone clearly in cognitive decline as their preferred candidate to lose to Trump. A puppet with limited agency is what they prefer in their contempt for the office of President. What a disgraceful and depressing and enraging situation.
I believe that Tulsi Gabbard is the only sane person who decided to run this time around. It’s cray for them to do this to her, as she is probably their only possible chance to win the election. I know many Republicans who like her.
DC,
Bernie has already started kissing up to Joe in a most “presidential” way.
The left is quite gleeful about its pandemic pandemonium messaging with ABC news promising another full hour of “crisis” coverage Monday. I myself am shocked, just shocked to find people complaining about lines at O’Hare. Most laughable of all was governor Cuomo complaining about the school closure recommendation. According to him parents are incapable of feeding their kids breakfast and the majority of New Yorkers work in healthcare. It struck me as more than just asinine whining about having to make a distasteful decision be a lot of people will be inconvenienced rather than potentially dead. The only thing the democrats are focused on now is defeating Trump at any cost and the only future they promise is government control of everything.
If Bernie Sanders was the ‘principled liberal’ he pretends to be, he would insist that Gabbard be allowed to participate in the debate. The fact that he hasn’t spoken out just proves that his real role is to lead the disgruntled leftists back into the party in order to support the warmongering Biden.
Bernie is a modern day Pied Piper who has no desire to win the nomination for himself. His duty is to convince his followers that the Democratic Party is not a graveyard for progressive ideas. Which it is.
@divadab
And it will lead to a sound victory for Trump. Why would an independent swing-voter prefer somebody with dementia over Trump? Because that voter trusts Congress so much to take initiative in running the country while a very weak President sits in the White House?? No chance in hell.
The DNC has moved the goalpost at least twice in this primary in regard to the “debates.” The first major move was the rule change that allowed Michael Bloomberg, despite his dearth of donors and lack of voter support, to participate.
The Democratic Party has for the last 35 years always used a progressive candidate to sheepdog progressives into the party fold. https://www.globalresearch.ca/democratic-party-primaries-progressives-as-political-contraceptives/5490884
I don’t expect this election to be any different. Sanders said at the beginning that he will support the party’s nominee, regardless of who it is. That is what sheepdogs do.
There was never a “womens” movement in the Democrat Party. Just the disciplined storm troopers from the teachers and nurses unions, riddled with TDS, demanding evan more of our tax dollars.
Any Democrat beta males who support the Democrat’s ‘woman’s right to choose” movement are merely trying to get out of 18 years of child support payments in case of a “mistake”.
………and that is the truth.
Tulsi would be a good foil, because there is little new the two old guys will bring to this latest F2F standoff.
Funny spoof about the upcoming Biden-Sanders debate from RedState. Be sure to have your CPR certificate up to date: https://www.redstate.com/diary/davenj1/2020/03/13/a-biden-sanders-debate-how-i-think-it-will-go/
I can see the DNC reasoning behind this dick move. They think Tulsi will only serve as a hand grenade in the debate damaging Biden and Sanders and aiding Trump. It’s still a dick move. I think she could have injected some youthful interest into the debate.
Why her campaign never took off is a puzzlement. New Hampshire was critical to her strategy. Like Mayor Pete did in Iowa, Tulsi put all her chips on New Hampshire to score a victory or at least a signature showing. I saw her face on billboards all over NH last August. She even bought a house there last year. All her efforts in a state that should have been ideal for her resulted in only 3.3% vote share. Sanders got a quarter of the vote, so it can’t be her policies. Her and Bernie’s policy stances are near identical. Warren and Klobuchar got 30% of the vote so it can’t be the female thing. Was it her Hinduism? Was it her meeting with Assad? At least she’s young. A lot can happen in the future.
She has 2 of approx 1800 delegates selected.
Both parties could use improvement – but wouldn’t leaving them to their paths of self-destruction be better for the Nation?
TTG: You know New Hampshire? A friendly question 🙂 Did you qualify for the 4,000 Footer Club? Doing that was one of the most enjoyable parts of my stay in New England. I wonder how much things have changed along the Kancamagus Highway, Pinkham Notch, etc.
Tulsi Gabbard probably suffered from the Sarah Palin factor: too pretty to be taken seriously. Seriously.
TG
My understanding is that Tulsi RENTED a house in NH. She did not buy it.
No big deal.
Cheers
Keith Harbaugh,
I’ve spent time in New Hampshire off and on from my college days. We did a lot of training in the White Mountains when I was in 10th Group at Fort Devens. My team blew up the fire tower on Cherry Mountain as part of a ski exercise in 1982. I was last up there in August 2019 when all my brothers and sister gathered in Center Sandwich for my father’s 90th birthday. My brother cleared the land and milled the lumber to build a post and beam house there. It’s freakin’ gorgeous. I spent a lot of time just running my hands over the beams and joinery. We drove between there and my father’s house in Fryeburg several times. I really like the area. I got the same vibe there last year as I did up in Alaska two decades ago.
I haven’t climbed near enough peaks to qualify for the 4,000 Footer Club, but I went up quite a few in the winter on skis and snowshoes. I did my fair share in the warmer months as well.
Colonel, & others
I believe that the DNC doesn’t want Tulsi on camera because it would make ‘Lady Macbeth’ look like ‘Lady Macbeth. Yes, I believe the DNC is oiling the wheels on Hilarys walker, for her appearance as VP candidate. If she comes down with covid 19, they’ll use Michelle Obama. Bernie did speak out for Tulsis appearance but not loudly or frequently.
I also think the Biden is meant to be a replaceable place-holder. Sometime after nomination, Biden’s walking senility will be “discovered” and he will be replaced by someone. And bitter backstage fighting will ensue over “whom”.
Certainly Hillary would LIKE to be the one. ” Sheeeee’s baaacccckkkk . . . ” Return of the Hillageist.
” Third time’s a charm.”
TTG, it is definitely beautiful up there. I’m glad you got to spend so much time up there. And thanks for the reply. No
keith
I trained troops in the White Mountains for months at a time. You have discovered northern New England? Try it in February.
Colonel Lang,
We blew that Cherry Mountain fire tower in February. My brother’s sons live for the New England winters. They’re both champion cross country ski racers. Most of our White Mountain training was at the detachment level. We did battalion level winter training at Camp Ethan Allen in Vermont’s Green Mountains. Damned cold there, too.
Back circa 1970 I knew the topography of the WM quite well
(climbing all 42 4000 footers teaches you that).
I don’t recall any military around there
(as a commissioned Army officer with EAD deffered for graduate school I was sensitive to such things).
Where was the training area with respect to the WM? N,S,E or W?
Keith
You poor child. My battalion 2/2 Infantry trained every year for our Lapland contingency mission in Norway, but you would not know about that. This was to deploy to fight the Soviet Army along with the rest of our brigade 2/5 Mech Division and the Norwegians You kiddies know nothing of that, you just know just the fight against the jihadi assholes who should be killed like mad dogs by whatever means needed.
TTG
“cherry Mountain fire tower?” No Idea what you are talking about. IMO anyone who lives for New England winters is demented.
Well, they couldn’t really include her in the debate because then voters would know that she was still running.
Which would come as a complete surprise to many, if not most.
More than a few of those voters then might come to some wacky conclusion that, you know, maybe the media isn’t quite as trustworthy as they once thought
I’m surprised that most of you want Tulsi Gabbard on the presenting ballot her merits notwithstanding. She could pull enough votes to enable Trump to win. Is that the goal? Just asking?
Linda,
I don’t think so. She’s definitely better than sleepy Joe or comrade Sanders.
Linda,
I would like to see both Sanders’s name and Gabbard’s name votable-for as President ( no party) on all 50 state ballots. Stopping Trump is not the most important thing.
For me, declintaminating the Democratic Party is more important than “stopping Trump”. Suppose Sanders and Gabbard were each on all 50 state ballots. Between them, they might get enough votes to deny the DemTicket a victory in every single state. Such a distaste for the Catfood Democrats would be hard for the MSM to spin out of existence. It would give some people heart and hope that if the Catfood Democrat Party can be defeated, then perhaps it can be either declintaminated or exterminated in the longer run.