Category Archives: Government
Trump Lights Lamp
Trump lights the lamp in the New York Primary. The Donald won 89 delegates with 60.4% of the vote. Kasich won 4 delegates with 25.1%, and the senator formerly known as Lying Ted won zero delegates with 14.5% of the vote.
Pope Prop
In the heat of the New York Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders hopped on a charter Boing 767-300 and burned a carbon footprint to the Vatican.
The Week has a good account of Sanders’ “awkward” campaign detour.
He claimed he was invited by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences to give a speech on morality in the world economy. The president of that group, Margaret Archer, says, “Sanders invited himself.”
A Vatican spokesman said Sanders would not meet the pope. But meet he did.
Bernie managed to bump into the Holy Father’s as he was leaving for Greece. He gushed:
“It was a real honor for me, for my wife and I to spend some time with him. I think he is one of the extraordinary figures not only in the world today but in modern world history.”
Here’s the pope’s description of the encounter:
“This morning when I was leaving, Sen. Sanders was there, he had come to the convention,” the pope said. “He knew I was leaving at that time and he had the courtesy to greet me. I greeted him, his wife, and another couple who were there and were sleeping in Santa Martha,” the hostel where Francis also lives. “When I came down, I greeted him, I shook his hand, and nothing more. This is called good manners and it is not getting involved in politics…. If anyone thinks that greeting someone is getting involved in politics, I recommend that he look for a psychiatrist.”
End of Coal
Two stories lured me off from the campaign trail for today.
Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest coal company, filed for bankruptcy. President Obama promised to drive the coal industry into bankruptcy. As it happens, the fracking industry is driving coal into bankruptcy. Natural gas is cheaper and cleaner than coal. Obama hoped to replace coal with renewable energy.
The other story is that, SunEdison, world’s biggest renewable energy company, is also preparing to file for bankruptcy.
Libya
President Obama told Chris Wallace in a Fox News Interview that Libya was his greatest mistake. He blames a lack of planning for the day after Gaddafi was killed. Or, as Hillary put it, “We came, we saw, he died.”
Vanity Fair points out that Hillary considers Libya to be one of her “chief accomplishments.”
The Rules are Rigged
The Donald is having trouble playing by the rules. Republican party rules say you need 1,237 delegates to win the nomination of the first ballot. Trump says the rules are rigged by the party elite.
As of now Trump leads with 743 to 545 for Cruz. Kasich is hanging in with 143. You can get an updated count here.
Each state makes its own rules for awarding delegates and smarty pants Cruz knows the rules. After all, if you can’t figure out how to win in Colorado how will you beat Isis?
