MORNING MESSAGE
...the
story from Flint is just the tip of a big ugly iceberg. New reports reveal that
penny pinching on government and lack of response to the needs of ordinary
Americans, particularly children, are harming communities everywhere ... Lack of
investment in government services hurts children, both in terms of the direct
harm of toxic water sources and the long-term less direct injury caused by
attending schools that are physically falling apart.
BURNING ISSUES: WHY HONDURAS MATTERS IN THE 2016 CAMPAIGN
Mark
Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research discusses the
candidate’s the assassination of a Honduras environmental activist and what
it says about the Democratic candidates’ foreign policy, in the latest Burning
Issues video.
BERNIE EYES SATURDAY WINS
Bernie
expected to win all three Saturday caucuses. AP: “Sanders is favored over
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in this weekend’s contests in Washington
state, Hawaii and Alaska. … Yet the numbers remain difficult for Sanders.
Clinton enters Saturday’s contests with 1,223 pledged delegates compared to 920
for Sanders … If Sanders hopes to catch up to Clinton in pledged delegates, he
must win 58 percent of those remaining. So far, he’s only winning 43
percent.”
Washington
biggest Saturday prize. Politico: “With 101 delegates at stake [in
Washington], only New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California have more
delegates at play after this weekend … Seattle ranks No. 1 among the 50 biggest
U.S. cities for per-capita contributions to [the Sanders] campaign … Sanders’
final Seattle event on the eve of the caucuses, designed to make a big
impression, is one that few other candidates would even contemplate: a rally set
for Safeco Field, the Seattle Mariners’ baseball stadium with a capacity of well
over 50,000.”
Jane
Sanders stumps in Anchorage. KTVA: “She says one of her husband’s priorities
is protecting the natural beauty of the state, which is why she says drilling
for fossil fuels is not on his agenda … [She] will travel to Dillingham on
Friday to meet with tribal leaders and discuss natural resource concerns.”
Sanders
wins West Coast union endorsement. The Hill: “The International Longshore
and Warehouse Union (ILWU) endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Bernie
Sanders, the campaign announced Thursday. The union represents 50,000 people who
work in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.”
Sen.
Warren doesn’t want Bernie to drop out. AP quotes: “He has put the right
issues on the table both for the Democratic Party and for the country in general
so I’m still cheering Bernie on.”
GOP ESTABLISHMENT WARMS TO CRUZ
GOP
Establishment in sync with Sen. Ted Cruz, notes NYT’s Paul Krugman: ”
Establishment Republicans may wince at the candidate’s fondness for talking
about ‘carpet bombing’ or his choice of a noted anti-Muslim bigot and conspiracy
theorist as an adviser. But both Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio chose foreign policy
teams dominated by the very people who pushed America into the Iraq debacle …
Cruz [supports] the gold standard … [Paul] Ryan got quite specific about his
intellectual roots, declaring that he always goes back to ‘Francisco d’Anconia’s
speech on money’ … that speech is a paean to the gold standard…”
Gov.
John Kasich not always known to be so genial. NYT: “Mr. Kasich’s colleagues
in Ohio and Washington … recall a three-decade career in government punctuated
by scolding confrontations, intemperate critiques and undiplomatic remarks.”
Kasich
staunchly anti-abortion. W. Post: “Kasich signed 17 antiabortion measures
into law since he became Ohio governor in 2011. He defunded Planned Parenthood
and banned abortions from public hospitals and from receiving public
funding.”
GOP WALL AGAINST GARLAND BUCKLES A BIT
Third
GOP senator supports hearings for Garland. W. Post: “…Sen. Jerry Moran
(R-Kan.) told a small group gathered in a Cimarron, Kan., courthouse on Monday
that GOP senators ‘should interview Garland and have a hearing on his
nomination,’ in the [Garden City Telegram] paper’s words … Moran joins Mark Kirk
(R-Ill.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) in favoring hearings.”
Sen.
Ron Johnson squeezed in Wisconsin. NYT: “Mr. Johnson is widely considered
one of the Republican Party’s most endangered incumbents in his rematch with
Russ Feingold … Mr. Johnson, without any pretense, is boasting that he and his
Republican colleagues are preventing Mr. Obama from tilting the ideological
balance of the court to the left … Democrats, including Mr. Feingold, say they
are confident that Mr. Johnson is making a politically fatal mistake…”
A HOUSE DIVIDED ON THE BUDGET
House
Republicans remain divided over budget. The Hill: “Speaker Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) will now have just four days to bridge wide gaps within the GOP on a
trillion-dollar spending blueprint when members return in mid-April. An
agreement on the budget has remained elusive for months, with GOP lawmakers
refusing to give up on their own competing proposals … The Freedom Caucus has
called for GOP leaders to break last fall’s deal with the White House and revert
to the previous spending caps of $1.04 trillion.”
Speaker
Ryan may skip appropriations bills. Roll Call: “Asked if the House would
move appropriations bills to the floor even if they don’t pass a budget, Ryan
said, ‘No, we need to do a budget.'”
BREAKFAST SIDES
AZ
seethes about election day debacle. NYT: “… angry and baffled voters are
still trying to make sense of how democracy is working in Maricopa County, the
state’s most populous, where officials cut the number of polling places by 70
percent to save money … many observers saw Arizona as a flashing neon sign
pointing toward potential problems nationally at a time that 16 states will have
new voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential
election…”
Urgent
need to increase rental housing credit. Bloomberg: “It’s been more than 15
years since Congress increased funding for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit …
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is to announce a plan that calls for Congress
to spend 50 percent more on the program, enough to build as many as 400,000
homes over the next decade. That makes the Democrat’s plan an ambitious attempt
to increase the stock of affordable rental housing … It’s also just a drop in
the bucket. There are 3.9 million low-income households that lack access to
affordable housing…”
Progressive
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