brooklynite
brooklynite's JournalAustralia fires: Race to evacuate thousands before conditions worsen
Source: Axios
Australian authorities are racing to evacuate thousands of people stranded in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, with the military helping people escape the deadly wildfires by sea.
The latest: A naval ship with a 1,000-person capacity docked off the coast of Malacoota, Victoria, is set to evacuate some of the 4,000 people sheltering on the beach from fires, authorities said.
The NSW Rural Fire Service issued a "tourist leave zone" ahead of the arrival of dangerous conditions Saturday from fires expected to stretch over 150 miles along the South Coast to the state border with Victoria.
The NSW Police opened a major highway northbound Wednesday night to enable thousands of tourists who'd been stranded from Milton to Batemans Bay, an area stretching some 35 miles, to leave, per the Daily Telegraph, which reports major power and communications outages in the area caused by the fires.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/australia-fires-race-to-evacuate-thousands-24985267-e213-470e-99b7-cb190db1a217.html
Something to consider with respect to Iowa...
Unlike New Hampshire, where a vote for a marginal candidate who gets less than 15% is essentially wasted, Iowa Caucus voters get two bite at the apple: after the first round, candidates without 15% support are dropped and their voters can join a second candidate group.
The latest Iowa Poll (12/12-12/16) has:
Buttigieg 24
Sanders 21
Warren 18
Biden 15
Klobuchar 4
Booker 3
Steyer 3
Yang 3
Gabbard 3
Castro 1
Other/Undecided 5
Where will those extra votes go? I'd say:
- Klobuchar goes 2/2 for Biden and Buttigieg
- Booker goes 2/1 for Biden and Buttigieg
- Steyer goes 2/1 for Biden and Buttigieg
- Yang goeds 2/1 for Sanders and Warren
- Gabbard goes 3 for Sanders
- Castro goes 1 for Warren
That gives us:
Buttigieg 28
Sanders 26
Biden 21
Warren 20
Cold War Between Biden and Mayor Pete Suddenly Burns Hot
The Daily BeastFor months, former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg have avoided any major direct confrontation during the sporadic gloves-off skirmishes of the Democratic primary. Biden, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Buttigieg, a veteran of the Afghanistan war, have each sought to make cogent commander-in-chief cases on the campaign trail—hardly ever at each other’s expense.
But with just over a month until caucusing commences, the unpredictability of the political cycle has turned the notion of an inevitable winner upside down, with two of the leading contenders—a 77-year-old established politician and a 37-year-old Beltway neophyte—now on a collision course over one of their most powerful shared interests.
The two men have markedly different approaches to highlighting contrasts with their rivals. Biden, who has reliably topped national polls since launching his campaign in April, tends to employ a simple approach: Stay (mostly) out of the fray; attack (mostly) only when attacked; and try, with varying degrees of success, to stick to the script.
Buttigieg, whose final term as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, officially ends at noon on Wednesday, prefers the opposite. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) hesitated for weeks to release financial details of her health care proposal, for example, the mayor made sure to note that resistance during a televised debate in front of millions of viewers. When Warren hit back in a subsequent event for Buttigieg’s frequent appearance at high-dollar fundraisers, he reminded viewers she’s the “wealthy person”—not him.
Now, with the two moderate Democrats just three percentage points away from each other in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two early voting states that tee off the nominating contest in mere weeks, Buttigieg has gone on a rare offensive against Biden. The mayor has criticized the former senator’s Iraq War vote—a favorite line of attack from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who was opposed to the effort—and changed his tone on Biden’s son Hunter, who has been the subject of a coordinated misinformation campaign from President Donald Trump.
BERN NOTICE: Bernie vs Biden On Having a GOP Runningmate
Bernie 2020Bern Notice is a production of the Bernie 2020 campaign.
During the holiday week Joe Biden told an audience that if he wins the Democratic primary, he is open to putting a Republican on the ticket. At an Iowa press conference yesterday, Bernie drew a contrast, declaring that if he wins the Democratic nomination, he will not have a Republican as vice president.
Biden’s comments are only the latest in a series of declarations in which Biden has touted and boosted Republicans:
Those comments underscore how Biden has repeatedly broken with Democrats and helped Republicans in the Senate. Biden undermined congressional Democratic opposition and voted with Republicans for the Iraq War, welfare cuts, mass incarceration, financial deregulation, the bankruptcy bill and corporate-written trade deals. By contrast, Bernie led the fight against those policies.
Tulsi Gabbrd raised $3.4 M
https://twitter.com/JulesJester/status/1212421747024244737Buttigieg campaign announces $24.7 million raised in fourth quarter ahead of primaries
The HillThe presidential hopeful's press secretary, Chris Meagher, said that the campaign received over 2 million donations from more than 733,000 individuals in 2019, bringing the total of his fundraising efforts to over $76 million for the entire year.
Noting enthusiasm for the mayor's campaign, Meagher said, "..it's clear the American people are responding to Pete's message of rallying our country together around bold solutions that will build the coalition we need to beat Trump and usher in a new era the day after Trump leaves office."
The statement also reported that the majority of contributions made to Pete for America were less than $200, the average donation was $38.
Why Pete Buttigieg Enrages the Young Left
PoliticoThe Los Angeles Times’ Matt Pearce compiled a list of potential explanations on Twitter, including that the left may perceive him as a traitor to his generation, a stark opportunist, or the representative of a shadowy and discredited D.C. professional class. The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson also surveyed the theories, ultimately concluding that the continuity with the Obama era that Buttigieg promises might be too much for progressives to stomach. The answer, of course, is likely “all of the above.”
But those explanations are still too general to explain the fury inspired by a fourth-place presidential contender and Midwestern college-town mayor. And it’s not his ideology: The resentment he inspires runs much deeper than that earned by the Amy Klobuchars and Michael Bennets of the world—both of whom have more politically moderate tendencies than Buttigieg, who has, among other positions, argued for raising the minimum wage to $15, introducing a public health care option, expanding the size of the Supreme Court and abolishing the Electoral College. (Asked for comment for this article, a representative from the Buttigieg campaign told Politico that staffers are occasionally vexed by the cold reception to a platform that’s well to the left of any recent Democratic presidential nominee.)
The unspoken truth about the furor Buttigieg arouses is that his success threatens a core belief of young progressives: that their ideology owns the future, and that the rise of millennials into Democratic politics is going to bring an inevitable demographic triumph for the party’s far left wing.
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Name: Chris BastianGender: Male
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
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