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Another declared Saint who is probably in purgatory (if not in hell)

September 24, 2015

Pope Francis is taking a big chance by “fast-tracking” people to sainthood with a much diluted quality control system. Some of his declared saints may actually be in the Other Place. On his visit to the US he has taken the entirely political decision to name the “18th-Century missionary Junipero Serra a saint, in a move cheered by Hispanic Catholics but criticised by some Native Americans. …. The Pope had “fast-tracked” his canonisation, meaning that there was no need to show proof of two miracles”.

Normally the quality control process for declaring a saint is quite involved (even if there is no way of measuring the success rate of the canonisation process)

  • First stage: individual is declared a ‘servant of God’
  • Second stage: individual is called ‘venerable’
  • Third stage (requires a miracle attributed to candidate’s intercession): beatification, when individual is declared blessed
  • Fourth stage (requires a further authenticated miracle): candidate is canonised as a saint for veneration by Church

Beatification in the Catholic church is just another politically inspired honours system.

The Catholic Church teaches that it does not, in fact, make anyone a saint. Rather, it recognizes a saint. In the Church, the title of Saint refers to a person who has been formally canonized (officially recognized) by the Catholic Church, and is therefore believed to be in Heaven. By this definition there are many people believed to be in Heaven who have not been formally declared as saints (most typically due to their obscurity and the involved process of formal canonization) but who may nevertheless generically be referred to as saints. All in Heaven are, in the technical sense, saints, since they are believed to be completely perfected in holiness. Unofficial devotions to uncanonized individuals take place in certain regions. Sometimes the word “saint” is used to refer to Christians still sojourning here on earth.

There are over 10,000 named saints and beatified people from history, the Roman Martyrology and Orthodox sources, but no definitive head count. The assumption that they are all in Heaven is just an assumption, a judgement made by the fallible living.

But for entirely political purposes, Pope Francis has waived the need for any “authenticated” miracles for Sera. The usual assumption is that somebody declared a saint is already well established in Heaven. Once a saint he can be prayed to and requested to intercede with God. But in the case of this new saint, that may not quite hold. St, Junipero Serra may well qualify as having been heavily involved in the genocide of the indigenous population.

The church’s quality control system is fundamentally flawed since the actual quality achieved is never measured. Some declared saints are likely not actually in Heaven but in the Other Place. A few might even be stuck in limbo – in Purgatory. Junipero Serra could be one of them. (The fallback safety of course is that the Pope is infallible).

Native News: Serra was the first Padre presidente and architect of the California mission system from 1769 until his death in 1784. His policies unequivocally led to atrocities against our ancestors; he does not deserve the honor of sainthood.     .

On Sera’s watch more natives died than were born:

One way to answer the question of whether Junipero Serra was really good for the Native Americans he purported to serve was how natives were treated on the missions themselves. The backlash against Serra began when historians began to look at birth and death records on the missions and discovered that more natives were dying under Serra’s watch than being born — not a great indicator that Serra was saving native lives. The contemporary picture of the missions is less a “bucolic arcadia” than a feudal labor camp, with natives beaten if they violated Catholic teachings or didn’t work hard enough. Serra’s defenders point out that no native was forced to convert to Catholicism and live on the mission if he or she didn’t choose to; his critics point out that once someone chose to convert and live on the mission, soldiers would be sent after him if he tried to escape.

So what happens when a Catholic prays to a declared saint, supposed to be in Heaven, but who is actually in the Other Place? Perhaps the intercession is granted by Lucifer rather than the Other Guy?

mexicamovement.blogspot.com

 

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POTUS: Socialists, atheists and Muslims need not apply

September 21, 2015

Ben Carson is getting a lot of flack – but what he said was that those whose values are not consistent with the US constitution should not be President, and that he believed that Muslim values were not consistent with the constitution. (I just heard an idiot BBC radio correspondent parse this to say that Carson had said that the Constitution disallowed Muslims and that was patently wrong). Carson could have chosen his words better and said instead that the “values of radical Muslims would not be consistent with the Constitution” and nobody would have been able to quarrel with that. Donald Trump is being criticised for not defending Barack Obama against someone who charged him with being a Muslim. (He countered – but later – that it was not his job to defend Obama).

But the real point here is that even all the mainstream media and all the “conventional” politicians see the characterisation of being a Muslim as negative and as an attack. Now why would that be? Why object to Obama being called a Muslim if that was not perceived as being derogatory?

In June this year, Gallup conducted a poll about the acceptability of different categories of people as President of the US (a question which apparently was first asked in 1937). The results are quite clear. For the country as a whole, socialists, atheists and Muslims need not apply.

Between now and the 2016 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be _____, would you vote for that person? June 2015 results

The 3 least acceptable categories and their relative positions are the same across Democrats, Independents and Republicans.

Willingness to Vote for President of Various Backgrounds, by Political Party, June 2015

When looking at the differences by age, opinions are very soft for those between 18 and 29 ( which is to be expected since those under 25 have brains where the critical cognitive faculties are not fully developed). Opinions harden with age. But even here the 3 categories least acceptable across all age groups are always socialists, atheists and Muslims.

Willingness to Vote for President of Various Backgrounds, by Age, June 2015

Across all political parties and across all age groups, socialists, atheists and Muslims – in that order – need not apply. Of course what Gallup does not show is who the socialists, atheists and Muslims find least acceptable.

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Obama still has no strategy for ISIS

September 17, 2015

Last year Barack Obama admitted he had no strategy, “yet”, for ISIS. By the latest admissions, he still doesn’t. He is pouring money into “fighting ISIS” but it would seem that there are many expensive but ineffective actions ongoing – but there are few signs of any coherent, comprehensive strategy with any real goals.

The latest example of money down the drain, with nothing to show for it, is revealed by the testimony of Gen. Lloyd Austin to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The $500 million program to train 5,400 Syrian fighters against ISIS started off by training and sending 54 well-armed fighters. Only 4 or 5 remain. The others have been captured or killed by Al Qaida or ISIS or have abandoned the fight.

CBS News: Only four or five U.S-trained Syrian fighters remain on the battlefield against militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East acknowledged Wednesday in the face of withering criticism from senators who dismissed the training program as a “total failure” and demanded a change of strategy. Gen. Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. is looking at better ways to deploy the Syrian forces, but he agreed that the U.S. will not reach its goal of training 5,000 in the near term. ….. 

The first group of 54 U.S.-trained Syrian fighters was sent into Syria in late July. But a Syrian affiliate of al Qaeda attacked the group, killing several of the fighters and taking others hostage. A number of the remaining fighters fled. Officially called the New Syrian Force, the contingent was trained by the U.S. military at a base in Turkey and sent across the border into Northern Syria, ……..

The committee’s chairman, Republican Sen. John McCain, called the U.S. strategy against ISIS a debacle. He said assessments by Austin and the Pentagon that the U.S. strategy is working is “divorced from reality.” And other senators focused directly on the stumbling training effort that takes months to identify and screen Syrian rebels for the program and has lagged far behind original goals. “We have to acknowledge this is a total failure,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said about the training. “I wish it weren’t so, but that’s the fact.”

Congress has approved $500 million to train Syrian fighters. Officials have said fewer than 200 are going through training now.

Last week we heard how Obama and Kerry missed the opportunity in 2012 to work with Russia to arrange for Assad to step aside in an orderly transfer of power. Was it just ego that stopped that? Was it the wishful thinking that the support being given to the splintered Syrian rebels by the US and the Europeans, would lead to a complete defeat of Assad.

I certainly have the perception that the US (and their European partners) have been more than a little incompetent in their efforts at regime change – whether in Iraq or Libya or Syria or even the Ukraine. Like it or not, it is the lack of a coherent strategy and the incompetence of  implementation of ad hoc actions, which has provided the space for ISIS to flourish. While Saddam and Gaddafi and Assad were in place, many were throttled, but so was ISIS.

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Bill Clinton probably forgot to wash the server before Hillary wiped it

September 13, 2015

It is probably a good idea to wash before you wipe.

The Washington Post is now reporting that Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server may not have been “wiped” after all and that all her e-mails may well be recoverable. Hillary is probably not very amused. A month ago Clinton was being rather sarcastic about her “wiping” servers with a cloth. The FBI had reported that attempts had been made to wipe her server and Clinton responded at a press conference

When asked specifically if she wiped the server, she ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhed’ then jokingly said “what with a cloth or something?“

washing up

But perhaps her dishcloth reference was based on reality. Perhaps she really did think that that was how servers were “wiped” clean.

Clinton probably just forgot that you must wash your server first before wiping it. Or was it that Bill, who she shared the server with, was supposed to do the washing while Hillary wiped?

WaPo:

The company that managed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server said it has “no knowledge of the server being wiped,” the strongest indication to date that tens of thousands of e-mails that Clinton has said were deleted could be recovered.

Clinton and her advisers have said for months that she deleted her personal correspondence from her time as secretary of state, creating the impression that 31,000 e-mails were gone forever. ……… To make the information go away permanently, a server must be wiped — a process that includes overwriting the underlying data with gibberish, possibly several times.

That process, according to Platte River Networks, the ­Denver-based firm that has managed the system since 2013, apparently did not happen. “Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped,” company spokesman Andy Boian told The Washington Post. “All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped.”

The server that Clinton used as secretary of state was stored at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., and was shared with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and his staff. The device was managed during that time by a State Department staffer who was paid personally by the Clintons for his work on their private system. ……….

All the e-mails from Clinton’s tenure at the State Department were on the server when the device was taken over in June 2013 by Platte River Networks, four months after Clinton left office. ………

A company attorney has said that all of Clinton’s e-mails were then migrated to a new server. The e-mails were removed from the second server in 2014, with Clinton’s attorneys storing those they deemed work-related on a thumb drive and discarding those that they determined were entirely personal. Copies of 30,000 work e-mails were turned over to the State Department in December and are being released to the public in batches under the terms of a court order.

So if it was all Bill’s fault maybe Hillary can turn this around.

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By the numbers – Trump plus Carson could be formidable

September 12, 2015

Trump-CarsonProbably unthinkable, but from the outside looking in, the numbers suggest to me that a Trump + Carson ticket could overwhelm all the other Republican candidates. One Republican candidate has left the race (Rick Perry). Huckabee and Santorum will probably be the next to leave. And the Trump bubble is not imploding as all expected. In fact, the polls suggest that Trump is still gaining strength.

From RCP:

trump plus carson

GOP polls on 12th September 2015 — Real Clear Politics

The Republican establishment has proven to be a most ineffectual opposition to a weak indecisive President. They have not been able to use their strength in the house to actually do anything except to try and block Obama. Trump and Carson could ride an anti-establishment wave (tsunami?).

Against the Democrats, it is then difficult to see what permutation or combination of Clinton, Sanders, Biden and anybody else could withstand a Trump + Carson ticket.

The entertainment continues.

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How Syrian refugees are helping to solve a German conundrum

September 8, 2015

Germany is now perceived as the land of “sanctuary” in Europe, which was once a position occupied by the UK for many years. Certainly after the xenophobia exhibited by the Hungarian government (but not by all Hungarians) and the reluctance of some other European governments to accept refugees (Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia, Denmark …..), Angela Merkel has won many brownie points by exhibiting a generosity not visible from other countries. In fact the response means that Germany now occupies the moral high ground. By announcing that they can take up to 500,000 per year for several years, they make other EU countries look like “hardhearted cheapskates”. The UK response, with 20,000 in 5 years makes Ebeneezer Scrooge look generous.  Even the US is shown up by German actions as just one of the group of countries who speak highly about the value of compassion but fail to walk the talk.

The Guardian:

Germany could take 500,000 refugees each year for “several years”, the country’s vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, has said, as fresh clashes broke out overnight between police and refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos and thousands of people gathered amid chaotic scenes on the Greek border with Macedonia.

“I believe we could surely deal with something in the order of half a million for several years,” he told ZDF public television. “I have no doubt about that, maybe more.” Germany expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year, four times the total for 2014.

But this generosity is not entirely due to altruism.

In March this year I posted about a study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung which pointed out how Germany needed to have an immigration level of 500,000 per year till 2050 to overcome labour shortages and compensate for an ageing population. It pointed out that “efforts to attract skilled workers from non-EU countries should be intensified.”

The report also pointed out that it would be difficult to maintain the level of skilled immigration needed. It would seem that for Germany to be fairly generous with its approach to Syrian refugees is not just altruism but may well be in Germany’s self-interest. The Syrians generally have a much higher level of education and skills than is evident from refugees originating from Africa and those that stay in Germany may well be able to enter the productive work force much faster.

The Syrian refugees help solve a conundrum that was faced by Germany.

Zuwanderungsbedarf aus Drittstaaten in Deutschland bis 2050

Press Release: Without immigrants, the potential labor force would sink from approximately 45 million today to less than 29 million by 2050 – a decline of 36 percent. This gap cannot be closed without immigration. Even if women were to be employed at the same rate as men, and the retirement age was increased to 70 in 2035, the number of potential workers in the country would rise by only about 4.4 million.

In 2013, a total of 429,000 more people came to Germany than left the country. Last year, the net total was 470,000, the Federal Statistical Office reports. According to the study, net immigration at this level would be sufficient for at least the next 10 years to keep the country’s potential labor force at a constant level. From that time onward, however, the need for immigrants will grow, because the baby-boomer generation will be entering retirement. One out of two of today’s skilled workers with professional training will have left the working world by 2030. …

….. the current high levels of immigration from EU countries (2013: around 300,000) will soon decline significantly, as demographic change is shrinking populations across the European Union, and because incentives to emigrate in crisis-stricken countries will decline with economic recovery. The experts forecast an annual average of just 70,000 immigrants or fewer from EU counties by 2050. For this reason, efforts to attract skilled workers from non-EU countries should be intensified. …

But Angela Merkel is implementing today actions that will be needed by nearly all European countries suffering from a declining fertility and a rapidly ageing population. It is no accident that Germany is probably best placed in Europe to have a chance of maintaining the critical ratio of its working population to its supported population (under 15s and over 65s) beyond 2050.

I begin to see Angela Merkel as being much more long-sighted and much more of a visionary than I have ever given her credit for.

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Clinton – artificial, Trump – genuine?

September 8, 2015

Sanders has now gone ahead of Clinton in one poll. Donald Trump maintains his lead.

The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton’s strategists will now ensure that she shows “more humour and heart” and I wondered if this was not one of the key differences of perception between Trump and Clinton (and all other “conventional” politicians). Clinton and other politicians have strategists and aides who analyse and create an artificial persona that their principal is then supposed to put on show. The perception then is that whatever they say or do is then in support of this artificial persona, which has been calculated as being the most likely to gain voter support. With Trump however the perception is that you get to see the real Trump – warts and all. Real beats artificial.

Add to this the perception that Trump needs no funding from sponsors – looking for their pound of flesh – and is beholden to no one. I begin to think that what is driving the support for Trump is the voter fatigue with conventional politicians who are calculatedly artificial and who are in hock to their donors. Trump’s convictions are perceived to be real while those of others are seen to be “bought” and artificial.

Nobody doubts, even when Trump displays his ignorance in some areas – especially of foreign affairs – that he can always surround himself with knowledgeable people. And nobody doubts either that if he picks the wrong people, he knows how to fire them. It is his real track record being pitted against the implied erudition of others.

I see also that Paul Krugman is generally scornful of the economic policies of all the GOP candidates and especially those of Bush. In his latest column he puts Trump as the best of a bad lot. But one look at Trump’s real billions render all Krugman’s jargon and all his (failed) theories utterly toothless. In one phrase, Krugman basically stands for increased public spending. In fact, in a battle for minds between Trump’s real billions and Krugman’s artificial theories, the real billions on the bottom line carry much more credibility. Krugman stands for debt while Trump stands for real wealth.

If a perception that being “real” is what trumps being “artificial” is the theme now driving US voters, then Trump is going to be around for a long time yet. Conventional, artificial politicians (GOP and Democrat) are going to have a tough time against people fed-up with being sold made-up story lines.

NYT:  ……. In extensive interviews by telephone and at their Brooklyn headquarters last week, Mrs. Clinton’s strategists acknowledged missteps — such as their slow response to questions about her email practices — and promised that this fall the public would see the sides of Mrs. Clinton that are often obscured by the noise and distractions of modern campaigning. 

They want to show her humor. The self-effacing kind (“The hair is real, the color isn’t,” she said of her blond bob recently, taking note of Mr. Trump) has played better than her sarcastic retorts, such as when she asked if wiping a computer server was done “with a cloth.” …

They want to show her heart, like the time she comforted former drug addicts in a school meeting room in New Hampshire.

But the widespread presumption of Hillary Clinton as being untrustworthy, cold, calculating and not very effective (Libya) is firmly ingrained. To now try and show her as being a warm, funny, “nice” but efficient person is not going to fly.

Perhaps the paradigm shift in the 2016 election will be that “real” trumps “artificial”.

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Trump’s real appeal is that he is beholden to no one

August 26, 2015

The more people he upsets, the stronger becomes Donald Trump’s showing in the polls. He probably would not even deny that he is playing the role of “clown” in the political circus of the US Presidential election. Trying to analyse his appeal is confounding most of the pundits and the main-stream media are torn between wanting to ridicule him but knowing that his appeal feeds on being ridiculed by the “establishment”.

But I was struck by this analysis in Politico of liberals who see some good in Trump. The idea of Trump being influenced by campaign contributions is patently laughable. No one even thinks about criticising Trump for being beholden to anyone. Perhaps that is the real secret of his inexplicable appeal. He may be a clown but …… He says it like he sees it. He pays no attention to political correctness. He does not apologise. He cannot be bought. And, above all, he is beholden to no one.

Politico: Meet the Liberals who love Trump

It’s become fashionable on the left to sneer at the very sound of Donald Trump’s name; Bernie Sanders more or less captured the mood when he dismissed Trump as “an embarrassment” in a recent interview. But there is one contingent of liberals who take a very different view. They believe, cheerfully, that Trump is nothing less than the second coming—of campaign finance reform. …..

…. As pundits search for the source of Trump’s resilient appeal, reformers say they’ve long known the answer: the constant emphasis on how his staggering wealth immunizes him from insider influence. It has arguably now become the campaign’s most salient theme. “I don’t need anybody’s money. I’m using my own money,”  ………. Then came the debates, where Trump cleverly positioned satellite candidates around Planet Donald by recounting how he had purchased their fealty. “You know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given … a lot of money,” Trump said, adding, “I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.”

……… “That explains why there’s so much amazing support for Trump,” added Lessig (Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig). “Americans are willing to put up with his outrageous views because they look at this guy and say, Holy crap. Here it is. A politician not beholden to these crony funders. That’s the gift.”

The Republican nomination battle is already providing much more entertainment than I would have expected. And it is entirely due to Trump. Part of the appeal is that Trump is not even beholden to the Republican establishment. It is not inconceivable that he could dump them. I also see the Democrats regretting that they are stuck with the old, staid and boring figures of Clinton, Sanders and possibly Biden and Gore. They have nobody who compares in terms of outrageous charisma. Almost as if they are looking backwards while Trump charges towards some unknown, possibly dangerous, but brand new, playing field.

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Trump has more support on immigration than political correctness allows

August 19, 2015

Good clowns – in amongst their antics – have the ability to hit the right nerve, to trigger something primal in our emotions.

Donald Trump is no doubt a “clown”. The politically correct media and politicians are pouring scorn on his immigration positions. But he may be tapping in to something felt strongly by many but which they have been unable to express for fear of being politically incorrect. He may be reflecting the mood in the country – and not just among Republicans – far better than anybody dares to give him credit for:

Rasmussen Reports:

As far as voters are concerned – and not just Republicans –  Donald Trump has a winning formula for fighting illegal immigration.

My take aways from the report:

  1. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% of Likely Republican Voters agree with the GOP presidential hopeful that the United States should build a wall along the Mexican border to help stop illegal immigration.
  2. Ninety-two percent (92%) of Republicans agree that the United States should deport all illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a felony in this country.
  3. Among all likely voters, 51% favor building a wall on the border.
  4. Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters disagree with the current federal policy that says a child born to an illegal immigrant here is automatically a U.S. citizen.
  5. Just 34% favor President Obama’s plan to protect up to five million illegal immigrants from deportation.
  6. … most voters want the border with Mexico secured to prevent further illegal immigration before there is any talk of amnesty. In May, 63% said gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers already living in the United States, the highest level of support for border control since December 2011. 
  7. Sizable majorities in nearly all demographic categories favor deporting illegal immigrants convicted here of felony crimes. But Democrats are less enthusiastic about such a policy than Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party are. Only 30% of Democrats favor building a wall, compared to 57% of unaffiliated voters.
  8. Trump took a lot of criticism last month from Democrats and other Republican presidential hopefuls over his candid remarks about the criminality of many illegal immigrants, but most voters agree with Trump that illegal immigration increases serious crime in this country.

Trump’s Republican rivals are gradually realising that the agenda is being set by Trump.

I wonder how long it will be before the main stream media jump on the band-wagon. If they do start covering him more seriously and then perhaps even backing him, then my reading is that Trump could “go viral”  and walk away with the nomination.

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Isn’t it rich …..

August 18, 2015

The clowns have it so far.

Donald Trump is being taken as a “serious clown” and so is Jeremy Corbyn in the UK Labour party. Even the Democrats are beginning to realise that they need to lighten the staid, boring and almost too earnest bill of fare they have to offer. They need a clown.

In the US, Donald Trump is setting the agenda from the front and his act is beginning to attract even his rivals. Scott Walker and other Republicans are jumping on Trump’s immigration train (children of illegals born in the US should not have automatic citizenship and The Wall). Former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal have also hopped onto this train. Even the Washington Post is beginning to analyse Trump’s positions – as they gather flesh – a little more seriously.

In the UK Labour party leadership fight, Corbyn the clown is so far ahead that his nearest rival (also union supported), Andy Burnham, is now finding that he actually does not disagree with Corbyn all that much. It looks like the Unions will win and that the Labour party is starting down the road to oblivion.

But the Democrats are looking more jaded each day. Hilary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Al Gore are all coming off as “has-beens and past-its”. Sanders has tried to take on the mantle of a clown but does not quite make it. They desperately need someone to capture the Democratic imagination. Where are the clowns?

The Trump phenomenon continues and the latest Fox poll puts him at 25% and his nearest rival 13 points behind.

WaPo:

The ideas once languished at the edge of Republican politics, confined to think tanks and no-hope bills on Capitol Hill. To solve the problem of illegal immigration, truly drastic measures were necessary: Deport the undocumented en masse. Seize the money they try to send home. Deny citizenship to their U.S.-born children.

Now, all of those ideas have been embraced by Donald Trump, the front-runner in the Republican presidential race, who has followed up weeks of doomsaying about illegal immigrants with a call for an unprecedented crackdown.

On Monday, Trump’s hard turn was already influencing the rest of the GOP field. In Iowa, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also began to call for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, echoing a longtime Trump demand. Walker said the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territories is proof that the concept could work here.

Walker also seemed to echo Trump by questioning “birthright citizenship,” the constitutional provision that grants citizenship to anyone born in this country. After a reporter asked if birthright citizenship should be ended, Walker said: “I think that’s something we should — yeah, absolutely, going forward.”

The Hilary Clinton momentum is dissipating away with her e-mails. Even the rabidly supportive Huffington Post is getting concerned:

Things are getting weird when even Al Gore is thinking of getting into the Democratic presidential race, which is turning into a last hurrah for the Baby Boomers and their tad-older camp counselors.

Hillary Clinton, permanently punctilious, has done everything right: She put her HQ in Brooklyn, hired savvy digital/social/big data nerds, raised a ton of dough, gave substantive, well-thought-out speeches and flooded early primary and caucus states with organizers. She’s still the default bet for the Democratic nomination: national polls show her with a fat 36 percent lead.

And yet all is not well in Hillaryland. Polls also indicate that voters now view her as untrustworthy. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose DeLorean time machine is in overdrive, is drawing colossal crowds and, according to one poll, now leads the former secretary of state in New Hampshire. Vice President Joe Biden, who had previously said “no way,” is now sounding serious about jumping in. So, we are told, is Gore, who was warning of environmental doom as far back as the ‘60s.

Meanwhile the Guardian reports:

Andy Burnham has made an explicit plea to anyone thinking of voting for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader to pick him instead for what he described as “the worst job in politics”, saying there was “a good deal of common ground” between him and the veteran leftwinger.

Sondheim again –

 Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.

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