A personal observation about Biden's fundraising...

In 2016, the big dollar donors that I engage with maxed out to Clinton on the day she announced, as did my wife and I. This time, most of them have left their wallets closed (other than some marginal contributions to help candidates get on the debate stage) waiting for the field to clear out. None of my friends have hosted a Biden event or invited me to one. What that says though, is that Biden is not seen as the "obvious" establishment choice.

Biden is focusing his fundraising on high dollar donors while focusing on traditional bulking up on paid staffers. The problem is that he's drawing from a small pool of high dollar donors, which are likely already maxed out at this point.If he can't show more success in polling, or small dollar fundraising, he may be in serious trouble going in to the new year.

Matt Orfalea: "THEY are out to get me..."

Wayne Messam raised $5 this quarter for presidential run (no, that's not a typo)

Candidate Cash on Hand (as of September 30)

Bernie Sanders $33.7
Elizabeth Warren 25.7
Pete Buttigieg 23.4
Kamala Harris 10.5
Joseph R. Biden Jr. 9.0
Andrew Yang 6.4
Cory Booker 4.2
Amy Klobuchar 3.7
Beto O’Rourke 3.3
Tom Steyer 2.6
Tulsi Gabbard 2.1
Michael Bennet 1.9
Steve Bullock 1.4
Marianne Williamson 0.7
Julián Castro 0.7
John Delaney 0.5
Joe Sestak 0.2
Tim Ryan 0.2

Democrats Should Remember How Obama Won Ohio

Ex-Aide Saw Gordon Sondland as a Potential National Security Risk

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — A former top White House foreign policy adviser told House impeachment investigators this week that she viewed Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, as a potential national security risk because he was so unprepared for his job, according to two people familiar with her private testimony.

The adviser, Fiona Hill, did not accuse Mr. Sondland of acting maliciously or intentionally putting the country at risk. But she described Mr. Sondland, a hotelier and Trump donor-turned-ambassador, as metaphorically driving in an unfamiliar place with no guardrails and no GPS, according to the people, who were not authorized to publicly discuss a deposition that took place behind closed doors.

Ms. Hill, the former senior director for European and Russian affairs at the White House, also said that she raised her concerns with intelligence officials inside the White House, one of the people said.

Mr. Sondland’s lawyer declined to comment.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/gordon-sondland-intelligence-risk.html

"More of a terrorist threat than ISIS"

When was the last time you paid more than you had to for airline tickets?

Several threads are going around about Warren being unwilling to say that taxes would go up to support MfA, and saying that Democrats should endorse a tax rise while pointing out that total out of pocket costs would go down. Let me offer an analogy to explain why this won't work.

Older travelers will fondly recall the "golden age of air travel" with spacious seating (including lounges), free meals and drinks and generous luggage allowances. What they tend to forget is that ticket prices (regulated by the Government) were substantially higher than they are today.

When airlines were deregulated prices became market based and dropped significantly. Airlines then compensated by squeezing in more passengers, charging $25-50 for each piece of luggage, and introducing buy on board food. Whenever an airline attempted to charge more for more services (setting aside First Class and Business Class) the plan inevitable failed, because the only thing passengers responded to was the ticket cost. They never calculated the total trip costs (luggage, seat choice, food and drinks) to see what the difference would be.

That's the situation we are in with MfA. People respond to tax rates, partly because it's tangible (you fill lout a form and see the numbers). The notion that a tax increase would result in lower non-tax expenses doesn't work. First, many people don't trust the competence of the Government to implement a plan (reminder: the people you're trying to win over aren't currently in Medicare, so they don't have an opinion as to how it works). Second, the elimination of employer-funded insurance plans doesn't automatically result in an income transfer to the employee, so there's no assurance that their income will go up. Third, the assumption that MfA is a truly single-payer program that covers ALL doctor visits is not proven (Co-pays serve as a friction charge to prevent frivilous visits).

Trump Is Winning the Online War

Trump's new excuse: "Kurds are not Angels"