No center
How do you explain Jim Webb dropping out of the primary, Joe Biden opting not to run, and Paul Ryan wrangling with the Freedom Caucus over whether they’d demand his ouster as speaker of the House? In the U.S., centrist politics have become an anachronism. Via The New Yorker.
Good Biden
The Clinton camp is breathing a sigh of relief after Joe Biden gave up on a decades-long dream and announced he’s not running for President. Why? Not enough time for a credible campaign and grief for his recently deceased son. Via The Washington Post.
True form
“In true Joe Biden form, the entire enterprise was always a little haphazard,” write Edward-Isaac Dover and Glenn Thrush in Politico, as they look at the vice-president’s final moments of deliberation.
Benghazi blues
The Clinton camp is nervous. Today, she faces a long-awaited grilling from the Benghazi committee. Democrats say the committee is playing dirty politics; Republicans say how she handled Benghazi is a critical international issue that needs investigating. Via The New York Times.
Reading emails
Clinton has released over 12,000 of 62,000 emails from her private server. She deleted over half. In Politico, Michael Krause answers “What 12,000 emails tell us about being Hillary Clinton.” He writes, “…in the emails are glimpses of Clinton, this baby boomer, this Methodist Midwesterner, this former first lady, U.S. senator and top diplomat, this wife of more than 40 years and mother for more than 30.”
Got backed
Rep. Paul Ryan has his party’s support to be the next speaker of the House. Even the majority of the volatile Freedom Caucus wants him. But can he get the promise he’s asked for that his party won’t start throwing bombs once he’s sworn in? Via The New York Times.
The story
Here’s how Ryan made his decision and what it means for the Republican Party, according to The National Review.
Brain freeze
Ben Carson’s beating Donald Trump in an Iowa poll. Via Politico.
Photo credit: Eddy Van 3000, Creative Commons, Flickr.
there is a “center”…well, kinda…the center is US…we are still not going to go to the Dark Side…the gop has that one…the gop has killed off any semblance of center politics…so, now, anything the Democrats propose “seems” extreme left…but it isn’t…the gop has left the planet and are not coming back…they are the party that Osama Bin Laden built…based on fear and lies…that is the modern Republican Party…