Y’know the character “Pigpen” in Peanuts? What if instead of dust and dirt we shed beauty, kindness and light on those around us? What do you need to tend in your life to able to shine?
A new Boston Globe/WBZ-TV/Suffolk University poll of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters finds Bernie Sanders leads with 24%, followed by Joe Biden at 18%, Elizabeth Warren at 13% and Pete Buttigieg at 11%. The rest of the field was in single digits.
Signing off for the night. Maybe I will read a bit more of The Mouse That Roared before I conk out. Introductory printmaking class tomorrow. I have been having some fun researching the Provincetown white-line blockprint style and may carry on with it on my own.
We have accommodations that can host visitors to Ashantilly from time to time. This is a good precis of the experience: https://itinerantprinter.com/2015/07/26/ashantilly-press-darien-ga/
NYT: A Systemwide Disaster’: How the Iowa Caucuses Melted Down [Click] As I suspected: they didn’t hold any drills. Were they born stupid, or did they have to take pills? But the state as a whole voted for Trump in 2016, so that may tell us something. (OK, that’s unkind—but a basic level of competence should be expected, and they didn’t exhibit it.)
The app wasn’t ready in time to test it first. The raw data is fine; it’s a coding error.
Believe me, this stuff happens. Wil writes software that runs programs which manage billing data for hospitals and doctors’ offices. If one character in the software program is incorrect, the data may be sent to the wrong line, or it might make more than one file for the same patient, etc. The “go live” events are potentially pressure packed, if anything is amiss. But testing is his specialty, so issues don’t happen often or last long. You can’t be holding up the computers of a hospital or doctor’s office long! This app fix is taking way too long. Clearly it wasn’t ready. They could have tested it at least a little in advance.
The application evidently wasn't even included in the precinct captains' training. And their backup systems couldn't cope. Testing the backup system(s) is an important part of a good drill for such things. I remember the drills for mass casualty events at the Level One trauma center where I worked; they did not depend on computers working, they did not depend on personnel having full color vision, they did not depend on all personnel being literate in English, they did not depend on the electrical utilities, telephones, etc. The casualties were triaged so no facility would be overwhelmed. There were regularly scheduled drills, and every new hire was taught about it during orientation. Granted that is an extreme example, but the Iowa Democratic Party could have done SOME of the same things. They shouldn't have been set back more than an hour or at most two IMHO.
Headlines re Iowa Democratic primary in The Atlantic. [Click]
Iowa’s Caucus Debacle Is More Than a Tech Problem A botched app didn’t solve much, but it did reveal a lot.
Iowa Forgot the Whole Point of the Caucus
The Audacity of Pete “…despite all the attention paid to his candidacy, people still miss how aggressive Buttigieg is.
Who Needs the Russians?
Chaos at the Caucus Could it have gone much worse?
And now to finish pruning the old peach tree in the back yard. Frost this morning; there has been a cold (by our standards) wind much of the time since a cold front came through night before last--or was it the day before that?
4:39: The Iowa Democratic Party's web site briefly shows results for 1099 precincts, but then apparently crashed before I could see more than the alphabetically top few results. Only thing I noticed for sure was that Klobachar wasn't doing particularly well.
5:05 pm: ABC news is reporting Mayor Pete with 27%, Bernie with 25%, Warren 18%, Biden 16%, and Klobuchar with 13%. Now off to the Disability Pride Parade Planning Committee meeting.
Oops! Sorry, guess I should have formatted that in Notepad. Can everybody grok?
I must say, Biden's numbers warm the cockles of my heart. But, how the hell is Buttigieg doing so well? Ahead of Bernie! I'm still leaning towards malice.
Agree, I don't trust MayoPete at all, and reading his team donated to the tech group that manufactured this FUBAR doesn't help. There is no way in hell he is more popular than Bernie! No. Way.
Yesterday's reports from the caucuses said that Buttigieg profited considerably from second choices of the minor candidates' supporters. And I should expect that with 38% of caucuses not yet reporting, there might be significant shifts to come, particularly if small caucuses are more likely to be tallied at this point in time.
Re Biden's numbers, I dare say that his rallying cry "I'm the most electable!" has had its day. And remember that towards the end he robbed his organizations and advertising budgets in other states (New Hampshire comes immediately to mind) to fund his Iowa effort. I hand it to Buttigieg for playing the "Declare victory and get out" card better than anyone else.
Looking at the difference in first and final stands, it seems clear the Biden was nonviable in far more caucuses than expected. And his supporters, as well as Klobuchars when she was not viable, mostly went to Butiegieg.
The big questions now are whether the Iowa results will give Butiegieg the major bump he needs in post-New Hampshire states and whether the South Carolina firewall will be able to save Biden.
P.S.: NHK (Japan's national broadcaster) reported just a little while ago that 60% of caucuses had been tallied, and the results at that point. Iowa is WORLD news. (Including the vote count screw-up, I am sure.)
Bernie's people have released their numbers gleaned from checking a cross section of about 40% of Iowa's caucuses. I posted it out front just now. Have a look. Bodes well.
If you look at the first-alignment vote in Iowa — the closest thing to an actual statewide vote, as Kyle Kondik points out — you see an almost even divide between center-left and left:
If the Dems don't nominate Bernie or Warren, it would be nice if I could vote for Vermin Supreme. (Although I can't imagine what I could do with the pony...)
Not sure everyone would be able to access this,so reprinting:
Brexit’s Passport to Nowhere By Rebecca Mead February 3, 2020
My British passport, which was issued in 2011, has on its burgundy cover an image of the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, incorporating a lion and a unicorn, along with these words lettered in gold: “European Union/United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” My son’s British passport, which was issued last September, is the same color and bears the same crest but has different lettering. On his, the words “European Union” have vanished, the severing of ties to Europe having begun even before the U.K. officially departed the E.U., as it did at 11 p.m. on Friday, January 31st. Last August, Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, tweeted an image of himself holding aloft his new, non-E.U.-marked passport, along with the triumphal words “We got our passports back!” By the time I apply for my passport to be renewed, next year, another design change will have been made. My new passport will be blue, as British passports were until 1988, when the burgundy cover was introduced to conform with those of almost every other member country of the E.U.
The reintroduction of the blue passport, which was announced in 2017 but has only recently come into effect, has been greeted by Brexiteers as a welcome restoration and a powerful symbol. The Sun newspaper, a right-wing tabloid, had joined with others to champion its return by campaigning outside Westminster with a blue passport the size of a billboard. Theresa May, then Prime Minister, tweeted that the “iconic” color would return, calling the U.K. passport “an expression of our independence and sovereignty—symbolizing our citizenship of a proud, great nation.” Never mind that the royal crest on the passport bears two French phrases—“honi soit qui mal y pense” (“shamed be he who thinks evil of it”) and “Dieu et mon droit” (“God and my right”)—relics of a time when the King of England also laid claim to the French crown, and evidence of the mutable character of sovereignty. For those Britons who opposed the Brexit vote, the symbolism of the blue passport is somewhat different: it’s a stark reminder that they and their children have been deprived of European citizenship. Britons no longer have the right to live, work, and study in any of the countries of the European Union. Nor will Britain be so easily enriched by the many hopeful Europeans who made their homes in what they believed was a welcoming country.
On Friday evening, only a few hours before the 11 p.m. deadline, I used my passport to leave the U.K. as a citizen of the E.U. for the last time. Gatwick Airport, with its bustle and commerce, hardly offers the most elevated environment for what felt like such a momentous transition: with travellers navigating between newsagents and Pret-A-Manger outlets while scanning the departures board for gate information, the place has only slightly more glamour and resonance than the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Still, that’s its virtue: principally serving continental Europe, Gatwick is both an international airport and a regional one, filled with travellers who are accustomed—whether through work, education, or leisure pursuits—to regard not just their native country but all of Europe as their rightful home. Standing in line to hand my passport over to the flight attendant before boarding my flight, I noticed that most of my fellow-travellers held burgundy passports—though whether they were British, Spanish, French, or Dutch, I couldn’t have determined without snooping. For now, nothing much will change, practically speaking, for British passport holders coming in and out of the E.U.; until the end of an eleven-month transition period, holders of U.K. passports, burgundy or blue, will continue to join the E.U. line at passport control. Still, the change has happened, whether it’s palpable or not. On Friday night, for the last time, we were all just Europeans.
In the thousand three hundred and seventeen days that passed between the Brexit referendum and Friday the 31st of January, more than three hundred and fifty thousand Britons sought to confirm their identities as Europeans in the most practical way: by applying for citizenship in one of the twenty-seven countries that remain in the E.U., on grounds of either residency or descent. The number of Britons applying for an Irish passport for the first time ballooned from just over seven thousand in 2015, before the referendum, to almost fifty-five thousand in 2019. It’s sometimes argued that because Britain is an island nation, decisively separated from continental Europe by the English Channel, its attachment to the European project must always have been fatally compromised. This argument ignores the fact that Ireland manages to fully embrace its European identity despite being an island nation decisively separated from continental Europe by the Irish Sea, the landmass of Britain, and the English Channel. Brexit is Britain’s choice, but it was not necessarily Britain’s destiny.
With the withdrawal from the E.U. finally enacted, the many social and economic consequences of the Brexit vote will now begin to unfold as reality rather than promise or threat. One early casualty of the Brexit decision has been De La Rue, a specialist printing company established almost two hundred years ago. De La Rue—named for its founder, Thomas de la Rue, a printer originally from Guernsey, in the Channel Islands—has printed British passports for decades. In 2018, however, the company lost out on a contract to print the new blue passports, worth six hundred and thirty-six million dollars. Rather than being printed in Britain, the blue passports are being manufactured by Gemalto, a Franco-Dutch company. De La Rue’s profits have collapsed; its C.E.O. has resigned, and the company has warned that it may not survive. Our new blue passports, it turns out, are not quite symbols of British sovereignty or of Britain’s status as a proud, great nation. Rather, they are evidence of the pragmatic and sometimes harsh realities of conducting business in a global marketplace. They are also a reminder of the necessary humility with which Britain as a nation—no less than its citizens as individuals—must find a new, post-Brexit identity.
Rebecca Mead joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 1997. She is the author of, most recently, “My Life in Middlemarch.”
The disunification of the UK seems a very real possibility. I just can't see any significant good coming out of Brexit. The UK's major political parties (just like the major parties in France, Germany, the US etc.) seem no longer fit for purpose. I have my hopes that the Democratic Party in the US is reinventing itself in response to the demands of the times--better late than never (I hope).
Biden’s Poor Showing In Iowa Shakes Establishment By Taegan Goddard
“Joe Biden’s third presidential bid enters a critical stretch after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses sent the former vice president on to New Hampshire with a skittish donor base, low cash reserves and the looming threat of billionaire rival Michael Bloomberg and his unlimited personal wealth,” the AP reports. [Click]
“That leaves some establishment Democrats, including some Biden supporters, questioning his contention that he’ll reclaim clear front-runner status in the race against President Trump once the primary fight moves beyond overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire to more racially diverse electorates. And it’s a reminder of how Biden’s previous presidential campaigns never advanced beyond Iowa.”
Interestingly, early this afternoon Sis told me, rather timidly, that she and Mum had discussed it and decided both to vote for Biden. She couldn't give me any actual reason, just some extremely vague generalities. This is the interesting part: Later in the afternoon, when it had become clear that Biden had bombed in Iowa and Buttigieg's star seemed to be rising again, she opined that she might vote for Buttigieg after all. Talk about fickle! Well, I guess one less vote for Biden is a good thing.
Did you all hear that Phil*in*Iowa was a dedicated and experienced Caucus Chair and on his way to his caucus last night he fell on ice and ended up in the hospital instead!? 😣 I am aware of a leg injury, and hope it wasn't also a head injury.
The Democratic National Committee is taking an increasingly active role in the process of tracking down the data from the nearly 1,700 caucus sites across Iowa, including checking data sent to the Iowa Democratic Party via their failed app, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
A team of roughly a dozen party officials are currently in Iowa working with the state party to report out the results of last night’s caucuses, which were delayed due to widespread reporting issues between the Iowa precincts and the Iowa Democratic Party.
The team from the DNC includes staffers tracking online disinformation, we well as data and communications staff, one source said. DNC Chair Tom Perez is not in Iowa, according to a DNC aide, but has been getting updates from the team of the ground.
The DNC officials are also chasing down data from individual caucus chairs from precincts across the state, hoping to track down precincts that had not reported their results.
A spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party said that the DNC was “chasing precinct results,” something that they described as “something that happens after every caucus.”
This caucus was unlike any other, though, and there are likely more precincts to chase down this cycle because both the app failed and the phone line that that was supposed to allow caucus chairs to report data was overrun.
At the end of President Trump’s State of the Union address, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood up and ripped a copy of the speech in half and threw it on the desk.
Mike Bloomberg campaigned in Fresno on Monday on his record as former mayor of New York, saying he will stand up to the “bully” President Donald Trump and work to “get it done.”
Bloomberg stumped on issues such as gun violence, climate change, education and discrimination at his “Ganamos con Mike” (Let’s win with Mike) event.
“Central Valley issues are Latino issues, and Latino issues are American issues,” he said.
Bloomberg is on a three-city California swing, starting in Sacramento and finishing in Compton. He spoke at Fresno City College before noon on a sunny but chilly day to a crowd of a couple hundred people. He was flanked by the mayors of San Jose, Stockton and the former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa.
By way of comparison, when Bernie spoke at Fresno City College a while back the crowd was (my estimate, based on measurement of the area and an assumption of four square feet per person) at least 5,000 and perhaps as many as 6,000.
Elizabeth Bruenig: The Center Cannot Hold [Click] A good example of the right-wing “Democrats’” bizarre world, where they constitute the center of the party. Some interesting stuff, but it sure is hard for me to read. Courtesy of the NYT.
2020 [Two] Democratic Host Committee [Officials] Under Investigation [Click]
ReplyDeleteA new Boston Globe/WBZ-TV/Suffolk University poll of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters finds Bernie Sanders leads with 24%, followed by Joe Biden at 18%, Elizabeth Warren at 13% and Pete Buttigieg at 11%. The rest of the field was in single digits.
Signing off for the night. Maybe I will read a bit more of The Mouse That Roared before I conk out. Introductory printmaking class tomorrow. I have been having some fun researching the Provincetown white-line blockprint style and may carry on with it on my own.
DeleteVery cool about your class!
DeleteWe have accommodations that can host visitors to Ashantilly from time to time. This is a good precis of the experience:
Deletehttps://itinerantprinter.com/2015/07/26/ashantilly-press-darien-ga/
NYT: A Systemwide Disaster’: How the Iowa Caucuses Melted Down [Click] As I suspected: they didn’t hold any drills. Were they born stupid, or did they have to take pills? But the state as a whole voted for Trump in 2016, so that may tell us something. (OK, that’s unkind—but a basic level of competence should be expected, and they didn’t exhibit it.)
ReplyDeleteThe app wasn’t ready in time to test it first.
DeleteThe raw data is fine; it’s a coding error.
Believe me, this stuff happens. Wil writes software that runs programs which manage billing data for hospitals and doctors’ offices. If one character in the software program is incorrect, the data may be sent to the wrong line, or it might make more than one file for the same patient, etc. The “go live” events are potentially pressure packed, if anything is amiss. But testing is his specialty, so issues don’t happen often or last long. You can’t be holding up the computers of a hospital or doctor’s office long!
This app fix is taking way too long. Clearly it wasn’t ready. They could have tested it at least a little in advance.
The application evidently wasn't even included in the precinct captains' training. And their backup systems couldn't cope. Testing the backup system(s) is an important part of a good drill for such things. I remember the drills for mass casualty events at the Level One trauma center where I worked; they did not depend on computers working, they did not depend on personnel having full color vision, they did not depend on all personnel being literate in English, they did not depend on the electrical utilities, telephones, etc. The casualties were triaged so no facility would be overwhelmed. There were regularly scheduled drills, and every new hire was taught about it during orientation. Granted that is an extreme example, but the Iowa Democratic Party could have done SOME of the same things. They shouldn't have been set back more than an hour or at most two IMHO.
DeleteI just checked Google. as of 2:27 PM EST, 0 precincts were reporting.
ReplyDeleteI still think it's a setup to keep Bernie from winning. *shrug* Just call me cynical.
Delete"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
Delete:D True enough.
DeleteOn a seasonal and better note, here is Chunk the Groundhog [Click] and his sweetie and his host.
ReplyDeleteThe Only Safe Election Is a Low-Tech Election [Click] Ayup.
ReplyDeleteHeadlines re Iowa Democratic primary in The Atlantic. [Click]
ReplyDeleteIowa’s Caucus Debacle Is More Than a Tech Problem A botched app didn’t solve much, but it did reveal a lot.
Iowa Forgot the Whole Point of the Caucus
The Audacity of Pete “…despite all the attention paid to his candidacy, people still miss how aggressive Buttigieg is.
Who Needs the Russians?
Chaos at the Caucus Could it have gone much worse?
And now to finish pruning the old peach tree in the back yard. Frost this morning; there has been a cold (by our standards) wind much of the time since a cold front came through night before last--or was it the day before that?
4:39: The Iowa Democratic Party's web site briefly shows results for 1099 precincts, but then apparently crashed before I could see more than the alphabetically top few results. Only thing I noticed for sure was that Klobachar wasn't doing particularly well.
ReplyDelete5:05 pm: ABC news is reporting Mayor Pete with 27%, Bernie with 25%, Warren 18%, Biden 16%, and Klobuchar with 13%. Now off to the Disability Pride Parade Planning Committee meeting.
ReplyDeletefrom Google:
ReplyDeleteUpdated at 6:07 PM EST
Democratic
Republican
62% reporting
Votes
Candidate
Delegates Percent Count
Pete Buttigieg
10 26.9% 363
Bernie Sanders
10 25.1% 338
Elizabeth Warren
4 18.3% 246
Joe Biden
0 15.6% 210
Oops! Sorry, guess I should have formatted that in Notepad. Can everybody grok?
DeleteI must say, Biden's numbers warm the cockles of my heart. But, how the hell is Buttigieg doing so well? Ahead of Bernie! I'm still leaning towards malice.
Agree, I don't trust MayoPete at all, and reading his team donated to the tech group that manufactured this FUBAR doesn't help. There is no way in hell he is more popular than Bernie! No. Way.
DeleteGroking just fine here, Cat; thank you.
ReplyDeleteYesterday's reports from the caucuses said that Buttigieg profited considerably from second choices of the minor candidates' supporters. And I should expect that with 38% of caucuses not yet reporting, there might be significant shifts to come, particularly if small caucuses are more likely to be tallied at this point in time.
Re Biden's numbers, I dare say that his rallying cry "I'm the most electable!" has had its day. And remember that towards the end he robbed his organizations and advertising budgets in other states (New Hampshire comes immediately to mind) to fund his Iowa effort. I hand it to Buttigieg for playing the "Declare victory and get out" card better than anyone else.
Looking at the difference in first and final stands, it seems clear the Biden was nonviable in far more caucuses than expected. And his supporters, as well as Klobuchars when she was not viable, mostly went to Butiegieg.
DeleteThe big questions now are whether the Iowa results will give Butiegieg the major bump he needs in post-New Hampshire states and whether the South Carolina firewall will be able to save Biden.
The Des Moines Register’s map of preliminary returns by county [Click] seems to map pretty well with Wikipedia’s map of Iowa population densities. [Click]
ReplyDeleteP.S.: NHK (Japan's national broadcaster) reported just a little while ago that 60% of caucuses had been tallied, and the results at that point. Iowa is WORLD news. (Including the vote count screw-up, I am sure.)
Google is still showing 62%. I reloaded several times in disbelief, but there it is.
DeleteBernie's people have released their numbers gleaned from checking a cross section of about 40% of Iowa's caucuses. I posted it out front just now. Have a look. Bodes well.
DeleteCat--I find it hard to believe also.
Deletelistener--Thanks; that is far more informative than the tidbit I was about to post.
Pete Buttigieg . . . . 363 . . 26.9% . . 10
ReplyDeleteBernie Sanders . . . 338 . . 25.1%. . . 10
Elizabeth Warren. . 246 . . 18.3% . . . 4
Joe Biden . . . . . . . 210 . . 15.6% . . . . 0
Amy Klobuchar . . . 170 . . 12.6%. . . . 0
Andrew Yang. . . . . . 14 . . . 1.0%. . . . 0
Tom Steyer . . . . . . . . 4 . . . 0.3% . . . 0
Uncommitted. . . . . . . 2 . . . 0.1% . . . 0
0% for the rest:
Michael Bennet
Michael Bloomberg
John Delaney
Tulsi Gabbard
Other
Deval Patrick
^ That's from CNN
DeleteThe last number in the row is the delegate count.
Bernie leads in the popular vote (see out front).
From politicalwire.com:
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the first-alignment vote in Iowa — the closest thing to an actual statewide vote, as Kyle Kondik points out — you see an almost even divide between center-left and left:
Klobuchar + Biden + Buttigieg = 50.1%
Sanders + Warren + Yang = 49.9%
BTW, we received our California ballots today; I will mark and sign mine this evening, and mail it tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHigh Five, Alan!! 🖐
DeleteNumbers of presidential candidates on the primary ballots in California:
DeleteAmerican Independent: 5
Democratic: 20
Green: 5
Libertarian: 13 [Including Vermin Supreme!]
Peace & Freedom: 2
Republican: 7
(It is easy to tally them because we received a consolidated voters' pamphlet with copies of all the ballots.)
If the Dems don't nominate Bernie or Warren, it would be nice if I could vote for Vermin Supreme. (Although I can't imagine what I could do with the pony...)
DeleteWe received our Massachusetts ballots today. Will mark tomorrow and mail tomorrow or the next day.
DeleteVery good!
DeleteNot sure everyone would be able to access this,so reprinting:
ReplyDeleteBrexit’s Passport to Nowhere
By Rebecca Mead
February 3, 2020
My British passport, which was issued in 2011, has on its burgundy cover an image of the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, incorporating a lion and a unicorn, along with these words lettered in gold: “European Union/United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” My son’s British passport, which was issued last September, is the same color and bears the same crest but has different lettering. On his, the words “European Union” have vanished, the severing of ties to Europe having begun even before the U.K. officially departed the E.U., as it did at 11 p.m. on Friday, January 31st. Last August, Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, tweeted an image of himself holding aloft his new, non-E.U.-marked passport, along with the triumphal words “We got our passports back!” By the time I apply for my passport to be renewed, next year, another design change will have been made. My new passport will be blue, as British passports were until 1988, when the burgundy cover was introduced to conform with those of almost every other member country of the E.U.
The reintroduction of the blue passport, which was announced in 2017 but has only recently come into effect, has been greeted by Brexiteers as a welcome restoration and a powerful symbol. The Sun newspaper, a right-wing tabloid, had joined with others to champion its return by campaigning outside Westminster with a blue passport the size of a billboard. Theresa May, then Prime Minister, tweeted that the “iconic” color would return, calling the U.K. passport “an expression of our independence and sovereignty—symbolizing our citizenship of a proud, great nation.” Never mind that the royal crest on the passport bears two French phrases—“honi soit qui mal y pense” (“shamed be he who thinks evil of it”) and “Dieu et mon droit” (“God and my right”)—relics of a time when the King of England also laid claim to the French crown, and evidence of the mutable character of sovereignty. For those Britons who opposed the Brexit vote, the symbolism of the blue passport is somewhat different: it’s a stark reminder that they and their children have been deprived of European citizenship. Britons no longer have the right to live, work, and study in any of the countries of the European Union. Nor will Britain be so easily enriched by the many hopeful Europeans who made their homes in what they believed was a welcoming country.
On Friday evening, only a few hours before the 11 p.m. deadline, I used my passport to leave the U.K. as a citizen of the E.U. for the last time. Gatwick Airport, with its bustle and commerce, hardly offers the most elevated environment for what felt like such a momentous transition: with travellers navigating between newsagents and Pret-A-Manger outlets while scanning the departures board for gate information, the place has only slightly more glamour and resonance than the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Still, that’s its virtue: principally serving continental Europe, Gatwick is both an international airport and a regional one, filled with travellers who are accustomed—whether through work, education, or leisure pursuits—to regard not just their native country but all of Europe as their rightful home. Standing in line to hand my passport over to the flight attendant before boarding my flight, I noticed that most of my fellow-travellers held burgundy passports—though whether they were British, Spanish, French, or Dutch, I couldn’t have determined without snooping. For now, nothing much will change, practically speaking, for British passport holders coming in and out of the E.U.; until the end of an eleven-month transition period, holders of U.K. passports, burgundy or blue, will continue to join the E.U. line at passport control. Still, the change has happened, whether it’s palpable or not. On Friday night, for the last time, we were all just Europeans.
[to be continued]
In the thousand three hundred and seventeen days that passed between the Brexit referendum and Friday the 31st of January, more than three hundred and fifty thousand Britons sought to confirm their identities as Europeans in the most practical way: by applying for citizenship in one of the twenty-seven countries that remain in the E.U., on grounds of either residency or descent. The number of Britons applying for an Irish passport for the first time ballooned from just over seven thousand in 2015, before the referendum, to almost fifty-five thousand in 2019. It’s sometimes argued that because Britain is an island nation, decisively separated from continental Europe by the English Channel, its attachment to the European project must always have been fatally compromised. This argument ignores the fact that Ireland manages to fully embrace its European identity despite being an island nation decisively separated from continental Europe by the Irish Sea, the landmass of Britain, and the English Channel. Brexit is Britain’s choice, but it was not necessarily Britain’s destiny.
DeleteWith the withdrawal from the E.U. finally enacted, the many social and economic consequences of the Brexit vote will now begin to unfold as reality rather than promise or threat. One early casualty of the Brexit decision has been De La Rue, a specialist printing company established almost two hundred years ago. De La Rue—named for its founder, Thomas de la Rue, a printer originally from Guernsey, in the Channel Islands—has printed British passports for decades. In 2018, however, the company lost out on a contract to print the new blue passports, worth six hundred and thirty-six million dollars. Rather than being printed in Britain, the blue passports are being manufactured by Gemalto, a Franco-Dutch company. De La Rue’s profits have collapsed; its C.E.O. has resigned, and the company has warned that it may not survive. Our new blue passports, it turns out, are not quite symbols of British sovereignty or of Britain’s status as a proud, great nation. Rather, they are evidence of the pragmatic and sometimes harsh realities of conducting business in a global marketplace. They are also a reminder of the necessary humility with which Britain as a nation—no less than its citizens as individuals—must find a new, post-Brexit identity.
Rebecca Mead joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 1997. She is the author of, most recently, “My Life in Middlemarch.”
The disunification of the UK seems a very real possibility. I just can't see any significant good coming out of Brexit. The UK's major political parties (just like the major parties in France, Germany, the US etc.) seem no longer fit for purpose. I have my hopes that the Democratic Party in the US is reinventing itself in response to the demands of the times--better late than never (I hope).
DeleteSorry to butt in, Cat.
ReplyDeleteBiden’s Poor Showing In Iowa Shakes Establishment
By Taegan Goddard
“Joe Biden’s third presidential bid enters a critical stretch after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses sent the former vice president on to New Hampshire with a skittish donor base, low cash reserves and the looming threat of billionaire rival Michael Bloomberg and his unlimited personal wealth,” the AP reports. [Click]
“That leaves some establishment Democrats, including some Biden supporters, questioning his contention that he’ll reclaim clear front-runner status in the race against President Trump once the primary fight moves beyond overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire to more racially diverse electorates. And it’s a reminder of how Biden’s previous presidential campaigns never advanced beyond Iowa.”
Wakey, wakey!
Interestingly, early this afternoon Sis told me, rather timidly, that she and Mum had discussed it and decided both to vote for Biden. She couldn't give me any actual reason, just some extremely vague generalities. This is the interesting part: Later in the afternoon, when it had become clear that Biden had bombed in Iowa and Buttigieg's star seemed to be rising again, she opined that she might vote for Buttigieg after all. Talk about fickle! Well, I guess one less vote for Biden is a good thing.
DeleteDid you all hear that Phil*in*Iowa was a dedicated and experienced Caucus Chair and on his way to his caucus last night he fell on ice and ended up in the hospital instead!? 😣 I am aware of a leg injury, and hope it wasn't also a head injury.
ReplyDeleteNo! Hadn't heard that. Can we send him good wishes, for old times' sake?
DeleteYikes! I hope he is okay.
DeleteDefinitely sending him good wishes!
DeleteFrom CNN:
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic National Committee is taking an increasingly active role in the process of tracking down the data from the nearly 1,700 caucus sites across Iowa, including checking data sent to the Iowa Democratic Party via their failed app, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
A team of roughly a dozen party officials are currently in Iowa working with the state party to report out the results of last night’s caucuses, which were delayed due to widespread reporting issues between the Iowa precincts and the Iowa Democratic Party.
The team from the DNC includes staffers tracking online disinformation, we well as data and communications staff, one source said. DNC Chair Tom Perez is not in Iowa, according to a DNC aide, but has been getting updates from the team of the ground.
The DNC officials are also chasing down data from individual caucus chairs from precincts across the state, hoping to track down precincts that had not reported their results.
A spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party said that the DNC was “chasing precinct results,” something that they described as “something that happens after every caucus.”
This caucus was unlike any other, though, and there are likely more precincts to chase down this cycle because both the app failed and the phone line that that was supposed to allow caucus chairs to report data was overrun.
I read that many of the urban caucuses had not yet been tallied; I expect those will lean Bernie.
DeleteMfume wins Democratic primary for Elijah Cummings' seat [Click]
ReplyDeleteAt the end of President Trump’s State of the Union address, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood up and ripped a copy of the speech in half and threw it on the desk.
ReplyDeleteOuch.
WOW! Can we give her a medal or something?
DeleteWhy Are President Trump’s Poll Numbers Going Up? [Click] Reasonable speculation.
ReplyDeleteMike Bloomberg campaigned in Fresno on Monday on his record as former mayor of New York, saying he will stand up to the “bully” President Donald Trump and work to “get it done.”
ReplyDeleteBloomberg stumped on issues such as gun violence, climate change, education and discrimination at his “Ganamos con Mike” (Let’s win with Mike) event.
“Central Valley issues are Latino issues, and Latino issues are American issues,” he said.
Bloomberg is on a three-city California swing, starting in Sacramento and finishing in Compton. He spoke at Fresno City College before noon on a sunny but chilly day to a crowd of a couple hundred people. He was flanked by the mayors of San Jose, Stockton and the former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa.
By way of comparison, when Bernie spoke at Fresno City College a while back the crowd was (my estimate, based on measurement of the area and an assumption of four square feet per person) at least 5,000 and perhaps as many as 6,000.
DeleteToday’s New Hampshire polls:
ReplyDeleteBoston Globe/Suffolk Feb. 3-4: Sanders 24, Biden 15, Buttigieg 15, Warren 10, Klobuchar 6, Gabbard 5, Yang 3, Steyer 5
WHDH/Emerson Feb 2-4: Sanders 32, Biden 13, Buttigieg 17, Warren 11, Klobuchar 11, Gabbard 6, Yang 6, Steyer 2
Real Clear Politics average Jan. 15-Feb. 4: Sanders 25.6, Biden 17.6, Buttigieg 14.1, Warren 13.7, Klobuchar 7.2, Gabbard 4.8, Yang 3.9, Steyer 3.3
No recent Nevada polls.
AWESOME!!
DeleteJoe Biden flopped in Iowa. And so did the Democratic party's reputation [Click] Some interesting good news included.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Bruenig: The Center Cannot Hold [Click] A good example of the right-wing “Democrats’” bizarre world, where they constitute the center of the party. Some interesting stuff, but it sure is hard for me to read. Courtesy of the NYT.
ReplyDeleteRichard Wolffe reviews Trump’s SOTU speech. [Click] Doesn’t seem to have high opinion of it.
ReplyDelete