NGC 4845

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4845, located over 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The galaxy’s orientation clearly reveals the galaxy’s striking spiral structure: a flat and dust-mottled disk surrounding a bright galactic bulge.

NGC 4845’s glowing center hosts a gigantic version of a black hole, known as a supermassive black hole. The presence of a black hole in a distant galaxy like NGC 4845 can be inferred from its effect on the galaxy’s innermost stars; these stars experience a strong gravitational pull from the black hole and whizz around the galaxy’s center much faster than otherwise.

From investigating the motion of these central stars, astronomers can estimate the mass of the central black hole — for NGC 4845 this is estimated to be hundreds of thousands times heavier than the sun. This same technique was also used to discover the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way — Sagittarius A* — which hits some four million times the mass of the sun.

The galactic core of NGC 4845 is not just supermassive, but also super-hungry. In 2013 researchers were observing another galaxy when they noticed a violent flare at the center of NGC 4845. The flare came from the central black hole tearing up and feeding off an object many times more massive than Jupiter. A brown dwarf or a large planet simply strayed too close and was devoured by the hungry core of NGC 4845.

Slightly different take

Brian Hancock gives a slightly different take on the two ‘tards who can’t seem to sail their way straight…

There is a story all over the news about two America sailors who have called rescue services for help nine times in the last seven months. It’s an interesting story and one that at first glance seems to call for some derision toward the two men. But not me. I have a very different opinion, as you might expect.

First let’s look at the business of rescuing sailors. That’s what the rescue services are there for; to rescue sailors in need of help. I remember quite clearly the uproar that went on after the Australian rescue services were called out to haul French solo sailor Isabelle Autissier off her upturned boat deep in the Southern Ocean. The Australian public was up in arms at the expense but were quickly silenced when Isabelle noted politely; “you telling me my life is not worth a million dollars?” How do you put a price on anyone’s life?

I watched an interview with the two men on Good Morning America. Again just the way they looked could lead you to think that they were two hapless men in a leaky boat looking for trouble, but it’s too easy to dismiss them that way. Dig deeper and it’s a much more interesting story. The boat is owned by Steve Shapiro, a retired screenwriter from California. He is sailing with his college friend Bob Weise, an ex-US Army helicopter pilot. The recently found each other through Facebook and decided to embark on this adventure. Without social media it’s likely that their journey and mishaps along the way would have gone unnoticed, but that’s no longer the world we live in.

The pair started their trip in Norway where they encountered their first problem. They then went on to Denmark where they had to call for help to jump-start a dead battery. Same again in Scotland where they had propellor problems and in Ireland where they ran aground. A few days ago they had to call for help again after their boat caught on fire. Yes that’s the story that made the papers but again let’s take a closer look. The two men miscalculated the huge tidal range in England especially with a full moon, and when the tide went out the boat started to list as the docklines tightened up. A candle left burning below then tipped onto some clothing causing a small fire. Nothing really serious when you dig into it.

So let’s take all of this in context. Most of the people snickering at the two men have probably not undertaken such a trip in their lifetime. If they had they would know that things happen especially on an old wooden boat. I have been sailing for 40 years and have managed to hit a reef, run aground and get a jump start from a passing Chinese freighter in the middle of the Atlantic. Do enough miles and sooner or later you will need help. These are two men in their early 70’s that decided to do something fun with their lives. Most of their contemporaries are spending their afternoons watching Judge Judy reruns. As Shapiro pointed out. “I bought a sailboat in Norway and the best way to get it to the US is to sail it and that’s all we are doing.” He’s right and I think we need more people like him and Weise and Isabelle Autissier. We need more people to push the boundaries and less people to park off on the couch each afternoon.

A civilized society sets up safety nets in the event people fail. Take a look around you. There are safety nets everywhere from drug rehab clinics to suicide hotlines. Humans are human; we all fail sometimes so be careful when you snicker into your hand about the two geezers needing help. These two geezers are at least living full lives and as  pointed out on GMA, “if the rescue services are not out looking for us they would be out practicing and we gave them some good practice.”

Rio pollution

There have been precious few counterpoints to the Rio pollution monster, and while the author of the below piece is wrong about quite a few things (namely that our own Sailing Anarchy staff spent dozens of hours in-country investigating the situation on both water and land, talking to locals, and speaking with Brazilian scientists), it’s good to see some of that famous Brazilian pride come out. 

Hi there, I am a sailor from Rio. until recently on 49er campaign for the Olympics. just lost the qualifying to Marco Grael (yes, Torben’s son). I see you are a big critic on Rio pollution. Not sure how much of it is to make news and get hits or how much of it is actually of interest to you.

I did notice as well that you have never talked to a single Brazilian regarding this matter. Never contacted a single club in Guanabara Bay, I dare to say you have never even sailed there. You might find some different pov.

Dont get me wrong, I am not trying to state that there is no pollution, or that people should not push for depolution. I just want to raise a point – can sailing be done in Guanabara Bay?

I think it’s histerical to hear that ISAF president says he would resign if he doenst get depolution. What does he know about politics in Rio? Did you know that there are 15 municipalities around the bay? that the biggest water treatment plant in Latin America is right there, but the Mayor of that town refuses to clean the shit of the neigbour town?

Anyway, again off the point, but would just like to overstate how these brits are still thinking collonialy.

Every year, the Opti Nationals are packed with over 100 little kids. Every year Rio has the biggest fleet from all states. So this means that every year, on your opinion, really stupid parents allow their sons and daughters to face death when sailing their optis around the bay, or the lagoon (even worse polution). But aren’t these the same parents who run one of the biggest economies on the planet?

Is there a chance they are not too stupid? that they know, albeit polluted, it is not as harmful as advertised?

I find it really strange that all these little kids manage to sail their way around the plastic bags, find their gusts, round their marks, and those big boys with medals and sponsors, cant even put their boats on the water.

Getting your info from germ free americans, or isaf bureocrats might not be the best source of info.

Through this Olympic Cicle I have hosted 8-10 teams from different countries and classes. Still to find 1 who says this place isnt paradise. Can you picture this with crystal clear water? I think it’s just a way of making it fair with everywhere else.

Cheers 

Thomas Low-Beer

Problem with "Motor Voter" laws...

As Voter ID Laws Expand, Fewer People Are Getting Driver's Licenses

License applications have been dropping since 1983. That bad for voters who live in states with ID laws.

by Brentin Mock

A North Carolina law requiring people to have certain kinds of photo identification in order to vote is on trial this week, in a federal courthouse in Winston-Salem. The state passed a voting law in 2013 that even some conservatives have called one of the most restrictive in the nation in terms of the potential burdening effect it could have on women and people of color. The voter ID provision is one part of a broader set of measures included in that law that, among other things, shortens the early voting period and eliminates Election Day voter registration.

Those other measures were taken up in a separate federal trial last summer, with a decision currently pending. This week, the voter ID provision is on trial, with the North Carolina state chapter of the NAACP arguing that it will make it harder for African Americans and Latinos to vote, especially when combined with the law’s other restrictions. African-American registered voters are far less likely to have driver’s licenses than white voters.

Meanwhile, driver’s licenses are also becoming less of a priority for people in general. A report from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute released earlier this month finds a “continuous decrease” in the proportion of Americans ages 16 to 44 with a driver’s license from 1983 and 2014. For those between the ages of 45 and 69, their share of people with licenses increased between 1983 and 2008, but have dropped steadily ever since.

It seems that people just don’t need driver’s licenses as much these days, and find it a hassle to get them. When Transportation Research Institute researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle explored reasons for these declining rates for a 2013 study, “Too busy or not enough time to get a driver’s license,” was the top answer for respondents who did not have them. The rest of the responses suggested that people are less often using the kind of transportation they would need a license.

State legislators are a bit out of alignment with Americans’ priorities and daily habits. The National Conference of State Legislatures shows that there are nine states that have photo ID laws that it considers strict, meaning that those states will only accept certain IDs to vote. (A driver’s license is the primary form of acceptable ID in each of those states.) There are states that have voter ID laws that went into effect this year—among them is Alabama, which is facing a lawsuit over its law. Texas’s voter ID law was ruled unenforceable under the Civil Rights Act by a federal judge last year. Meanwhile, other states including Missouri are hoping to pass voter ID bills, and will be looking to the outcome of this trial to see whether such laws are constitutional.

They may want to look at the data, however, to see if these requirements comport with how people transact their regular lives. Sivak’s and Schoettle’s research found that 22 percent of their respondents said they never plan on getting a driver’s license. Driving rates among young people in major cities, including Charlotte, are steadily dropping. More people are working from home and online, and rely on bikes, bike shares, car shares, or ride-hailing services like Uber, so a license is a luxury. But strict voter ID laws in states including North Carolina are making that luxury a necessity if you want to vote.

The few other forms of photo ID that are acceptable for voting purposes in North Carolina—passports, military/veteran IDs, tribal enrollment cards—are still limited in what populations they will help. The kind of IDs minorities could better access were struck from the law’s list of eligible documentation.

“Each of the forms of photo identification that the legislature eliminated as acceptable ID … were more accessible to African Americans than White voters, including student IDs, government employee IDs, public assistance IDs and expired IDs,” said Michael Glick, attorney for the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, in a press statement. Glick’s firm is representing the NAACP in the trial. “Moreover, the forms of ID remaining legal under the law are disproportionately held by White voters.”

Sensing that the law might not pass muster, North Carolina legislators added a last-second amendment last summer, giving people a pass on showing ID if they can prove that they had no way of getting one. But the law’s challengers are now arguing that the switch comes too close to upcoming elections for people to understand and comply. When Pennsylvania’s voter ID law was challenged in court in 2012, the state also tried to make last-second fixes as elections approached. A judge ruled that those late changes would only befuddle voters and ultimately declared the law a violation of state constitutionally protected voting rights.

“We are trying to fix a botched surgery,” said  Rev. William J. Barber, president of North Carolina’s NAACP chapter, in a press statement. “There is too much confusion. We believe the right to vote should be constitutional—not confusing.”

6 Other Ways

No Way To Pick A President? Here Are 6 Other Ways To Do It

By Danielle Kurtzleben

Every four years, Iowans are deluged with the talking points, the stump speeches, the polls and, of course, the ads.

They also hear that they shouldn't be first. Iowans are too white, too old and too few to merit first-in-the-nation status, say the critics.

But if Iowa shouldn't be first, who should be? For more than a century, reformers have been proposing ideas for how to change the primary system. And they've been failing. And they'll probably continue to fail.

No one is going to persuade state and party machinery to change the current primary system anytime soon. However, these ideas can at least help show what works (and what doesn't) about the way things are now.

Here are just a few of the ideas people have proposed over the years:

1. Pick A New State

The gist

Just what it sounds like: let someone else go before Iowa and New Hampshire.

Who has promoted it

Someone new every cycle. Time and the Washington Post's The Fix blog (twice!) have weighed in in the past year, as has this thread of redditors. (NPR's own Asma Khalid will have her own best-first-state analysis coming out soon.)

Pros

People generally have two big criticisms of Iowa's first-in-the-nation status (and New Hampshire's, as well): (1) that the states are not representative of the rest of the country, and (2) that they're too tiny. Were a state like California or Texas or Florida or New York first, a much bigger share of the U.S. population would get a shot at shaping the presidential race early. And with any of those states (and plenty of others) you get more diversity; Iowa and New Hampshire are two of the whitest states in the country, as well as two of the most rural.

Cons

Iowa's smallness is in some ways a feature, not a bug, in that it allows less well funded candidates a fair shot (see: Rick Santorum, 2012, and Mike Huckabee, 2008). The state's caucus "ensures that there is at least one place where a candidate with a compelling message has a shot at winning, regardless of money or national fame," as the Des Moines Register's Kathy Obradovich argued in October.

There's also more to being representative than race and ethnicity. A 2009 paper by the University of Iowa's Michael Lewis-Beck and Missouri's Peverill Squire found that Iowa was the most representative state economically at the time, as well as relatively representative (12th out of 50 states) when a broad range of social, demographic and economic factors were included.

In addition, simply picking a new state wouldn't solve all of the problems with the current system. In 2008, the scramble to hold early caucuses and primaries led to a massively front-loaded calendar. Scrambling the states into a new order wouldn't have stopped that struggle from happening.

2. National Primary

The gist

Let people nationwide cast their primary ballots all at once.

Who has promoted it

Rep. Richard Hobson in 1911 and a lot more people since then. Well over 100 bills and resolutions have been introduced in Congress since then to try to create a national primary.

Pros

A national primary would eliminate worries about one or two states having outsize sway by virtue of voting super early. Not only that, but it would make a complicated calendar way less complex and stop the constant shifting of dates.

And by eliminating a bunch of confusion, it might make primaries "more accessible to the average voter," which could in turn make for "more moderate candidates who are more representative of their constituents," as Pacific Standard's Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz wrote in 2014.

Cons

It would make money and name recognition even more important than they already are. Instead of having to focus early on buying ads in Iowa (or whichever state might otherwise go first), a candidate would have a whole nation of media markets to try to hit. That means a less well funded candidate who currently can stand a chance in the small early states right now would be at a huge disadvantage.

It could also disadvantage a grass-roots-fueled candidate like Bernie Sanders. The Vermont independent leads or is closely matched with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the two early states of Iowa and New Hampshire this year, but he trails by double digits in most national polls.

In addition, this kind of plan could mean that candidates would focus only on the highest-population states, leaving smaller and largely rural states without many cities — and therefore fewer delegates — all but abandoned. That's what Alabama's then-Secretary of State Beth Chapman wrote at U.S. News in 2012.

3. Rotating Regional Primary

The gist

Don't want to give a couple of states all the early-voting power, every single election? A rotating regional primary would break up the U.S. into a few segments and let each take a turn going first. Under perhaps the best-known rotating primary plan, put forward by the National Association of Secretaries of State in 2008, there would be four regions (East, Midwest, South and West), with each taking one primary slot (in March, April, May or June). The order of regions would then rotate in each election cycle.

Who has promoted it

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, the National Association of Secretaries of State, the National Lieutenant Governors Association and plenty of others.

Pros

A scheduled system like this would get rid of the date-wrangling that led to a superearly nominating season in 2008. This is the first reason that the secretaries of state association gave in its 2008 proposal, pointing out that 37 states voted before Feb. 29 that year, while only nine did so in 2000.

It also could give voters more time to get to know the candidates and give more informed votes, not to mention potentially giving more voters a say in who eventually gets nominated, the group argued.

Finally, it could make campaigning more efficient — no longer would candidates have to hop from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina for a few months. And as the University of Arizona's Barbara Norrander has argued, it would make campaign ads more efficient. (Consider the border-residing Minnesotans and Illinoisans currently being subjected to Iowa's campaign ads).

Cons

Here's one weird twist: The secretaries of state proposal still puts Iowa and New Hampshire first, "based upon their tradition of promoting retail politics." That defeats the purpose of reforming the system to some degree, keeping those two demographically unrepresentative states at the front of the calendar.

But leaving that aside, there are other potential problems with rotating regional primaries. While the plan seeks to equalize states' participation in primaries, whichever region goes last in any given cycle runs the risk of being meaningless; it's possible the winners will already be apparent by the time the final contest rolls around.

Certain candidates would also probably benefit more in any given election based on which region goes first, as political scientists Steven Smith and Melanie Springer wrote in 2009. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, could potentially benefit far more if this primary season started with South, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders could get a big initial boost from a Northeastern primary. Not only that, but knowing that her or his region would be first in the next election, a strong candidate in one region could "block out a strong candidate from another region," as former Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett argued.

And maybe taking things a few states at a time isn't such a bad idea, argues Norrander.

"Most would agree that face-to-face meetings between the candidates and real voters are a good component of the current system," she writes. "Because of the large size of each region, candidate strategy will consist of television advertising and tarmac campaigning."

4. The Delaware Plan

The gist

Let the little states go first. The Delaware Plan separates states into four groups, each with 12 or 13 states, as explained by voting-reform advocacy group FairVote. Group 1, consisting of the smallest-population states and territories, votes first, followed by Group 2 one month later, and so on.

Who has promoted it

Most notably, the RNC considered the Delaware Plan in 2000.

Pros

The point of the Delaware Plan was to keep the nomination season from growing shorter and shorter, as states fought to go earlier and earlier, as USA Today reported in 2000. That year, the season was so short that two-thirds of the states ended up "without a voice," the paper reported.

The Delaware Plan tries to equalize states: Smaller states naturally have a smaller voice, but they'd get amplified by being earlier. Meanwhile, the powerful larger states' voices would be turned down a bit by being later. And because a candidate couldn't win the nomination very early, it would prolong the primary season, giving people longer to learn about the candidate and make their decisions.

In addition, it could equalize candidates to some degree — candidates with lots of grass-roots support could likewise gain ground in the small states and potentially then be able to compete in the bigger states, as FairVote argues.

Cons

Smaller states tend to be less urban than the rest of the country, not to mention whiter, as Smith and Springer wrote — meaning this plan wouldn't exactly solve the issue of early states not being representative.

They also add that starting with 12 states that aren't geographically grouped would create some super-inefficient campaigns, as opposed to the way that a regional plan might make campaigning easier.

In addition, starting off with so many states at once could still favor better-funded candidates, Norrander points out.

5. The Ohio Plan

The gist 

This is a sort of compromise between the Delaware Plan and the rotating regional plan. The Ohio Plan would have let four current early states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada) go first, followed by a group of 15 small states and territories.

After that, three bigger groups of states would take turns holding their primaries. Each of those groups would have had at least one high-population "anchor state," as Brookings' Elaine Kamarck explains.

Who has promoted it

The Ohio Plan was proposed by Bob Bennett, the then-chairman of the Ohio GOP, before the 2008 election.

Pros

Bennett argued that his plan would be more acceptable to big states than the Delaware Plan while maintaining the kind of retail politics influence that small states — and the current early states — allow. In addition, keeping South Carolina and Nevada early would add more diversity early in the process than the Delaware Plan.

Cons

The plan would still maintain some of the cons of the secretaries of states' and Delaware plans — despite the early participation of South Carolina and Nevada, there are still a lot of very white states with early influence. In addition, candidates would have to hit a lot of geographically far-flung states at once.

6. Graduated Random Presidential Primaries (Aka 'The California Plan,' Aka 'The American Plan')

The gist

It's a little like the Delaware Plan in the sense that smaller states would go first. However, it's way more complicated.

So here goes: There would be 10 caucus periods, each lasting two weeks. States with fewer congressional districts would go first, followed by states with a few more in the next period and so on.

This would be according to a particular formula: States with a total of eight districts would go first, with the states being randomly selected. So, for example, Kansas and Mississippi, which each have four districts, might be in the first round. The next round, the number of districts would total 16. The next, 24.

But after that, the numbers get less straightforward. To keep the biggest states like New York and California from always going nearly last, the plan allows for some bigger district totals to go earlier. The order for all 10 caucus rounds would be eight, 16, 24, 56, 32, 64, 40, 72, 48 and then 80 districts, according to FairVote.

Who has promoted it

The Democratic National Committee considered it in 2005, and FairVote has advocated for it as well.

Pros

It maintains many of the benefits of the Delaware Plan, potentially making the primary season longer (and therefore, potentially more informative) and giving more states the opportunity to have a say — all without leaving all the biggest states for last.

Cons

Once again, there's the potential for some really inefficient campaigning. Imagine candidates having to hop from Alaska to Idaho to West Virginia to Rhode Island for the first round of caucuses. That could give better-financed candidates a leg up.

Also, it's complicated — but compared with what? As Smith and Springer wrote, the American Plan "surely would be no more complicated than the current schedule."

Strongest Candidate, A take on the GOP from GOPers..

The Strongest Candidate Is the Strongest Candidate

What do GOP voters want? “Testicular fortitude,” among other things. Conversations with 100 Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire.

By Gabriel Sherman

On February 1, Iowans will cast the first votes of the 2016 presidential election, and the only thing that’s clear is that this Republican primary is the most unpredictable and surreal campaign in recent memory. But why? To understand the swirl of forces buffeting the party, we traveled across New Hampshire and Iowa and spoke to more than 100 Republican-primary voters. We met them in their homes and at town halls, at a motorcycle dealership and an auto-body shop. We attended a Christmas-themed Trump rally and a gun show where AR-15s were being sold alongside “historical” Confederate flags. (You’ll notice that there are no noticeable faces of color on this page; this is because we did not come across any nonwhite GOP voters in our travels.)

We tried to discern not just their candidate preferences but their worldviews. National security and the economy ranked among their top concerns, and health care, immigration, and gun control were important. But issues didn’t really seem to be the point. It was common to hear voters say they could choose any of the candidates across the ideological spectrum. “I like Christie because of his executive experience,” said Greg Mason, a 59-year-old IT engineer from Manchester, New Hampshire. “Carly Fiorina impresses the living death of me. I like Marco Rubio. Cruz. And Trump, I don’t agree with his positions, but he’s got the testicular fortitude to come out and say people are desperate.”

The phrase seemed telling. If there was anything almost all of the respondents sought in a candidate, it was that testicular fortitude — or, in less colorful terms, strength. It’s why Trump has steamrolled his rivals despite his ideological inconsistencies as a Republican. And it’s why Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have failed to connect: Being labeled a nerd in this GOP primary is the kiss of death; being cast as a sissy is even worse. Machismo even seems to be Carly Fiorina’s best selling point.

This attraction to strength seems to be connected to an inchoate sense that the world is falling apart. The voters we spoke to were concerned about a lot of potential threats — terrorist, economic, and cultural — and hoped that a strong president would protect them from dangers within as well as from abroad. Voters said they no longer felt free to be themselves in their own country — policed in their speech, unable to pray publicly or even say “God bless you” when someone sneezes. “Everything’s so p.c.,” said Priscilla Mills, a 33-year-old hospital coordinator from Manchester. “And then the second you do say something, you’re a racist.” Trump, who had 21 percent of the vote in our small sample, has capitalized the most on the political-correctness grievance, which is likely to surface in the general election no matter who becomes the nominee.

The culture wars clearly aren’t defined along the same lines that they used to be. Almost everyone we spoke with said they were pro-life, but few talked about restricting abortion as their main issue. And gay marriage barely even registered as a cause for concern. “I feel like I don’t wear a black robe, so I don’t have the right to judge anybody,” said Tina Vondran, 49, of Monticello, Iowa.

Certainly, there were voters turned off by the polemical style of the more extreme candidates. And 48 percent were still undecided as of late January. But their leanings, which crisscrossed ideological positions, seemed to confirm the conventional wisdom that the GOP-primary voter is more motivated by mood than by policy. “Donald Trump has the best tagline of all, ‘Make America great again,’ ” said Rubio backer Russell Fuhrman of Dubuque, Iowa. “The country just seems to be in a severe decline. Insecurity’s so high; pessimism and political correctness are running rampant. It’s sad.”

Ultimately, what Republicans want to pick is a winner (even if their assessments of strength didn’t necessarily reflect pundit views of who is most likely to prevail in the general election). As much as they dislike Barack Obama, there is a bogey­woman they fear more. “If Hillary wins this election, the country’s either going to roll over and play dead,” said Iowa voter Fred Grunder, “or I could see some kind of revolution.”

 Here are a few comments:

George Lambert
From: Litchfield, NH
Age: 47
Occupation: Computer-software executive
Supporting: Trump

I grew up as a strict constitutionalist. Let’s say my brother got caught with a pack of cigarettes in his room and my mom went to punish him. My dad said, “What are you doing in his room? You can’t punish him, you didn’t have jurisdiction to do the search.” I call myself a liberty Republican. I supported Ron Paul in the last two elections. I got interested in Donald Trump back in February. I put 32 liberty Republicans into a boardroom with him, and I drilled him for 25 minutes on tough issues. Even when you didn’t agree with him, you knew that he was going to do exactly what he thought was right and that he cared about the country more than he did feathering his own nest, which is not the feeling I get from Marco Rubio. And I would actually vote for a dead cat before I’d vote for another Bush — I would vote for Hillary over Jeb. I think Trump is going to do a better job even than Ronald Reagan.

Allison Doyle
From: Cedar Rapids, IA 
Age: 24 
Occupation: Student
Supporting: Trump

Our system is so backwards. Nothing has been working for the past eight years. Something big has got to change so people are safe and financially okay. I’m going into law enforcement. And look at the war on police. We have a war on everything — war on gender, war on police, war on race, you name it. We’re just way too politically correct as a country. And you got to do what you got to do to keep your country safe. If it’s banning Muslims … I don’t know. I think Trump would make an awesome president. I love that people have tried to knock him down so many times and he’s still going strong. I really admire that.

Toni Pappas
From: Manchester, NH
Age: 72
Occupation: County commissioner
Supporting: Christie

I’m extremely concerned about the economy, and like everyone else I’m concerned about the terrorist attacks and the safety of our country. I debated between Jeb Bush and Christie for a while. But I think Chris Christie is the best suited to lead us in the area of keeping our country safe, because of his background as a prosecutor and because as a Republican he’s run a blue state. I don’t think he knew about Bridgegate. He said that the people who worked for him didn’t tell him that they were doing this. It was a terrible thing to do.

Merchon Andersen
From: Delaware, IA
Age: 50
Occupation: Operations assistant
Supporting: Trump

I work at a lip-balm factory. I used to work for Ricoh, the copy-maker. When my area lost two contracts, there was no need for my role anymore. Six months of wondering if I was going to get a job. It was really difficult, especially when you’re in your late 40s. I went on unemployment. My health care has gone to shit. I had to go to a high deductible because I can’t afford $240 a month. This is Obamacare.

I’m also an Army mom. My daughter was a Kiowa-helicopter tech, served for nine months in Afghanistan. But she is not finding a job now. Taking care of veterans is at the top of my list.

I really care about getting our country back to where it’s supposed to be. As soon as Trump came on the field, I was there. This is who I want. I didn’t look at anybody else. It’s just been The Donald. He speaks to the Americans that are genuine Americans at heart, that get what our country was based on. And Trump’s for the ­military. He’ll straight up tell you that.

Trump reminds me of Reagan. Reagan really lived what he believed. We have a president now that doesn’t believe what he lives. He made promises and gave us great hope. Now we’re getting that hope back. We’re trying to get that change back to the way this country should’ve been, where we can say “Merry Christmas” and “God bless America.” I’m tired of political ­correctness all the time. We have contract workers that work with us, and a lot of them are Muslim. We have to honor their rituals. If they need to pray during the day, we have to allow that. There’s something wrong. It’s harder to be a Christian now in America. We’re now the minority, and I’m hoping Donald can bring us back to being the majority again.

This is the other thing that I can’t get my Democratic friends to understand: Bringing in these refugees, why are there so many men? If you want to convince me, where are the women and children? I don’t have a problem with women and children. But we’re not vetting them. There’s just so much that I don’t trust. “We just have to open our hearts.” Open our hearts for what?

My other daughter is mixed race. She is pretty much a liberal. She has been ripping me up one side and down the other. She goes, “Trump is an atrocity.” I’m like, “You don’t understand him. He is for the people.” She thinks he’s racist. I told my daughter, “What you don’t like is he’s just like you: He tells you like it is.”

She believes that the Democrats have been doing so much more for the black culture. She keeps believing that the Republicans are the ones that are blocking this and I’m like, “No. They’re not.” She goes, “Well, it’s white suppression.” I go, “There’s no white suppression. You need to get out more.” Yes, black lives matter. All lives matter. There’s a lot of black-on-white crime that doesn’t get reported. And black-on-black crime is so huge. I mean, we can’t go a day or a week in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, or Dubuque without shootings.

I did vote for Obama the first time around. Because I really was not happy with the Bush administration towards the end. The weapons of mass destruction were proven false; you kind of go, Okay, who’s telling the truth? I met Obama in Dubuque. I got two hugs from him. I was very impressed. They were trying to move him along, but he really wanted to hear what I had to say. I said, “I’ve been a Republican for many, many years. I think it’s time for change.” But the man I’m seeing in Washington now just doesn’t strike me as the person I talked to. He wasn’t doing what he said he was going to do. He was not ending what was going on in the Middle East.

The gun-control issue is huge for me. I’m getting my permit this month. I’ve had a lot of bad stuff in my past. I was a victim of a sex crime 12 years ago. The police did nothing for me, said they couldn’t prove anything. No matter how much therapy you get, you never feel completely safe. I need my own protection. It’s not because I’m going to shoot. I just want to say, “Hey, you’re not going to mess with me.

Jamie DeLancey
From: Anamosa, IA
Age: 43
Occupation: Business owner
Supporting: Trump

I used to be a Democrat, but — I’m sorry about my language — I’m ready to put boot to ass. Trump’s ideas and my ideas are pretty in tune. I had an epiphany 15 years ago when I said, “God, I want to own my own business, be a millionaire.” It took me ten years to make my first million, and then that exponentially grew.  People say Trump’s not nice. Well, I’m not nice, either. Sometimes harsh words will motivate people. If you don’t want to get in that ditch and sweat and dig a mile for a couple thousand bucks, then don’t yell at me because I have money and you don’t.  It feels like we’re just roller-coasting down, down, down, and I’m waiting for the climb back up, man, and I haven’t seen it yet. Everybody is scared when they’re going down and not going up. I’m sick of being scared.

Andrew Freund
From: Manchester, NH
Age: 25
Occupation: IT consultant
Supporting: Undecided

One of the biggest issues for me is gay marriage. I considered switching to the Democratic Party because of that alone. The Republican Party has been on the right side of social issues for the last 200 years, and this is just the one time when they’re on the wrong side. It’s a generational issue. I’m not going to let it define me politically.

I’m deciding between Jeb, Kasich, Trump. Jeb, being a governor from Florida, dealing with disaster recovery, dealing with significantly large budgets … If there’s one person who really knows how to actually work within the bureaucracy of the federal government, it’s Jeb. And Kasich, when he was in Congress, he was on the House Finance Committee, working with Newt Gingrich and President Clinton to actually balance the budget. It’s difficult for me, personally, to get behind Rubio. I think it should be difficult for the party to do the same. This is a candidate who criticized Obama for being a one-term senator who lacked leadership experience. And he’s a one-term senator, yet there’s no one criticizing him for hypocrisy.

Trump’s unique. He’s qualified. He has executive experience. He’s created jobs — not just on a national but on an international level. A lot of people are worried about some of the things he says. And rightfully so. But it’s difficult to overlook the fact that people are supporting what he’s saying. I mean, when it comes to the Muslim temporary ban, 80 percent of those polled actually agreed with what he said. That’s a strikingly large number. I think he’s a serious contender. I personally think we have bigger issues to deal with right now. But what he’s saying does spark a debate. It does allow the country to talk and ideas to flow.

Thom Lavoie
From: Manchester, NH
Age: 52
Occupation: Insurance broker
Supporting: Christie

Trump’s dangerous. If he wins the nomination, I would do a third-party protest vote. Having a religious test for who comes here — like he is proposing — is embarrassing. Especially for a refugee scenario. Those people are running for their lives. The Muslim people in this country should be completely separated from Islamic terrorism. They are an easy target to blame everything on. Trump has taken that anger and used it.

I started out supporting Carly. She’s very articulate and very strong. I think she would be a really tough matchup with Hillary. I don’t think she’s friendly enough, though. People are starting to go, “Would you have a beer with this person?” and I probably wouldn’t.

I wouldn’t vote for Cruz — just too conservative. Rubio was very strong in the debates. I think of him and the future, the younger generation. I think he’d be a great V.P. candidate.

I like Jeb, but he’s not dynamic enough. And he’s had to carry that baggage of being the third Bush. Kasich’s politics are right next to mine, but I didn’t get the same hee-ha I got from Christie. I like Christie best. I think people are over the bridge issue. He passed the sit-down-and-have-a-beer test.

Earle Kolb
From: Salem, NH
Age: 34
Occupation: Unemployed
Supporting: Cruz

Ted Cruz is the most conservative guy in the bunch and he’s frankly the smartest guy in the bunch. I was leaning toward Rand Paul until Rand started to give me the impression that he was a little soft. Largely, the reason why I’m a conservative is because I’ve been on public assistance my whole life, and I have always felt ashamed of it. I have two major health conditions — cerebral palsy and an injury to my left hemidiaphragm. The whole idea of welfare and entitlements is to create a permanent underclass. They’ll give you plenty of handouts, but they won’t give you any hand-ups.”

Northern Europe Living...

After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward. Here’s Why.

A crash course in social democracy. 

By Ann Jones

Some years ago, I faced up to the futility of reporting truths about America’s disastrous wars, and so I left Afghanistan for another mountainous country far away. It was the polar opposite of Afghanistan: a peaceful, prosperous land where nearly everybody seemed to enjoy a good life, on the job and in the family.

It’s true that they didn’t work much–not by American standards, anyway. In the United States, full-time salaried workers supposedly laboring 40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20 percent clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand, worked only about 37 hours a week, when they weren’t away on long paid vacations. At the end of the workday, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three during the summer), they had time to enjoy a hike in the forest, a swim with the kids, or a beer with friends—which helps explain why, unlike so many Americans, they are pleased with their jobs.

Often I was invited to go along. I found it refreshing to hike and ski in a country with no land mines, and to hang out in cafés unlikely to be bombed. Gradually, my war-zone jitters subsided and I settled into the slow, calm, pleasantly uneventful stream of life there.

Four years on, thinking I should settle down, I returned to the United States. It felt quite a lot like stepping back into that other violent, impoverished world, where anxiety runs high and people are quarrelsome. I had, in fact, come back to the flip side of Afghanistan and Iraq: to what America’s wars have done to America. Where I live now, in the homeland, there are not enough shelters for the homeless. Most people are either overworked or hurting for jobs; the housing is overpriced, the hospitals crowded and understaffed, the schools largely segregated and not so good. Opioid or heroin overdose is a popular form of death, and men in the street threaten women wearing hijabs. Did the American soldiers I covered in Afghanistan know they were fighting for this?

Ducking the Subject


One night I tuned in to the Democrats’ presidential debate to see if they had any plans to restore the America I used to know. To my amazement, I heard the name of my peaceful mountain hideaway: Norway. Bernie Sanders was denouncing America’s crooked version of “casino capitalism” that floats the already-rich ever higher and flushes the working class. He said that we ought to “look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.”

He believes, he added, in “a society where all people do well. Not just a handful of billionaires.” That certainly sounds like Norway. For ages, they’ve worked at producing things for the use of everyone—not the profit of a few—so I was all ears, waiting for Sanders to spell it out for Americans.

But Hillary Clinton quickly countered, “We are not Denmark.” Smiling, she said, “I love Denmark,” and then delivered a patriotic punch line: “We are the United States of America.” (Well, there’s no denying that.) She also praised capitalism and “all the small businesses that were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for themselves and their families.” She didn’t seem to know that Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians do that too, and with much higher rates of success.

The truth is that almost a quarter of American start-ups are not founded on brilliant new ideas, but on the desperation of men or women who can’t get a decent job. The majority of all American enterprises are solo ventures having zero payrolls, employing no one but the entrepreneur, and often quickly wasting away. Sanders said that he was all for small business too, but that meant nothing “if all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent.” (As George Carlin said, “The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.”)

In that debate, no more was heard of Denmark, Sweden, or Norway. The audience was left in the dark. Later, in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, Sanders tried to clarify his identity as a democratic socialist. He said he’s not the kind of socialist (with a capital S) who favors state ownership of the means of production. The Norwegian government, on the other hand, owns the means of producing lots of public assets and is the major stockholder in many a vital private enterprise.

I was dumbfounded. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden practice variations of a system that works much better than ours. Yet even the Democratic presidential candidates, who say they love or want to learn from those countries, don’t seem know how they actually work.

Why We’re Not Denmark


Proof that they do work is delivered every year in data-rich evaluations by the United Nations and other international bodies. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s annual report on international well-being, for example, measures 11 factors, ranging from material conditions such as affordable housing and employment to quality-of-life matters like education, health, life expectancy, voter participation, and overall citizen satisfaction. Year after year, all the Nordic countries cluster at the top, while the United States lags far behind. In addition, Norway has ranked first on the UN Development Program’s Human Development Index for 12 of the last 15 years, and it consistently tops international comparisons in such areas as democracy, civil and political rights, and freedom of expression and the press.

What is it, though, that makes the Scandinavians so different? Since the Democrats can’t tell you and the Republicans wouldn’t want you to know, let me offer you a quick introduction. What Scandinavians call the Nordic model is a smart and simple system that starts with a deep commitment to equality and democracy. That’s two concepts combined in a single goal because, as far as they’re concerned, you can’t have one without the other.

Right there, they part company with capitalist America, now the most unequal of all the developed nations, and consequently a democracy no more. Political scientists say it has become an oligarchy, run at the expense of its citizenry by and for the superrich. Perhaps you’ve noticed that.

In the last century, Scandinavians, aiming for their egalitarian goal, refused to settle solely for any of the ideologies competing for power—not capitalism or fascism, not Marxist socialism or communism. Geographically stuck between powerful nations waging hot and cold wars for such doctrines, Scandinavians set out to find a middle path. That path was contested—by socialist-inspired workers on the one hand, and by capitalist owners and their elite cronies on the other—but in the end, it led to a mixed economy. Thanks largely to the solidarity and savvy of organized labor and the political parties it backed, the long struggle produced a system that makes capitalism more or less cooperative, and then redistributes equitably the wealth it helps to produce. Struggles like this took place around the world in the 20th century, but the Scandinavians alone managed to combine the best ideas of both camps while chucking out the worst.

In 1936, the popular US journalist Marquis Childs first described the result to Americans in the book Sweden: The Middle Way. Since then, all the Scandinavian countries, and their Nordic neighbors Finland and Iceland, have been improving upon that hybrid system. Today in Norway, negotiations between the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise determine the wages and working conditions of most capitalist enterprises, public and private, that create wealth, while high but fair progressive income taxes fund the state’s universal welfare system, benefiting everyone. In addition, those confederations work together to minimize the disparity between high-wage and lower-wage jobs. As a result, Norway ranks with Sweden, Denmark, and Finland as among the most income-equal countries in the world, and its standard of living tops the charts.

So here’s the big difference: In Norway, capitalism serves the people. The government, elected by the people, sees to that. All eight of the parties that won parliamentary seats in the last national election—including the conservative Høyre party now leading the government—are committed to maintaining the welfare state. In the United States, however, neoliberal politics puts the foxes in charge of the henhouse, and capitalists have used the wealth generated by their enterprises (as well as financial and political manipulations) to capture the state and pluck the chickens.

They’ve done a masterful job of chewing up organized labor. Today, only 11 percent of American workers belong to a union. In Norway, that number is 52 percent; in Denmark, 67 percent; in Sweden, 70 percent. Thus, in the United States, oligarchs maximize their wealth and keep it, using the “democratically elected” government to shape policies and laws favorable to the interests of their foxy class. They bamboozle the people by insisting, as Hillary Clinton did at that debate, that all of us have the “freedom” to create a business in the “free” marketplace, which implies that being hard up is our own fault.

In the Nordic countries, on the other hand, democratically elected governments give their populations freedom from the market by using capitalism as a tool to benefit everyone. That liberates their people from the tyranny of the mighty profit motive that warps so many American lives, leaving them freer to follow their own dreams—to become poets or philosophers, bartenders or business owners, as they please.

Family Matters


Maybe our politicians don’t want to talk about the Nordic model because it shows so clearly that capitalism can be put to work for the many, not just the few.

Consider the Norwegian welfare state. It’s universal. In other words, aid to the sick or the elderly is not charity, grudgingly donated by elites to those in need. It is the right of every individual citizen. That includes every woman, whether or not she is somebody’s wife, and every child, no matter its parentage. Treating every person as a citizen frees each one from being legally possessed by another—a husband, for example, or a tyrannical father.

Which brings us to the heart of Scandinavian democracy: the equality of women and men. In the 1970s, Norwegian feminists marched into politics and picked up the pace of democratic change. Norway needed a larger labor force, and women were the answer. Housewives moved into paid work on equal footing with men, nearly doubling the tax base. That has, in fact, meant more to Norwegian prosperity than the coincidental discovery of North Atlantic oil reserves. The Ministry of Finance recently calculated that those additional working mothers add to Norway’s net national wealth a value equivalent to its “total petroleum wealth”—currently held in the world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund, worth over $873 billion. By 1981, women were sitting in parliament, in the prime minister’s chair, and in her cabinet.

American feminists also marched for such goals in the 1970s, but the big boys, busy with their own White House intrigues, initiated a war on women that set the country back and still rages today in brutal attacks on women’s basic civil rights, healthcare, and reproductive freedom. In 1971, thanks to the hard work of organized feminists, Congress passed the bipartisan Comprehensive Child Development Bill to establish a multibillion-dollar national daycare system for the children of working parents. In 1972, President Richard Nixon vetoed it, and that was that. In 1972, Congress also passed a bill (first proposed in 1923) to amend the Constitution to grant equal rights of citizenship to women. Ratified by only 35 states—three short of the required 38—that Equal Rights Amendment was declared dead in 1982, leaving American women in legal limbo. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, obliterating six decades of US social-welfare policy “as we know it,” ending federal cash payments to the nation’s poor, and consigning millions of female heads of household and their children to poverty, where many still dwell 20 years later. Today, even privileged women, torn between their underpaid work and their kids, are overwhelmed.

Things happened very differently in Norway. There, feminists and sociologists pushed hard against the biggest obstacle still standing in the path to full democracy: the nuclear family. In the 1950s, the world-famous American sociologist Talcott Parsons had pronounced that arrangement—with the hubby at work and the little wife at home—the ideal setup in which to socialize children. But in the 1970s, the Norwegian state began to deconstruct that undemocratic ideal by taking upon itself the traditional, unpaid household duties of women. Caring for children, the elderly, the sick, and the disabled became the basic responsibilities of the universal welfare state, freeing women in the workforce to enjoy both their jobs and their families.

Paradoxically, setting women free made family life more genuine. Many in Norway say it has made both men and women more themselves and more alike: more understanding and happier. It also helped kids slip from the shadow of helicopter parents. In Norway, both mother and father in turn take paid parental leave from work during the child’s first year or longer. At age 1, however, children start attending a neighborhood barnehage (kindergarten) for schooling spent largely outdoors. By the time kids enter free primary school at age 6, they are remarkably self-sufficient, confident, and good-natured. They know their way around town, and if caught in a snowstorm in the forest, how to build a fire and find the makings of a meal. (One kindergarten teacher explained, “We teach them early to use an ax so they understand it’s a tool, not a weapon.”)

To Americans, the notion of a school “taking away” your child to make her an ax wielder is monstrous. Yet though it’s hard to measure, it’s likely that Scandinavian children actually spend more quality time with their non-work-obsessed parents than does a typical middle-class American child being driven by a stressed-out mother from music lessons to karate. For all these reasons and more, the international organization Save the Children cites Norway as the best country on earth in which to raise kids, while the United States finishes far down the list, in 33rd place.

Don’t Take My Word for It


This little summary just scratches the surface of Scandinavia, so I urge curious readers to Google away. But be forewarned: You’ll find much criticism of all the Nordic-model countries. Worse, neoliberal pundits, especially the Brits, are always beating up on the Scandinavians, predicting the imminent demise of their social democracies. Self-styled experts still in thrall to Margaret Thatcher tell Norwegians they must liberalize their economy and privatize everything short of the royal palace. Mostly, the Norwegian government does the opposite—or nothing at all—and social democracy keeps on ticking.

It’s not perfect, of course. It has always been a carefully considered work in progress. Governance by consensus takes time and effort. You might think of it as slow democracy. Even so, it’s light-years ahead of us.

Plays It Smart

Trump Plays It Smart, While the Rest of the GOP Field Rips Itself Apart

By avoiding a debate, Trump wins the night—and perhaps a lot more. 

By John Nichols

Donald Trump does a lot of things that are unacceptable, unimaginable, and unexplainable. But his decision to skip the Fox News debate was entirely understandable.

Trump, the supposed outsider in the Republican race, was playing politics in a very predictable and potentially very smart way—as Thursday night’s events in Des Moines illustrated. What this tells us is something important: Trump often seems as if he’s on some bizarrely egocentric political joyride. Perhaps that was the case at the start of this race. But now, he’s making sly moves—and that’s something Republicans and Democrats (who ought not dismiss the billionaire casually) should note.

Trump skipped Thursday night’s Fox News debate in Des Moines, a move that at the start of the 2016 Republican race would, indeed, have been considered unacceptable, unimaginable, and unexplainable.

But anyone who watched the debate without Trump quickly understood why he decided that he was better off across town.

It wasn’t just that Trump’s counter-rally in Des Moines drew an overflow crowd and wall-to-wall coverage on the other cable news networks. It wasn’t just that Trump got to brag about raising millions of dollars for veterans. It wasn’t just that Trump invited excluded GOP contenders Mike Huckabee (the winner of the 2008 Iowa GOP caucuses) and Rick Santorum (the winner of the 2012 Iowa GOP caucuses) onstage at his event, thus linking himself to two old favorites of evangelical voters.

Trump was not just grabbing an opportunity to help himself. He was encouraging the other candidates to hurt one another.

The billionaire is a narrow front-runner in polls of likely Iowa caucus participants and a wide front-runner among New Hampshire primary voters. Trump faces genuine competition in both states from Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. In New Hampshire he faces additional competition from Ohio Governor John Kasich and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. (Yes, Bush’s Granite State poll numbers have been on a notable upswing in recent days.)

Had he taken the stage with the rest of the candidates, Trump would have taken hits directly from them. He also would have had to stand by while they took shots at one another. They did just that: Cruz took shots at Rubio, Rubio took shots at Cruz, Bush took shots at Rubio, and Rand Paul took shots at everyone.

By skipping the debate, and letting the rest of the candidates argue among themselves, Trump avoided any potential damage—and he made it harder for the other contenders, especially Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich, to build on whatever momentum they might be accumulating as the key tests approach.

Why does this matter?

Consider the latest polling out of Iowa: The Real Clear Politics‘s averaging of recent polls has Trump at 33 percent and Cruz at 26 percent. Anything could happen on caucus night, and, yes, Cruz could still win it, with what is widely viewed as a superior organization. But the polls seem to suggest that Cruz is stalled, or potentially slipping. Several recent polls have Rubio, who got the Des Moines Register endorsement last weekend, catching up with Cruz. So Cruz was ready to rip Rubio, and Rubio was ready to rip Cruz.

That’s perfect for Trump. If Cruz and Rubio are fighting for second place in Iowa, rather than seeking to displace the front-runner, Trump’s under-organized Iowa campaign might just score a narrow caucus win.

If Cruz stumbles and Rubio surges in Iowa, all the better for Trump. Rubio is running poorly in New Hampshire (where his campaign lacks the energy, focus, and numbers of the Kasich and Bush efforts), which means he would have a hard time translating Iowa progress into New Hampshire progress.

Trump expects a win in New Hampshire, and the polls suggest he’ll get it. The only thing that could make that win better is rest-of-the-race chaos—with Bush, Kasich, Cruz, and Rubio all fighting for scraps.

Trump is no fool. He recognizes all of these dynamics. That’s why he skipped a debate on a network that, when all is said and done, will still be friendly to him if his strategies succeed.

No one should be happy with this circumstance. A healthy politics requires a lot of debates and a lot of participation, especially by high-profile contenders.

But, of course, Trump is not practicing a healthy politics.

He’s playing it rough, and ugly, from the start.

Now, he’s also playing it smart.

And if he plays it rough and ugly and smart in the primaries, it would be absurd (and dangerous) to presume—should Trump secure the Republican nod—that he will not play it rough and ugly and smart in the fall. •

Crash and Burned...

Ted Cruz Can’t Take the Heat

Thrust into the limelight by Donald Trump's absence, Cruz gave his worst performance of the cycle at Thursday night's debate. 

By Brian Beutler

Donald Trump’s last-minute decision to withdraw from the seventh Republican presidential primary debate Thursday night thrust his closest rival, Senator Ted Cruz, where he’s seemingly always wanted to be: at center stage.

Cruz is the most seasoned debater of all the Republican candidates, and Trump’s absence created a vacuum that Cruz could have filled with his typical brio. Instead, at a moment that presented Cruz as much opportunity and peril as any in his political career, he offered up his worst performance of the cycle.

Some of the blows Cruz suffered were self-inflicted, but there was more working against him than nerves and an unflattering limelight. Like so many elected Republicans and GOP operatives who have aligned with Trump to abate Cruz’s rise, the moderators and other candidates teamed up to damage him. To some small extent, this vindicated Trump’s decision to bow out in advance. But to a greater degree, the debate was a microcosm of the Republican establishment’s peculiar commitment to making Cruz, rather than Trump, their main target.

Cruz began the debate with characteristically unctuous panache. Asked what message Trump’s withdrawal sent to Iowa voters, Cruz delivered a pithy spoof of the absentee frontrunner. “[L]et me say I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat, and ugly. And Ben, you’re a terrible surgeon. Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way, I want to thank everyone here for showing the men and women of Iowa the respect to show up and make the case to the people of this state and the people of the country why each of us believe we would make the best commander-in-chief.”

But for the rest of the debate’s first half, Cruz seemed lost. After moderators invoked Cruz in a series of questions (to Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush) designed either to draw him into maximal conflict or sully his name, Cruz interjected angrily.

“I would note that that the last four questions have been, ‘Rand, please attack Ted. Marco, please attack Ted. Chris, please attack Ted. Jeb, please attack Ted.’”

Cruz was attempting to reprise his breakout moment from late October, when he excoriated CNBC moderators for provoking other candidates to attack each other. The difference is that this time he was whining on his own behalf, not on behalf of his fellow debaters, and it went over much, much worse.

“It is a debate, sir,” Fox’s Chris Wallace reminded him.

“A debate actually is a policy issue,” Cruz responded, betraying an impressive unfamiliarity with the timbre of the race he’s participating in. As if to contradict his own objection, Cruz sought to regain footing by defending his opposition to the Affordable Care Act with five provably false claims. “We have seen now in six years of Obamacare that it has been a disaster. It is the biggest job-killer in this country. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work, have lost their health insurance, have lost their doctors, have seen their premiums skyrocket.” (In fact, the economy has added jobs every month since Obamacare passed and at a remarkably steady pace. Millions of Americans have gained employment in that stretch, overwhelmingly full time employment. Millions more have gained health insurance, and premiums are lower now than they were projected to be if Obamacare had never passed).

Cruz entered the debate in the midst of a dangerous slide in the Iowa polls, battered both by Trump to his right and everyone else to his left. In an effort to repossess himself, Cruz has been simultaneously attacking and mimicking Trump all week. He called Trump fragile, then offered to participate in an unsanctioned one-on-one debate with him; he offered to give money to charity should Trump accept his challenge, just as Trump did five years ago when he challenged President Obama to produce his birth certificate. None of it has worked. And yet tonight, despite this strategy’s obvious shortcomings—as if to admit he’s running out of options—he tried one more time.

“I will say this,” Cruz sighed. “Gosh, if you guys ask one more mean question I may have to leave the stage.”

If Thursday’s debate was any indication, he will be doing so in much more consequential fashion very soon.

Trump gloats

Trump gloats about skipping debate, knocks Cruz

By Daniel Strauss

 A day after the latest Republican primary presidential debate, real estate mogul Donald Trump did two things: he gave himself a pat on the back for skipping the debate and also gloated at the pile-on on Sen. Ted Cruz.

"I think we're going to do really well in Iowa. We're leading in the Iowa polls. And Cruz is in the second place. He got really pummeled last night. I'm glad I wasn't there. And they didn't even mention that he was born in Canada," Trump said at a speech at the Radisson Hotel here in Nashua on Friday morning. "So he got beaten pretty badly last night. And I don't know what's going to happen to him."

At the debate Cruz was a popular focus of attacks from his Republican rivals, who repeatedly used their time to ding the Texas senator and presidential candidate who's been polling either in front or just behind Trump in Iowa.

"Our poll numbers probably went up," Trump said before predicting that Cruz's would probably go down as a result of the debate.

Later in his speech Trump mixed immigration with his attacks on on Cruz, noting that the Texas senator was born in Canada. Trump has repeatedly called into question Cruz's eligibility to be president.

"Ted Cruz is an anchor baby in Canada. But Canada doesn't accept anchor babies," Trump said, adding "he's a citizen of Canada and a senator of Texas." Cruz renounced his dual citizenship in 2014.

Cruz, Trump said, has tried to paint himself as an opponent of big banks but he's actually beholden to banks like Goldman Sachs and Citibank. Cruz took out loans from those banks during his successful run for Senate, failing to report two of them on campaign disclosure forms in 2012.

"He didn't want to put Goldman Sachs, he didn't want to put Citibank down because he wants you to think he's Robin Hood," Trump said.

Trump also knocked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who made sure to jab at Trump during the debate.

"How do you spend $125 million and you're at the bottom of the pack?" Trump said referring to the large amount the pro-Bush Right to Rise super PAC has spent.

He later pivoted to Democrats and in particular, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who has struggled to gain traction in the Democratic primary.

"Why is O'Malley running? What's that about? You know what his claim to fame was, he was the mayor of Baltimore," Trump said "What do you think his chances of getting the nomination are?"

Trump also argued that he is the reason Republican candidates are debating immigration policy. He noted that anti-immigration hardliner Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently endorsed him.

"Sheriff Joe endorsed me," Trump said.

Trump devoted a not-insignificant chunk of his speech to panning Joe McQuaid, the publisher of the New Hampshire Union-Leader, whose editorial page endorsed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

"By the way Chris Christie's a friend of mine. He's got no chance. Zero. He's gone down since he got the endorsement," Trump said before predicting repeatedly that the Union-Leader would soon go bankrupt. Then he went back to hitting McQuaid.

"Here's a guy who's truly a dishonest guy," Trump continued. "Why wouldn't you give me the endorsement? I mean, who's better than me?"

Rallies Democrats

Obama rallies House Democrats with fiery partisan speech

By Lauren French

President Barack Obama took a victory lap Thursday evening.

During a short speech to House Democrats at their policy retreat here, Obama counted off his biggest policy achievements as president while predicting that Democrats would win the White House next November.

The partisan speech was designed to excite Democrats already squarely behind Obama. He bragged that he exceeded expectations set by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, on driving down the unemployment rate to 5 percent and said he achieved a historic agreement with Iran.

"Our policies rescued the economy from the worst crisis in generations," Obama said. "We have now seen the longest streak of private sector job creation in our history. Sometimes I get a little frustrated that we don't run back the tape to what the Republicans said back then. Every single of the steps we took...they wanted to go in a different direction, claimed that our policies would crush jobs and destroy the economy. Do people remember that?"

Looking ahead to 2016, Obama said he would be succeeded by a Democrat but didn’t name the two top contenders, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who are both fiercely looking secure wins in Iowa’s early primary.

Obama made waves last week when he gave an interview to POLITICO suggesting Clinton was the most qualified for the job. But on Thursday, Obama didn’t tilt his remarks toward either candidate.

“I’m not worried about this party staying united. The other side may have some stuff to work but our trajectory is clear. Everyone is scouring my every word to find some deeper meaning to see if I’m trying to put my fingers on the scales,” Obama said. “Let me simplify things: Tonight I have an announcement about the presidential race. Democrats will win in November. The reason I can say that with confidence is because we focus on the things that matter in the lives of the American people.”

Obama spent most of the address attacking Republicans for a narrow focus center on opposing his agenda. He slammed congressional Republicans for opposing the Iran nonproliferation deal, voting-rights reform and measure to combat climate change.

Democrats, he argued, will see political success in 2016 because the party is focused on issues favored by the vast majority of Americans.

“We believe that our politics should reflect what’s best in us. I’m not going to claim that Democrats are perfect. I’m not going to claim that we are right on every single issue,” Obama said. “We hold ourselves to a higher standard. That we can do better.”

Echoing his State of the Union address, parts of which were widely interpreted as a broadside against Donald Trump, Obama added, “We're not going to strengthen our leadership … by allowing politicians to insult Muslims or pit groups … against each other.”

In a private question-and-answer session, lawmakers asked Obama about his administration's stepped-up deportations of immigrants in the United States illegally. Congressional Democrats have been highly critical of the move, while the White House has argued that it is constricted by the law and a broken immigration system while trying to downplay the number of individuals who have been deported.

Vice President Joe Biden was similarly questioned when he spoke to the Democratic lawmakers Thursday afternoon.

GOP debates interest

Poll: Democrats showing outsize interest in GOP debates

By Nolan D. McCaskill

Donald Trump is must-see TV, and not just for Republicans.

A recently released Pew survey found that large numbers of Democrats have been tuning in to the GOP prime-time debates, while Republicans have not shown as much interest in the showdowns between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. No word, yet, on whether that held true for Thursday night's debate, which Trump boycotted after feuding with Fox News.

Among those who have watched at least one debate, 70 percent of Democrats said they have watched a Republican debate, the survey released Thursday found. But less than half of all Republican debate watchers have tuned into a Democratic contest — most of which have come on weekends, including the Saturday before Christmas and the Sunday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Republicans overall, though, were found to have increased interest in the debates compared to Democrats and Independents. Sixty-four percent of Republicans have watched a debate, while just 53 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents have done the same.

Among those who have watched at least one debate, however, an overwhelming 94 percent of Republicans have seen a GOP debate; 86 percent have seen a Democratic debate.

Nearly nine in 10 Democrats who have watched multiple debates watched contests on both sides; 59 percent of Republicans who have seen multiple debates watched both a Republican and Democratic debate. Among the same group, 41 percent have only watched the Republicans spar — a drastic contrast to the 8 percent of Democrats who have only seen Democratic debates.

Predator and prey

Fox was both predator and prey

GOP candidates feel free to pick fights with a network famed for its conservatism.

By Hadas Gold

Fox News was both the host of Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate and one of its subjects, as Donald Trump repeatedly goaded the network at his own competing event while Ted Cruz took his lectern and his place as the one to take shots at Fox, a once-unthinkable move for a conservative Republican.

"If you guys ask one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage," Cruz said, after a spat with co-moderator Chris Wallace over how many of Fox’s questions were designed to provoke attacks on the Texas senator.

Wallace didn’t let it stand.

“It is a debate, sir,” he said.

Beltway Twitter crowed.

"Chris Wallace throwing shade at Ted Cruz is everything,” tweeted Meghan McCain.

"Chris Wallace is 1000% right. Debates are about sussing out policy disagreements. Which is what the moderators are doing,” The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza added.

It’s common for Republican politicians to attack the media for asking loaded questions — but less common when aimed at Fox, whose ability to draw attention to red-meat conservative issues was long viewed by Republicans as a corrective to the biases or omissions of the mainstream media.

On Thursday, however, Fox was not only the target of disdain by Trump and Cruz, but also chose to defend itself on traditional journalistic grounds — asserting its independence by refusing to negotiate with Trump over its choice of Megyn Kelly as co-moderator, while also insisting it was a fair and neutral forum where all candidates would get an equal shake.

The network says there’s a stark difference between its news reporters — a category in which the moderators fall — and its opinionated hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. But the network is still seen by many on the political right as the very voice of heartland conservatism.

But in this campaign, in which Cruz and Trump have largely defined their candidacies against the Washington-based Republican “establishment,” Fox has gotten lumped in with the D.C. crowd.

In the first GOP debate last August, Trump became agitated over a question from Kelly about his past statements about women, and he took to the airwaves and Twitter to condemn the anchor. That feud, which Trump fanned for five months, culminated in the candidate’s decision to skip Thursday’s debate, after Fox not only refused to replace Kelly as moderator but also mocked his unwillingness to face her questioning.

Thus, on Thursday, many viewers found themselves flipping channels between the official GOP debate in Des Moines, Iowa, and Trump’s event across town. While Kelly, Wallace and co-moderator Bret Baier were busy questioning the seven candidates on the main stage, Trump was declaring victory in his fight with the network by saying Fox News CEO Roger Ailes had apologized to him for the mocking statement. The network immediately demurred.

Ailes had had three short conversations with Trump, acknowledging his objections to a teasing statement that questioned how he would deal with Iran’s ayatollah and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the network said. But it refused to negotiate with the mogul.

"In the last 48 hours, we've kept two issues at the forefront — we would never compromise our journalistic standards and we would always stand by our journalist, Megyn Kelly," the statement said. "We have accomplished those two goals and we are pleased with the outcome. We're very proud to have her on stage as a debate moderator alongside Bret Baier & Chris Wallace."

Even before taking the stage, the moderators made it clear they were expecting some attacks on the media. All three knew they were likely to be in the cross hairs. In fact, in an interview last week, Baier noted that at the CNBC debate, Cruz had one of his best debate moments by going on a tear about the media and the moderators’ questions.

“Frankly, from a political standpoint, Cruz couldn’t have benefited more from that moment,” Baier said.

But after Cruz reprised his attack on Thursday night, this time against Fox, the debate calmed down and, by the second hour, the moderators were able to provoke some truly illuminating moments between the candidates.

Bush, Rubio and Cruz all got grillings on immigration.

Questions were posed in ways that called attention to the ways in which candidates had shifted their positions. Old videos of the candidates themselves were even played to make the point.

Kelly, showing she wasn’t intimidated by Trump, was praised for her tough questions and follow-ups.

“Megyn Kelly is throwing fastballs tonight,” wrote New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

"This is a brilliant part of the debate. Megyn Kelly’s accountability project,” wrote radio host Erick Erickson.

"Just gonna say it: Megyn Kelly's a badass,” Time Magazine’s Dan Hirschhorn wrote.

But while Kelly was being complimented by the media, Trump — competing for attention — was sounding off against the network. The Trump event was carried live by Fox’s two top competitors, CNN and MSNBC.

GDP

GDP up 0.7 percent in fourth quarter of 2015

By Marianne LeVine

Gross Domestic Product grew 0.7 percent in the last quarter of 2015, the Commerce Department reported Friday, continuing a slide in the economic growth rate since July.

The 0.7 percent growth figure was lower than the third quarter’s 2 percent GDP growth, which in turn was lower than the second quarter’s 3.9 percent GDP growth. During the first quarter of 2015 GDP declined by 0.2 percent.

The declining growth rate is a potential setback for Democrats in the presidential race, who will be running in part on President Barack Obama’s economic record. But they can still point to an unemployment rate that’s been cut in half since Obama entered office.

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tx.) said "0.7 percent growth is not good enough and Washington should not pretend that it is"

Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, appeared to agree, and said "continuing economic weakness" was likely causing slow productivity growth. He recommended that the Federal Reserve refrain from making further interest rate hikes.

The Commerce Department attributed fourth quarter deceleration to a decline in personal consumption expenditures that in turn reflected weak growth in wages and salaries. The Labor Department Friday reported that compensation costs for civilian workers rose 0.6 percent for fourth quarter and 2 percent from December 2014 to December 2015.

Deceleration in exports and imports and acceleration in federal government spending also contributed to the slowdown in growth.

For the year, GDP increased 2.4 percent in 2015, the Commerce Department said, in an estimate it will recalculate twice in coming months. That’s roughly consistent with 2014’s 2.4 percent and 2013’s 2.3 percent.

A Bloomberg survey of economists predicted real GDP growth at 0.8 percent for the fourth quarter of 2015. This is the first of three GDP estimates Commerce will make for the fourth quarter.

Debate ratings

Early debate ratings give ammo to Trump, but Fox News still sees strong result

By Hadas Gold

Fox Entertainmnet News' Trump-less debate Thursday night drew an 8.4 household rating, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings first posted by CNN.

That means 8.4 percent of rated households with TVs were tuned in — a large number for a typical night, but not among the highest when it comes to debate nights.

The debate scored a higher household rating than the previous debate, on Fox Business Network. It had a household rating of 7.4, which translated into 11 million viewers. Thursday night's debate will have a higher audience than the FBN debate, but its ratings won't be anywhere near the astronomical ratings the first Fox News debate brought in, a stunning 24 million viewers. FBN's first debate had an overnight rating of 8.9 and averaged 13.5 million viewers. Thursday night's debate will probably slot in between the two FBN debates when the finals come in.

To be sure, even an audience in the 12- to 15-million range would be a big night for any network, and is incredible, historically, for a primary debate night. This entire cycle has seen debate ratings smash primary debate viewership records from prior cycles.

As for the other event of the night, Trump's rally, which was carried in part by CNN and MSNBC (neither outlet carried the entire event uninterrupted), the outlets' combined ratings were about a quarter of those for the debate, according to CNN. The rally also ran online, on smaller unrated cable channels like One America News, and on C-SPAN, which is not rated by Nielsen.

Full ratings will be available later today.

I'm Great! I'm the winner!

Donald Trump declares victory over Fox and GOP debate

‘We have more cameras than they do,’ Trump says.

By Ben Schreckinger and Anna Palmer

Donald Trump took the stage at his veterans fundraiser on Thursday night and declared victory in his war with Fox News.

Strolling out to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” – a mainstay of his campaign trail soundtrack — the businessman announced that Fox News had changed its tone and been “very nice to me” in recent hours and that his event was drawing more interest than the cable network's debate.

“We’re actually told we have more cameras than they do by quite a bit,” he said, comparing the media presence at his event to the Academy Awards.

Trump’s gambit split the political press corps between his own much-hyped event and the debate they would otherwise be covering across town, where seven of his rivals shared the spotlight instead. It also guaranteed that Trump’s name would once again dominate the headlines on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.

In fact, two of Trump's cellar-dwelling rivals traveled to his turf to bask in the media attention — and, they said, join him in honoring America's veterans. After brief introductory remarks, Trump summoned the pair, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, to the stage.

"I’ll stand a little bit over here so that I'm not photographed with the Trump sign," said Santorum, stepping to the side of the Trump-branded podium. Speaking next, Huckabee did not bother trying to avoid the visual. “I figure you’re going to get the photo anyway," he said, speaking from the podium. The former Arkansas governor acknowledged that unlike his higher-polling rivals who made Fox's main stage debate, his schedule was wide open. “I have nothing to do at 8 o’clock tonight. This worked great for me.”

After the event, Huckabee told reporters that he would make an unspecified personal donation to veterans causes — "lt may not be a million bucks" — and defended his own lagging performance in polls. "How many people have voted yet?" he said. "Nobody."

Trump chose a humble venue for his bold spectacle, a cozy 775-seat auditorium on the campus of Drake University. The legions of press who could not squeeze into the auditorium watched the proceedings on a television in an overflow room, which itself overflowed, with reporters lining the walls and sitting on the floor.

The event was hastily thrown together after Trump announced he was boycotting the Fox News presidential debate in response to a taunting statement issued by the network that questioned Trump’s toughness. The network’s statement followed Trump’s griping about Fox co-moderator Megyn Kelly, whom the businessman wanted removed from the debate over her alleged anti-Trump bias.

The national anthem was backed by a lively instrumental accompaniment. Trump’s Iowa co-chair Tana Goertz, a former contestant on “the Apprentice”, and two North Carolina video bloggers -- Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway and Rochelle “Silk” Richardson, who have become prominent surrogates -- offered introductory remarks.

Before the event, Trump summoned a group of print reporters to his private jet, where he told them he had made a $1 million personal donation to veterans groups and that financier Carl Icahn had kicked in another $500,000. Following the event, Trump tweeted that a total of $6 million had been raised.

Trump also told CNN before the event that he had received an apology from “top people” at Fox but would not specify whom. He added that he might have attended the debate after all if his plan to hold the rival event had not “taken on a life of its own."

But Fox shot back, accusing Trump of wanting a "quid pro quo" in order to attend the debate — in the form of a $5 million donation to charity. A source close to the situation said there was an acquiescence to Trump, and Fox's statement notes they "acknowledged his concerns."

The crowd ranged from college kids to seniors and their politics were just as varied. Several attendees said that they were still undecided about who to support for the caucus.

"Right now, I'm in between a few people, but I'm really looking forward to a Trump rally because it might sway my decision," said Jared Turner, a student at Drake who was seeing Trump for the first time. "There's a thing that I really respect about him. He's about bringing back the old values."

Others like Michael Duff, of Boone, Iowa, were already sold on Trump.

"I think he's sticking by his principles. I think he is doing what needs to get done," said Duff of Trump's decision to skip the Republican debate and hold his own event. "I didn't know if I really supported Trump the first time I went and listened to him because I heard all the media garbage of all the cut and pasting of what he really said."

Duff, who has seen Trump three times already, said the real estate mogul is the right candidate to help change the country's trajectory.

"There's a lot more excitement behind Trump and not just because he was on TV or because he had a reality TV show," Duff said. "It's because of the person that he stands for and he wants to make America great again. That's his underlying message and how can you argue that."

Before the event, the line of attendees wrapped around the block as attendees waited to be cleared by Secret Service.

Jordan Mix, a senior at Drake, was one of just a handful of protesters braving the cold.

"I believe that Donald Trump's rhetoric is poisonous and it validates the xenophobic attitudes of a lot of Americans," said Mix, who was holding a "Dump Trump" sign. "It's important to me that anyone looking at Drake right now does not represent the views of Drake University."

Mix said she was caucusing for the Democrats and she is likely to support Bernie Sanders.

"I just think it was really hard for us to be bystanders and not do something when you see something so poisonous and hateful in your home. It's easy to make Donald Trump a joke when he's away from you, but when he comes in your space it's a little scary," Mix said.

Trump, taking an emcee role, then returned to the stage to introduce John Wayne Walding, a green beret born on the 4th of July. Explaining that he would wander the stage as he spoke, Walding said, “In the military, a moving target’s a lot harder to hit.” It’s a lesson Trump — who avoided Vietnam era military service with a medical deferment — seems to have internalized. Thursday’s fundraiser was only the latest surprise move in a campaign that has kept Trump in motion while the rest of the field is forced to react. Walding brought on two more veterans, and the trio presented Trump with an award.

The mogul then brought "Diamond" and "Silk" back onstage for an encore. He took to the podium once more to wind down the event and announce that he had asked his pregnant daughter, Ivanka, to give birth in Iowa. “It would be so great,” he said. “I would definitely win! I want that to happen so badly!"