Victoria Jones created and edits Quick Morning News. She is chief White House correspondent with Washington DC-based Talk Media News, where her insight and analysis are made available to over 400 news talk radio stations around the country and internationally.
Happy Chinese New Year – the Year of the Monkey
Quick News
Hillary Clinton’s woman problem
GOP debate: 5 takeaways
GOP debate: 5 major moments
Millsfield NH: First to vote tonight
Super Bowl: Broncos trample Panthers 24-10
Lady Gaga/Halftime/Ads/Obama
Security Council condemns North Korea after test
Hillary Clinton’s Woman Problem (NYT, CBS News, WaPo, me)
• Hillary Clinton is having trouble persuading women, young and old, to rally behind her cause. A new CNN/WMUR survey out Sunday in New Hampshire showed Bernie Sanders beating Clinton among women by eight points – a big shift from last week in Iowa, where Clinton won women by 11 points (women want their issues addressed, not just a symbol – walking a line)
• Feminist icon and Hillary Clinton backer Gloria Steinem says she “misspoke” on Bill Maher’s talk show on HBO last week, when she implied young women were supporting Bernie Sanders because “the boys are with Bernie.” She apologized in a statement for “implying young women aren’t serious in their politics.” (flat out said it, actually)
• She said on the show she believed that women become more “radical” as they age because “they lose power as they age.” (think that’s true) Younger women are thinking: “Where are the boys?” (unfair) Sunday, she said instead, “young women are active, mad as hell about what’s happening to them, graduating in debt, but averaging a million dollars less over their lifetimes to pay it back.”
• While introducing Clinton at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, Madeleine Albright, the first female secstate, talked of the importance of electing the first female president, and said: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” Clinton laughed, slowly clapped and took a large sip of her beverage
• At a student town hall at New England College on Saturday, a young woman told Clinton that she supported her in 2008 but now has doubts. “My concern is that your answer that nothing new was found in the Benghazi hearings continues to give me some doubts. Everybody knows you can’t write 30,000 emails to your yoga instructor.” (finally, somebody said the obvious)
• Hillary Clinton, who faces mounting pressure to release transcripts of her paid speeches, routinely demanded that a stenographer be present at her events so she could maintain a record of what she said. At least four of Clinton’s contracts include a clause stating a transcript would be produced for Clinton, that she would own them and control their release (McClatchy)
• Rubio pantsed by Christie: Marco Rubio blasted Gov Chris Christie for failing to show up in NJ until 36 hours after the recent blizzard. Rubio: “They had to shame you into going back.” Christie, for the win: “The shame is, Marco, you would actually criticize someone for showing up to work.” (skewered) Rubio has a D- Senate attendance record
• Rubio stuck in a loop: Rubio tried to turn around a question about his lack of executive experience by charging that President Obama “knows exactly what he’s doing.” Christie said Rubio “simply does not have the experience to be president.” A rattled Rubio then delivered the same line about Obama twice. Christie: “There it is. The memorized 25-second speech. There it is.”
• Trump mostly left alone: Donald Trump’s rivals barely laid a glove on the frequent New Hampshire poll leader, focusing their invective instead on Rubio. Trump offered a defense of eminent domain – red meat. Without it, he said, “you wouldn’t have roads, you wouldn’t have hospitals, you wouldn’t have anything…you wouldn’t have schools or bridges.”
• Jeb is still Jeb: Bush said Trump was “downright wrong” when his company tried to use eminent domain to build an Atlantic City casino “from an elderly woman.” Trump shushed him with his finger to his lips, with a bossy “Lemme talk – quiet!” The audience booed. Trump claimed the audience was GOP operatives (naturally, but Bush couldn’t beat the bully)
• Cruz mostly flat: Knowing he had little to win and lots to lose, Ted Cruz kept his head down – and tried to clean up his campaign’s creepy caucus-day tactic of telling voters that Ben Carson had already dropped out of the race by picking up the sagging surgeon’s supporters. “Ben, I’m sorry,” Cruz told Carson, blaming a CNN report – (which never said Carson was dropping out)
• Watch the cringe-inducing entrances of the GOP candidates onto the debate stage – there were sound issues backstage – Ben Carson and Donald Trump miss their entrances and hover, awkwardly, in the wings – awful – as the others confidently stride past
• When moderators asked Ted Cruz to defend his recent argument that Donald Trump is ill-prepared to become president, he demurred, noting that New Hampshire voters will decide and then pivoted. Trump noticed: “If you noticed, he didn’t answer your question. We’re gonna win with Trump, and people back down with Trump.”
• After his spat (see above) with Jeb Bush, Trump drew boos from the audience for (rudely) shushing him. Trump welcomed the boos. “That’s all his donors and special interests,” he said, drawing even louder and more intense jeers. “The RNC told us, we have all donors in the audience. The reason they’re not loving me is I don’t want their money.”
• Waterboarding: Cruz was in favor in high-level interrogations: “Bad things happen when enhanced interrogation is employed at lower levels.” Trump: “I’d bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” (he doubled down on Sunday, but wouldn’t say what he meant by “worse”)
• Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and Bush agreed that if a draft were ever instituted, women should be required to sign up for selective service. Cruz on Sunday said he didn’t have a chance to respond, but that his reaction was: “Are you guys nuts? Listen, we have had enough with political correctness, especially in the military.”
• After Cruz mentioned his Iowa win during his closing statement, Trump delivered a sucker punch. “That’s because you got Ben Carson’s votes,” he said. Cruz had no chance to respond to the shot, which came just after CNN issued a blistering statement accusing Cruz of misleading voters about its reporting on Carson’s decision to take a day off (Cruz is lying about CNN)
• The town selectman in tiny Millsfield, NH, is the guy in charge of organizing midnight voting in his North Country community of 10 households. He will shepherd folks to the Log Haven bar to cast ballots tonight, making Millsfield among the first places in New Hampshire to vote in the state’s first-in-the-nation primary Tuesday
• “It’s been crazy up here!” Mr Urso said in a Sunday morning phone interview. All the cable networks are coming to Millsfield for the midnight vote, along with reporters from England, Ireland and Belgium – and maybe more. In 2014, Millsfield got the state’s formal approval to cast first ballots at midnight. Hart’s Location and Dixville Notch also vote at midnight
• As recently as last spring, Millsfield officials were squabbling with the county over who would subsidize the town’s election, since it needed new voting machines and equipment to move the local voting precinct from a bed-and-breakfast to a bar where visiting media could watch the proceedings (and, presumably, drink)
• “Even with 14 or 15 voters, there are times when I feel like I am trying to round up cats,” Urso said. “You try to make sure that you meet that 100% accountability aspect and you might find that there’s one or two stragglers that nobody’s heard from, and what are they going to do?”
• An outraged Bernie Sanderswitzky complains about preferential treatment for the 1%er who is trying to snag a berth on the lifeboat on a sinking steam ship off the coast of New York City in SNL – 1%er played by Larry David
Super Bowl: Broncos Trample Panthers 24-10 (Reuters, me)
• The Denver Broncos shocked the Carolina Panthers 24-10 as the Super Bowl closed out its first half-century on Sunday with an upset. A coy quarterback Peyton Manning refused to reveal his hand, leaving open the possibility that the 39-year-old could remain part of the NFL next season. BTW, Budweiser says he wasn’t paid to mention the beer post-game – he just did it
• The golden Super Bowl was much hyped as a passing of the baton with Manning the aging super star giving way to Panthers’ flashy quarterback Cam Newton, who didn’t live up to his Superman nickname against a top ranked Denver defense that proved to be his kryptonite. “They just played better than us,” grumbled Newton
• It was a relentless Denver defense that can claim credit for the victory holding the Panthers’ number one ranked offense – that averaged over 31 points a game during the regular season – to a single touchdown and field goal
• The Denver defense, which recorded seven sacks, was led by a rampaging Von Miller who forced Newton into two fumbles that were both converted into touchdowns earning the linebacker Super Bowl most valuable player honors. “He has been unbelievable these playoffs,” said Broncos general manager John Elway
• Watch Tom Brady get booooed during the Super Bowl 50 MVP ceremony – not surprisingly with a crowd that skews towards Denver Broncos fans, and with the Deflategate appeal coming up on 3 March
• Can we please hear it for Lady Gaga? The woman totally nailed the national anthem and showed any (why would there even be any) questioners why she’s a superstar. And, the sound was great. That’s important because the sound during the half time show stank – somebody needs to get fired
• Coldplay’s Chris Martin has the kind of voice that needs a good mic to bring it out. He didn’t have one. The result was awful. I couldn’t hear anything. I still don’t know why the NFL chose Coldplay for the halftime show – people want driving rock or upbeat pop superstardom
• Well, the fans got that when Beyoncé strutted onto the field, one day after she released a new song: “Formation,” which she performed. It’s a powerful song with lyrics including “I like my Negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils” that celebrates black pride and achievements. Oh – Bruno Mars was there, too, doing an “Uptown Funk” routine
• President Obama made a secret prediction for the game’s winner during a live interview with CBS’s Gayle King on Sunday afternoon. It will be read on CBS This Morning. The Obamas lamented patchy wifi coverage in the WH during the interview – a “lot of dead spots,” Obama revealed (every WH correspondent will testify to the truth of that)
Security Council Condemns North Korea After Test (BBC, me)
• The UN Security Council on Sunday strongly condemned North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket. After an urgent meeting in New York, the council said it would soon adopt a new sanctions resolution in response. Current resolutions ban North Korea from carrying out any nuclear or ballistic missile tests
• Pyongyang said it fired the rocket to place a satellite into orbit – but critics (ie everybody) believe the real purpose was to test a ballistic missile. Sunday’s launch came weeks after North Korea held a fourth nuclear test
• U.S. ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said Washington would now “ensure that the Security Council imposes serious consequences” on Pyongyang. “There can be no business as usual,” she said, adding that “we’ll come up with something tough.” (China might have something to say about that) SecState Kerry spoke with his counterparts in Japan and South Korea
• The launch of the rocket was hailed by North Korean media as a “fascinating vapor…trailing in the clear and blue sky in spring of February on the threshold of the Day of the Shining Star.” A state TV newsreader said the launch had been ordered by leader Kim Jong-un and more satellites were planned for the future
• Seoul and Washington have agreed to begin talks about deploying the THADD missile defense system in South Korea, a defense official told reporters Sunday. The announcement “is made in the context of a recurrent and continuing threat to peace and security” to South Korea, Japan, the whole region and the U.S., Power said Sunday
