UPDATE: The DNC has announced the new requirements for debate 11 on March 15 in Phoenix.

"To make the March 15 debate stage, candidates need to have been allocated at least 20% of the total number of pledged delegates allocated across all of the following contests: Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Democrats Abroad, Guam, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont and Washington. The allocations need to have been made by by 9 a.m. ET on March 15."

Basically, a candidate must have at least 20% of the total of all allocated delegates leading up to the debate night. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders obviously already meet this new, and only, threshold but Tulsi Gabbard only has 2% and is unlikely to gain any more in time.

It is not yet known if the same qualifications will apply to debate 12 though given the fact only 2 qualify for debate 11, it's a pretty safe bet they won't change it further.

She's so far behind in delegates and votes that I can almost understand why they'd fudge the qualifications to keep her out but....but they've played with qualifications to keep her and others out before AND fudged the qualifications to enable Bloomberg in.

Had they not toyed with the qualifications before to deny/allow the candidates they chose, I'd give them a free pass on this one.  But I can't just ignore the fuckery from previous debates.

But yes, the DNC is definitely one big steaming pile of swamp shit. Remember, "The party decides its nominee. The public doesn't really decide the nominee.”

Entirely?  What about their actions?  Like Kamala's DA record?

Soo, a bit surprisingly for me, the whole Coronavirus crisis plays into the debate about health care. How so?

Well, many people still working with small symptoms, because they don't get paid sick leave. If they work in a job, where they are in contact with other people, this helps to potentially spread the virus (or basically any infection).

Also people without health care may avoid going to the doctor, in which case they aren't identified as infected with Covid in time.

All this is not helping to contain the epidemic.

And don't get me wrong I don't hate all things Democrat. In fact I voted for John Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08. But I just hate what they've largely become in the last 5-10 years.

As I've said - if these guys can just let Tulsi into this one debate and speak for maybe more than 3 minutes total (half of which she's forced to respond to bogus smears) and actually talk policy.. and she's STILL hugely unpopular, I'll totally concede that she's done and need to leave. But I really just feel she needs that massive exposure on a major level. I point to the huge lift for Perrot in '92 as evidence that this could be significant. I mean the guy was a non-entity and a big TV special propelled him to 19% of the popular vote in the '92 general!

Sure, TV doesn't have the same influence and monopoly on exposure it once did and Podcasts/Youtube is great - but it's mostly a younger audience watching them, many of whom are either already in for Bernie or sitting it out anyway.

I swear, sometimes the things that stick in politics are just baffling.

Which bogus smears? That she has and still continues to funnel money to people involved with an extremist Hare Krishna offshoot cult? That she was one of the earlier politicians making liberal use of the term "radical Islam" and criticized Obama for 'not' using it even though it's pretty much become a buzzword for those on the far-right trying to enact laws that discriminate against Muslims? Her alignment with PM Modi of India? Her willingness to dub herself a "hawk" on Islamic terrorism while simultaneously playing the pacifist with Assad of Syria who has been slaughtering his own people for years? 

I'd say she has a lot to rightfully answer for.