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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I was promised a recession.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Let’s finish the job.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

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Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

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Cole is on a roll !

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Bernie Sanders 2016 / Open Thread: But It’s All for the Cause, Citizen!

Open Thread: But It’s All for the Cause, Citizen!

by Anne Laurie|  January 29, 201610:16 am| 319 Comments

This post is in: Bernie Sanders 2016, C.R.E.A.M., Election 2016, Open Threads

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With great power comes great responsibility, and with rising poll rankings comes increased media attention. The NYTimes has discovered that “Bernie Sanders Tops His Rivals in Use of Outside Money”:

As he swung through Iowa this week, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont rarely passed up a chance to bash the rising tide of money in politics, a system he said on Tuesday was “corrupt and undermining American democracy.”

At many of these stops, he was accompanied by members of National Nurses United, a seven-year-old union, fanning out from a bright-red bus in matching red scrubs to corral potential Sanders votes.

But the union is not just busing nurses into Iowa. The union’s “super PAC” has spent close to $1 million on ads and other support for Mr. Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate who has inspired liberal voters with his calls to eradicate such outside groups. In fact, more super PAC money has been spent so far in express support of Mr. Sanders than for either of his Democratic rivals, including Hillary Clinton, according to Federal Election Commission records…

Mr. Sander’s unlikely rise to super PAC pre-eminence is, in part, the story of an unusual alignment of strategies by different outside groups, including Republican ones eager to bloody Mrs. Clinton and lift Mr. Sanders, whom conservatives believe will be easier to defeat in a general election. While the nurses’ super PAC is the biggest left-leaning outside spender in the Democratic primary, conservative organizations have also spent at least $4.3 million attacking Mrs. Clinton in recent months.

But the super PAC spending by the nurses’ union also underscores an aspect of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that Mr. Sanders rarely dwells on in his campaign speeches attacking the ruling. The same decision that gave corporations the ability to “buy and purchase the United States government” — as Mr. Sanders put it on a visit to Grinnell College on Monday — bestowed the same rights on labor unions, freeing them to spend unlimited money from their treasuries on election advertising.

While the vast majority of super PAC money still comes from wealthy individuals, union cash — pooled from the dues and contributions of members — has become a critical source of money for outside groups on the left. In 2012 and 2014, unions gave more than $200 million to super PACs. More than half of it went to union-controlled groups that spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising, mailers and other “independent expenditures.” So far in 2016, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, seven of the top 20 organizational contributors to super PACs were unions or their affiliates, not corporations…

… and this is a good thing! As long as the billionaires are allowed to spend unlimited! corporate! cash! buying elections (or at least attempting to do so), we need labor unions and other progressive coalitions to push back. Which, IMO, makes it even worse for Bernie Sanders — who’s been in politics for more than 40 years, and knows exactly how things work — to pretend that he’s “not a politician” because he won’t directly acknowledge the PAC is working for him. He’s just enabling the Media Village Idiots to nod along, and then use his noisy condemnations as fodder for another ten-thousand-word lament on BothSidesDoIt.

Further reading:

At last Dem debate, I said I was appalled by Bernie Sanders' theory of politics. @jbouie articulates what I meant. https://t.co/qOdiCoMRPl

— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) January 28, 2016

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Reader Interactions

319Comments

  1. 1.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 10:22 am

    QUICKLY! BOTH TEAMS TO THE BARRICADES!

  2. 2.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 10:26 am

    Let’s keep the tone clean, Dudebros and Dudettebras. No presidential campaign is going to be destroyed because of its supporters on MY watch.

  3. 3.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    January 29, 2016 at 10:30 am

    The Revolution need not wade into the complexities of the arcane petite bourgeois pretense of fairness, transparency or egalitarianism; accuracy need not concern us so much as a trifle as that system is a corrupt lie. Any act which is beneficial to the cause of the vanguard of the proletariat seizing the means of production and exerting political and societal control is part of the dialectic and the inexorable path of history.

  4. 4.

    amk

    January 29, 2016 at 10:31 am

    @different-church-lady:

    AL’s mission accomplished!

  5. 5.

    El Caganer

    January 29, 2016 at 10:32 am

    Damn those fat-cat, 1%er nurses!

  6. 6.

    Chris

    January 29, 2016 at 10:36 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:

    Ditto!
    /Blazing Saddles

  7. 7.

    dr. bloor

    January 29, 2016 at 10:37 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Oh, that’s good. Very, very good.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2016 at 10:38 am

    IOKIYABS

  9. 9.

    sharl

    January 29, 2016 at 10:43 am

    @El Caganer:

    Damn those fat-cat, 1%er nurses!

    ~
    Yeah, this is a concise summary of what drove some folks on Twitter apeshit last night when they read this story. This twitter TL has a lot of that, along with some input from others who have covered the campaign finance beat (which ain’t an easy beat AFAICT – lots of twists and turns in the regulations).

  10. 10.

    ruemara

    January 29, 2016 at 10:44 am

    Considering that Sanders is now a profession of faith, I predict this can be explained away quickly. Either way, I don’t begrudge the man the support. He just needs to, as Obama himself had to, acknowledge that small donors won’t make the cut for the entire race.

  11. 11.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2016 at 10:45 am

    AARP and the The League of Conservation Voters have had to send cease and desist warnings to the revolution about unauthorized use of their official logos on Sanders campaign mailers.

    Berning bridges?

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 10:47 am

    Be careful, lest Thoughtful Today implicitly accuse you of condoning slavery in Boston.

  13. 13.

    Anya

    January 29, 2016 at 10:48 am

    Bernie’s revolution will not be televised so the nurses will do it for him.

  14. 14.

    ruemara

    January 29, 2016 at 10:48 am

    @Cacti: most Bernie fans feel you should not blame him flkr what is surely an outside designer working secretly for the Clintons. Because the Clintons are Hydra, something something.

  15. 15.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 10:48 am

    @ruemara:

    This.

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 10:49 am

    I think nurses are grossly underpaid and under appreciated. I also saw the head of that union on TV a couple of weeks ago. They seem to have the same political plan as St Bernard: “We will prevail because our cause is righteous.”

  17. 17.

    Sloegin

    January 29, 2016 at 10:49 am

    Al Gore flew in an airplane to a climate conference.

  18. 18.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 10:50 am

    Clinton supporters, you surely must know that your snide and destructive remarks reflect on candidate Clinton. Would you let your hatred burn down her campaign as well?

  19. 19.

    sharl

    January 29, 2016 at 10:53 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police: I’m glad you are here, Officer, and I am imagining you in a uniform and helmet topped by a flashing blue-&-red police light.

  20. 20.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 10:53 am

    @geg6: When you fainted dead away at the incivility of the Sanders supporters yesterday, I laid down my own self-interest in order to police the tone here so nothing like that ever happened again. And here you are now contributing to that self-same tone. Oh, the horror!

  21. 21.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 10:57 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Raruh!!!

    /Blazing Saddles

  22. 22.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 10:58 am

    @El Caganer:

    I don’t begrudge Bernie the support of nurses and I realize they are hardly on the level of, say, Adelson. But it’s not exactly a waitress sending him $5 as an individual donor, which is the fantasy Bernie wants everyone to think is the entire engine of his campaign. On the Dem side, unions are where the money is since we don’t have stupid billionaires funding all their pet politicians on our side. And, sad to say, unions (even newer ones) are the Dem establishment. Which pretty much kills another one of his disingenuous themes.

    I say let’s quit pretending that Bernie Sanders isn’t a politician like pretty much every other politician. A fact which, it seems, too many of his supporters have chosen to either completely overlook or are too stupid to comprehend.

  23. 23.

    NonyNony

    January 29, 2016 at 10:58 am

    These missteps by the Sanders campaign are having me rethink whether he’s going to get my vote or not. I’ve been planning to vote for him for a while now, but if his team can’t put out a plan that can get sympathetic wonks onto his side – and if their only defense to having bad assumptions called out is to resort to calling them shills for the healthcare industry – then I worry about their ability to actually run their political campaign for a mass audience that is more skeptical of the end goals.

    Right now I’m still planning on voting for him, but I dunno – all of this is coming off as really half-baked.

  24. 24.

    Anya

    January 29, 2016 at 10:58 am

    I suggest a Balloon Juice primary debate between Anne Laurie and Hillary Rettig

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 10:58 am

    I certainly don’t think any worse of Bernie as a candidate now that I know this. I expect some degree of pious humbug from any politician; so far, none has ever disappointed me.

  26. 26.

    Peale

    January 29, 2016 at 10:59 am

    I’m assuming that whatever comes out of a Sanders win will end up looking more like Venezuela or Brazil and less like Norway, but I could be wrong.

  27. 27.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 10:59 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police:

    Feel free to be the asshole you are any other day. You Berniebros lost me a week or so ago and won’t be winning me back.

  28. 28.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 11:00 am

    @sharl: I’m very surprised almost all of the nasty rhetoric is coming from the Clinton supporters. I heard them complaining about the terribly uncivil Sanders supporters and so I thought I’d be dropping the hammer on the dudebros.

    What the hell?

  29. 29.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    January 29, 2016 at 11:01 am

    @Cacti:

    Those running dog lackeys of a capitalist roader in the leadership of those organizations will be judged harshly in the political trials which follow the Revolution, and their membership monitored for antirevolutionary activity in the aftermath of those judgments. The trials will be fair, of course; the Revolution executes no one without providing an opportunity for one to explain their betrayal of class consciousness.

  30. 30.

    El Caganer

    January 29, 2016 at 11:01 am

    @Cacti: That’s beyond amateur. Hell, even I know better than to do something like that.

  31. 31.

    Lord Baldrick

    January 29, 2016 at 11:04 am

    Bashin’ Bernie
    CAW
    CAW
    CAW
    Bashin’ Bernie
    CAW
    CAW
    CAW

    (apologies to Crow T. Robot)

  32. 32.

    El Caganer

    January 29, 2016 at 11:04 am

    @geg6: I kind of like Sanders, but it does some he’s got a few vocal followers who have trouble telling the difference between President and Messiah.

  33. 33.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2016 at 11:04 am

    @geg6:

    JSF is trying to be hipster funny because s/he has had a case of the sore ass since I showed him/her that even the Sanders campaign is asking the revolutionaries to dial down the arsehole factor:

    “If you support @berniesanders, please follow the senator’s lead and be respectful when people disagree with you,” wrote Sanders press secretary Mike Casca on Twitter.

  34. 34.

    jacy

    January 29, 2016 at 11:04 am

    You know, I just don’t care. I’m going to vote for the eventual Democratic nominee. Hell, I’m going to call, and walk the neighborhoods and drive people to the polling places for the eventual Democratic nominee. But — and maybe you kids just need to get off my lawn — I can’t muster much excitement. My kids who are of voting age are all about Bernie Sanders, and the only thing I care about is that THEY are excited enough to participate. Maybe the last 12 years of shit has just worn out my give a fuck button.

  35. 35.

    magurakurin

    January 29, 2016 at 11:05 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police: whatever,chief. None of it really matters. Sanders isn’t going to win.

    It will be up to Clinton to stop Trump. Anyone who decides to help her do that will be warmly welcomed.

  36. 36.

    daveNYC

    January 29, 2016 at 11:05 am

    @geg6: Seriously? Months ago you were already hung up on the fact that Sanders wasn’t a Democrat, but something something last week was the point where the candidate’s supporters (not the candidate himself, because God knows that the spewing of random internet assholes is the best way to decide a democracy) piled on the last straw?

  37. 37.

    Iowa Old Lady

    January 29, 2016 at 11:05 am

    OTish, but a R woman at the gym this morning told me she got 13 political phones calls last night. I get maybe 5 or 6 a day, mostly from polling organizations, but I’m a registered D so I have fewer candidates to call me. I know no one who answers the phone any more.

  38. 38.

    Germy

    January 29, 2016 at 11:05 am

    Six responses to Bernie skeptics

    A video from Robert Reich.

    “I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have,” Reich said. … Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor for President Bill Clinton. But he’s endorsing Sanders.

    —————-
    I’ll support whoever wins the democratic nomination. I’ll vote for my cat if she wins the democratic nomination. After watching excerpts from the latest GOP debate, I don’t want any of those folks within ten miles of the White House, to paraphrase mr. christie.

  39. 39.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    January 29, 2016 at 11:05 am

    @NonyNony

    All you need to know about the Bernie campaign is that rich people suck, he’s going to take all their munnies via a huge tax increase, and that somebody is putting together a Bernie meme shot of him scowling and shaking his fist while saying “Rich People Suck”.

  40. 40.

    gwangung

    January 29, 2016 at 11:06 am

    @El Caganer: Yeah, particularly after how people got on Republican candidates for music use (which is considerably less clearcut than this). These amateur hour actions are fair game for his critics to write about.

  41. 41.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 11:07 am

    @Cacti:
    The Newsweek story calls the League of Conservation Voters “the League of Conservative Voters”. That’s what you get for laying off the copy editors.

  42. 42.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 11:07 am

    I knew it. Bernie Sanders is in the pocket of Big Nurse.

  43. 43.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2016 at 11:07 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Ouch.

  44. 44.

    Woodrowfan

    January 29, 2016 at 11:10 am

    @Heliopause: oh my, that’s hot. GIANT nurses has got to be a fetish for someone out there..

  45. 45.

    p.a.

    January 29, 2016 at 11:11 am

    I’m waiting for the report to drop on Baud’s campaign finances. It won’t be pretty my friends; that AOL access doesn’t pay for itself.

  46. 46.

    D58826

    January 29, 2016 at 11:11 am

    OT but made the mistake of listening to the 7 clowns for a bit last night. They werte complaining about the hollowing out of the US m,ilitary, never mind ther size of its budget is more than the next 8 couintries combined. Never merntioned was what DOD spends all of that money on. Maybe if we were getting more bang for the buck DOD could afford more ships or troops with the money they have. Case in point the 16 year late 1 trillion dollar f35. The latest

    The code delay is the latest—and possibly most damaging—setback for the Pentagon’s ambitious and controversial plan to replace almost all of its Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps fighters with three different versions of the F-35 at a cost of more than a trillion dollars over the next 50 years.
    Damaging, because the military and F-35-maker Lockheed Martin have increasingly sold the F-35 as a sort of “flying computer” whose software can outthink enemy pilots even when the enemy’s own planes fly faster, maneuver better and carry more weaponry than the F-35 does.
    The stealth fighter’s software is its last possible claim to being a first-class warplane. If the F-35’s code doesn’t work, then neither does the F-35

    And that is just one weapons system. I’m old enough to remember the 600 dollar screwdriver scandals of the 1960’s. The only thing that has changed is the overruns get more and more expensive and the defense contractors richer and richer.l

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 11:11 am

    @Heliopause: I knew it. Bernie Sanders is in the pocket of Big Nurse.

    Louise Fletcher?

  48. 48.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 11:12 am

    Oh my god, people, this is bad. I found this picture of Bernie’s top advisor on health care policy.

  49. 49.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 11:12 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police: I’m not sure what all the fuss is about: she’s already Hitler and nobody’s going to vote for her, so what’s the sense in them being concerned about it?

  50. 50.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2016 at 11:12 am

    Sanders campaign also Berning bridges with the largest union in Nevada:

    Campaign flacks impersonate Culinary Union members to access private employee dining rooms on the Las Vegas strip to preach the gospel of St. Bernard.

    What’s the difference between a Bernfeeler and a Jehovah’s Witness?

    Eventually the JW will give up on trying to convert you.

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2016 at 11:12 am

    @Heliopause:

    Bernie Sanders is in the pocket of Big Nurse.

    Kinky!

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    January 29, 2016 at 11:13 am

    @Germy:

    I’ll vote for my cat if she wins the democratic nomination

    Your cat’s campaign has been good so far, apart from all the money she is getting from the flea Super PAC.

  53. 53.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    January 29, 2016 at 11:14 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Sounds like you just filled up with some biodiesel for the Volvo.

  54. 54.

    sharl

    January 29, 2016 at 11:15 am

    @Cacti:

    Campaign flacks impersonate Culinary Union members to access private employee dining rooms on the Las Vegas strip to preach the gospel of St. Bernard.

    ~
    Hahaha, I saw that yesterday. Damn, those dudes – and anyone like them – need to be physically restrained somehow. Or sent to work for James O’Keefe maybe.

  55. 55.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 11:16 am

    Jesus, it only gets worse. Here is a video from Bernie’s website showing the administration of Single Payer to a typical patient.

  56. 56.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 11:16 am

    @El Caganer:

    …who have trouble telling the difference between President and Messiah.

    This seems… familiar some how….

  57. 57.

    Woodrowfan

    January 29, 2016 at 11:16 am

    Bernie or Hillary? I lean towards the former but the latter would be fine with me too. Keep in mind who the opponent REALLY is. Either Cruz or Trump will likely get the republican nomination and the only thing that’s going to keep their convention from looking like “Triumph of the Will” is that Leni Riefenstahl is dead. Getting angry over Bern vs. Hill is like getting into fights over whether you get onions or green peppers on your pizza while forgetting the republicans think the best pizza topping is rabid dog crap.

  58. 58.

    Germy

    January 29, 2016 at 11:17 am

    @Brachiator: In the video I linked to, Robert Reich says single payer is possible. On his white board he draws a smiley face and writes “saves money”

    I’m not an expert; maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong.

    I’m just thoroughly sick of this election cycle. Too long, too much bullshit.

  59. 59.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 29, 2016 at 11:22 am

    @Peale: no, more like the Johnson administration. Andrew Johnson.

  60. 60.

    Lord Baldrick

    January 29, 2016 at 11:26 am

    Remember this from HRC?

    “Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

    1) Change “Obama’s” to “Sander’s”

    2) Vote Clinton!

    3) PROFIT!

  61. 61.

    El Caganer

    January 29, 2016 at 11:27 am

    @different-church-lady: Unfortunately, that happens regardless of who the candidate is. Even Ted Cruz, one of the most unlikeable public figures going, has folks who think he’s The Chosen One.

  62. 62.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 11:29 am

    Time for your Single Payer. This won’t hurt a bit.

  63. 63.

    pamelabrown53

    January 29, 2016 at 11:29 am

    @Germy:
    Is this the same Robert Reich who, during his tenure in the Clinton administration, was touting the emergence of an American service based economy as answer to the loss of manufacturing jobs? Or am I “misremembering”?

  64. 64.

    gwangung

    January 29, 2016 at 11:29 am

    @Woodrowfan: Seriously.

    I’m fine with each campaign hammering on the weaknesses of the other’s. That’s why you have primaries. And if the candidates improve their platforms, that makes it better for the general. That’s why you do primaries.

  65. 65.

    Linnaeus

    January 29, 2016 at 11:30 am

    Even if Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire – which would be a boost for his campaign, no doubt – I have a hard time seeing him doing well in the primaries after that.

  66. 66.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    January 29, 2016 at 11:30 am

    This is ridiculous. Any one large corporation can outspend every union in America and not even notice it on their balance sheet.

    To pretend that Citizen’s United gave labor anything like a level playing field is completely and totally dishonest.

  67. 67.

    Linnaeus

    January 29, 2016 at 11:31 am

    @Woodrowfan:

    the republicans think the best pizza topping is rabid dog crap.

    Actually, I think it’s tire rims and anthrax.

  68. 68.

    Pogonip

    January 29, 2016 at 11:31 am

    @Brachiator: Fleas? Your cat just lost my vote!

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 11:32 am

    @Lord Baldrick: Remember this from HRC?

    I do. One of the reasons I wish there were a better general election candidate. And I remember her vote on Iraq. I also remember “not a dime’s worth of difference” and “after four years of Bush, the voters will see…” Best thing that ever happened to the Billionaire Class.

  70. 70.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 11:34 am

    Glad you blew the lid off this one, Anne. Bernie and Big Nurse are coming for our kids. Sick.

  71. 71.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 11:34 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: The parasites will be removed with extreme prejudice from their bourgeois 5th column positions!

  72. 72.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 11:37 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: A whole lot of rich people do suck (to one extent or the other).

  73. 73.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 11:39 am

    @Heliopause: I can just picture a smoke filled room in the basement of some non-descript office building, around the table are 10 or 12 nurses, all looking like Nurse Ratched, in uniform, etc. Smoking stogies & divvying up the money.

  74. 74.

    NonyNony

    January 29, 2016 at 11:39 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I’m really just wondering if Sanders never thought he’d be a serious contender as a candidate so he never thought he’d actually have to have an actual plan to show people. His plans are not standing up to scrutiny and it’s worrisome. You might be able to win an election based purely on positioning and rhetoric but I don’t see how you govern on it. (Well I do see how you do it, but only from the right. I don’t see how in this country you can do that kind of thing from the left given how the whole setup of our government is biased towards small-c conservatism).

  75. 75.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    January 29, 2016 at 11:41 am

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    This is ridiculous. Any one large corporation can outspend every union in America and not even notice it on their balance sheet.

    Hell, Shelly Adelson can do it alone. Each Koch brother could take an opposite candidate and not notice any dent in lifestyle.

    We call hoarders insane, yet admire guys who hoard positive digits on a piece of paper.

  76. 76.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 11:41 am

    Would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but here is a planning document on how Big Nurse will seize a federal wildlife refuge and turn it into a Single Payer base of operations.

  77. 77.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 11:41 am

    @Woodrowfan: Well said.

  78. 78.

    Linnaeus

    January 29, 2016 at 11:42 am

    @NonyNony:

    I can’t remember where, but I’ve seen that argued elsewhere – Sanders and his staff found himself in a real campaign and didn’t expect it. Wouldn’t surprise me.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    January 29, 2016 at 11:45 am

    Make ’Em Cry, Cam: How Newton Will Drink Reporters’ White Tears
    Nothing succeeds like success (or makes haters weep like defeat), and Cam Newton is going to the Super Bowl.

    BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR.
    Posted: Jan. 25 2016 3:47 PM

    Cam Newton is not your father’s quarterback. He is a fun-loving, flamboyant-dressing, dab-dancing, Southern-sounding, in-your-face figure of black awesomeness who is rubbing white journalists all kinds of raw.
    …………………

    And then, after thoroughly dismantling the Arizona Cardinals, Newton told the press gallery that he knew the process was going to be long like “slow-cooked collard greens.”

    “This has been a process,” he said. “It wasn’t going to be instant grits. It was going to be like long, slow-cooked collard greens. I think those collard greens are brewing right now. You can smell them from 100 miles away.”

    When he speaks like this and uses our language, he isn’t talking to the gaggle of white reporters who now fawn over the man whose ability many doubted. He is speaking directly to his people—to us. And for Newton, it’s always been about us.

    The dab is for us.

    The outfits are for us.

    Saying “this, that and the third” is for us.

  80. 80.

    ruemara

    January 29, 2016 at 11:46 am

    @Lord Baldrick: if you think Sanders comment on black people voting Obama due to race, or constantly offering economic policy to racial justice issues or his campaign saying they were focusing on bringing in white voters as a caucus strategy didn’t hit that note, you’d be incorrect.

  81. 81.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    January 29, 2016 at 11:46 am

    @NonyNony:

    “half baked pie in the sky” should be Bernie’s campaign slogan

  82. 82.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    January 29, 2016 at 11:49 am

    @NonyNony:

    This is why I’ve been comparing the Sanders campaign to bumper stickers on a belching biodiesel Volvo, and mocking the “angry Bernie” memes. It isn’t serious and isn’t a plan for governing. Soak the Rich is a great soundbite, but the devil is in the details, and if your plan requires reliably progressive Senators (like Al Franken, and Elizabeth Warren) or progressive House members (think John Yarmuth, or Keith Ellison) to move painfully leftward, then you aren’t a serious candidate. You won’t be “heightening the contradictions” or “creating a narrative”, you’ll be losing.

  83. 83.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 11:51 am

    Looks like we’re getting Single Payer whether we want it or not.

  84. 84.

    Sherparick

    January 29, 2016 at 11:52 am

    The fact is Bernie is a very good politician. He was a good, honest mayor in Burlington who delivered city services without raising taxes. He leveraged his popularity as Mayor to become Vermont’s representative in the House. And when Jim Jeffords retired, he moved up to the Senate. He has proved he is a very good and talented population by mounting an insurgent drive for the Democratic nomination where a year ago people in both the party and media considered his candidacy a joke when they considered it at all. Because he recognized there was a problem that Democratic New York, Washington, LA, Silicon Valley, and Seattle centered elites were pretty clueless about. See this: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/01/22/fewer-manufacturing-jobs-housing-bust-haunt-many-us-counties

    What grates a bit is when Bernie says he is not “a politician;” also what grates is the Berniebots going off on everyone who disagrees with Bernie or them on 1% of the issues is a “corrupt tool of special interests.” The instant adoption of ad hominem arguments and blog trolling really is not likely to change the minds of those who are not already true believers. But what grates about Clinton and the media and political elite is has been a generation of blindness that 92% of the country has gotten poorer the last 15 years.

  85. 85.

    Citizen_X

    January 29, 2016 at 11:55 am

    @Peale:

    I’m assuming that whatever comes out of a Sanders win will end up looking more like Venezuela or Brazil and less like Norway, but I could be wrong.

    Or maybe Allende-era Chile, with a fascist coup taking over. But that’s my nightmares speaking.

  86. 86.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    January 29, 2016 at 11:56 am

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: As Nancy Smash pointed out, promising to raise everybody’s taxes isn’t a winning campaign position. It was tried 32 years ago and didn’t work overly well then.

    ETA: I do realize that pointing out an election 32 years ago makes me an old senile boomer.

  87. 87.

    japa21

    January 29, 2016 at 11:58 am

    @Sherparick: It reminds me of how Obama supporters in 2008 (not all of them thank goodness) would attack any criticism of him as being race based, For the record I was one of those who totally supported Obama but would have been ready to mark the circle for Hillary.

    I don’t think Clinton is blind to the last factoid, but agree 92% of the country thinks that because the media has avoided it like the plague.

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    January 29, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    How to win a debate by not showing up
    01/29/16 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Going into the seventh debate for the Republican presidential candidates, we knew in advance the gathering in Des Moines would be a qualitatively different kind of event. Donald Trump, feuding with Fox News, refused to participate, creating a void on the stage: the GOP frontrunner, the one whose antics many viewers tune in to watch, wasn’t there.

    And yet, somehow Trump managed to win the debate anyway.

    How does a candidate who wasn’t there come out on top? By my count, there were five relevant angles to this.

    1. Trump won because his principal foe lost.

    In Iowa, among other places, the Republican frontrunner’s principal foe is Ted Cruz. And while the Texas senator may have the best raw debating skills of any GOP candidate in many years, last night’s event in Des Moines was rough for the Republican lawmaker. With Trump out, the remaining candidates (and the moderators) largely directed their fire at the candidate whom they (a) are trailing in Iowa; and (b) dislike personally anyway.

    Cruz turned in his worst debate performance of the cycle, appearing unsteady in the face of repeated criticisms, on the night he needed to shine. The result: Trump saw his closest competitor stumble, and he didn’t have to lift a finger to make it happen.

    2. Trump won because his other principal foe also lost.

    To my mind, the night’s most important exchange happened about mid-way through the debate, when one of the moderators asked Marco Rubio, “Within two years of getting elected, you were co-sponsoring legislation to create a path to citizenship, in your words, amnesty. Haven’t you already proven that you cannot be trusted on this issue?”

  89. 89.

    waysel

    January 29, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Thank you for pointing this out.

  90. 90.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    Another creepy one from Bernie’s website: Bernie meets with his “Deputy Reichsminister fur Einzigen Auftraggebers”

  91. 91.

    Joe Buck

    January 29, 2016 at 12:05 pm

    The New York Times article finds ways to call all the labor unions helping Bernie “outside spending” while excluding most of Hillary’s most heavily funded outside groups, like David Brock’s superPAC. If you count it all, Hillary has vastly more, but the NY Times wanted a “man bites dog” story.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    @japa21: I don’t think Clinton is blind to the last factoid, but agree 92% of the country thinks that because the media has avoided it like the plague.

    If you remember the crash of ’87, which now seems like a blip, I think it was Mike Royko who said, ‘When the market crashed in ’29, reporters called their editors, when it crashed in ’87, they called their brokers’. I think that problem has grown exponentially as TV has pushed out dead-tree and the ink-stained wretches have, or aspire to, become mousse-groomed fops.
    And while I do wish HRC had been more out front on inequality, and for all her compromises and unpleasant associations and SPEAKINGFEESZOMG!, I tend to trust her on domestic policy.

  93. 93.

    Linnaeus

    January 29, 2016 at 12:10 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    The rub, though, is that to do a lot of the progressive things that folks here and elsewhere want, we will need to raise taxes.

  94. 94.

    Betty Cracker

    January 29, 2016 at 12:11 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I never heard that Royko quote before, but wow, that’s a keeper.

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    January 29, 2016 at 12:12 pm

    Year-old document shows Snyder admin knew Flint water substandard
    Rachel Maddow shares a new report from the Detroit Free Press showing a year-old e-mail acknowledging that the public water in Flint “does not meet treatment requirements” for state employees to drink, even as the Snyder administration was assuring Flint residents about the integrity of their water.

  96. 96.

    Frankensteinbeck

    January 29, 2016 at 12:14 pm

    @Woodrowfan:
    It is. I’ve met them.

  97. 97.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    January 29, 2016 at 12:14 pm

    @Sherparick:

    He was a good, honest mayor in Burlington who delivered city services without raising taxes. He leveraged his popularity as Mayor to become Vermont’s representative in the House. And when Jim Jeffords retired, he moved up to the Senate. He has proved he is a very good and talented population by mounting an insurgent drive for the Democratic nomination where a year ago people in both the party and media considered his candidacy a joke when they considered it at all. Because he recognized there was a problem that Democratic New York, Washington, LA, Silicon Valley, and Seattle centered elites were pretty clueless about.

    Here’s the problem – it is one thing to be a mayor of a tiny, extremely white city in Vermont. Vendor relationships will be personal, the mayor sees most of his city employees at least three days a week, and the only competing agendas are personal and not issue or ethnic group based. There’s a high degree of homogeneity, and the guy running the town can appear to be a genius if he’s personable and even marginally competent.

    You can’t you can’t translate that experience into the sort of a pol that has good answers in truly urban spaces.

  98. 98.

    Lord Baldrick

    January 29, 2016 at 12:18 pm

    @ruemara: Assuming Sanders is eliminated in short order, Clinton will be relying on mile-wide inch-deep support of AAs in the GE.

    IF Trump sustains into August, I expect a National Unity ticket of Clinton/Bloomberg (not snark, not kidding)

  99. 99.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    January 29, 2016 at 12:18 pm

    @Linnaeus: Still’s a loser electorally.

  100. 100.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 12:18 pm

    @rikyrah:

    How does a candidate who wasn’t there come out on top?

    Because it’s a television show, not a debate.

  101. 101.

    chopper

    January 29, 2016 at 12:19 pm

    @Woodrowfan:

    Bernie or Hillary? I lean towards the former but the latter would be fine with me too. Keep in mind who the opponent REALLY is.

    …obama?

  102. 102.

    Linnaeus

    January 29, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Snyder should burn for this. He won’t, though. This’ll be abstracted as the fault of “government bureaucrats” and the like.

  103. 103.

    Linnaeus

    January 29, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Oh, I’m not denying that. It is, though, a dilemma that needs to be resolved somehow.

  104. 104.

    japa21

    January 29, 2016 at 12:25 pm

    @Linnaeus: He is already working to make them the scapegoats. The more information that is coming out, the harder that argument will be to sell to the public.

    Imagine if there was a media source that could devote even 30 minutes in prime time to this that actually is watched by people.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 12:27 pm

    @Betty Cracker: not sure it was him, but somebody said it.

    @Frankensteinbeck: the nurses or their… admirers?

  106. 106.

    Captain C

    January 29, 2016 at 12:27 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Bernie Sanders is in the pocket of Big Nurse.

    Kinky!

    Hedy Lamarr, is that you?

  107. 107.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    January 29, 2016 at 12:27 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Like every master debater (just like Our Lord and Savior Alan Keyes) and every eternally weak guy who could have benefitted from getting bullied more in school, Ted Cruz thinks that his rhetorical skill can save the day, and that people watching are scoring points like college judges going “ooooooh-that’s a zinger”.

    Instead, people hear their cadence and reactions and say “goddamn – what a fucking asshole”.

  108. 108.

    Lord Baldrick

    January 29, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    Clinton does have one major advantage: There will soon be a sea change on the abortion issue. Pro-choice forces will (quite rightfully) be able to reframe the issue as ‘forced childbirth of Zika babies’.

    Imagine Trump/any R asked this question: “Would you be willing to look a pregnant woman in the eye and tell her that she must bear her Zika-infected fetus to term?”

    As more pictures of Zika babies get into circulation, forced-childbirth advocates will lose their ‘pictoral’ advantage and be required to explain and justify why they should be involved in the decisions of others.

  109. 109.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 12:30 pm

    @Captain C: that’s HED-LEY!

    jumping movies:
    – Your Majesty! You look like the PISS boy!
    – and you look like a bucket of shit!

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    January 29, 2016 at 12:32 pm

    @Germy:

    In the video I linked to, Robert Reich says single payer is possible. On his white board he draws a smiley face and writes “saves money”

    I’m not an expert; maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong.

    He says that everyone will have a net savings because the additional taxes they pay will be less than their current insurance premiums. Too broad and too glib an answer.

    There was a pretty good discussion of his plan on the public radio program Air Talk, which you can listen to here: Policy experts debate viability of Senator Bernie Sanders’ health care plan

    I don’t think it answers all the questions, but it is pretty good. I didn’t think much at all of the second guest, Marco Rubio’s health care advisor.

    I’m just thoroughly sick of this election cycle. Too long, too much bullshit.

    And we are just getting started.

  111. 111.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    @rikyrah: I like him too, rikyrah! Hope he whups the Hell out of Peytron & his 5 head.

  112. 112.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    Just doing a drive-by to check on the tone.

    Looks good! Once you get the old folks under control at Balloon Juice (the Broken Widows theory of policing), the neighborhood at Balloon Juice calms down a LOT.

    I’m going to talk to Steeplejack about starting a Midnight Basketweaving league.

  113. 113.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    @rikyrah: That should send some asses to jail!

  114. 114.

    Noclue72

    January 29, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police:
    Dude fuck off.

  115. 115.

    Linnaeus

    January 29, 2016 at 12:37 pm

    @japa21:

    He is already working to make them the scapegoats. The more information that is coming out, the harder that argument will be to sell to the public.

    He is, through his surrogates. The line from Snyder himself is mostly, “Let’s fix the problem and not worry about blame.” Which is convenient for him.

    I may be overly skeptical here, but there would really need to be a lot of public pressure, combined with some very serious charges, to get Snyder out of government. He’s term-limited, so there’s no chance at defeating him in an election and the Republican majorities in the state house and senate are not going to do anything against him.

  116. 116.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police: Good afternoon, Officer Fuckhead (throws a jaunty wave)!

  117. 117.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    @Cacti:

    “If you support @berniesanders, please follow the senator’s lead and be respectful when people disagree with you,” wrote Sanders press secretary Mike Casca on Twitter.

    Too little, too late.

    Plus, Bernie seems incapable of ever admitting he’s wrong, which means I will continue to hold every shitty vote I was pissed at him about prior to him announcing against him, and AFAIK he is still refusing to help anyone downticket. Well, genius, why do you think only a fraction of elected Dems support you? No, it’s not the word “socialist”. If we can’t win back the Senate, any POTUS will be forced to nominate really shitty picks for SCOTUS, and we can’t afford that. I’m voting for the candidate who will help flip the Senate.

    Sanders is making it easy, really. He has so many critical negatives I don’t have to feel divided at the ballot box this time.

  118. 118.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    January 29, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    @Paul in KY: Good afternoonmorning, Officer Fuckhead (throws a jaunty waveflips the asshole the bird)!

  119. 119.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    @pamelabrown53: Aren’t you thinking of Robert Rubin, the guy from Wall Street? Robert Reich quit the Clinton Admin. Couldn’t take it any more.

  120. 120.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2016 at 12:51 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Thank you.

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    January 29, 2016 at 12:52 pm

    @Lord Baldrick:

    Assuming Sanders is eliminated in short order, Clinton will be relying on mile-wide inch-deep support of AAs in the GE.

    Clinton, or Sanders, must build on the Obama coalition. They will need younger voters, women, etc

    IF Trump sustains into August, I expect a National Unity ticket of Clinton/Bloomberg (not snark, not kidding)

    Not a chance in hell. Bloomberg does nothing for Clinton.

  122. 122.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 12:52 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Man, you Left-Coasters sure are grumpy…

    He’s just trying to stop a patchouli driveby between the Clintonorises and the Sandersviks

  123. 123.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2016 at 12:53 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hate that Hilary getting in there made all the good candidates run and hide so I have to vote for her.

    Which is not a reason to throw away everything I’m fighting for to protest vote for Sanders.

  124. 124.

    ruemara

    January 29, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    @Lord Baldrick: after your brilliance in summing up the motivations of black folk, I’m terrified of your prognostication.

  125. 125.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:

    Here’s the problem – it is one thing to be a mayor of a tiny, extremely white city in Vermont.

    Bernie did great things with Burlington, but the last time I was there (only time, also), I shared a bus stop with two white people with white supremacist tattoos. It was truly shocking and I live in the South.

  126. 126.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    January 29, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    @Paul in KY:

    Man, you Left-Coasters sure are grumpy…

    I’m not a morning person.

  127. 127.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    @ruemara: He had a cunning plan…

  128. 128.

    Hillary Rettig

    January 29, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    @Anya: Hey! She’s been doing this a lot longer than I have. :-)

    Anyhoo, obvsly, count me among those who somehow fail to see the equivalence between the nurse’s union (one of the most leftist, btw) and Adelson or the Goldman Sachs Globe-Sucking Vampire Squid.

  129. 129.

    kc

    January 29, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    @geg6:

    I was gonna vote for HRC, but the abusive trolling of white Hillarybros like Cacti & Botsplainer has caused me to cross over to Team Bernie.

    Even if he IS beholden to Big Nurse.

  130. 130.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    @Paul in KY: Gee, Officer Fuck-head, ________ ____!

    (reference to I forget which musical via Curb Your Enthusiasm)

  131. 131.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    @Paul in KY: These jackals are itching to destroy every presidential campaign on the left. I’m coming to the sad conclusion that our neighborhood rabble-rousers may actually be from the Republican side of town, lured over here by our slutty women.

  132. 132.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    West Side Story?

  133. 133.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I hate that Hilary getting in there made all the good candidates run and hide so I have to vote for her.

    Good candidates such as …?

  134. 134.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    @kc:

    I was gonna vote for HRC, but the abusive trolling of white Hillarybros like Cacti & Botsplainer has caused me to cross over to Team Bernie.

    Dammit, this was exactly the kind of scenario I was trying to prevent. If HRC can somehow prevail, maybe my tone policing wasn’t in vain. But right now, it feels like I’m waging a losing battle.

  135. 135.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    @Lord Baldrick: IF Trump sustains into August, I expect a National Unity ticket of Clinton/Bloomberg (not snark, not kidding)

    Yup, I’m sure in her quest to attract Hispanic and African-American voters, and to appeal to women of all ages, and to inspire young people in the age of inequality, Hillary will pick an eighty year old white billionaire who has to change his state of residence (assuming he votes in New York) in order to qualify for the ticket. Because The Hildebeast’s pure and instinctive evil is surpassed only by her legendary stupidity.

    ETA: @Amir Khalid: Thank you!

  136. 136.

    Heliopause

    January 29, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    I wish you fuckers would quit derailing and focus on the real issue here which is Big Nurse.

  137. 137.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    @Brachiator:
    It’s strange to me that Bernie’s people seem to think that Clinton’s standing with AA’s is a mile wide and an inch deep. I remember clearly that AA’s were staunchly in her corner in ’08 until Barack Obama proved himself to be electable. I also remember all the stuff from AA’s about how Obama wasn’t black enough. As an oldster who has followed politics for decades, I feel pretty confident in saying that AA’s might be the most pragmatic voters in the Democratic coalition. Bernie has said and might very well think that blacks only voted for Obama because he was black, but he might want to ask the AA candidate who attempted to primary Steve Coehen in a majority AA district in Tennessee how that turned out for her.

  138. 138.

    danielx

    January 29, 2016 at 1:12 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    West Side Story, natch. And Big Nurse gives me unpleasant associations with Nurse Ratched.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    January 29, 2016 at 1:12 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    No, she’s basically right, IMO. Reich almost re-invented himself after the Clinton years. Maybe he had a change of heart or was somehow stymied while he was working for Clinton, but I’m always a little surprised when he’s now presented as this liberal maverick. I don’t remember it like that.

    WASHINGTON — Labor Secretary Robert Reich said Tuesday that labor unions are “just plain wrong” in opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada and predicted it would result in adding jobs to the U.S. automobile and steel industries.

    He has since blamed problems with NAFTA on Mexico, “side agreements”, something something, which I don’t consider real brave. The truth is they don’t have a real enforcement mechanism for the labor protections and environmental provisions.

    It just isn’t true to claim they will enforce them. Economic threats or sanctions are an incredibly hostile act, country to country, and that’s not even taking into account business interests, who will of course work as hard they can to avoid enforcement. Fair trade people are always presented as unrealistic and unserious, but the truth is the free trade side relies a lot on fantasies of enforcement that will never come to pass.

  140. 140.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Good candidates such as …?

    I’ll have to second that one.

    Who were the first tier candidates kept out of the race by Clinton?

  141. 141.

    danielx

    January 29, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police:

    Tone Police? On a (any) BJ thread?

  142. 142.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    January 29, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @dogwood: I was an early Obama supporter and I consistently ran into people of color who didn’t know who Obama was and weren’t interested in voting for him. They were pretty wedded to the Clintons. I think Sanders biggest challenge is going to be separating some of that vote from HRC and he ain’t gonna win the nomination without it. It won’t be easy and I don’t think Sanders will take the low road like Obama surrogates did in 2008, wildly taking Clinton quotes out of context to paint them as secret racists.

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @Kay: but I’m always a little surprised when he’s now presented as this liberal maverick. I don’t remember it like that.

    People change, often sincerely, and politics change. My recollection, and I could be wrong, was that Al Gore was picked by Bubba to reassure whomever (“Centrists, Reagan Democrats, Soccer Moms”, David Broder) that the pot-smoking draft-dodging skirt-chasing ex- hippie and his mouthy Yankee wife wouldn’t turn the country into a giant “commune”. Now Gore is (to the Village) an untouchable Leftist and Bubba (to much of the Left) might as well be a Republican.

    @danielx: the Tone Police, they come for me in the thread….

  144. 144.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    January 29, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @Kay: Read his book, “Locked in the Cabinet”.

  145. 145.

    Bartholomew

    January 29, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    I don’t think Sanders is a messiah, but I could see disappointment … he’s not levitating his way to victory entirely on sunshine. People read things differently. He is a politician, and a successful one. That is no recommendation in itself, but his company may make him seem angelically-inspired.

    Bernie is not beholden to corporate interests, but he is still swinging in the major leagues. He is, for better or worse, a genuine outsider. He has major support the establishment either misses or keeps off-screen, but it’s not hidden. He cannot mingle with his PACS or be seen to direct their actions, which is all bullcrap of course but in this case both sides actually do do it.

    More feces splattered, that’s really all.

  146. 146.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    Deeeeeeeeear…. kindly Sargent Fuckhead
    Don’t feel like you’re alone
    It’s just their condescension
    That’s ruining their tone
    Their donors all are banskters
    Their pollsters are all hacks
    That’s what makes them lash out on the facts!

  147. 147.

    Kay

    January 29, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Thanks. I didn’t know he had a “I was a hostage book”. I remember him telling everyone to switch to jobs in health care. Everyone was going to be an LPN. I actually think there’s cynicism (now) when people are told to retrain because they have been being told that for 25 years.

    “I’m already an LPN. Now I need to switch again, back to welding?” I cringe a little when I hear Democrats say it because they act as if it’s new every time they roll it out.

  148. 148.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @Cacti:
    I suspect that Joe Biden would be one of the names mentioned; but at the time when he should have entered the race, he and his family were going through Beau’s final illness. By the time the Bidens were finally ready, the window had long since closed for Joe.
    ETA: In the end, Joe’s reason for not running really had nothing to do with Hillary.

  149. 149.

    ruemara

    January 29, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    Yes. When you see the phrase good hardworking people, white people, the context ameliorates it. So glad I’m just focusing on defeating whatever republican runs anywhere.

  150. 150.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 1:32 pm

    @Bartholomew:

    He is, for better or worse, a genuine outsider.

    Look, I get that he’s not your typical congresscritter, but to me it’s quite a flabbergasting slight of rhetoric that someone who’s been a member of Capitol Hill for 25 years can be framed as an “outsider”

  151. 151.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    January 29, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Joe Biden would be getting double hammered as the original Dudebro candidate from the Clinton side and the Senator from MBNA on the Sanders side.

    I’m not sure the time window was the biggest factor. A more important question is who is the Joe Biden constituency?

  152. 152.

    Brachiator

    January 29, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:

    I was an early Obama supporter and I consistently ran into people of color who didn’t know who Obama was and weren’t interested in voting for him. They were pretty wedded to the Clintons

    What? All two of them?

    I think Sanders biggest challenge is going to be separating some of that vote from HRC and he ain’t gonna win the nomination without it.

    the black vote, probably like the Latino vote, will go to whoever is perceived to have the best chance of winning and who clearly seems to best represent their interests.

    It won’t be easy and I don’t think Sanders will take the low road like Obama surrogates did in 2008, wildly taking Clinton quotes out of context to paint them as secret racists.

    Low road? I don’t remember that, or with the Clintons being secret in their clumsy attempts to play race games. But none of that 2008 crap is particularly relevant to what the candidates need to do for this election.

  153. 153.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @Kay: That, in a nutshell, is what drives me bonkers about almost all policy makers. They see people in society in almost the same way generals see troops in wartime: as figures on a page, as resources to be allocated in various ways until the math of their formula adds up. People don’t just suddenly have an aptitude to do certain kinds of work simply because there’s a demand for that kind of work. They’re not wet clay. You don’t just throw training at “generic worker unit” and suddenly they’re happy, competent (occupation X) employees.

    Not that I know a better way to do it instead, but if you want to know where some of the cynicism comes from, I think that’s a huge part of it.

  154. 154.

    daveNYC

    January 29, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    Biden didn’t have a lot of space to work with policy wise relative to Clinton. Basically he would have just been Clinton’s policies with the Biden personality behind them. And that’s the real Biden, not Onion Biden. Unfortunately.

    Plus, there wouldn’t be a lot of upside for him running. He didn’t have great odds of taking down Clinton, though better than Sanders does, plus, since they’re so close on policy, the campaigning would probably have been much nastier. I figured he looked at the situation and decided that a nice quiet retirement (or ambassador position) might be a good next step.

  155. 155.

    Bartholomew

    January 29, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    @different-church-lady: ‘… to me it’s quite a flabbergasting slight of rhetoric that someone who’s been a member of Capitol Hill for 25 years can be framed as an “outsider”’

    I see what you’re saying, because he isn’t an outsider to Washington politics. If people say that it’s wrong.

    Bernie is (pretty much) an outsider to the Establishment, that’s all. The endorsement circles, the prayer meetings; the gang. But of course he is not an outsider in terms of experience with politics or time in office.

  156. 156.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
    For Joe, the time window was indeed the biggest factor. At least, that’s what he said when announcing he wouldn’t run. While I don’t necessarily discount the potential avenues of attack you mention, I think the failure of his two previous runs suggest he’s not really a strong candidate for president.

  157. 157.

    danielx

    January 29, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Well played.

  158. 158.

    chopper

    January 29, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    @dogwood:

    As an oldster who has followed politics for decades, I feel pretty confident in saying that AA’s might be the most pragmatic voters in the Democratic coalition.

    oh, totally. and for good reason – POC are the ones who bear the brunt of GOP policies. to them it’s a matter of livelihood, not political fantasy football like so many upper-middle-class white liberals see it.

  159. 159.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 1:59 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Was that ‘Gee, Officer Krupke…’?

    So many shows running around up there in my head.

  160. 160.

    Howlin Wolfe

    January 29, 2016 at 1:59 pm

    @magurakurin: Bookmark it, Berniebots!! Magurakurin has spoken! Don’t know where his lack of doubt comes from, but it sure sounds authoritative, no?

  161. 161.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:00 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police: We do have some primo ladies over here. Generally though, aren’t Republicans lured in by rent boys?

  162. 162.

    Howlin Wolfe

    January 29, 2016 at 2:00 pm

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Ooh, snap!! A strawman disemboweled!

  163. 163.

    chopper

    January 29, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    if trump keeps up, i expect hilz to pick someone like julián castro. hell, even if trump doesn’t, she probably will.

  164. 164.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:03 pm

    @Heliopause: ‘Big Nurse’ would be a good band name. Maybe a hip hop act. Think Big Freedia, just with twerking nurses.

    I have seen Big Freedia & she is something y’all need to see. Holy shit!!!

  165. 165.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Tone Police they won’t get out of my head…

  166. 166.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:07 pm

    @different-church-lady: How about this on last line: ‘That’s what makes them lash out on all the pesky facts! Think it scans better with the extra 3 syllables

  167. 167.

    danielx

    January 29, 2016 at 2:08 pm

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:

    All you need to know about the Bernie campaign is that rich people suck, he’s going to take all their munnies via a huge tax increase, and that somebody is putting together a Bernie meme shot of him scowling and shaking his fist while saying “Rich People Suck”.

    Help me out – is there a downside here?

  168. 168.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    It seems to be conventional wisdom around here that Bernie has moved the party and Clinton, particularly, to the left. There maybe some truth to that, but I also see that President Obama and Clinton have moved Bernie to the left on some issues as well. It’s all well and good that Bernie’s people don’t trust Clinton on economic liberalism, but by what measure should Bernie be trusted on issues like guns and civil rights? He had to come out in support of the President’s eo’s on guns and had to backtrack on his belief that racism is no longer an issue in the country. That’s the price you have to pay when you join the establishment and seek a major party’s nomination. As an independent he didn’t have to say things he didn’t believe. Now he does.

  169. 169.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    @dogwood:
    Hillary went on that listening tour at the very start of this run. I wonder if that factored at all into the generally leftier tone of her candidacy as compared to 2008.

  170. 170.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    January 29, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:

    A more important question is who is the Joe Biden constituency?

    I’ve been horrible about predicting who would run, but I agree with you about Biden. He ran at least twice before and got very lukewarm support. He was treated as a gaffe machine in the Administration by many in the press.

    I think Biden was talked up as “kindly Uncle Joe” because he definitely seems to have genuine empathy for people going through personal grief. And because the MSM and GOP wanted someone, anyone, weaker to run against HRC. They’re scared to death of her winning because it finally shows, if she wins, that their 40+ year “crank up the outrage of the day” techniques are no longer working, and they can’t figure out what to run on instead.

    Vote GOP because we’re fiscally responsible realistic about how foreign policy works against government intrusion in your personal life moderate stewards of government tough on big business corruption …, um, because we’re Old White Guys who have been in politics all our lives and we don’t know how to do anything else?

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  171. 171.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Vote GOP because we’ll keep our spatted white foot on the neck of them others!!!

    That’s what it has devolved to.

  172. 172.

    Gian

    January 29, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    Wow the title of this reminds me of the Right Wing and their fondness for calling Obama Dear Leader and The One.

    Not a good thing, why are Hillary supporters so mean? Makes me want to stay home and not vote.

  173. 173.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
    Politics aside, Joe Biden is one of those people (and we all know similar types in our own lives) who you have to say that anyone who knows him and doesn’t like him has something wrong with him.

  174. 174.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    @Gian: the country can go to hell because somebody said something snarky on a blog?

    Now that’s a true progressive! A fine humanitarian.

  175. 175.

    goblue72

    January 29, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    Why is holy fuck would I take what center-right “contrarian to be contrarian” Slate Magazine at face value without huge grains of salt? And as linked to from a tweet from CONSERVATIVE Dan Drezner? Seriously? Clue. Find one.

    I’m gonna leave it with Charlie Pierce as to why all this “But its not REALISTIC” whining is just so much centrist B.S. – http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a41608/bernie-sanders-washington-post-response/

    Or as the actual socialists put it – Meet the New Harry & Louise .

  176. 176.

    Davis X. Machina

    January 29, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @pamelabrown53:Re Reich at Labor during the Clinton admin – I believe we were all going to become ‘symbolic analysts”

  177. 177.

    Soylent Green

    January 29, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    @Paul in KY: No, it matches the cadence of the song (which I will now have playing in my head all day) with her wording.

    “I’m depraved on account of I’m deprived!”

  178. 178.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @goblue72:
    If we left things to Charlie Pierce in ’08, we would have nominated John Edwards.

  179. 179.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @Gian: Vote more, talk less.

  180. 180.

    goblue72

    January 29, 2016 at 2:46 pm

    @dogwood: If we left things to 2004 John Cole, we’d have invaded Iran at this point.

  181. 181.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    @Soylent Green: What song was she riffing off?

  182. 182.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @different-church-lady:
    It takes a huge ego to run for President, but never underestimate the ego of voters who think their concerns are the only ones that matter and they’ll show everyone how much they really care by not voting.

  183. 183.

    Kay

    January 29, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    People don’t just suddenly have an aptitude to do certain kinds of work simply because there’s a demand for that kind of work. They’re not wet clay. You don’t just throw training at “generic worker unit” and suddenly they’re happy, competent (occupation X) employees.

    I listened to this round table type discussion a few months ago. Sandberg was the moderator- the CEO of Facebook- and she was actually terrific – she asked really hard questions.

    Anyway, it was 3 former Treasury secretaries- Clinton, Obama, Bush. The truth is they don’t know what to do about shifts in the workforce except say “retraining” and “education” over and over again. Paulson was the most ideological. I think he’s smart so he could recognize there’s a problem with what you correctly identify as “generic worker unit theory”, but he’s so married to what he believes about markets and merit that he has no tools he could use to change anything anyway. He seemed a little desperate- “why aren’t they getting richer? Can’t they all learn to code or something?”

  184. 184.

    Soylent Green

    January 29, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    @Paul in KY: “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story

  185. 185.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    @Soylent Green: I did the tune like the old doggerel ‘Ask me no more questions, I’ll tell you no more lies…’

  186. 186.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    @Soylent Green: I have forgotten how that one went. My bad.

  187. 187.

    tam1MI

    January 29, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    @Cacti:

    It’s beginning to remind me of Howard Dean in 2004, when he had been expected to easily win Iowa because he was drawing huge crowds and generating so much”enthusiasm”. The flip side to that came at the caucuses, when he lost, and the number one reason given by the caucusgoers as to why they ruled him out for their vote was: “Because his supporters were SUCH ASSHOLES!”

  188. 188.

    Frankensteinbeck

    January 29, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    @goblue72:
    The problem is more than just that he won’t achieve his stated goals, it’s that he’s gone Underpants Gnomes about it. There are major practical issues involved in switching to single payer, and he’s not addressing them. His ‘revolution’ does not include explanations or even working for getting more Democrats elected. Breaking up the banks, increasing taxes on the rich, and reinstating G-S are not going to rein in the financial industry’s misconduct. Even if he miraculously pulls this all off and everybody is financially secure, it’s not going to have much effect on racial, gender, or any other kind of discrimination. He has wildly oversimplified his message, and quite a lot of people think someone who is focused on practical, current issues has a better policy platform as well as better odds of implementing it.

  189. 189.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    @goblue72:
    I said nothing about Cole and neither did you. You are free to listen to Charlie Pierce all you want, I simply have a good memory when it come to politics. Pierce is fun to read, but he is a sucker for anyone who runs as a populist. Therefore he fell for John Edwards hook line and sinker. I don’t take my political cues from anyone who’s that gullible.

  190. 190.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    Martin O’Mallye’s very young looking son just said his dad is a uniter, not a divider. I suspect he does not know the bells that rings with a lot of people.

    Talking of good candidate HRC may or may not have forced out, you never really know till they run. O’Malley’s failure to launch is as big a surprise to me as Turmp’s endurance or Sanders’ surging.

  191. 191.

    goblue72

    January 29, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @dogwood: The point being – if you find Pierce’s support of a candidate from 8 years ago to dispositive in its entirety as to whether to take his argument seriously, then you pretty much need to be calling into question whomever X person supported in the past. And that includes our blog host. If John was wrong then, then he must be wrong now. Which means Trump is the best candidate. Which is retarded. Much like your non-argument.

    Further, your response doesn’t nothing to actually respond to the crux of Pierce’s argument. Its just a weak sauce response.

  192. 192.

    goblue72

    January 29, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Funny – if Hillary proposed reinstating G-S, I have this nagging suspicion that the mainstream center-left pundits who be “yes indeed”-ing her – and the BJ recovering Republican commentariat would be ditto-ing till the cows come home.

    We can’t raise taxes on the rich. We can’t break up the big banks. We can’t have single payer. We can’t have nice things. Because, that’s why.

    Seriously? Fuck that noise and the complete lack of balls displayed by far too many Democrats.

  193. 193.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    @dogwood: This entire election is starting to seem like a water cooler became sentient and started repeating every stupid thing it had heard in the past decade.

  194. 194.

    Davis X. Machina

    January 29, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Even if he miraculously pulls this all off and everybody is financially secure, it’s not going to have much effect on racial, gender, or any other kind of discrimination. He has wildly oversimplified his message,

    It will — it must— have an effect on race and gender issues, and it’s only ‘oversimplified’ to the extent that it’s addressing their root causes.

    It’s all of a piece with an intellectual tradition that’s already a century-adnd-a-half old.

    The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

  195. 195.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    @Kay:
    I realize that you come from Ohio where the concerns about manufacturing jobs are the issue. But coming from an area where jobs are connected to extraction industries, I’m not sure you can save all these jobs.

  196. 196.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    January 29, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    O’Malley’s failure to launch is as big a surprise to me as Turmp’s endurance

    Me too – he’s been campaigning in Iowa for well over a year. I think I’m going to vote for him in my primary. Maybe he’ll shock the world! Or not :-(.

  197. 197.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    @goblue72: Balls.

  198. 198.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    @goblue72: what Senate and/or House races are you engaged in?

  199. 199.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @Davis X. Machina: Poe’s Law.

  200. 200.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    @goblue72:

    If John was wrong then, then he must be wrong now.

    He is wrong now. He’s just wrong in completely new ways.

  201. 201.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: I think you are being unfair to Sanders. I will defend him somewhat. Disclosure: I am a Sanders mega-donor, having given him over a hundred bucks. Though, I am very displeased with the way he presented his single payer plan. Anyway, my responses to your critique, or my concession that I think you are correct, below

    Breaking up the banks, increasing taxes on the rich, and reinstating G-S are not going to rein in the financial industry’s misconduct.
    > true, but neither will HRC’s plan IMHO. Both plans have big gaps. For example, I think any plan, including HRC’s, to regulate shadow banking is risky because the future path of regulatory arbitrage and evasion will be inherently unpredictable. So breaking up big banks and GS will close off one way shadow baking creates systematic risk, which is access to liquidity through systematically important insitutioins that have access to central bank funding. But, here, I am an outlier, I want the strongest elements of both Sanders and HRC’s plans. I am an ultra commie on financial regulation. You also omit Sander’s financial transaction tax, which in itself will reduce size of unproductive parts of financial industry, and evidence is that incidence of the tax mostly falls on financial industry profits (Baker and CEPR Beat the Press has links)

    Even if he miraculously pulls this all off and everybody is financially secure, it’s not going to have much effect on racial, gender, or any other kind of discrimination.
    > Sanders has said many times that addressing racial justice has to be done on two parallel fronts: economic inequality and institutional racism (Go to youtubes of Sanders’ stump speeches)

    He has wildly oversimplified his message
    > Successful politicians do that in order to go from 3 percent to 50 percent quickly.

    quite a lot of people think someone who is focused on practical, current issues has a better policy platform as well as better odds of implementing it.
    > I concede. Sanders will have to persuade these people quickly before Super Tuesday. I don’t see how his oversimplification approach can do that, and if he keeps on current course will lose. Then we will see how committed he is to waging political revolution in the US.

  202. 202.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    @Gian:

    Not a good thing, why are Hillary supporters so mean? Makes me want to stay home and not vote.

    Oh my stars, another voter is turned off by the tone of the Clinton campaign supporters. I reckon at this point the only thing that will calm down the Hillarybros is a stern rebuke from HRC herself.

  203. 203.

    sharl

    January 29, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    Lee Fang has written a rebuttal of Nick Confessore’s NYT piece.

    FWIW, Lee Fang was in that Twitter discussion I linked to earlier (comment #9), where Confessore also showed up.

    Not that I can read his mind or heart, but to the extent Confessore missed a thing or two in his NYT piece, I doubt it was due to premeditated pro-HRC or anti-Bernie bias – contrary to the opinions of a number of Sandernistas in the comments to Fang’s piece – but rather just trying to meet his story filing deadline without finding the time to do a bit more research and fact-checking. I’ve come to respect Confessore’s writing over the years. YMMV…

  204. 204.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    @goblue72:
    I do take into consideration what people have said in the past as reason to be skeptical about their political acumen. John Cole included, as well as many who comment here regularly. Recently Cole wrote a very nice post about President Obama and how magical that election was for him. However Cole seems to have forgotten that he was skeptical and derisive of Obama until well into the voting part of the primary. He was a Dodd supporter. None of this means I don’t like Cole or Charlie Pierce for that matter. It simply means that I am skeptical of their judgment. If that’s “weak sauce” to you there’s not much I can do about it.

  205. 205.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @daveNYC:

    I was open to him the entire time. And he’s still not a Democrat, still doing nothing to get a Congress that might at least try to work with him. That, actually, was the only thing, really, that was making me hesitate about backing him. Now I have a lot more reasons than that, but my original hesitation is looking to have been good instincts.

  206. 206.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 29, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    @Cacti: Cuomo. Thank FSM.

  207. 207.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    Question for BJ legal flying wedge: If Sanders, in order to please the concern trolls in corporate media, tells the nurses unions to go away, and maybe throws himself in front of a nurses union GOTV bus crossing state lines, will that constitute coordination with the SuperPAC, and what should the penalty be?

    Question for the BJ media analysis: How will WaPo denounce Sanders after he does that, and what will be their rationale?

    I wasn’t able to avoid some corporate media political hack/pundit analysis of the GOP circus last night. Trump won the evening because his event was more exciting and big money ‘winners’ threw money around. And it was patriotic, for WAR WARRIORS! GOP lost because the glitz, glamour, excitement and pizzazz was just… I dunno, not there. Yeesh.

    Tiger Beat would be several steps up from media coverage of the GOP primary.

  208. 208.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    @geg6: Isn’t he technically a ‘Democrat’ now? He’s running for the Democratic nomination.

  209. 209.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:21 pm

    @Woodrowfan:

    You do realize I’m not getting mad over any of this? I’ll hold my nose and vote for Bernie, happily, should he win the nomination. No way he’s getting my vote in the primary, though. And I doubt I’ll be walking the precinct for him or sending him my hard-earned cash, mainly because I’m not a fan but also because I don’t think he can win. But he can have my vote.

  210. 210.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    January 29, 2016 at 3:21 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    O’Malley’s failure to launch is as big a surprise to me

    Why? Did you think the Democratic party was looking for a teevee evangelist with a sketchy political past?

  211. 211.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:22 pm

    @Paul in KY:

    He’s an Independent who is being graciously allowed to run on the Democratic ticket. And he’s done exactly nothing to help any other Democrats downticket.

  212. 212.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @geg6:

    I’ll hold my nose and vote for Bernie, happily, should he win the nomination.

    What if yer in the voting line behind an obnoxious Sanders supporter? Who’s to say you won’t have another episode?

  213. 213.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @sharl: Thanks for link to Fang. After what has happened with bad HRC stories, not a stretch to think a NYT story is inaccurate.

    I don’t even know all the different kind of PACs and SuperPACs that can operate, so I learned a little from the Fang piece.

    Would be interesting to read a good investigative piece that does an exhaustive rundown of amount and types of groups that are spending for both GOP and Dem candidates. And which explains all the different types of groups and rules.

  214. 214.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @Joe Buck:

    No, I think it was to point out that he’s a hypocrite. Which is totally fair. He said he wasn’t taking PAC money and, lo and behold, he is.

  215. 215.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    @Paul in KY: As it turns out, he is in at least one state.

  216. 216.

    Sysiphe

    January 29, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: so we should buy 3d printers?

  217. 217.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 3:28 pm

    @geg6: I thought he changed his registration to Democrat? If not, he should.

  218. 218.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @geg6:
    He isn’t a democrat. And as I said in an earlier comment, seeking the democratic nomination has forced Bernie to the left on issues like guns and civil rights. That is sad in many ways. He is much farther to the right on those issues than the democratic nomination will allow. He’d probably make for a pretty successful populist southern democrat. That’s just not the best path toward the nomination.

  219. 219.

    MomSense

    January 29, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    For me the problem is also that if we want to help the people most in need as effectively and quickly as possible, then we should focus on closing the Medicaid Gap. His single payer plan and his Wall St. plan sound to me like the catch phrases that progressive leaning people have been saying for decades and that have become quick ways to identify political leanings but not much more than that.

    I’m also of the opinion that the Sanders single payer plan is really popular with people who just want to kill the for-profit insurance industry and who aren’t as concerned with getting affordable, quality health care to people who need it now.

  220. 220.

    Paul in KY

    January 29, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @different-church-lady: Thanks for the info!

    Am out & will see y’all again on Monday. Hope everyone can keep it civil!

  221. 221.

    pamelabrown53

    January 29, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:
    No, I’m pretty sure it was Reich. I’ll do some research and get back to you. Still kinda sure that Reich as Sec. of Labor, was minimizing the impact (spinning) NAFTA. But now that he’s all Berkeley, sins forgiven…rehabilitated.

  222. 222.

    Chyron HR

    January 29, 2016 at 3:32 pm

    @jl:

    How will WaPo denounce Sanders after he does that, and what will be their rationale?

    Of the many unfair advantages the Clinton campaign has over Sanders, it is the Washington Post’s long-standing fanatical devotion to Hillary and Bill that may prove the most insurmountable.

  223. 223.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @Paul in KY:
    He did change his registration in order to get on the ballot in some primary states. Nothing wrong with that; it’s a pragmatic decision. But it doesn’t make him a democrat in any meaningful sense.

  224. 224.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Agreed. It’s all bullshit. You can’t be a DC fixture that long and call yourself an outsider.

  225. 225.

    gwangung

    January 29, 2016 at 3:37 pm

    Hm. Why is it unfair to critique Sanders on his non-efforts to elect a more progressive Congress? That’s part and parcel of his revolution, and that part seems kind sketchy to me…

  226. 226.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 3:40 pm

    @Chyron HR: I think the WaPol is smart enough to figure out a way to concern troll and criticize both of them.

  227. 227.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    @geg6:
    I think the Bernista justification is that the Democratic party establishment hasn’t invited Bernie to help raise funds or campaign for its candidates. But I wonder: if this is true, what’s to stop him from reaching out on his own to them, especially now that he’s a Democrat himself?

  228. 228.

    Betty Cracker

    January 29, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @jl:

    Sanders has said many times that addressing racial justice has to be done on two parallel fronts: economic inequality and institutional racism.

    Thank you for refuting that oft-made yet incorrect point. I don’t bother any more since it seems to be an article of faith around there that Sanders completely ignores structural racism because COMMIE, but as you noted, he speaks about it on the stump frequently and even has an issues page devoted to that very subject.

  229. 229.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @MomSense:
    Your point is well-taken. There is an element in the party that simply wants to break up banks, destroy the insurance industry, and see a lot of rich people in jail. How that will work in a practical sense is of little interest to them. It’s politics as revenge. I was struck yesterday when reading a thread about Flint, that most of the comments were about how Snyder should resign or be impeached and how people should go to jail. No discussion about how to expedite getting clean water to the people of Flint. The people I most admire are the people in any endeavor who just do the grunt work despite overwhelming odds. Politicians, journalists and political gadflies on the Internet are seldom among that group.

  230. 230.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @goblue72:

    We can’t raise taxes on the rich. We can’t break up the big banks. We can’t have single payer. We can’t have nice things.

    Who is actually saying any of this here? Hillary isn’t saying any of these things. I haven’t seen anyone here at BJ say these things. We all want these things. What the non-Berniebots are saying is what, exactly, is Bernie’s plan for getting these things? I haven’t seen one, or at least in the case of his single payer plan, I haven’t seen one that adds up. And what is his mechanism for getting any of it enacted? Since he isn’t trying to make any friends among actual Democrats running for or already in office, how does he expect someone like my senator, Casey, to go along with all his pie-in-the-sky and still have to run for re-election in a state that votes as often for the GOPer for senate as they do the Dem? I’m still waiting for an answer to these questions from Bernie and from people like you.

  231. 231.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:45 pm

    @Davis X. Machina:

    So all racial and gender issues come down to economics? Seriously?

    You are obviously a white male.

  232. 232.

    Kay

    January 29, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    @dogwood:

    I’m not sure you can save all these jobs.

    I agree. I just think they have to come up with something more solid that telling people they have to retrain for whatever the job ‘o the moment is.

    The argument isn’t really over “saving jobs” or not saving jobs. The argument is over an investment and commitment to ordinary people having decent wages and some small measure of security. Waving their hand and telling them all to “skill up!” probably won’t do it, especially if they have to borrow money to retrain, start at a lower wage, burn thru assets while retraining, etc.

    We could have a country that was more concerned with the well-being of MOST people AND we can innovate. Other countries manage to do both. It’s not impossible.

  233. 233.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    @Paul in KY:

    Generally though, aren’t Republicans lured in by rent boys?

    Your move Baud, Scav and Gwangung.

  234. 234.

    MomSense

    January 29, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    @Kay:

    The other problem is that being in the workforce sucks for most of us. Between the low pay, the ever changing schedules which make it impossible to plan and arrange childcare, the ever expanding job descriptions without commensurate pay increases, it is incredibly difficult to manage.

  235. 235.

    geg6

    January 29, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police:

    I actually don’t know any real life Bernie supporters. Almost no students are engaged here on my campus at all and the ones that are are hesitantly pro-Hillary: the feminist student organizations, the black student organizations and LGBTQ organizations are all mostly Hillary friendly. My neighbors are either Republicans or old-school liberals who like Hillary. My three sisters (and their husbands) were all Hillary supporters in 2008 (I bucked the family trend by being an Obot). So I don’t really have to worry about being in line with a Berniac. There aren’t any here that I’ve seen in my part of Western PA.

  236. 236.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    @Betty Cracker: thanks for the reminder. I should remembered and linked to his position page.

    And the lefty coot now has his health care plan on his campaign website. (I hereafter will not refer to him as an ‘old coot’, since it occurred to me that he has always been a coot, therefore that epithet is somewhat misleading, hiding his essential coot nature)
    Medicare for All
    https://berniesanders.com/medicareforall/

  237. 237.

    Kay

    January 29, 2016 at 3:55 pm

    @dogwood:

    There’s some hypocrisy in it too. The big thing now is vocational training and they’re wringing their hands “why doesn’t anyone want to do that instead of going into liberal arts?” Oh, I don’t know- because you worked as hard as you could to make those jobs less worthwhile and respected? They can’t turn it on and off like a lightswitch. There’s a pipeline. There’s an infrastructure associated with this training. It takes steady investment and care-taking. It’s the opposite of “disruption”. It’s building, not tearing down and then praying some bubble rises from the ashes.

  238. 238.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    @Betty Cracker:
    Sanders says that stuff now whe it comes to race, but it wasn’t his original position. Before he started running I saw him say that racism was not a major problem and the election of a black president was proof of that. As I said earlier he’s had to move left on some issues in order to seek the democratic nomination. Why are we required to treat him differently than any other politician who modifies his position in order to run? Does anyone really believe he supports the party on guns? Bernie is a good guy, but he’s just a politician who never had to take impure money in order to get elected. The fact that there are PACs and unions supporting him doesn’t really bother me because I never bought into the idea that he was some special snowflake to begin with.

  239. 239.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police:

    ” Generally though, aren’t Republicans lured in by rent boys? ”
    ‘Your move Baud, Scav and Gwangung.’

    I think the Baud! 2016 campaign is against qualifying easy sex in any way, by nature of transaction or gender, or anything else beyond encouragement.

    But you will have to ask Baud to make sure. I’ve been afraid to link the campaign website for awhile.

  240. 240.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    January 29, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @geg6:

    how does he expect someone like my senator, Casey, to go along with all his pie-in-the-sky and still have to run for re-election in a state that votes as often for the GOPer for senate as they do the Dem?

    Good luck with that. I’m still waiting to find out how HRC is going to navigate a Republican congress that loathes her above all else and is already investigating her about several things.

    How does HRC accomplish anything? I guess this is where believer magic solves everything.

  241. 241.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @dogwood: It’s common knowledge that shortly after marching with Martin Luther King Jr., Bernie Sanders became a white supremacist.

  242. 242.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 29, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    @Paul in KY: no, there should be a total of eight syllables.

  243. 243.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    @Kay: Why can’t the unemployed simply start a for-profit vocational training school? Bootstraps, anyone?

  244. 244.

    benw

    January 29, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    What the Clinton campaign is doing to beat Sanders in Iowa is totally not okay! (The Onion)

  245. 245.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    @geg6: I don’t know anyone who is supporting Bernie either. I guess he ain’t got nowhere to go but up where we live.

  246. 246.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    @dogwood:
    When Hillary does something that gets similarly construed, she is called a triangulator.

  247. 247.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    January 29, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    Well, HIllary’s gonna have some ‘splaining to do between now and the caucuses. Obama’s admin just announced that high level top secret emails were determined to have been on her private server OH NOES. So, Martin O’Malley may have had his window pried open, for those who aren’t feelin’ the Bern.

  248. 248.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 4:10 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
    Republicans in Congress don’t loathe her any more than they loathe Barack Obama or than they loathed Teddy Kennedy. The fact is they don’t loathe those people at all. It’s performance for the base. They’ll loathe Sanders with equal vehemence. My concern is that Sanders doesn’t seem to have many allies on the Democratic side.

  249. 249.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2016 at 4:11 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: \

    It’s common knowledge that shortly after marching with Martin Luther King Jr., Bernie Sanders became a white supremacist.

    Of course not.

    He knew that the best way to lead the struggle for racial justice and equality was to move away from Brooklyn for…

    Vermont?

    If a non-revolutionary hero had done the same, it would sound a lot like a white flight move.

  250. 250.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 4:13 pm

    @dogwood:

    Republicans in Congress don’t loathe her any more than they loathe Barack Obama or than they loathed Teddy Kennedy.

    This is demonstrably untrue.

  251. 251.

    Betty Cracker

    January 29, 2016 at 4:14 pm

    @dogwood: I’m merely pointing out that it’s not accurate to say Sanders doesn’t address structural racism. He might be a johnny-come-lately to the issue (though his civil rights activities as a yoot would seem to contradict that), but he’s not silent on the issue, as some commenters (not you, as far as I know) allege.

  252. 252.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 4:15 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: The entire investigation so far has concerned how the information should be classified now, and has nothing to do with what the classification was wen HRC received them. And determining what the classification was, or should have been in retrospect, or whether she could reasonably have known what the classification should have been, when she received them and stored them, will be entirely separate.

    And given the multitude of reasons why items can be reclassified, the two questions are entirely separate.

    In the news I have heard, some of the items were mentioned as being in the public domain when HRC received them, which gets you into the weird issue of public domain information that is classified, and the ‘real’ secret is that it is classified.

    So, sure, we all would prefer that this issue was not there. But nothing in this current investigation addresses whether the stuff was classified when HRC received and stored. it.

    Edit: IMHO, as long as this is all there is to the classified email scandal, it is all administrative classification system Byzantine BS and no one will give a damn, and only Fox News, right wing nut media outlets, and wingnuts and GOPer hacks will try to pretend they give a damn.

  253. 253.

    Gian

    January 29, 2016 at 4:20 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police:
    whew at least one snark detector works

  254. 254.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Maybe dogwood is addressing the two or three trolls on this site who do think that Sanders is a special snowflake, rather than a politician. Even though the reply was addressed to you.

  255. 255.

    Gian

    January 29, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    @Cacti:
    and Clinton Moved from Arkansas, where she could fight in a redish state to upstate (and white as Vermont) New York!
    the horror!

    pass me the smelling salts

  256. 256.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 4:23 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: I guess he ain’t got nowhere to go but up where we live.

    I think that is also a song from a Broadway show.

    @Amir Khalid: When Hillary does something that gets similarly construed, she is called a triangulator.

    The other night on the Hayes show he and the frequently fire-baggery Sam Seder were reviewing the Simon and Garfunkel ad (always been one of my favorite of their songs), and Hayes pointed out that it was a very pale selection of people Tad Devine had set to music, but they both agreed that was okay because it was an ad meant for Iowa. Granted they were speaking for the campaign, but their cool dismissal of such calculation on the part of The Cause was striking.

  257. 257.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 4:23 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:
    Don’t be an ass Mr. Tone. Not everyone sees Bernie as something “special”. I think he’s an ordinary politician running for the presidency. I’m glad that he has devoted followers. Some people need to fall in love in order to support someone. Suggesting I implied that Bernie is a racist is ridiculous. I might disagree with his long held views on how racism manifests itself in this country, but that doesn’t mean I think he’s a bigot. He’s just a guy running for president who’s had to modify his approach to some issues in order to win a nomination. Not unlike everyone else who ever runs.

  258. 258.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 4:24 pm

    @dogwood: i guess I missed your snark. Sorry.

  259. 259.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 4:26 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:
    From the AP story:

    [State Department spokesman John] Kirby said the State Department was focused, as part of the Freedom of Information Act review of Clinton’s emails, on “whether they need to be classified today.”

    Remember, Hillary is not liable for information that was unclassified when it reached her email server and got classified after she left office. There has still been no official allegation that any already-classified communication got to that server.

  260. 260.

    Kay

    January 29, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    I once had someone ask me how they could get in the lucrative “alternative to jail, drunk driving 3 day program, business”. They put them in seedy motels in Ohio. They have to spend 3 days locked in a motel, basically. It’s state-funded. It just reeks of scam, top to bottom. Only available to first time offenders and it costs (the offender) extra!

    I mean, Jesus. This is a business, now? This counts as “private sector growth”?

  261. 261.

    glory b

    January 29, 2016 at 4:29 pm

    @chopper: After the last Dem convention, I told all my friends, “Clinton/Castro 2016!

    I should have bet on it.

  262. 262.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 4:29 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:
    If it’s demonstrably untrue, then demonstrate it. Argument by assertion isn’t convincing.

  263. 263.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    the right is now devouring itself over what the definition of combat is

    A.J. Delgado
    ‏@ AJDelgado13
    .@ RobProvince @ AndreaTantaros Hmm, GPB did a mere 8 months and it was in Afg (not Iraq) so Andrea’s right.

    GPB is Jeb’s whelp. Andrea Tantaros had sarcastically tweeted Bush asking if any of his kinds were gonna go back to Iraq. So I guess she’s for… Rand?

  264. 264.

    Applejinx

    January 29, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    @Gian: Because she might lose. And that makes it understandable, I think, and forgivable. You can’t fault the Clinton people for passion.

    It’s an amazing contrast between us and the Republicans, really. On their side it’s Trump vs. who? Cruz? Bush? The opponents there are just not producing the passion we have on the Dem side. We truly give a shit, have big ideas, ask good questions, and are generally awesome just so long as we don’t tear ourselves apart like Kilkenny cats.

    Feeling noticably better today, the death flu steadily retreats! Working hard on the video game thing I’m trying to get rolling. If we get a suitable open thread or ‘what did you make recently?’ thread once I have it up on Steam Greenlight I’ll totally shout it out. (voting won’t cost you anything, kind of like voting Democratic in the general election)

  265. 265.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    @jl:
    Dang, you beat me to it, and with a more comprehensive answer too. Speaking of classifying already public information, didn’t the George Walker Bush try that a time or two?

  266. 266.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 29, 2016 at 4:32 pm

    @dogwood: well, Clinton has certainly moved to the left since 2003 and even since 2008 on various issues. I’m not a fan of the “unless you have always agreed with me I can’t accept your help” argument. What counts is what people are running on, because it’s the best predictor of what they will actually do. Forget what’s “in their hearts.” Politicians work in their heads and go where the votes are. All of them.

  267. 267.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    January 29, 2016 at 4:33 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    I don’t care because the email stories end up all being bullshit, but Talking Points Memo is going all BREAKING, so maybe this one is different, or not.

  268. 268.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 29, 2016 at 4:38 pm

    @benw: they had to burn Waterloo to save it.

  269. 269.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 4:44 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: Josh Marshall is no stranger to click-whoring and any fear-mongering that may require

  270. 270.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    @Bobby Thomson:
    I agree. I simply hold Sanders to the same standard I hold Clinton and anyone else who runs. It doesn’t bother me that politicians modify their positions. It’s what they do. Huge flip-flops on things like immigration that we see on the right are concerning. But Bernie modifying his position on race or on guns doesn’t concern me all that much. These weren’t majorly hobby horses of his. And he certainly never set himself up as a spokesperson for the NRA. I’m simply not gong to fall in line with the idea that he is some special politician. Neither is Hillary.

  271. 271.

    Benw

    January 29, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    @Bobby Thomson: Wateryoo talking about?! :)

  272. 272.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    @dogwood: Wouldn’t the time be better spent elsewhere?

  273. 273.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    @Kay:

    I mean, Jesus. This is a business, now? This counts as “private sector growth”?

    I used to have rip-roaring arguments back in the 90’s with a co-worker that we were become a predatory society where all the growth businesses preyed on the least of these. It’s only gotten worse.

  274. 274.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police

    January 29, 2016 at 5:07 pm

    @dogwood: You say the same fucking shit over and over and then when you’re called on it, you retreat to the same tired “nothing special about Bernie line”. If there ain’t anything special about him then you wouldn’t be in here day in day out shitting all over him.

    So fuck you.

  275. 275.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 5:15 pm

    This thread has taken a turn from threadbare to outright fictional.

  276. 276.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    January 29, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    So you mean when Sanders says “I don’t have a super pac like my opponent” he was lying!?!

    I’m Shocked! I’m Shocked!

    Next ya gonna tell me he supports blanket immunity for the NRA.

  277. 277.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    @David *Rafael* Koch:
    It’s going to be difficult for anyone to avoid SuperPacs. My only hope is that they prove to be less effective than we fear until we can get a Supreme Court that will overturn that decision.

  278. 278.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 5:27 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    ” Speaking of classifying already public information, didn’t the George Walker Bush try that a time or two? ”

    Let’s be fair to old HW, even if you have info that he did try that.

    Having worked with classified info at the beginning of my career, up to all that weird stuff above Top Secret, IIRC, there are several flavors of public domain information that is classified. I remember a few of them:

    One is classified information that is independently discovered and disseminated after classification by some third party. You can certainly do what you want with the public domain information, but you can’t spill the fact that this is also classified information. This issue gets into the ‘opponents know it is known, but they don’t know it is really and truly known using our super accurate secret info sources’

    One is classified information that is independently discovered and disseminated after classification by people who have access to the classified information. This is a gray area, and I don’t remember all the rules, or even what rules are official and what rules are just accepted practice. Anyway, this is somebody working with classified info, who needs or wants to use something close to the classified info in a public document. So you figure out a way to get close to the classified estimate using public domain information, and then it is public. But you can’t spill that it matches, more or less, closely or not closely, any classified information.
    I don’t remember all the rules and accepted practices for this kind of thing, but for contractors, and many in the federal government, doing this stuff is very common.

    Public domain info that becomes classified information when you put it together with other classified information.

    Adam Silverman had a summary of this kind of thing. Maybe he could write a guide for the layman sometime and post it late at night as a cure for insomnia, and someone let Cole know there might be something on his blog that would interest him, and spare him a personal health bleg.

    As long as the HRC email security non-scandal ‘scandal’ is comfined this aspect of the whackjob Kafkaesque world of the US security classification system, and issues or retrospective re-classification, I don’t see how it is a problem, criminal or political. But the fact the issue is there causes stress becaude we do not know whether it will stay that way, the the system is such a BS Kafkaeque nightmare, game playing is certainly possible.

  279. 279.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 5:28 pm

    @David *Rafael* Koch:

    You may want to read this article (published this morning) before pursuing that allegation:

    New York Times Gets it Wrong: Bernie Sanders Not “Top Beneficiary of Outside Money”

    https://theintercept.com/2016/01/29/nyt-outside-spending/

  280. 280.

    jl

    January 29, 2016 at 5:32 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police: Tone police need some training in de-escalation tactics?

  281. 281.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    January 29, 2016 at 5:34 pm

    So it turns out he wasn’t a revolutionary after all.

    Well, atleast he’ll be president of the blogosphere, succeeding President Edwards

    Viva la Revolución!

  282. 282.

    Davis X. Machina

    January 29, 2016 at 5:35 pm

    @geg6: No, No, you mean “You’re obviously a Marxist.”

  283. 283.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 5:37 pm

    Guess what Paul Krugman said about Obama supporters in 2008.

    The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

    ….Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

    ….I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html

    He doesn’t care much for Sanders supporters either: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/health-wonks-and-bernie-bros/

  284. 284.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    January 29, 2016 at 5:41 pm

    @DCF: baby, baby — don’t be so sensitive, it’s just the blogosphere. We’re infotainment. We don’t actually decide elections, just ask President Dean, President Edwards, and President Sanders.

    I won’t even open the link as it leads to Griftwald:

    I mean, is this the same Griftwald who said the 2012 polls were skewed and Romney would win?

    Or this the same Griftwald who pushes the Trey Gowdy conspiracy theories on Ben Gazzara?

    Or is this the same Griftwald who pushes Trump’s racist talking points on immigration?

    Or is this the same Griftwald who had to leave the country because he hadn’t paid taxes in 13 years on his hair fetish pornography business?

    If it is, there’s no use giving a discredited garbage site any traffic.

  285. 285.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 5:46 pm

    @DCF:
    It’s hard to even figure out who all the beneficiaries of outside money actually are. On behalf of Newt Gingrich Sheldon Addleson ponied up millions going after Romney on Bain. It didn’t do much to advance Gingrich’s candidacy other than a win in SC, but it reinforced the democratic narrative about Mitt. If some outside money goes after Clinton, I suppose that might help Sanders and vice versa, but that’s not the same as soliciting that outside money.

  286. 286.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 5:47 pm

    @jl: Not at all, that was a SWAT action on a hardened perp.

  287. 287.

    Ridnik Chrome

    January 29, 2016 at 5:53 pm

    @different-church-lady: You’re killin’ it in this thread…

  288. 288.

    Betty Cracker

    January 29, 2016 at 5:54 pm

    @dogwood: Agreed that it’s smart for Dems to use super PACS as long as that shitty law is on the books; unilaterally disarming would be unwise. I’ve been somewhat pleasantly surprised that the super PACS haven’t been more effective, honestly. They’ve been devastating in many races, but Sheldon Adelson sure pissed away a crapload of money on losers like Newt, and Right to Rise appears to have been a gigantic bust, so there’s that.

  289. 289.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 5:59 pm

    @DCF: Is it just a wild coincidence that the Clinton campaign and supporters are using the same “smear the fans” strategy as last time?

  290. 290.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 6:04 pm

    @Betty Cracker:
    I don’t know how people even absorb all the SuperPac ads that must play in swing states along with “I approve this message” ads. I don’t live in a swing state, but whenever Maria Cantwell or Patty Murray are on the ballot in nearby WA, it’s nonstop ads for months. Don’t have cable anymore, but my sympathy goes out to all you swing staters.

  291. 291.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 6:05 pm

    @David *Rafael* Koch:
    You’ll notice the byline is written by Lee Fang, not Glenn Greenwald….

    If you choose to ignore facts – and the details contained within – then your responses are ill-considered and uninformed…the ‘broad brush’ so often mentioned on this Comments section goes both ways….

  292. 292.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 6:08 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:
    Not at all…the Clinton campaign is utilizing the same style of retreaded responses that it did in 2008…I’m surprised that a candidate/campaign alleged to have learned important lessons from the 2008 campaign is repeating the same memes & mantras….

  293. 293.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    January 29, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    @dogwood: It may be difficult to avoid superpacs, but at the very least you shouldn’t ride around in a red bus with them. Not if you’re going to attack your opponent on the issue. I mean, talk about putting a spot light on yourself.

  294. 294.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    January 29, 2016 at 6:12 pm

    @DCF: fruit of the poison tree.

  295. 295.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 6:15 pm

    @David *Rafael* Koch:

    Infotainment? You mean like the corporate-owned major media who – following the 1996 Telecommunications Act (Thanks, Bill!) have become the both-sides-do-it, everything/one-is-equal, ‘I’m not a fact checker’ (Thanks, Chuck Todd) hot mess it is in 2016?

    If your goal here is to amuse yourself – or others – that’ all well and good. Just don’t expect me to regard your responses with anything more than polite amusement….

  296. 296.

    sparrow

    January 29, 2016 at 6:16 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Tone Police: I suspect a fair number of the Bernie supporters have found better places to hang out (almost everyone gravitates to echo chambers, whether they like to admit it or not), and Hillary supporters were always in greater number here. Plus there’s not much point in preaching to the Hillbots, in a funny way it’s like preaching to the converted.

    In any sane country, I wouldn’t be in the same party as most of the BJers. I think most of you all line up with typical christian democrats (not-insane right-wingers in Europe). Nothing against that. But I’m more of a “for real” socialist (not like Bernie). Hell, I’d probably vote for KKE in Greece, if I were a citizen. At least they have a plan. To get to the point: I really just don’t want to argue any more.

  297. 297.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    @DCF: Let us know when the amused part begins for you.

  298. 298.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    @David *Rafael* Koch:

    What a complete cop-out! Dear FSM, with that reasoning, what news sources are left for you?

    Try FSTV, The Young Turks, Democratic Underground, The Intercept, Avedon’s Sideshow, Hullabaloo, and other sources that can provide a more thorough, comprehensive approach….

  299. 299.

    sparrow

    January 29, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Don’t get in the way of our fun here with your truthiness and perspective.

  300. 300.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 6:21 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    If you are the source, I won’t wait….

  301. 301.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2016 at 6:22 pm

    @DCF:

    He doesn’t care much for Sanders supporters either: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c…..rnie-bros/

    Krugman has always favored Clinton, then and now.

    He didn’t have anything to say about Bernfeelers until he pointed out the deficiencies in the Sanders health plan, and Bernhova’s witnesses started their usual feces flinging routine.

    And Krugman’s assessment of Berniecare was pretty gentle compared to what Klein has had to say about it.

  302. 302.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 6:23 pm

    @DCF: Fine blogs of record, all of them.

  303. 303.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 6:24 pm

    David Koch:
    You have a point, but I’m a pragmatist. I’d hope that if Berne were to win the nomination, he’d take money from as many sources who are willing to give. I really don’t want a Republican in the WH. Lots of politicians start out with pretty pure ideology, but campaigning and trying to win can knock them over the head with reality. It’s a complex process.

  304. 304.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 6:32 pm

    @sparrow: In any sane country, I wouldn’t be in the same party as most of the BJers.

    You’re getting there. This isn’t about Bernie and the BJers, it’s about the voters who put Paul Ryan in the Speaker’s chair. Why is that so hard for Bern-Feelers to get? Neither the Democratic nomination nor the non-existent Balloon Juice primary is what we’re arguing about

  305. 305.

    DCF

    January 29, 2016 at 6:41 pm

    @Cacti:
    Well said – and accurate….

    I don’t expect Medicare For All/Single Payer to be accomplished in the first 100 days…or the first one thousand days…or even longer…but when I see the following, the aspiration buzzkill is more than I believe necessary:

    Hillary Clinton: Single payer will “NEVER, EVER come to pass!!”
    You heard it here first folks. Pack those progressive bags because Hillary Clinton said Single Payer will NEVER, EVER come to pass, so don’t even think about it. She didn’t just say it, she exclaimed it….

    Hillary Clinton on Friday cast Bernie Sanders’ plan for single-payer health insurance as an “idea that will never, ever come to pass.”

    The swipe builds on Clinton’s repeated rhetoric against the Vermont senator’s proposed single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care plan that he proposed earlier this month. The plan would provide health coverage to all Americans but would be paid for by raising taxes on most Americans.

    I just saw the video on CNN and she was YELLING it WILL NEVER, EVER PASS into the microphone. Really bizarre behavior, once I find it on YouTube I’ll post a link. Hillary 2016: No we can’t!

  306. 306.

    dogwood

    January 29, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    Exactly. Yesterday I was supposed to be outraged because Planned Parenthood endorced Hillary. Today I’m supposed to be outraged because some SuperPac and some nurses union supports Bernie.

  307. 307.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    January 29, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    @DCF: I guess she’s flip flopped on that.

  308. 308.

    Uncle Cosmo

    January 29, 2016 at 6:48 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Martin O’Malley bears no fucking resemblance to that characterization,

    Gee, who knew that “Just Some Fuckhead” was in fact not just a clever handle but a complete & accurate description??

  309. 309.

    priscianus jr

    January 29, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    @Heliopause: Like you said, I am shocked, shockd I tell you, to learn that Bernie Snaders is nothing but a tool of Big Nursing.

    But seriously folks, get a fucking sense of proportion, will you? Oh, sorry, I forgot to realize that most of the people beating the drum generously provided by the NY Times are Hillary supporters anyway. And “all’s fair in love and war.”

    @sharl: “Lee Fang has written a rebuttal of Nick Confessore’s NYT piece.
    ….
    which is here: https://theintercept.com/2016/01/29/nyt-outside-spending/

    “Not that I can read his mind or heart, but to the extent Confessore missed a thing or two in his NYT piece, I doubt it was due to premeditated pro-HRC or anti-Bernie bias”

    That’s probably true, but it doesn’t stop a lot of anti-Sandernistas on this thread from riffing the hell out of it.

  310. 310.

    sparrow

    January 29, 2016 at 7:02 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: You miss my point. In any sane country, we may well find ourselves on a common side as part of a coalition government. But we wouldn’t have these purity contests, because we already know what our differences are. Two-party systems inherently suck.

  311. 311.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 29, 2016 at 7:10 pm

    @sparrow: You miss my point.

    WE DON’T LIVE IN A DIFFERENT FUCKING COUNTRY

  312. 312.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 7:10 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Why is that so hard for Bern-Feelers to get?

    Narcissism of small differences

  313. 313.

    sharl

    January 29, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    @priscianus jr: I may have to reconsider that earlier evaluation of Confessore. As of a few hours ago, he was doubling down on his earlier article (on his twitter feed).

    Now, however, I see he’s knocked out a short post on a Super-PAC supporting HRC (nothing remarkable there AFAICT, but then I’m not an expert on campaign finance stuff).

    Is this second thing the journalistic equivalent of a referee’s make-up call? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  314. 314.

    sharl

    January 29, 2016 at 7:18 pm

    @sharl: Hahaha, Lee Fang is still* chasing Nick Confessore around on Twitter, nipping at his heels. [Here’s a link that kinda-sorta works to track that: signal:noise is a bit low.]

    To his credit, a clearly exasperated Confessore is at least still engaging with Fang, although I suppose if you’re a big NYT reporter you just can’t ignore or block. That would then become the big story.

    *ETA: Eh, the tweets are a bit stale at this point – 3hrs old or older – but anyhoo, there they are…

  315. 315.

    different-church-lady

    January 29, 2016 at 7:22 pm

    @sharl: There’s signal on Twitter?

  316. 316.

    sharl

    January 29, 2016 at 7:39 pm

    @different-church-lady: Welp, kinda. It’s like what I’ve heard about Navy sonar people: with time on duty – LOTS of time – they get good at picking out even the most subtle things.

    But if you…y’know, have a life, then it’s probably not worth the effort (unless you track social media for a living, which some folks apparently do).

    By the way, that search link I provided takes a while to find newer tweets, and sure enough, Fang and Confessore were still sniping back-and-forth even as recently as an hour ago. What fun!

  317. 317.

    sparrow

    January 29, 2016 at 8:19 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Unfortunately.

    Guess the Hillary supporters are getting a little hot and bothered today. I wonder why?

  318. 318.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2016 at 8:27 pm

    @jl:
    I was referring to George Walker Bush, not to George Herbert Walker Bush.

  319. 319.

    chopper

    January 29, 2016 at 11:37 pm

    @sparrow:

    I dunno why. hilz is up by 8 in the most recent PPP poll in iowa. shrug.

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