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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Today’s Rorshach Test

Today’s Rorshach Test

by John Cole|  April 1, 20164:16 pm| 313 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016

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Hillary responding angrily to a Greenpeace activists who confronted her about donations from fossil fuel industry is your Rorshach test for the day. Over at Hillary’s personal Pravda (no, seriously, it is just that), Blue Nation Review, it’s bad news for Bernie, over at Red State they’re just enjoying a moment to trash Hillary, the Greenpeace activist herself is all “WTF I have nothing to do with the Sanders campaign,” one of the usual suspects at Salon details the “troubling” fossil fuel links, while Vox says it’s complicated.

My take- this sort of thing is inevitable when you take in heaps of cash from bundlers and why I was pissed at the DNC changing their rules (even though this is unrelated), and probably not worth yelling about, but I doubt it will change anyone’s opinion one way or another. It’s also an unfortunate confluence in events in that I doubt Clinton would have been so shouty had the music not been so damned loud.

You?

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Reader Interactions

313Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    April 1, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    Eh. It won’t change much. Those inclined to vote for her still will and those who weren’t won’t. I’m not really all that concerned except it will give the Village woodies for weeks.

  2. 2.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    It’s also an unfortunate confluence in events in that I doubt Clinton would have been so shouty had the music not been so damned loud.

    Shades of the Dean scream.

    Also: people think they know more about election contributions (and the money they bring in) than they actually do.

  3. 3.

    Luigidaman

    April 1, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    Can we just can the talk about how HRC raises her money until we get a decent presidential election funding proposal in place and finally trash Citizens United? If she needs money to win and every candidate (except. St. Bernie) is taking millions from everyone, what difference does it make? Or, is it better to lose and stay pure (according to some strange idea of who should and should not contribute)?

  4. 4.

    chopper

    April 1, 2016 at 4:27 pm

    why is hillary so loud and shrill, amirite?

  5. 5.

    Calouste

    April 1, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    Greenpeace are a group of professional activists who will lie about anything to keep the donations rolling in.

  6. 6.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    The strangest part of that particular Clinton campaign stop was the Bernie supporters who showed up to shout their dislike of Clinton.

    I have no problem with disruption with a purpose (BLM). But just showing up to shout at an opposing Dem candidate for no particular reason at all is kind of a dick move. Save that for the R candidate rallies.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    POLITICO MagazineVerified account
    ‏@ POLITICOMag
    Sanders has taken $310,055+ in campaign funds from defense contractors — more than any GOP presidential candidate

    This is a misleading tweet from a suspect source, but I’m convinced now that Bernie (!) is the candidate of Big War.

  8. 8.

    Anya

    April 1, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    I honestly don’t understand these attacks. What is the issue here? That some people who work at fossil fuel industry donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. So what! If someone is working for these companies does that make them terrible people? I can understand if the issue was HRC getting donations from the industry or their CEOs but the average Joe who works for these company might not agree with the company’s policies or how they conduct business. I find the whole thing annoying.

  9. 9.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    Screaming that your rival is lying about you when he’s really just talking about embarrassing facts is never a good look.

  10. 10.

    planetjanet

    April 1, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    That was shouty? WTF?

  11. 11.

    Alabama Blue Dot

    April 1, 2016 at 4:32 pm

    It costs money to run for office. The more different kinds of interests donate to you, the less likely it is that you’ll be beholden to one of them. (See Scott Walker for what happens when you get all your money from one donor.)

    There are some companies that sell fossil fuels and also invest in renewables. Our cars, buses and trains still need fossil fuel, unfortunately. Even electric cars are charged with electricity that could have come from a coal or natural gas plant. So there’s no absolutely pure source of funds.

  12. 12.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 4:32 pm

    @Anya: The point is in fact that the industry is funneling money to Clinton, particularly through its lobbyists – who, last I checked, were the biggest of Clinton’s bundlers. She and her PACS have gotten close to $5 million from them, mostly via fuel-industry lobbyists.

  13. 13.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 4:32 pm

    @chopper:

    why is hillary so loud and shrill, amirite?

    Only working class heroes like Bernie and Rosario Dawson get to raise their voices.

  14. 14.

    Anya

    April 1, 2016 at 4:34 pm

    Interestingly enough the CNN talking heads were saying that this makes Hillary “relatable” and makes her seem “human.” Do with that what you will.

  15. 15.

    Hal

    April 1, 2016 at 4:34 pm

    Christ on a cracker, when the hell is this primary over? I seriously am so over this shit. I get the connection between money and influence, but the idea Clinton is going to OK drilling in Yosemite because she took a campaign donation from fossil fuel companies is an overreaction. Some lovely friends of mine are being insufferable on Facebook with the endless Sanders posts, and some blogs I love I have to swipe past full speed so as to not see another post regarding the evil that is HillaryClinton. I like Sanders and will gladly vote for him, but the sanctimony is too much.

    off topic: I won 1100 bucks on a 20 I popped into a penny slot at my local Indian casino today, and today is rent/bill pay day, so yay me. I ordered The Force Awakens to celebrate.

  16. 16.

    Anonymous At Work

    April 1, 2016 at 4:35 pm

    Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s fault. Always a good starting point. Changing the rules to take in more money left candidates open to this crap.

  17. 17.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    Hillary responding angrily to a Greenpeace activists who confronted her about donations from fossil fuel industry is your Rorshach test for the day.

    So, why does she blame the Sanders campaign for this?

    Bit of a weasel move. And typical.

    It’s also an unfortunate confluence in events in that I doubt Clinton would have been so shouty had the music not been so damned loud.

    Yeah. don’t care about the shouty.

  18. 18.

    Soprano2

    April 1, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    Don’t you know the rules for candidates? Male candidates can shake their finger at people and yell as loudly as they want, and no one says anything about it. Female candidates can’t raise their voices at any time for any reason, and certainly can’t get angry at anyone about anything lest they be accused of yelling, being shrill and a harpy, and just generally being accused of being an unpleasant person. *rolleyes*

  19. 19.

    jayackroyd

    April 1, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    I think it’s testing really badly in focus groups, especially in upstate New York which should be a stronghold for her but doesn’t like the fracking.

    Her surrogates are in full bore “kill this meme” mode.

  20. 20.

    agorabum

    April 1, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    @Luigidaman: just win, baby.
    While it’s nice that Sanders ran as a vanity candidate / sisyphus and then caught fire with online small donors, Hillary has been fundraising on the national scene since the 80s. I will not pretend to be shocked that there is gambling going on in the casino. Or pretend that because one candidate one time did things differently it changes the standards.
    I’d also like to see how many oil and gas employees donated to Sanders…

  21. 21.

    p.a.

    April 1, 2016 at 4:37 pm

    Jesse Unruh:
    On contributions – “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” 1966[4]
    On lobbyists – “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them you’ve got no business being up here.”[5][6]

  22. 22.

    piratedan

    April 1, 2016 at 4:38 pm

    @Cacti: don’t forget Susan Sarandon… obviously taking notes from her Thelma and Louise role when it comes to working politically….

  23. 23.

    Keith P

    April 1, 2016 at 4:39 pm

    It looked like click bait so I didn’t even read it. My vote is locked in anyway (Clinton)

  24. 24.

    Mike J

    April 1, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    If your hands aren’t dirty, you probably haven’t been doing any work.

  25. 25.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    April 1, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    @Soprano2:

    Don’t you know the rules for candidates? Male candidates can shake their finger at people and yell as loudly as they want, and no one says anything about it. Female candidates can’t raise their voices at any time for any reason, and certainly can’t get angry at anyone about anything lest they be accused of yelling, being shrill and a harpy, and just generally being accused of being an unpleasant person. *rolleyes*

    Remember that only white male candidates can shake their finger at people and yell as loudly as they want, and no one says anything about it. That’s a pretty crucial qualifier.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    @smintheus:

    Do you have an actual link that’s different than the ones Anne Laurie provided?

    ETA: D’oh! I guess I never get to make fun of people who mix up the front pagers again. John, not Anne Laurie.

  27. 27.

    rikyrah

    April 1, 2016 at 4:41 pm

    LOL

    G.O.P. Fears Donald Trump as Zombie Candidate: Damaged but Unstoppable

    By ALEXANDER BURNS
    APRIL 1, 2016

    Donald J. Trump, who in recent days has mocked a political opponent’s wife, defended a campaign aide arrested on a charge of battery and suggested punishing women who terminate pregnancies, may have surrendered any remaining chance to rally Republicans strongly around him before the party’s July convention in Cleveland.

    At a moment when a more traditional front-runner might have sought to smooth over divisions within his party and turn his attention to the general election, Mr. Trump has only intensified his slash-and-burn, no-apologies approach to the campaign.

    “He should have started uniting the party in March,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committee member from Mississippi who previously supported Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, “and he is making it harder on himself.”

    Republicans who once worried that Mr. Trump might gain overwhelming momentum in the primaries are now becoming preoccupied with a different grim prospect: that Mr. Trump might become a kind of zombie candidate — damaged beyond the point of repair, but too late for any of his rivals to stop him.

  28. 28.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 4:41 pm

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s fault. Always a good starting point. Changing the rules to take in more money left candidates open to this crap.

    Yeah, I don’t get your point here at all.

    Our Dem candidates should run for office based on how they wish the campaign finance system was vs. how it actually is?

    They’re running to win elections, not good sportsmanship awards.

    But, DWS is satan, for acknowledging the reality of a post-Citizens United world.

  29. 29.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 4:41 pm

    Democrats perennially waste the opportunity that contested presidential primaries bring – to force candidates to renounce the things we don’t like about their policies and embrace the things we want. Instead, voters just go all tribal and line up behind their chosen candidate, making excuses for all kinds of things they’d denounce in a heartbeat about a rival.

  30. 30.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2016 at 4:41 pm

    @smintheus:

    embarrassing facts

    I think you meant “intentionally misleading half-truths.” I assume that if there were a shread of evidence of Quid pro quoGreenpeace and the Sanders campaign would be falling all over themselves to put it forth.

  31. 31.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    @Brachiator: Two different incidents? I thought there was one that was definitely from Sanders supporters.

  32. 32.

    cbear

    April 1, 2016 at 4:44 pm

    Hmm, maybe it’s just me, but I’m beginning to sense a troubling theme here.

    I’ll vote for the Democratic candidate, Bernie or Hillary, but those of you that think this shit isn’t problematic are pretty dense. YMMV

  33. 33.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 4:44 pm

    From the NY Review of Books:

    In September 2005, Bill Clinton and Giustra travelled to Almaty, in southeast Kazakhstan, to meet with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. At their meeting Clinton told Nazarbayev that he would support Kazakhstan’s bid to become chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE is a body with the responsibility for verifying, among other things, the fairness of elections among member states. According to multiple sources, including the BBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, Nazarbayev coveted this position for Kazakhstan, primarily as a mark of European diplomatic respectability for his country and himself.

    Clinton’s endorsement of the Kazakh bid was truly bizarre in view of Kazakhstan’s ranking by Transparency International as among the most corrupt countries in the world—126th, on a par with Pakistan, Belarus, and Honduras. Freedom House in New York judges Kazakhstan to be “not free,” with Nazarbayev clocking up Soviet-era margins of victory of 90 percent or more in Kazakh presidential elections. Yet in a December 2005 letter to Nazarbayev following one of his landslide victories, Bill Clinton wrote: “Recognizing that your work has received an excellent grade is one of the most important rewards in life.” It is unclear what influence, if any, Bill Clinton’s support for Nazarbayev may have had in Kazakhstan’s efforts to lead the OSCE, but in 2007, after the United States gave its backing to the bid, Kazakhstan was chosen as the next chair of the OSCE, a position it assumed in 2010.

    Possible reasons for Clinton’s support become clearer when we scrutinize the activities of Frank Giustra. In a January 31, 2008 article in The New York Times, Jo Becker and Don Van Natta, Jr., provided detailed evidence that Nazarbayev brought his influence to bear to enable Giustra to beat out better-qualified competitors for a stake in Kazakhstan’s uranium mines worth $350 million. In an interview with the Times, Moukhtar Dzakishev, then chair of the state-owned nuclear holding company Kazatomprom, confirmed that Giustra had met with Nazarbayev in Almaty, that Giustra had told the dictator he was trying to do business with Kazatomprom, and that he was told in return, “Very good, go to it.”

    The deal was closed within forty-eight hours of Clinton’s departure from Almaty. Following this successful visit to Central Asia, Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation. He then made a further donation of $100 million to the foundation in June 2008.

    Ah, but it was Bill, not Hillary. Do they have a joint checking account?

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    @Brachiator: For its part, the Sanders campaign highlighted the encounter and insisted that Clinton “has relied heavily on funds from lobbyists working for the oil, gas and coal industry.” This morning, the senator himself repeated the charge, arguing, “The fact of the matter is Secretary Clinton has taken significant money from the fossil fuel industry.”
    ETA: MSNBC’s report noted that Clinton has not “taken any money from PACs tied to the oil and gas industry, or companies themselves.” Lobbyists with at least some connection to the industry have made contributions, but the bulk of that money has gone to super PACs that Clinton cannot legally control.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    @gwangung:

    Yep. I stopped taking those “industry” listings seriously as soon as I made my first online political donation and was required by law to enter the name of my employer. Why are people so convinced that every $50 donation from a finance company comes directly from the CEO? They don’t have tellers at CitiBank anymore?

  36. 36.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    @gwangung:

    Two different incidents? I thought there was one that was definitely from Sanders supporters.

    An earlier episode when Clinton was giving her stump speech was from Sanders supporters. Who came to shout “If she wins, we lose!”.

    If one wanted to be literal rather than hipster clever about that slogan, an appropriate response would be “Yes, and?”.

  37. 37.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 4:46 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Which links are you talking about? The ones to Clinton alleging that Sanders is lying about her? Or the links showing that she has in fact benefited from millions from fuel-industry bundlers?

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    April 1, 2016 at 4:48 pm

    @Cacti:

    But just showing up to shout at an opposing Dem candidate for no particular reason at all is kind of a dick move.

    Agreed. Especially when you consider the time and effort that went into the synchronized scream-fest. I’ve been to political rallies, and it’s always a big fat hassle to get in, a lot of waiting around, etc. They could have been out doing something useful like registering voters, etc.

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 4:48 pm

    @smintheus:

    Still no link, I notice.

  40. 40.

    kc

    April 1, 2016 at 4:49 pm

    Why don’t you go run for something, then?

  41. 41.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 4:50 pm

    @burnspbesq: How is Clinton in a position to generate a quid for the quo of millions in campaign cash while she’s still campaigning and does not hold any elective office?

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 4:50 pm

    @Cacti:

    Only working class heroes like Bernie and Rosario Dawson get to raise their voices.

    Is Rosario Dawson running for office somewhere?

    I’ll vote for her!

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 4:50 pm

    @smintheus:

    I would like a link showing she has benefited from fuel industry bundlers. Vox is not nearly as sure about that as you are, so show your link.

  44. 44.

    kc

    April 1, 2016 at 4:50 pm

    @Soprano2:

    Male candidates can shake their finger at people and yell as loudly as they want, and no one says anything about it.

    LOL, that’s right, no one ever has mentioned Christie yelling at people.

  45. 45.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 4:51 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Still no explanation what link you’re asking for.

  46. 46.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 4:52 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Might be also useful to compare to other political candidates, as well.

  47. 47.

    kc

    April 1, 2016 at 4:53 pm

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    only white male candidates can shake their finger at people and yell as loudly as they want, and no one says anything about it

    What planet do y’all live on? Here on Earth, it does in fact get talked about.

  48. 48.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 4:54 pm

    Also from the NY Review of Books article:

    Uribe was a singular interlocutor for Clinton and Giustra. The Colombian leader had been viewed by the George W. Bush administration as a crucial ally in the War on Drugs, in which Colombia was often held up as a success story. Yet Uribe and his political allies had longstanding connections to the Colombian drug cartels. In a 1991 intelligence report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), declassified in August 2004, described Uribe as “a Colombian politician and senator dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin Cartel at high government levels…. Uribe was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the United States. [He] has worked for the Medellín cartel” and is “a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria,” the longtime drug kingpin.

    A 2011 report on events of 2010 by Human Rights Watch provides detailed evidence that Uribe was not free of this poisonous legacy when he was dealing with Clinton and Giustra. The report described President Uribe’s administration as “racked by scandals over extrajudicial killings by the army, a highly questioned paramilitary demobilization process, and abuses by the national intelligence service,” which participated in illegal surveillance of human rights defenders, journalists, opposition politicians, and Supreme Court justices. Hillary Clinton was warned about these human rights violations when, as secretary of state, she met with Bill Clinton, Giustra, and Uribe during a trip to Bogota, the Colombian capital, in June 2010. In an email message relayed to Secretary Clinton by the US Embassy in Bogota, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts warned that “while in Colombia, the most important thing the Secretary can do is to avoid effusive praise for President Álvaro Uribe.”

    Hillary Clinton chose to ignore the warning. Addressing Uribe in the visit’s keynote speech, Clinton described him as an “essential partner to the United States” whose “commitment to building strong democratic institutions here in Colombia” would “leave a legacy of great progress that will be viewed in historic terms.” During her visit Clinton also affirmed her support for a US-Columbia free trade agreement, from which Giustra and other wealthy investors stood to benefit. This reversed her previous opposition to the agreement during her campaign for president in 2008, on grounds of Colombia’s poor human rights record, especially concerning the rights of labor unions.

  49. 49.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 4:55 pm

    @smintheus:

    Our posts crossed. See #41.

  50. 50.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 4:55 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    Also from the NY Review of Books article:

    No one cares, Bob-O.

  51. 51.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Read the NY Review of Books article.

  52. 52.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 4:57 pm

    @Cacti: You don’t care. And that’s fine, Cacti. As they say, “Ignorance Is Strength.”

  53. 53.

    kc

    April 1, 2016 at 4:57 pm

    @Cacti:

    It is remarkable how you can find something to disapprove only in protests directed at the candidate you support.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 4:57 pm

    @gwangung:

    Bernie has accepted $40K from people in the oil and gas industry despite signing Greenpeace’s pledge.

    And, really, are we now decreeing that only citizens who work for the correct industries are allowed to make personal political donations? Really?

    (Employer-directed donations are already illegal, so if someone has proof that the oil and gas companies have been doing that, they need to present that proof to the FEC for prosecution.)

  55. 55.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 4:58 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    Just waiting for the part where all of this somehow ties into a nefarious plot to impugn the honor of Russia.

  56. 56.

    kc

    April 1, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    @Cacti:

    Only working class heroes like Bernie and Rosario Dawson get to raise their voices.

    Rosario Dawson grew up in a squat, you overprivileged dipshit.

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    @kc:

    It is remarkable how you can find something to disapprove only in protests directed at the candidate you support.

    What were they protesting exactly, other than Clinton’s presence in the primary campaign?

  58. 58.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    @Cacti: The first big post, the one with the link, was about Kazakhstan. Do I have to find a murder she committed in downtown Moscow?

  59. 59.

    Chyron HR

    April 1, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    And, really, are we now decreeing that only citizens who work for the correct industries are allowed to make personal political donations?

    Of course not, that would be silly. Only citizens who support the correct candidate are allowed to make personal political donations, regardless of where they work.

  60. 60.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    @kc: Cacti has problems dealing with the outside world.

  61. 61.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 5:02 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    I didn’t realize that book review sections are a hotbed of original journalism. Silly me, I thought they contained book reviews.

  62. 62.

    msdc

    April 1, 2016 at 5:02 pm

    @kc: Bingo. He’s all in favor of dick moves when he agrees with the cause.

  63. 63.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 5:02 pm

    @Mnemosyne: The Vox piece is pathetic in trying to find some means to excuse Clinton, even going so far as to suggest she can’t actually be tied to the millions being raised by lobbyist bundlers for her PACs. That’s not what I’d call complicated; it’s disingenuous.

    Particularly in light of this other recent Vox article which highlights inter alia this page at the Clinton website celebrating the long list of bundlers who have raised big bucks for her.

    There’s is nothing especially controversial here. She benefits from millions raised by oil industry personnel, particularly lobbyists. It’s the kind of thing that ought to trouble any voter about any candidate.

  64. 64.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    April 1, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    The GOP side is so freaking batsheet crazy that I would have to have Hillary Clinton on video verified by John Podesta and Huma Abedin plotting the murder of Mitch McConnell for me not to vote for Hillary. This coming from somebody who has not been a fan of the Clintons since Bill ran in 1992. Same conditions stand for Bernie even though I am not feeling the Bern.

  65. 65.

    Keith G

    April 1, 2016 at 5:04 pm

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    Remember that only white male candidates can shake their finger at people…

    As I recall many here saw Jan Brewer’s finger shaking as a sign of race-based contempt of Obama. “How dare she.”

    So…I guess you are right?

  66. 66.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:04 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Read it or not.

  67. 67.

    goblue72

    April 1, 2016 at 5:04 pm

    @Cacti: Obama banned donations to the DNC by lobbyists and PACs. The Clinton-controlled DNC under DWS rolled back that ban which was roundly criticized by actual progressives – DNC rolls back Obama ban on contributions from federal lobbyists.

    For the most part, they said, the DNC has returned to business as usual, pre-2008. The DNC has even named a finance director specifically for PAC donations who has recently emailed prospective donors to let them know that they can now contribute again, according to an email that was reviewed by The Washington Post.

    There’s a difference between the candidates, no matter how much the Clintonistas want to pretend otherwise.

  68. 68.

    goblue72

    April 1, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    @Calouste: WTF is wrong with a “professional” activist?

    I got news for you – “professional activists” are how we get progressive social change.

  69. 69.

    Anya

    April 1, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    Bernie is seriously simplistic in his answers.

  70. 70.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:06 pm

    @kc:

    Rosario Dawson grew up in a squat, you overprivileged dipshit.

    And began working in films full-time before she was even old enough to have a typical teenage job, and has a net worth of $16 million.

    But she’s another one of the good kind of 1 percenter, amiright? Rich + gives to Bernie = double plus revolutionary good. Forgive me for oppressing another of Bernie’s cadre of showbiz millionaires.

  71. 71.

    jl

    April 1, 2016 at 5:07 pm

    O. M. G. This changes everything!

    How does Cole even notice this stuff?
    More interesting uses for time. Doesn’t Steve have a litter box needs some scooping, for instance?

  72. 72.

    Chyron HR

    April 1, 2016 at 5:07 pm

    You can tell this is damning evidence by the fact that five different(?) Sanders supporters are here frantically trying to convince people that this is damning evidence.

  73. 73.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:07 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    The first big post, the one with the link, was about Kazakhstan. Do I have to find a murder she committed in downtown Moscow?

    Natch.

    Will the mistreatment of noble Russia never end?

  74. 74.

    ? Martin

    April 1, 2016 at 5:08 pm

    @Mnemosyne: We had this same problem in 2008 when it was assumed that every financial sector employee was a lobbyist for Goldman.

  75. 75.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:08 pm

    @goblue72:

    There’s a difference between the candidates, no matter how much the Clintonistas want to pretend otherwise.

    Given your past sloppiness in basic defintions, you should forgive people if they’re skeptical, however.

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    @cbear:

    I’ll vote for the Democratic candidate, Bernie or Hillary, but those of you that think this shit isn’t problematic are pretty dense. YMMV

    Sanders seems to think that only the grassroots, the little guy, should be allowed to contribute to political candidates.

    This is childish and kinda stupid. I got no problem with reasonable limits, but purity pledges are a waste of time.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    @smintheus:

    Is there some sort of key to explain who’s who on that list, or am I supposed to Google each one of the 120 names individually?

    I hate to tell you, but Phil Angelides is not in oil or gas. He’s a California politician. I didn’t vote for him that I can recall.

  78. 78.

    StellaB

    April 1, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    @smintheus: Steve Benen says that Bernie received 0.04% of his campaign funds from oil and gas industry employees, while Hillary received 0.15% of her donations from industry employees. Again, I’m just a math nerd, but 0.15% seems like an awfully tiny number. The absolute value is $300K-ish which, at least to me, is less than “millions”, but that’s just my fourth grade education privilege showing.

  79. 79.

    NR

    April 1, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    Shorter BJ: You have to take money from big corporations, it’s not like Obama and Bernie Sanders have raised huge amounts of money from small donors after all, and anyway big corporations never get anything for the money they give politicians, they just give away millions of dollars for no reason because they like setting money on fire.

  80. 80.

    jl

    April 1, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    I did see a clip a while back of Sanders being chewed out for being a right wing crypto-fascist deviationist by some protester. Something about air national guard bases in Vermont, and microaggressions against vegans.
    I can’t find it now, after twenty seconds of exhaustive search.

  81. 81.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    @Yutsano:

    Yeah, I agree it moves the needle not at all. As someone who works for corporations, I am particularly sensitive to the idea what we’re all evil persons. I’m only a little evil.

    I also find the dishonesty of the attack off-putting. It’s pure innuendo coupled with guilt-by-association.. Stuff like this just makes people tune out valid criticisms.

  82. 82.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:10 pm

    @Chyron HR: Well, the people who were assuring each other that Clinton never got a dime from the oil industry apparently didn’t read the NY Review of Books article when I posted it a month ago.

    I don’t know if you can hear the sounds of her collapsing campaign outside of your bubble. Just consider it a postcard from the real world.

  83. 83.

    dedc79

    April 1, 2016 at 5:10 pm

    Can’t wait to hear what Andrew Sullivan thinks about this….

  84. 84.

    Anya

    April 1, 2016 at 5:12 pm

    @smintheus: except this doesn’t talk about lobbyists bundlers but Jane avarage’s contribution. If you work for an oil company or independent contractor as a receptionist and you donated money for a candidate, you will be listed from that industry. This is misleading.

  85. 85.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 1, 2016 at 5:12 pm

    @Anya:
    Wow. That was mind-bendingly stupid. Sweet, well meaning, and I wish he was right and things were that simple, but things are not that simple to the point where I wonder what world he lives in. Point out the window and tell McConnell that a million young people are angry? Seriously? That’s his strategy?

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 5:12 pm

    @NR:

    I work for a Giant Evil Corporation. Am I supposed to not donate to political campaigns lest the evil of my corporate paycheck seep through to the candidate?

  87. 87.

    My Truth Hurts

    April 1, 2016 at 5:14 pm

    It’s almost seems as if she feels entitled to the nomination. But no, her supporters tell me that’s crazy so I must be wrong. There is no way she is doing this for anyone but the people.

  88. 88.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:14 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Point out the window and tell McConnell that a million young people are angry? Seriously? That’s his strategy?

    Ryan will quake at the power of the revolution’s mighty hashtags.

  89. 89.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:14 pm

    @StellaB: It’s not just campaign donations, although how that’s sliced and represented is an art in itself. It’s also speaking fees. It’s also donations to the Clinton Foundation (as per the article cited above). When you get a $130 million gift from your business partner for helping a guy who boils people in oil get a little cred with the EU, then I guess we’ve reached the point of real money.

  90. 90.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 1, 2016 at 5:15 pm

    @My Truth Hurts:
    Gotta say, when you beat the other guy by more than two million votes, you’re probably entitled to the nomination.

  91. 91.

    jl

    April 1, 2016 at 5:15 pm

    I heard on news a few weeks ago that Neil Kashkari, former TARP czar and failed CA GOP gub candidate was appointed to head Minneapolis Fed Res Bank. I was furious, even though Minneapolis Fed Bank is usually conservative. But report said that Kashkari’s inaugural speech recommended breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks.

    I need to go check on that. Hard to believe he said that (Edit: Watch out, it’s a TARP!) Sanders style communism is debauching our precious cue-ball bankster youth.

    Edit2: previous Minn Fed president went commie too. We are in grave danger!

  92. 92.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:16 pm

    @My Truth Hurts:

    It’s almost seems as if she feels entitled to the nomination. But no, her supporters tell me that’s crazy so I must be wrong. There is no way she is doing this for anyone but the people

    She’ll never be as humble as a candidate who refers to himself in the third person.

  93. 93.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:16 pm

    @goblue72: I got news for you – “professional activists” are how we get progressive social change.

    Hey! You’ve told us you’re an “activist” and not just a poo-flinging keyboard radical. You shouldn’t be so modest. Tell us about some of your real world successes! that totally really happened.

    @? Martin: In 2000 we heard that Al Gore was a phony on the environment because of his mother’s stock portfolio. I’m not sure if we’ve made progress or not. But it does all feel very familiar.

    @dedc79: still beats BIPpie or McClaren

  94. 94.

    kc

    April 1, 2016 at 5:16 pm

    @Cacti:

    Now that you’re back from googling her, let me point and laugh at you for blowing off her opinion after all your noisy ass posturing on here about people of color, you risible Hindenburg-sized hypocrite.

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    @Cacti:

    But she’s another one of the good kind of 1 percenter, amiright?

    She is in my book, because she is a good actress and smoking hot.

    Otherwise, I presume that you are snarking, or do you really believe that a person becomes evil once they reach a certain income level?

  96. 96.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: I’m sorry. Did they cancel the rest of the primaries?

    When I said that Clinton won the South because no one knew who Sanders was, I got a lot of grief here. How come Sanders is winning the AA vote in Wisconsin? Something to do with latitude?

  97. 97.

    Miss Bianca

    April 1, 2016 at 5:18 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I work for a Giant Evil Corporation. Am I supposed to not donate to political campaigns lest the evil of my corporate paycheck seep through to the candidate?

    Well, DUH. Particularly if you were planning to donate to Candidate (Not) of Choice for the Purity Ponies.

  98. 98.

    NR

    April 1, 2016 at 5:18 pm

    @kc: POCs opinions only count when they’re supporting Cacti’s chosen candidate. Duh.

  99. 99.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:18 pm

    @kc:

    Now that you’re back from googling her, let me point and laugh at you for blowing off her opinion after all your noisy ass posturing on here about people of color, you risible Hindenburg-sized hypocrite.

    I noticed you never answered what your fellow Bernfeelers were protesting at the Clinton event.

    Also, I admire your proletariat revolutionary spirit, going to the mat for a well-heeled millionaire who’s never done a hand’s turn of labor in her adult life.

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:20 pm

    @Cacti: Like a mirror image of John McCain, Humble Bernie will make change through his very presence. That’s why he doesn’t put any thought or effort to other down ticket races. All goodness will flow from Bernie.

    (that was the funniest thing about that Sarandon interview– the Trump brings faster revolution comment was just sad– when she said “Bernie has no ego in this”).

  101. 101.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:20 pm

    @gwangung: If you are skeptical about differences between the candidates you are asleep.

  102. 102.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 1, 2016 at 5:21 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    Did they cancel the rest of the primaries?

    Moot for the purposes of this conversation. If she is clearly winning, ‘entitled’ is not a legitimate argument. She is earning the position in the way that matters, people wanting her to be the nominee. The ‘nomination’ argument fails to apply even if Sanders pulls out a miracle – and it will take a miracle – and reverses her gigantic lead with indications that it will only increase before things are over.

  103. 103.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:21 pm

    Hillary Clinton excels at punching down.

    Instead of addressing the questioner directly like, you know, a human being Clinton goes into finger pointing intimidation mode, denies her any agency and implies that she must be nothing more than a Bernie shill.

    But, I’m sure the reason why I don’t understand the nuances here is that I am apparently incapable of understanding why any normal human being would think it’s okay to spend $1,200 on a haircut – even if they have received millions of dollars in contributions and speaking “fees” from the people in the fossil fuel industry and others with huge financial interests in coddling and subsidizing the fossil fuel industry like the backer of Keystone XL

  104. 104.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Otherwise, I presume that you are snarking, or do you really believe that a person becomes evil once they reach a certain income level?

    Nope just riffing on the forked tongue hypocrisy of a certain “revolution of the 99 percent” whose definition of good vs. bad rich person is based entirely on level of Sanders support.

    But hey, she’s hawt. That must mean she has valuable political insights.

    The real question is, has she ever spent $600 on a haircut? Cause that’s just plain evil.

  105. 105.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    When I said that Clinton won the South because no one knew who Sanders was, I got a lot of grief here.

    Because you’re a patronizing asshole. And you’re still a patronizing asshole who I suspect has some racist elements you’re just not honest enough to self examine.

    If no one knew who Sanders was in the South, then that’s on Sanders and his competence and nothing else. And it’s a fair thing to examine vis a vis his qualifications for office.

  106. 106.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    April 1, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    @Cacti: Hey, it worked on January 20, 2009, amirite? Over a million on the DC Mall for Obama’s inaugural. Congress rolled over and did everything Obama wanted due to the People Power. Gitmo closed, millions of homes saved from foreclosure, high-speed rail through dozens of major cities, etc. Don’t you remember?

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    StellaB

    April 1, 2016 at 5:23 pm

    @Brachiator: “Otherwise, I presume that you are snarking, or do you really believe that a person becomes evil once they reach a certain income level?”

    Not if she donates to the right candidate, amiright?

  108. 108.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:24 pm

    @NR:

    POCs opinions only count when they’re supporting Cacti’s chosen candidate. Duh

    Speaking of people of color. What’s happened to Killer Mike these days? Since he failed to move the southern black vote even a millimeter, Bernfeelers don’t seem to have much to say about him anymore.

    Outlived his usefulness, did he?

  109. 109.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:24 pm

    @Bob In Portland: No, I’m skeptical that certain people know what the hell they’re talking about.

  110. 110.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 5:24 pm

    @jl:

    Kashkari actually was the least nutty GOPer in the election and isn’t a totally horrible guy. He’s much more of a libertarian than a conservative. I don’t want him to be in charge of a state, but he might not be completely awful at the Reserve.

  111. 111.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Which downticket races? The ones with former Republicans wearing a Demo badge? Like Patrick Murphy? DWS christened him for the Senate seat in FL AFTER he voted for the Benghazi Committee. You’d think that DWS wouldn’t even be so crass, but I hear his daddy has lots of money.

  112. 112.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG: ncapable of understanding why any normal human being would think it’s okay to spend $1,200 on a haircut –

    Wow, the unconfirmed, rumored price of that haircut has double in twenty-four hours.

    @gwangung: Also that theory doesn’t explain Ohio, Illinois, Florida (which I’m not counting as traditionally “southern” and where Bernie lost badly) or Arizona, where he outspent her two-to-one.

  113. 113.

    StellaB

    April 1, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG: First it was a $300 haircut, then a $600 haircut, now it’s a $1200 haircut. Do I hear $2400 from anyone, $2400? Can you link to a scan of her receipt, maybe?

  114. 114.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    @Cacti: One of those Colombian death squads, I guess. Oh no, that’s the other Democratic candidate.

  115. 115.

    WarMunchkin

    April 1, 2016 at 5:27 pm

    Our media people (and citizenry, of course) aren’t well-equipped to talk about financial contributions in political campaigns, so we’re left with this puerile nonsense about who took what money from which industry even though whatever happened doesn’t quite fit with the words used to describe it.

    Here are a few questions I’d like to see some enterprising journalist discuss in the context of a Democratic Primary.

    1) How does campaign contribution bundling by lobbyists or other corporate representatives affect their representation or access to a particular candidate or officeholder over the course of his or her time in office?

    2) How is this similar to or different from a corporate funded SuperPAC regarding representation and/or access to a candidate or officeholder?

    3) Should we welcome corporate money if corporate money helps protect social gains?

    4) What does a campaign system with a reduced volume of donor money look like?

  116. 116.

    Eric U.

    April 1, 2016 at 5:27 pm

    I hope this is over soon. Turns out Bernie supporters can’t do math. It isn’t quite as bad as Kasich, but it’s Cruz-level delusion

  117. 117.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:28 pm

    @StellaB: I don’t care about her haircut.

  118. 118.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:28 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    Which downticket races?

    The one’s he’ll need to give him a legislative majority to have any hope at all of passing his proposed platform. Those ones, Bob-O.

  119. 119.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:28 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    Here, let me channel the Hillary Can Do No Wrong Brigade:

    Look, Bob, you are just seriously out of touch with the parameters of how dictators must operate. They can’t rely on the traditional appeals to the electorate or voting since, you know, they’ve eliminated elections. So to get people to do what they want they have to find other ways of motivating them.

    Now I am not saying that I, personally, have boiled anyone in oil and probably wouldn’t do so myself. But you really have to view dictator behavior on a spectrum from, say, making people wear embarrassing signs around their necks to serving someone’s kidneys to their family.

    I think we can all agree that boiling someone alive isn’t the worst thing that could have been done.

  120. 120.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:28 pm

    @Eric U.: You haven’t advanced your argument.

  121. 121.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 5:29 pm

    @Cacti: But you’ll vote for them with Bernie at the top of the ticket, right?

  122. 122.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 5:30 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Consult an article that identifies her large fuel-industry bundlers by name. These were being published long before Sanders got into the race. Compare those names to her own list of her favorite bundlers. You’ll notice considerable overlap. Kinda destroys the whole plausible deniability angle.

  123. 123.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:30 pm

    @StellaB: If you had been paying attention, we went through all of this yesterday. Ms. Clinton’s hairdresser charges $600 for a cut and $600 for color.

    Please pay attention to the important issues!!!

  124. 124.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:31 pm

    @StellaB:

    First it was a $300 haircut, then a $600 haircut, now it’s a $1200 haircut. Do I hear $2400 from anyone, $2400? Can you link to a scan of her receipt, maybe?

    Reminds one of the reports of Trayvon Martin’s height in the postmortem report. He started out at 5’10”, then “about 6 feet tall”, then just “6 feet tall”, then “over 6 feet tall”. By the time of the Zimmerman trial, the kid was practically Goliath of Gath.

  125. 125.

    jl

    April 1, 2016 at 5:31 pm

    @StellaB: They are groping for the worst amount possible. Need some middling number that seems outrageouly high for an ordinary person, but less than what Winners (like Trump) would pay.

    Which reminds me to ask, has Trump tweeted something out on it yet? Until that happens, it’s a non-event in this campaign.

  126. 126.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 5:32 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Bob thinks that the 2014 revolution in Ukraine was organized by neo-Nazis taking orders from the CIA and Putin’s moves to annex Ukraine’s territory are self-defense. Are you sure you want to hitch your wagon to that star?

  127. 127.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    April 1, 2016 at 5:33 pm

    @Keith G: My point was you gotta be white to get away with yelling and finger shaking in response to this:

    @Soprano2: who said

    Don’t you know the rules for candidates? Male candidates can shake their finger at people and yell as loudly as they want, and no one says anything about it. Female candidates can’t raise their voices at any time for any reason, and certainly can’t get angry at anyone about anything lest they be accused of yelling, being shrill and a harpy, and just generally being accused of being an unpleasant person.

    So that particular dynamic was certainly on display with Brewer’s nasty behavior on that tarmac. But the point remains that, unlike women, (white) men can be loud and/or angry and make condescending or aggressive gestures without an automatic accusation that they are an unpleasant person. Often they are unpleasant as well, as we know.

  128. 128.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:33 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    But you’ll vote for them with Bernie at the top of the ticket, right?

    Yes, Bob-O. Locally I’ll be voting for Jay Inslee, Patty Murray, and my local Dem candidates for the state house and senate.

    None of whom, Bernie could be arsed to mention during his stops here on caucus week.

  129. 129.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 5:33 pm

    @StellaB: It’s not about low level employees giving small sums. It’s about industry lobbyists and industry bundlers putting together millions for her campaign and particularly for her PAC. Trying to defend that by pointing to a modest sum that Sanders has raised from small donations of people working in the industry just highlights how weak the defense of Clinton on this point is.

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 5:34 pm

    @smintheus:

    Sorry, I’m not the one claiming that Hillary is controlled by oil and gas lobbyists. You are. Do your own damn homework to prove it or I’m going to assume you have no proof.

  131. 131.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:34 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Please pay attention to the important issues!!!

    Given that other posters were quoting $2-400 a pop for themselves, I’m not sure you have that much of a leg to stand on.

  132. 132.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 5:35 pm

    @Anya: Your completely missing the boat on this.

  133. 133.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    April 1, 2016 at 5:35 pm

    Sanders shouts all the time and nobody says anything.

    He shouted at Rachel Maddow 2 nights ago. Just shouted her down.

    He shouted at Judy Woodruff last week on the PBS Newshour.

    Trump screams all the time – all the time.

    But nobody makes a big deal out of it cuz it’s okay if you’re a dude.

  134. 134.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 5:35 pm

    @gwangung:

    Two different incidents? I thought there was one that was definitely from Sanders supporters.

    I presume that Sanders supporters (or anyone else’s for that matter), might say all kinds of silly stuff.

    Clinton’s response implied that Sanders’ official campaign people were making persistent charges about Clinton taking money from the fossil fuel industry. I’m not seeing this at places like Factcheck.org.

    I also see that Sanders has received some money from the fossil fuel lobby. Everybody just needs to chill and get on with campaigning.

  135. 135.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:37 pm

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    So that particular dynamic was certainly on display with Brewer’s nasty behavior on that tarmac. But the point remains that, unlike women, (white) men can be loud and/or angry and make condescending or aggressive gestures without an automatic accusation that they are an unpleasant person. Often they are unpleasant as well, as we know.

    The only righteous political anger in American politics is the white male variety.

    Why just two nights ago, the revolutionary candidate told Rachel Maddow that while women should have the right to choose and not be jailed for it, talking about it was a “distraction from an important conversation this country needs to have.” She didn’t seem especially pleased with the tenor of the remarks. Probably because she’s a girl and gets emotional about those things.

  136. 136.

    Anya

    April 1, 2016 at 5:38 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: I think he bought into the “Obama is weak and he let the republicans walk all over him” firebagger talking points.

    I think this is how he envisions Obama vs McConnell negotiations:

    Obama: He’re my budget
    McConnell: NO
    Obama: Okey dokey Leader McConnell

  137. 137.

    StellaB

    April 1, 2016 at 5:38 pm

    @Bob In Portland: Bill Clinton is extracting millions from various wealthy parties and using it to support various charitable causes? The devil you say! How could someone possibly do something that horrible? I’ve even heard that a lot of that money is going to Africa to help blah people.

    ETA: That was, of course, sarcasm.

  138. 138.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:40 pm

    @StellaB:

    Bill Clinton is extracting millions from various wealthy parties and using it to support various charitable causes? The devil you say! How could someone possibly do something that horrible? I’ve even heard that a lot of that money is going to Africa to help blah people.

    Not everyone can be as virtuous as Bob’s idol, Vladimir Putin.

  139. 139.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 5:41 pm

    @gwangung:

    Clearly, those posters are not “normal”, approved people. All salon receipts must be submitted the the Office of Progressive Allowances. For…evaluation.

    (do they realize how honestly terrifying they sound sometimes?)

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:41 pm

    @Bob In Portland: so there are no Senate or House candidate who virtuous enough to join St Bernard’s Faith Militant? I guess the Revolution’s over before it’s begun.

    I’m shocked.

  141. 141.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 5:42 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I have done my own work. Are you interested enough in finding out the truth to do even a tiny amount of googling?

    Ok, here are a few names from a year-old article. Want to bother to look at those names and find them on the Hillblazers’ list? Several of them are there.

  142. 142.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:42 pm

    @gwangung: Look you have to understand that Clinton is constantly in front of cameras and given, you know, sexism and stuff she absolutely MUST look her best.

    $2,400 is a very small price to pay for that and anyone who lives in a hep city like LA or NYC understands that $2,400 is totes reasonable.

  143. 143.

    dogwood

    April 1, 2016 at 5:43 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:
    Stop with the $1200 haircut as a sign of corruption crap. Does any sane person here really think that the Sanders don’t play by the same rules as most elites even if it’s on a smaller scale? What average American gets a 200,0000K payoff after screwing up her job? What’s the acceptable price to pay for a haircut if you’re only fleecing people at that level? This is becoming so ridiculous.

  144. 144.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:43 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    so there are no Senate or House candidate who virtuous enough to join St Bernard’s Faith Militant? I guess the Revolution’s over before it’s begun.

    I’m shocked.

    Top down “revolution” based on a cult of personality.

    Sounds like it has all the markers of long term success.

  145. 145.

    Baud

    April 1, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    So the last primary is sometime in June, huh?

  146. 146.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    April 1, 2016 at 5:45 pm

    @StellaB: $1850 is my final offer.

  147. 147.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 5:46 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Look you have to understand that Clinton is constantly in front of cameras and given, you know, sexism and stuff she absolutely MUST look her best

    This is less sarcastic than you seem to think.

  148. 148.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:46 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Look you have to understand that Clinton is constantly in front of cameras and given, you know, sexism and stuff she absolutely MUST look her best.

    $2,400 is a very small price to pay for that and anyone who lives in a hep city like LA or NYC understands that $2,400 is totes reasonable

    Thank goodness St. Bernard the pure only sends out salt of the earth surrogates like Susan Sarandon and Rosario Dawson, who would never get coiffed anywhere more expensive than Great Clips or Super Cuts. I’ve heard that both also raid the local thrift stores for their red carpet attire.

    But they’re different, because of reasons.

  149. 149.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:47 pm

    @Anya: also, they forget that those negotiations, when all Obama cared about was appeasing Republicans!, most of those negotiations were conducted with Democrats. But Bernie is King of the Amendments, so Claire McCaskill, Heidi Headlamp, Joe Minchin and Mitch McConnell are totally gonna find themselves voting for free college before they even know the Revolution hit them

  150. 150.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:47 pm

    @Technocrat: I’m going to admit that I have NO idea how much hair styling for a woman costs. I just know enough to keep my mouth shut when women are talking about what it costs for them.

  151. 151.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 5:47 pm

    Common Dreams is bashing Hillary because St. Bernard is so full of integrity, his campaign runs on fairy dust and angel’s breath. But the reality is, it’s all spin and it’s all bullshit. I’m so sick of all of this. Bernie took donations from the oil and gas industry too. And the amount of money Hillary got from people who WORKED in the oil and gas industry is miniscule.

    “Put another way, the oil and gas money is two-tenths of 1 percent of Clinton’s $159.9 million overall fundraising. It roughly equals the amount Sanders raised every 16 hours in the first quarter of 2016.

    “The Sanders campaign has relied primarily on small donors, although it, too, lists more than $50,000 in oil- and gas-related donations.”

    http://www.npr.org/2016/04/01/472615778/fact-check-hillary-clinton-and-donations-from-fossil-fuel-companies

    You know who took the LEAST amount of money from oil and gas interests? Donald fucking insane Trump. That shows you how stupid these idiotic litmus tests are.

    I’m quickly losing respect for so many people I used to admire, including Greenpeace, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and every other so-called “liberal” who has shown themself to be just a left-wing version of the fucking Tea Party.

  152. 152.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:49 pm

    @dogwood: I don’t see it as a sign of corruption at all. A sign of being out of touch with the concerns of average working class and people who hope to working class Americans is more like it.

    @Cacti: If you will put down the cheetos and read what I have posted, you’ll see that I haven’t said a word about Bernie Sanders in this thread.

    Maybe try to respond to what I wrote instead of the caterwauling you hear in your head?

  153. 153.

    cbear

    April 1, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I got no problem with reasonable limits, but purity pledges are a waste of time.

    Purity Pledge? Nope. That’s not what I’m saying nor advocating. I just happen to think that it’s relatively “reasonable” to expect a Democratic candidate for President to NOT spend a great deal of time hoovering up every available dollar from groups and entities with policies and positions inimical to the people and values she purports to represent.

    Again, YMMV.

  154. 154.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    @Southern Beale: Good god, I’ve been done with Michael Moore since 2000. Susan Sarandon at least has other redeeming qualities, Greenpeace too.

  155. 155.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    So Hillary accepting donations from the same giant banks and Wall Street crime lords and defense contractors who funded George W. Bush’s campaign is just “an unfortunate confluence of events,” eh?

    That’s a novel way of putting it.

    I guess the collapse of the global economy in 2009 and the debacle of the Iraq War was also just “an unfortunate confluence of events.”

    Bad luck.

    Could happen to anyone.

  156. 156.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG: Would you like a shovel to keep digging, sir?

  157. 157.

    Mike J

    April 1, 2016 at 5:51 pm

    @Cacti:

    Locally I’ll be voting for Jay Inslee, Patty Murray, and my local Dem candidates for the state house and senate.

    None of whom, Bernie could be arsed to mention during his stops here on caucus week.

    And all[1] of whom Hillary did promote in her rally, along with US House candidates.

    [1] The state lege people not by name.

  158. 158.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:51 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    I’m quickly losing respect for so many people I used to admire, including Greenpeace, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and every other so-called “liberal” who has shown themself to be just a left-wing version of the fucking Tea Party.

    Both ex-Naderites.

    Go figure.

    Thanks for heightening the contradictions back in 2000 guys/gals. Really turned out well.

  159. 159.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:51 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG: Oh, I see you have your own shovel.

  160. 160.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:52 pm

    How much did FDR, JFK and LBJ spend on booze and floozies? Cause we all know this kind of thing is far more important policy and legislation

  161. 161.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:52 pm

    @gwangung: Have you been polishing that witticism for quite a while?

  162. 162.

    Baud

    April 1, 2016 at 5:53 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    You know who took the LEAST amount of money from oil and gas interests? Donald fucking insane Trump.

    srv will LOVE that.

  163. 163.

    MomSense

    April 1, 2016 at 5:53 pm

    I’m more pissed about Sanders taking money from poor college and just out of college kids so he can pay Tad Devine 800k a month. And now that he has an almost zero chance of earning the nomination, how is this not grift?

    Thankfully my kids haven’t fallen for this crap.

  164. 164.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 5:53 pm

    @Hal:

    “Some lovely friends of mine are being insufferable on Facebook with the endless Sanders posts …”

    Have had to unfriend some folks until after this goddamn primary is over, for real.

  165. 165.

    Miss Bianca

    April 1, 2016 at 5:54 pm

    @Baud:

    Yeah! Two more whole months for the Baud! 2016! campaign to campaign to heal the breach!

    Baud! 2016: “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

  166. 166.

    JMG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:54 pm

    Clinton has been very successful in a government system many Sanders supporters see as hopelessly corrupt. Therefore, she must be hopelessly corrupt. That’s kind of a simplistic view of how the world works. If Sanders had more to say on issues except “government hopelessly corrupt” I might have voted for him. The guy’s been in Congress over 20 years. I bet he’s failed more than one of his Internet supporters’ purity tests. And I don’t hold that against him in the slightest.

  167. 167.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 5:54 pm

    @MomSense:

    Also, too: there is no realistic path to the nomination for him that I have seen. I’ve read countless articles outlining how the math is simply not there. Yet he keeps taking money from these folks who can least afford to give it.

    Lost so much respect, for sure.

  168. 168.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Dude, when your fellow posters are talking about hair jobs costing in the hundreds for themselves, saying Clinton’s work as emblematic of being out of touched is igniting an untintended irony bomb that’s in the megaton range.

  169. 169.

    Baud

    April 1, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    I’m the only candidate whose taken no money from any industry. The only thing my supporters bundle is love!

  170. 170.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:56 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Excuse me there Jim, let me do some femmesplainin’ to you so you: When discussing hair styling preferences of a womyn politician, it is sexist to then compare what male politicians have spent on booze and floozies. The only appropriate lens for comparison is what male politician have spent on hair styling and other beauty aids like spray on tanners.

    Anthing else is sexist. So please police your behavior accordingly so we can keep this a safe space. Ummmkay?

  171. 171.

    D58826

    April 1, 2016 at 5:57 pm

    I’m really getting bummed out by the democratic side of the primaries. The GOP side is still worth putting extra butter on the pop corn.

    If I read one more article comparing St. Bernie to the wicked witch of New York I think I scream. Over on Huffington is this gem:

    Please Recognize Your Privilege If You Can Afford 8 Years of Hillary Clinton and the Status Quo

    Some people say Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are approximately the same on the issues. These people likely have a lifestyle and a level of income that is comfortable and that they’re not too worried about losing.
    For middle class and working class people, many of whom struggle from paycheck to paycheck and carry debt, the policies proposed by the two candidates are nothing alike.
    Given the power of an incumbent president, and the fact that most of our last presidents have been reelected, if we end up with Hillary Clinton in the White House, we’ll likely have her and her essentially status quo policies for eight years

    . Like it or not the way the US system is set up it favors the status quo. Big change is hard and usually requires some external event (i.e. great depression) to force change on a system of multiple checks and balances.

    Bernie Sanders’s proposals, many of which are quite bold, are not all guaranteed to be immediately implemented of course, but Bernie has a long track record of tenacity and passing progressive legislation even in Republican-controlled legislatures. We know he will fight for his proposals for his four — or eight — years in office, and with the power of the presidency his success shouldn’t be underestimated.

    Now we get to the unicorns and magic asterisks of Bernie’s appeal. If Barney Frank is to be believed about the only thing Bernie did in his many years in Washington was keep a seat warm. I wonder what planet this writer has been living on the past 7 years. Bernie has no more chance of getting his big plans enacted that I have of becoming an astronaut. Even if lightening strikes and the GOP losses the House, unless the democrats get a 60 vote Senate NOTHING is going to get done. An obstructionist GOP that considered Obama a socialist isn’t about to co-operate with a self professed one. And no I don’t think a lot is going to get done with President HRC either
    Just one example of the list of unicorns that Bernie will deliver

    Only Bernie supports a Carbon Tax, universally recognized as the only effective way to use capitalism to swiftly reduce environmental degradation.

    Ihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-brasunas/please-recognize-privilege-8-years-of-hillary-clinton_b_9591922.html

  172. 172.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 5:57 pm

    @gwangung: Perhaps you are beginning to catch on …

  173. 173.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 5:57 pm

    @Technocrat:

    Look you have to understand that Clinton is constantly in front of cameras and given, you know, sexism and stuff she absolutely MUST look her best

    This is less sarcastic than you seem to think.

    It’s telling that he would try to use the above ironically.

    What high profile, professional woman anywhere in this country could be taken seriously if they showed the same inattention to hair and wardrobe as Bernie?

  174. 174.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 5:57 pm

    @cbear: How do you know the individuals and employees of these corporations hold values “inimical” to your values. The legalization of gay marriage in NY state was largely bankrolled by hedge fund plutocrat Peter Singer (I think that’s his name) and other Wall St types. Does that mean it was evil?

  175. 175.

    Miss Bianca

    April 1, 2016 at 5:58 pm

    @Southern Beale: After the Malheur thing I put myself on semi-permanent hiatus from FB. But the non-stop BS proselytizing from otherwise pleasant and delightful friends was reason #2. I realized that I was in grave, grave danger of Becoming (More of) the Asshole myself in response.

  176. 176.

    starscream

    April 1, 2016 at 5:58 pm

    @JMG: He has. I posted about this last night. Gun manufacturers, F-35’s, Martha’s Vineyard fundraising, and a lot more. I’m not saying Hillary is better, but she’s not the one building a campaign around being the purest person in Washington.

  177. 177.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 5:59 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG: Actually, no. It just makes me think you’re pretty stupid….or trolling.

  178. 178.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 6:00 pm

    @Cacti: May Saint Bella Abzug redeem your wretched soul…

  179. 179.

    MomSense

    April 1, 2016 at 6:01 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    I went from bemusement to annoyance to contempt. My oldest son just texted me last night that Sanders is so awful he turned him into an enthusiastic Clinton supporter.

  180. 180.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 6:02 pm

    @mclaren:

    Wall Street crime lords

    The Meaning Of Words. ??? -2016

    R.I.P.

  181. 181.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 6:02 pm

    @mclaren:

    So, half of Hillary’s Wall Street donations come from a “crime lord” named George Soros. Remember him? Anathema to the right-wingers? Funny, MoveOn didn’t call him a crime lord when they took his money in 2004.

    Weird that MoveOn took Soros’ money, and now they’re supporting Bernie. Guess they’re corrupted, too.

  182. 182.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:02 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    But, I’m sure the reason why I don’t understand the nuances here is that I am apparently incapable of understanding why any normal human being would think it’s okay to spend $1,200 on a haircut…

    Hillary and her hubby Bill are far from normal human beings. The Clinton Global Initiative charity rakes in over 70 billion bucks from various corporate donors, and it funnels that great big mountain ‘o cash through lots of labyrinthine accounting highways and byways before it finally makes its way to objects of the charitable donation.

    Along the way, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton (who is on the board of directors of the 70 billion dollar Clinton Global Initiative) manage to siphon off a whole bunch ‘o bucks. Chelsea Clinton plunked down 10.5 million dollars for a Park Avenue West pre-WW I penthouse a couple of years ago. Not bad for a 36-year-old who has never held a serious job in her life.

    While Bill and Hillary fly to Davos in their private jet every year, I’m sure they put their heads together to try to figure out how to help the world’s downtrodden and unfortunate. In between wine and brie tastings and caviar snacks after those $600,000 speeches to hedge fund traders Goldman Sachs, doubtless Hillary and her Hubby find time to volunteer in a soup kitchen or two to help the homeless.

    No, Bill and Hillary are not “normal human beings.” These are part of the global top 0.1%. When Bill and Hillary Clinton shop at a store, the highways get shut down for five miles in every direction and the store gets emptied. These are not “normal people,” they live like Renaissance princes.

    $1200 haircut? I’m just surprised Hillary didn’t pay slave girls from Madagascar to fan her while she was getting her tresses shorn.

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    April 1, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    @Baud:

    Well, that’s good, Baud! because love is all I got for your campaign. : ) .

  184. 184.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    @MomSense:

    I hear that a lot. Sanders’ most rabid supporters are really turning a lot of people off.

  185. 185.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 6:04 pm

    @smintheus:

    Are you interested enough in finding out the truth to do even a tiny amount of googling?

    Sorry, I’m allergic to people telling me they have PROOF of something but I have to go find it for myself. It reminds me way too much of the guys waving Bibles at me promising that the answers to all my questions are inside.

    So if, say, 5 out of the 120 people on Hillary’s list are in the oil and gas industry, that .04 percent of bundlers proves that she’s totally in the bag for them?

  186. 186.

    dogwood

    April 1, 2016 at 6:04 pm

    @Southern Beale:
    “You know who took the LEAST amount. . .”
    You are absolutely right and it doesn’t make a difference. I said in a comment that disappeared that the Sander’s operate much the same as typical non- 1% elites. Screw up Hewlett Packard and you get tens of millions to get lost. Screw up a tiny college in Vermont and the payoff is $200,000. Different numbers, but the principle is the same. Privileged people play by different rules, Sanders included. I don’t know what the acceptable price for a haircut is when your’re ripping people off for 6 digits rather than 9 or ten, and I don’t really care. It’s all pretty ridiculous.

  187. 187.

    starscream

    April 1, 2016 at 6:04 pm

    This thread is a good example of why more people don’t like Democrats. You have to thread every fucking needle to get approved. If your salary is a dollar too high, to hell with you. Warren Buffett must be a god damn monster.

  188. 188.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:06 pm

    @Technocrat:

    Wall Street crime lords — like Goldman Sachs:

    Washington, D.C., July 15, 2010 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Goldman, Sachs & Co. will pay $550 million and reform its business practices to settle SEC charges that Goldman misled investors in a subprime mortgage product just as the U.S. housing market was starting to collapse.

    In agreeing to the SEC’s largest-ever penalty paid by a Wall Street firm, Goldman also acknowledged that its marketing materials for the subprime product contained incomplete information.

    In its April 16 complaint, the SEC alleged that Goldman misstated and omitted key facts regarding a synthetic collateralized debt obligation (CDO) it marketed that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities. Goldman failed to disclose to investors vital information about the CDO, known as ABACUS 2007-AC1, particularly the role that hedge fund Paulson & Co. Inc. played in the portfolio selection process and the fact that Paulson had taken a short position against the CDO.

    Source: “Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO,” SEC government website, 2010.

    Criminal fraud.

    Conspiracy to commit interstate wire fraud. “The head shot” AKA falsifying a federal loan application, punishable by 30 years in prison. Obstruction of justice. And the list of charges goes on.

    And on.

    And on,

    And on…

  189. 189.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 6:06 pm

    @mclaren: I iz trying to remember my proper place in this here world. Good thing they is so many people here to help hayseeds like myself understand why the only reason I would question Miss Hillary’s haircut costs is because I am just envious of her. Lots of folks here helped me to understand that yesterday.

  190. 190.

    Ruckus

    April 1, 2016 at 6:08 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    I like working and I like getting paid for doing that. And I also work for a corporation. It has six employees plus the owner/president. I used to own a corporation and I averaged 6 employees.

    As you, and many others here know, there are some horribly evil corporations out there but there are also ones that treat their employees and the world reasonably. Some people are evil assholes no matter their color, age, gender, race, religion or where or for whom they work or who works for them. And some people believe most anything, good or bad, because they want to, reality, maths, facts. money be damned.

  191. 191.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 6:08 pm

    FWIW the first I read about Hillary’s haircut was that it cost $600. Don’t know how it got inflated to $1,200.

    I don’t get out of the hair salon for under $200, including tips. And I’m not the secretary of state. I assume she’s getting other treatments: coloring, highlights, etc. And then she’s not showing up at the salon with the rest of the plebes, inconveniencing everyone with her security detail and paparazzi and whatnot. They’re coming to her, at her hotel room or wherever she is. And of course there’s an extra price for that. You don’t expect to do a service at the customer’s location and them not pay for your transit and time out of the salon and whatnot.

    I’m trying to imagine what the response would be if she had shown up at a salon. People would accuse her of staging a photo op in an effort to appear “relatable.” I’m glad she’s not even fucking trying.

  192. 192.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    @Cacti:

    But hey, she’s hawt. That must mean she has valuable political insights.

    Yes, it does.

    The real question is, has she ever spent $600 on a haircut? Cause that’s just plain evil.

    The mark of the beast.

  193. 193.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    @smintheus:

    I was guessing but, seriously, that article had exactly 5 lobbyist/bundlers before they switched seamlessly back to the personal donations bullshit:

    ExxonMobil’s top lobbyist in Washington, Theresa Fariello, may not be a bundler for Clinton’s campaign, but she is a donor. Fariello, who was a Department of Energy official in President Bill Clinton’s administration, gave $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign. Another Washington-based Exxon lawyer, Judith Batty, donated $2,700. (emphasis mine)

    This shit again. Can we maybe get a list of industries whose employees should be forbidden from making personal political donations with their own money?

  194. 194.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    @starscream:

    Warren Buffett must be a god damn monster.

    You are correct, sir.

    See “Warren Buffett’s mobile home empire preys on the poor,” investigation by the Center for Public Integrity.

    Denise Pitts walked into the pawn shop not far from where she bought her mobile home in Knoxville, Tennessee, and offered up her wedding rings for $100. Her marriage wasn’t over, but her husband was battling cancer and, Pitts said, her mortgage company told her the only way to keep a roof over his head would be to sell everything else.

    Across the country in Ephrata, Washington, Kirk and Patricia Ackley sat down to close on a new mobile home, only to learn that the annual interest on their loan would be 12.5 percent rather than the 7 percent they said they had been promised. They went ahead because they had spent $11,000, most of their savings, to dig a foundation.

    And near Bug Tussle, Alabama, Carol Carroll has been paying down her home for more than a decade but still owes nearly 90 percent of the sale price — and more than twice what the home is worth.

    The families’ dealers and lenders went by different names — Luv Homes, Clayton Homes, Vanderbilt, 21st Mortgage. Yet the disastrous loans that threaten them with homelessness or the loss of family land stem from a single company: Clayton Homes, the nation’s biggest homebuilder, which is controlled by its second-richest man — Warren Buffett.

    In the Ponz!conomy of Sh!thole America, only legalized loansharking pays anymore. If you’re not asset-stripping the poorest of the poor, you’re just not going to make any money in the rigged casino misnamed the U.S. economy.

  195. 195.

    drdavechemist

    April 1, 2016 at 6:11 pm

    John Cole nailed it in the headline–this is a Rohrschach test and people will see what they want to see.
    I care more about actions and accomplishments, preferably recent ones and not from 14 (Iraq war vote) or 24 (Bill’s first term) or 52 (Goldwater girl) years ago. HRC has done more to advance my priorities than any other candidate and has, in my judgement, the best chance of making further actual progress. I don’t care about “purity”–I want results.

  196. 196.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:13 pm

    So I linked to an investigation showing that Warren Buffet runs a Ponzi scheme based on legalized loansharking for overpriced mobile and my comment gets dumped “into moderation.”

    Wow.

    What a co-inky-dink.

    Lemme guess…my next comment citing evidence of the New York Times’ investigation into the sleazier nooks and crannies of the Clinton Global Initiation will mysteriously get marked as “spam.”

    Just “an unfortunate confluence of events,” I guess…

  197. 197.

    D58826

    April 1, 2016 at 6:14 pm

    Another quote from the Huffington article

    If you’re getting paid minimum wage or anything close to it, you might not be able to afford eight years of Hillary Clinton and the status quo.

    And if you have an unplanned pregnancy then maybe Bernie’s kiss-off attitude will be a bit of a problem. I guess it’s because of his socialist philosophy but the only issues that seems important are economic. I’m not trying to down play the economic problems but there are other issues affecting peoples lives and a $15.00 minimum wage won’t solve all of them.

    If Sarandon’s attitude reflects Bernie’s supporters then they will be quite happy to burn down the democratic party. Of coursed I’m not sure would be left to vote for the Sanders revolution. If he isn’t working to get down ballot candidates elected and spends much of his time complaining about the corrupt democratic machine, then he isn’t going to get much support from the party when he is elected. Obama was criticized for not schmoozing enough with the party leaders but at least he did call the party corrupt.

  198. 198.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 6:15 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    No, we’re not saying you’re a hayseed, we’re saying you’re a sexist jerk. And you’re not doing a whole lot to counteract that impression.

  199. 199.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 6:16 pm

    @Cacti:

    You’d think answer to that would be obvious to a party that purports to to support women. But when you’re cooking up a revolution omelette, you gotta break a few eggs, and dehumanize a few opponents.

  200. 200.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:16 pm

    @drdavechemist:

    HRC has done more to advance my priorities than any other candidate and has, in my judgement, the best chance of making further actual progress. I don’t care about “purity”–I want results.

    Absolutely. Hillary has done more to advance the priorities of people who want to bomb Iran and bomb Syria than any other candidate.

    Breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks or reducing the extortionate legalized-loansharking college loan interest rates or fixing America’s broken collapsing health care system or rolling back America’s military-police-prison-surveillance-torture complex or shutting down our insane panopticon surveillance mania, not so much.

    But clearly your priorities are: war, war, war, more war, and yet more war, limitless expansion of corporate power, and the conversion of America into an armed garrison state under undeclared martial law. If HRC becomes president, you will be very happy indeed.

  201. 201.

    cbear

    April 1, 2016 at 6:17 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I like how you changed the ” groups and entities” in my comment to “individuals and employees”.
    The link I posted specifically referenced paid speeches by HRC that were paid for, or at least underwritten, by Canadian banks with direct interests in the Keystone Pipeline.

    Here’s the link again.

    I think it’s pretty relevant to the discussion at hand as to whether Sec. Clinton has received money from Oil & Gas interests. I also somehow find it hard to believe that the “individuals and employees” of those banks financed the speeches. Perhaps I’m wrong.

    Again, you may believe that this isn’t problematic for her and the Democratic party. I do.

  202. 202.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 6:18 pm

    @Ruckus: My dad owned a company, and I happen to know that two of his highest paid employees turned out to be rabid wing nuts– it’s only after he sold the business, through the glories of email forwards, that we became aware that these otherwise nice people were Obama-hating cranks. Does this mean that my old man, who has voted for every Democrat since Truman, is responsible for the Tea Baggers? Zounds!

    You know, along these lines of thinking, the Roberts-Alito court was right about Hobby Lobby. Employers can and should and in fact do control what their employees do with what they receive in compensation.

  203. 203.

    Miss Bianca

    April 1, 2016 at 6:19 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Oh, what are you doing trying to bring anything resembling “reason(s)” into the Hillary!!Hair!!11! issue? Don’t you realize that however many hundreds/thousands/whatever of her ill-got millions siphoned off from her Evil Corporate Cronies/Minions HRC is *actually* spending on getting her hair done, it’s TOO MUCH???

  204. 204.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    No, we’re not saying you’re a hayseed, we’re saying you’re a sexist jerk.

    Who is `we’? You’re not even a woman, you’re just some guy getting paid to do corporate astroturfing attacks against anyone who supports Bernie Sanders.

    Writer David Brin has warned about this:

    In this U.S. election cycle, we’ve just seen a collapse of the power of well-funded PACs to affect electoral outcomes through traditional means such as television and other media buys. Jeb Bush spent $100 million for nothing. What’s an oligarch to do?

    Why, emulate China, of course. The Chinese government now pays up to half a million young web-junkies to spend all their working hours posting disinformation via social media, sabotaging non-compliant sites, denouncing flickers of dissent and praising patriotic tendencies. You can bet that right wing Political Action Committees are investing in social media operations, big-time, as we speak. And that their absolute top priority will be to demolish any chance of unity among democrats in the fall.

    I would bet my house that we are already seeing this, in the vituperative shrillness of some Sanders “supporters” online. Look up the term “agent provocateur.” All your European friends will be happy to explain it to you.

    And no, I do not dismiss all passionate Bernites as agents provocateurs, plotting to prevent another Clinton presidency! Most, probably are simply devoted to a very smart and good candidate who’d make at-minimum a pretty good president and whom I’d support, if you guys earn him the nomination, fair and square. There are two ways to tell the difference between over-wrought sincerity and a spy-provocateur:

    First, true Bernites will listen, when Sanders himself chides them to remember the Supreme Court and Donald Trump… and work for the democrat in the fall. And if they can’t stomach working for Hillary, they will find some local, state assmbly race where their passion could make a real difference.

    Second, check for identity clues. Ask the loudest and most outraged to identify themselves. To email you from their home addresses.

    Compile a list of the most vituperative comment postings and tuck them away, in case the Democratic Party hires a team to investigate collusive, PAC paid comments-sabotage. (And the DP should be hiring those investigators now.) The ravings that repeat endlessly under a variety of names are surely canned.

    They have realized we’re no longer passively glued to TV and manipulative ads no longer work well. But they think we’re still morons. Moreover, that billion dollars from Koch and Saudi and Macau manipulators will be spent, desperately clinging to the power they have used to harm America. Ultimately, the immune system that will overcome this fever must be us.

    Source: “Gaming the election,” Contrary Brin website, 30 March 2016.

  205. 205.

    Applejinx

    April 1, 2016 at 6:22 pm

    So what? I don’t care if she yells. She’ll have to yell at Republicans a lot. I don’t care that much about the shocking news of fossil fuel industry funding because we all KNEW that already, how is this in any way a surprise? Bernie isn’t doing as well as he is in a vacuum. Any Republican would be at least as bad or worse.

    This is not enough to get me to refuse to vote for the Dem. Anybody who didn’t already know this is who Hillary was, is an idiot. An idiot. And a very naive one.

    On the other hand, two and four and six hundred dollar hair salon visits? Holy mother of fucking YIKES, you people are from another planet.

    Talk to Trump. What he’s got is entirely synthetic and will last forever. They’ll be digging it out of sedimentary deposits thousands of years from now and it’ll be fresh and new. And it’s easy to attach!

    Just staple it onto the wood. :D

  206. 206.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 6:22 pm

    @cbear: Okay, I was continuing the main theme of the thread and didn’t follow your change of subject/thinking closely enough. Even so, I think it’s more important that she opposes the Keystone pipeline, and will continue Obama’s work to strengthen alternative energies and regulation.

    and I don’t give a fiddler’s dead syphilitic mother’s last fuck about fucking speeches.

    ETA: I glanced at your link to follow the tenuous connections between speeches and policy. So Canadian banks that supported the pipeline funded the groups that paid Hillary to speak, and after she pocketed the money she came out against the pipeline? Okay.

  207. 207.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 6:23 pm

    @Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne: It’s not what I think. I’ve referred you to the interview in The Nation multiple times. The interview of Russ Bellant, who wrote the Old Nazis, The New Right and The Republican Party.

    Back in the Nineties it was mostly Republicans, but as we have seen, the corporate Democratic Party is more comfortable these days with those folks. You know, like Colombian death squads. That kind of thing. Have you read it yet? Ever? It’s only been two years, so I guess you aren’t keen to find out I was right. Or doesn’t google work in your bubble?

    Essentially, the State Department-backed coup replaced the oligarchy friendly with the Russians to the oligarchy friendly with the US. And the US used Nazis as the, er, stormtroopers. Now the stormtroopers aren’t content with killing ethnic Russians, mostly because they got their asses kicked, and now they want the current group of oligarchs out of power to make it a complete fascist state.

    And why would Americans use the Nazis, aside from the fact that they’ve been using them in anti-Soviet/anti-Russian endeavors for seventy years?

    This article.

    It’s funny how you folks talk about Sanders’ supporters’ “purity” when those guys we put in power are the sons and grandsons of the people who killed a million Jews, and who now consider the ethnic Russians somehow part of a Jewish cabal.

    Well, if after two years you still haven’t read it, that’s commentary enough on your open mind. Batten down the hatches, incoming truth!

  208. 208.

    HRA

    April 1, 2016 at 6:24 pm

    This thread is giving me a headache. Politics are dirty and that just did not happen recently. Where I grew up in NYS the person calling the shots did not have an elected office. The city flourished then and the people were happy even if they made bad jokes about him among friends. He’s gone and the city’s major employer has left decades ago. It’s a shell of its former self. You will not want to know who promised to bring new industry to it and never did it.

    The G-Damn constant back biting among you is not at all productive IMO. I could care less about the price of anyone’s haircut. I understand the Secret Service has the right to park wherever they want to.

    What I wish would have happened in that HRC response to a question from a person in her audience did not happen. It’s over and done.

    We all want what is best for our country. This should be our focus.

  209. 209.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    April 1, 2016 at 6:25 pm

    @mclaren:

    So I linked to an investigation showing that Warren Buffet runs a Ponzi scheme based on legalized loansharking for overpriced mobile and my comment gets dumped “into moderation.”

    Wow.

    What a co-inky-dink.

    Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you used the word casino, I suppose.

  210. 210.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 6:25 pm

    @Cacti:

    Why just two nights ago, the revolutionary candidate told Rachel Maddow that while women should have the right to choose and not be jailed for it, talking about it was a “distraction from an important conversation this country needs to have.”

    Was this really part of the Sanders’ interview with Maddow? I downloaded the podcast of the episode, but did not have time to listen to it.

    Uh, wait. I looked at a transcript of the interview.

    SANDERS: Well, I think it is — shameful is probably understating that position. First of all, to me, and I think to most Americans, women have the right to control their own bodies and they have the right to make those personal decisions themselves.

    But to punish a woman for having an abortion is beyond comprehension. I — I just — you know, one would say what is in Donald Trump’s mind except we’re tired of saying that?

    I don’t know what world this person lives in. So obviously, from my perspective, and if elected president, I will do everybody that I can to allow women to make that choice and have access to clinics all over this country so that if they choose to have an abortion, they will be able to do so.

    I don’t see that he said that talking about it was a distraction.

    This might be considered close, but is still not a denial of the importance of the issue of abortion.

    MADDOW: Are you suggesting, though, that the media shouldn’t be focusing on his call to potentially jail women who have abortions? Because that’s another stupid —

    SANDERS: I am saying that every day he comes up with another stupid remark, absurd remark, of course it should be mentioned. But so should Trump’s overall positions. How much talk do we hear about climate change, Rachel? And Trump? Any?

    I am just not seeing that he downplayed the issue. He continued to rail against the media for being shallow in giving Trump a platform without challenge.

  211. 211.

    gwangung

    April 1, 2016 at 6:27 pm

    @Applejinx:

    On the other hand, two and four and six hundred dollar hair salon visits? Holy mother of fucking YIKES, you people are from another planet.

    Well, you know what they say…Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus…

    I used to feel the same way, but I think I know enough to keep my mouth shut when school is in session…(and doubly so, when it’s, say, African Americans, and hair….)

  212. 212.

    MomSense

    April 1, 2016 at 6:27 pm

    @mclaren:

    Tad fucking Devine’s firm had no trouble taking Goldman Sachs money from Corzine to help his campaign. Why did Sanders hire someone to such s senior position who is so obviously tainted with Wall St Fraud money?

    The war is with Republicans, all of whom would deny women’s agency, destroy our economy, increase income inequality, condemn us to more wars, surveill and worse to Muslim Americans, deport millions of undocumented workers destroying families in the mix, destroy regulations protecting our environment, deny the right to vote to anyone who isn’t white, undermine the diplomatic gains we have made with Iran, and the list goes painfully on and on.

    In this context I don’t care one bit about haircuts or donations or any other bullshit issues. This is a fucking war with evil people and I don’t plan to forfeit it on a 74 year old socialist who has insulted my intelligence with his ridiculously vague and sloganesque plans.

    I am holding on by my fingernails and hard work in order to provide the basics of food, clothing, health care, transportation, and shelter. I have human and canine beings who depend on me. Politics is real. It’s survival for me.

    BTW Sanders should spend more time making sure his FEC filings are up to snuff. He has some nerve railing about money in elections and calling for more campaign finance regulations when his campaign has not been able to meet the current campaign reporting obligations.

  213. 213.

    D58826

    April 1, 2016 at 6:27 pm

    First, true Bernites will listen, when Sanders himself chides them to remember the Supreme Court and Donald Trump… and work for the democrat in the fall. And if they can’t stomach working for Hillary, they will find some local, state assmbly race where their passion could make a real difference.

    Yep sit out the election because you don’t like Hillary and just kiss SCOTUS goodbye for another generation. We can continue to enjoy Citizens United, Hobby Lobby, gutting the VRA, etc, etc ,etc. While a lot of the action does happen at the state level a conservative SCOTUS will continue to turn a blind eye to the disfranchisement of all those people that Bernie claims to care about. Public sector unions would have been dealt a death blow if Scalia was still with us.

  214. 214.

    Barbara

    April 1, 2016 at 6:28 pm

    @Applejinx: If by you people you mean professional women, all I can say is, you try getting a promotion as a woman with grey hair. I hate it to but I consider cut, color and highlight to be a necessary business expense and I’ve tried, but I can’t do it on my own.

  215. 215.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 6:29 pm

    @HRA: The G-Damn constant back biting among you is not at all productive IMO.

    Well, of course not. Speaking for myself, the productive things I should be doing this afternoon are even more boring.

    It is always useful to remind ourselves it’s just a blog, and we’re all just blowing off steam.

  216. 216.

    Ruckus

    April 1, 2016 at 6:29 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    Yeah I like how I was responsible for everything that happened inside the heads of my employees just because I gave them a check every week for their time and effort.

  217. 217.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 6:31 pm

    @mclaren:

    OMG you’re right! It’s all a big con-SPEEEER-acy! Please, alert Alex Jones, maybe you guys can plaster some more public roadway signs with Infowars stickers.

  218. 218.

    starscream

    April 1, 2016 at 6:32 pm

    Bernie has a very well-documented record of looking out for the military industrial complex. He’s done tons for the people who probably actually want to bomb Iran and Syria.

    You’ve all been duped. It’s ok. His concession speech is coming soon and we can all move on.

  219. 219.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 6:33 pm

    @mclaren:

    It’s a fine. And Goldman Sachs is not a criminal organization because of a fine.

    Tim Cook, crime lord:

    Apple busted for price fixing, fined $450M

    Jack Dorsey, crime lord:


    Turkey fines Twitter for failure to remove ‘terrorist propaganda’: official

    El Chapo – crime lord:

    Chapo Leaves Message with Decapitated Bodies Issues Threat against NL Mayor

    (not gonna link).

    But yeah, these words, they are supposed to mean things.

  220. 220.

    chopper

    April 1, 2016 at 6:33 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    so, 300, then 600, then 1200, now 2400. it’s totes doubling every 12 hours. soon it’ll be bigger than the national debt.

  221. 221.

    starscream

    April 1, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    “Since he always ‘supports the troops,’ Sanders never opposes any defense spending bill. He stands behind all military contractors who bring much-needed jobs to Vermont.” — Thomas Naylor

  222. 222.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Sorry, I’m allergic to people telling me they have PROOF of something but I have to go find it for myself.

    THE definitive hallmark of the astroturfing agent provocateur.

    The far-right astroturfer gets paid to perform the 4 Ds: DENY, DEGRADE, DECEIVE, DISRUPT. And nothing disrupts a website like constant demands for proof.

    The only proper rebuttal to this infantile effort at disruption is Rule 7e at MahaBlog:

    7e. I dislike commenters who expect me to write long defenses and explanations of something I’ve already written. I’m not your monkey. If you really care what I think about any particular topic, you can search the entire Mahablog archives by googling

    site:www.mahablog.com KEYWORD

    People critical of Hillary Clinton have cited New York Times articles and American Conservative magazine investigative articles and Alternet articles and Washington Post articles and Center For Public Integrity reports and Open Secrets reports on the Clinton’s finances and on Bill and Hillary Clinton’s public record and history. If you want those facts and sources repeated, search for posts using google with the search terms
    site: http://www.balloon-juice.com mclaren Clinton
    or
    site: http://www.balloon-juice.com mclaren Clinton Washington Post
    or
    site: http://www.balloon-juice.com mclaren Clinton New York Times
    etc.

    I am not your monkey

    We Bernie Sanders supporters will not dance to your tune, endlessly repeating over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over all the reams and hillocks and Himalayan mountains of evidence for Bill and Hillary Clinton’s sleazy connections with defense contractors and giant Too Big To Fail Banks and Wall Street crime lords like Goldman Sachs and corrupt thieving Ponzi schemes disguised as corporations like the Big Pharma companies or the legalizing loansharking operations hidden inside General Electric (GE Capital, which runs strings of payday and title loan operations and accounts for 70% of GE’s annual profit).

    We have cited the evidence over and over and over again. If you want to rehash it, look up our earlier comments. We are not dancing monkeys capering at the end of your puppet strings, and we will not endlessly prance to your tune as you try to derail the discussion by miring us in a limitless infinite picayune discussion of evidence we have already cited many times over.

  223. 223.

    Calouste

    April 1, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    @D58826: A quick search shows that the writer of that article went to Amherst college, a private liberal arts college known as one of the “Little Ivies”.

    I think recognizing privilege is not one of the author’s strengths.

  224. 224.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 6:35 pm

    @chopper: You’re a day late and a dollar short to the conversation.

  225. 225.

    Miss Bianca

    April 1, 2016 at 6:35 pm

    @Barbara:

    “If by you people you mean professional women, all I can say is, you try getting a promotion as a woman with grey hair. I hate it to but I consider cut, color and highlight to be a necessary business expense.”

    Sad But True. Doubly true for job interviews. You have to be pretty high up the food chain already and or resigned to Not Giving a Damn to be confident enough to let your hair go grey. I used to be a lot more dismissive of women’s grooming rituals like hairdressing, coloring, shaving all your visible bits, etc. when I was a whippersnapper. Not so much now that I’m an Old in competition for jobs with younger folk.

  226. 226.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 6:36 pm

    @MomSense:

    Tad fucking Devine’s firm had no trouble taking Goldman Sachs money from Corzine to help his campaign. Why did Sanders hire someone to such s senior position who is so obviously tainted with Wall St Fraud money?

    Really? As opposed to setting up her oil business partner with the guy in Colombia who has death squads, works with drug smugglers and kills union leaders? And getting a hundred thirty million for her troubles? Oh my oh my.

    Should we be examining all the people in Hillary’s campaign, see what they’ve got on their resumes? This is really bullshit and you’re sounding deluded and desperate.

  227. 227.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 6:36 pm

    @Brachiator:

    You must have missed it.

    Because media is what media is today, any stupid, absurd remark made by Donald Trump becomes the story of the week,” Sanders told MSNBC. “Maybe, just maybe, we might want to have a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America.”

    Bernie isn’t the most polished speaker, so maybe he was just wasn’t very smooth in making his bigger point.

  228. 228.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    @cbear: RE: I got no problem with reasonable limits, but purity pledges are a waste of time.

    Purity Pledge? Nope. That’s not what I’m saying nor advocating. I just happen to think that it’s relatively “reasonable” to expect a Democratic candidate for President to NOT spend a great deal of time hoovering up every available dollar from groups and entities with policies and positions inimical to the people and values she purports to represent.

    I think someone earlier invoked the Blessed Unruh. If you can’t take their money and still do the right thing, you don’t belong in politics.

    Less facetiously, I respect the Founders’ perspective that governing by definition means that different factions will be competing. It’s nice to pretend that you will always know who’s naughty and nice, it ain’t necessarily so.

    I understand your point. But I just cannot respect the meaningless purity of Sanders’ rants.

    Also, money and attempts at influence really cannot be eliminated. And even “good people” can want bad stuff for crappy reasons.

    And yep, as always, YMMV

  229. 229.

    chopper

    April 1, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    @mclaren:

    You’re not even a woman, you’re just some guy getting paid to do corporate astroturfing attacks against anyone who supports Bernie Sanders

    mclaren’s back on the loco weed, so watch out y’all!

  230. 230.

    John Cole

    April 1, 2016 at 6:39 pm

    @planetjanet: That’s clearly shouty compared to her normal speaking voice. Jeebus.

    Bernie is shouty ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Hillary isn’t.

    It’s not sexist double standards, it’s just the way it is.

  231. 231.

    chopper

    April 1, 2016 at 6:39 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    actually, about 2000 dollars short if you schmucks can be believed.

  232. 232.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:39 pm

    @Technocrat:

    No, Goldman Sachs pleaded nolo contendre to a multitude of crimes.

    These are federal felonies.

    Not “high spirits.” Not “youthful hijinks.” Not “boys will be boys.”

    Criminal fraud, federal crimes.

    Wake up and smell the latte. You seem to think that if someone doesn’t go to prison, they haven’t committed a crime.

    You seem to think pleading nolo contendre to a federal felony is the same thing as being innocent.

    Holy sh!t, what a commentary on the degraded state of Sh!thole America in 2016.

  233. 233.

    MomSense

    April 1, 2016 at 6:40 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    In saying that this whole line of attack is stupid. We have much bigger fish to fry.

  234. 234.

    cbear

    April 1, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I well realize that you don’t care about the HRC speeches. Unfortunately, quite a few of your/our fellow democrats do.

    And, the “main theme” of the thread was whether or not Sec. Clinton had received money from fossil fuel interests. The link I posted was, imo, directly relevant to that theme.

  235. 235.

    eemom

    April 1, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    Hey Cole — howzabout you “time out” anybody who bitches about Hillary’s haircut for just, maybe, a couple of hours. Not only because it’s been covered already ad nauseum…..but also, just to give these people enough time to come up with some OTHER bullshit attack on her that parades their sexism and ignorance for all the world to see.

    Just a thought. kthxbai.

  236. 236.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 6:44 pm

    @Southern Beale: So Thomas Frank is talking about you.

  237. 237.

    Applejinx

    April 1, 2016 at 6:44 pm

    @gwangung:
    @Barbara:

    Huh. Point taken. I do think it throws a light on ‘disparities in economics between wherever the hell she was getting such a hair style’ and the rest of the world, though.

    And as random small business critter who knows a bunch of other small business folks (including those running recording studios): maintain a building convenient to some place where real estate is bubbling? You’ll be charging $2000 or $4000 before long, just to keep the doors open. Which does not excuse the underlying economic situation causing that to happen! But just saying, you can’t actually blame the hair salon for being part of that. She isn’t necessarily going to some demented ‘artiste’ of sky-high salary. Might just be the location.

    Part of Bernie’s message is calling out the economic insanity that leads to those scenarios. Without such radical inequality these insanities can’t sustain themselves at these levels.

    Also: kinda bullshit complaining about Hillary taking money from Big Oil etc. when it’s the Bernie campaign who, by calling her out on that stuff constantly, makes it impossible for her TO tap into the grassroots donations like he does. You’d have to be either naive or rich enough to donate on Wall Street levels, to donate to the Clinton campaign, and if Bernie wasn’t around she’d be getting more small donor funding. Bernie is starving her of small donor funding so it’s really unfair to complain about her big donor funding or act shocked about it.

    It’s just who she is. We know already, it’s not news, she’s not even being offered a reasonable chance to do otherwise, so we can’t ‘look at where the money comes from’ and know where she stands. She has to take their money, they offered, and nobody else is offering.

    So sure, ‘big oil funding’ and all, but let’s not act like she chose that OVER grassroots small donations. She has always been pushed in that direction through pure expediency and probably knows no other way.

  238. 238.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    @mclaren:

    We Bernie Sanders supporters will not dance to your tune, endlessly repeating over and over and over and over and over…

    This is “ironic” like liquid nitrogen is “a bit chilly”.

  239. 239.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    @chopper: That comment did not advance your argument.

  240. 240.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 6:46 pm

    @eemom: Who brought it up? I suspect it was thrown into the discussion of Hillary and her oil cronies as a diversion. Let’s go back and look up who brought up her haircut.

  241. 241.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 6:47 pm

    @eemom: Yes that is a capital idea. Let’s ban anybody who talks about things that have already been covered like: Hillary v. Bernie, how the Pittsburg Steelers suck, Caitlyn Jenner (all topics), Cats (cuteness and unpredictability of) … you go on and finish the list.

    I’m sure that you cheerful calls for a little silencing and censorship have nothing to do with the content of what people are saying, right? Just that it’s already been covered already?

  242. 242.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:48 pm

    @John Cole:

    Bernie is shouty ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Hillary isn’t.

    It’s not sexist double standards, it’s just the way it is.

    This is absolutely true.

    Notice, however, that this is nearly the lowest level of Graham’s Disagreement Hierarchy. It’s “responding to tone,” just about as trivial and infantile as a rebuttal can get, short of outright name-calling.

    One very common tactic for enforcing political orthodoxies is to malign the character, “style” and even mental health of those who challenge them. The most extreme version of this was an old Soviet favorite: to declare political dissidents mentally ill and put them in hospitals. In the US, those who take even the tiniest steps outside of political convention are instantly decreed “crazy”, as happened to the 2002 anti-war version of Howard Dean and the current iteration of Ron Paul (in most cases, what is actually “crazy” are the political orthodoxies this tactic seeks to shield from challenge).

    This method is applied with particular aggression to those who engage in any meaningful dissent against the society’s most powerful factions and their institutions. Nixon White House officials sought to steal the files from Daniel Ellsberg’s psychoanalyst’s office precisely because they knew they could best discredit his disclosures with irrelevant attacks on his psyche. Identically, the New York Times and partisan Obama supporters have led the way in depicting both Bradley Manning and Julian Assange as mentally unstable outcasts with serious personality deficiencies. The lesson is clear: only someone plagued by mental afflictions would take such extreme steps to subvert the power of the US government.

    A subtler version of this technique is to attack the so-called “style” of the critic as a means of impugning, really avoiding, the substance of the critique. Although Paul Krugman is comfortably within mainstream political thought as a loyal Democrat and a New York Times columnist, his relentless attack against the austerity mindset is threatening to many. As a result, he is barraged with endless, substance-free complaints about his “tone”: he is too abrasive, he does not treat opponents with respect, he demonizes those who disagree with him, etc. The complaints are usually devoid of specifics to prevent meaningful refutation; one typical example: “[Krugman] often cloaks his claims in professional authority, overstates them, omits arguments that undermine his case, and is a bit of a bully.” All of that enables the substance of the critique to be avoided in lieu of alleged personality flaws.

    Source: “How Noam Chomsky Is Discussed,” Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian 23 March 2013.

    Since the astroturfers and fanatical DINOs who are neocons in disguise on this forum find themselves bereft of facts or logic to rebut Bernie Sanders’ evidence and arguments, they resort to attacking Bernie on his `tone.’ He’s `shouty.’ He’s `hoarse.’ He’s `hysterical.’ He’s `shrill.’ He’s `A johnny-one-note.’

    Likewise, the same group can’t debunk my facts or cast the links I provide to the New York Times or the Washington Post into disrepute, so they resort to attacking my sanity. I’m `a crazy person’ (eemom). I’m `on loco weed’ (chopper).

    You need better-paid talking points, neocon trolls. You’re just not convincing the average person that the facts printed by the New York Times or the Washington Post or dug up by the Center for Public Integrity or Alternet about the Clintons are false by this kind of vacuous name-calling.

  243. 243.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 6:49 pm

    @mclaren: You’re so pure, mclaren. It sickens them. (that was snark)

  244. 244.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 6:50 pm

    @John Cole: ernie is shouty ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Hillary isn’t.

    How dare you? Bernie specifically said he didn’t want to shout about gun control

  245. 245.

    eemom

    April 1, 2016 at 6:51 pm

    @mclaren:

    $1200 haircut? I’m just surprised Hillary didn’t pay slave girls from Madagascar to fan her while she was getting her tresses shorn.

    heh. I thought this was snark until I saw that it came from our very own resident CRAZY sociopath who gets off shitting on dead people.

  246. 246.

    D58826

    April 1, 2016 at 6:51 pm

    @starscream: I read recently that he also voted against shutting down Gitmo. I didn’t see any of the details so he could have been voting against a larger bill with Gitmo as a rider.

  247. 247.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 6:54 pm

    @Technocrat:

    This is “ironic” like liquid nitrogen is “a bit chilly”.

    Off-topic, but has anyone else gone to a Sub-Zero ice cream shop? They use liquid nitrogen to freeze your ice cream right there in front of your eyes. Quite a floor show.

  248. 248.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 6:54 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t see that he said that talking about it was a distraction.

    I do. No, he didn’t use the word “distraction,” but I, like you, went to the original interview. You can see the YouTube version here. I watched the whole thing. Yes, the conversation continued on, as Rachel guided the interview, and she asked him basically if this was another shiny sparkly distraction. And he seemed to agree. He basically dismissed the discussion as relevant. It wasn’t “his issue.” It wasn’t income inequality, so who gives a shit. That was my take. The conversation switched from abortion to media coverage and he dismissed it. This was his chance to really stress his views on abortion and he basically waved it off. He said, “I believe in a woman’s right to choose,” and then went on to talk about how this whole thing was being turned into an overblown deal. He was being dismissive.

    Let me unpack this for you. Let me Womansplain.

    Sanders says his comments were taken out of context. Well, not really. What he said is, “every stupid remark, every absurd remark, becomes the story of the day,” and he’s bemoaning the lack of substance in the media coverage. And he’s using this abortion remark as an example of that. And it’s really not.

    This is actually one of the first real policy positions Donald Trump has ever staked out on anything, other than his Mexico wall idea. So it really does give us an idea of where he stands on the issue of abortion. Dismissing it as something trivial is really offensive to us women.

    Look, I’m sure we can all agree that the media lacks substance in its political coverage. And Sanders is absolutely right that we should have substantive discussions on issues like climate change and whatnot. But abortion IS A REAL ISSUE. American women have been facing a VERY real disintegration of their reproductive rights in state after state. For Sanders to dismiss that IS offensive. It shows he’s weak on this issue, not passionate about it, really doesn’t “get it.”

    I’m actually grateful that Trump brought this up because we’ve never been able to pin down the pro-lifers on this. He did us a huge favor, to be honest. There is a LOT of gray area on this issue. There are the “no abortion under any circumstances” people. There are the “exception for rape and incest and life of the mother” people. There are “no abortion after first tri-mester” people. There is a lot of room for discussion here and we never get to have that discussion.

    And then there’s the implementation thing. If you’re so-called “pro-life,” it’s not just enough to say “no abortion,” you have to unpack that and tell us what that means. Punishing women? Doctors? How does that actually work in the real world? Finally we get to that and Sanders is like, meh, we’re wasting time on some shiny sparkly media firestorm that doesn’t mean anything. You know what? Fuck that. Fuck Bernie Sanders. I’m over it.

  249. 249.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 6:55 pm

    @mclaren:

    You seem to think pleading nolo contendre to a federal felony is the same thing as being innocent

    Is it really that hard to be precise? I clearly linked other instances of companies being fined for crimes. Did you read the Apple link? Did you think “hijinks” lands you a half-billion dollar fine? Does that seem like I think they’re innocent?

    What about the Volkswagen emission scandal. Do you think the head of VW is a “crime lord”?

    You need to look up the phrase. You’re using it inaccurately, as an emotional appeal. As a political attack, not a substantive one. Any number of companies have committed crimes, and been fined for them. You’re using the products of these companies daily. That doesn’t make them criminal organizations, which specialize in crime.

    It’s fucking ridiculous that I even have to explain why Apple (who commited a crime) is actually not the Mafia.

    @Bob In Portland:

    I’d go in a heartbeat if I could find a local one (Pittsburgh).

  250. 250.

    goblue72

    April 1, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    @Southern Beale: The “controversy” in question was the $600 haircut was not at her hotel, but at some salon in Manhattan and the traffic got all screwed up due to her required entourage.

    And the $1200 figure came from the news articles. $600 for the haircut, $600 for the dye job. $1200 total.

  251. 251.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    April 1, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    Fuck the haircut. Hillary stole furniture from the White House!

  252. 252.

    eemom

    April 1, 2016 at 6:58 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    The point: you miss it. Quelle surprise.

  253. 253.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 6:59 pm

    @eemom:

    Hey Cole — howzabout you “time out” anybody who bitches about Hillary’s haircut for just, maybe, a couple of hours. Not only because it’s been covered already ad nauseum…..but also, just to give these people enough time to come up with some OTHER bullshit attack on her that parades their sexism and ignorance for all the world to see.

    SHORTER EEMOM: “I have no facts and no logic to back up my attacks on Sanders supporters, so please pretty please John Cole save my ass here and ban the people whose comments I don’t like.”

    eemom and chopper are playing a game of limbo: how low can you go?

    Meanwhile, those of us who support Bernie Sanders acknowledge that Hillary has some good qualities. I wrote a detailed post a couple of weeks ago about all the advantages of a Hillary Clinton presidency. There are a number of ’em. I challenge eemom or chopper to find that post and cite quotations from it.

    They will of course do nothing of the kind since people like eemom or chopper add zero to the discussion. No debate, no logic, no evidence, no ideas of any substance, just empty name-calling.

    What we all should be talking about at this point is how the next Democratic president plans to deal with fanatical Republican obstructionism in the House. This is a serious issue, since one of the main advantages of electing a Democratic president is clearly the Supreme Court appointments s/he will be able to make going forward.

    More to the point, Paul Ryan is now talking seriously about another debt ceiling showdown. This stuff has got to end at some point. The U.S. government cannot function when one entire political party is doing its best to shut everything down and block every single action that the president is required by the constitution to perform (like nominating federal justices).

    That’s what we should be discussing. Not this name-calling ‘loco weed’ crap dredged up by trolls like eemom and chopper.

  254. 254.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 6:59 pm

    @Cacti:

    You must have missed it.

    I didn’t miss it.

    And I see that you are not quoting the actual transcript, but a story about a speech by Clinton. Clinton still has my vote because I think that she is a stronger candidate than Sanders.

    However. this (from your link):

    “I want you to hear this because last night, Senator Sanders agreed that Donald Trump’s comments were shameful, but then he said they were a distraction from, and I quote, ‘A serious discussion about the serious issues facing America,'” Clinton said to boos from the crowd.

    This is an absolute lie and total distortion of what Sanders actually said.

    I saw Clinton try to pull this shit in 2008 against Obama, and I hope that she had learned something from that loss. There is no reason for her to try to pull this kind of bullshit. She is in the lead and seems to be safely sailing toward the nomination.

  255. 255.

    Heliopause

    April 1, 2016 at 7:00 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Sanders actually denounced the remarks at length twice, first the one you excerpted, then in relation to Ted Cruz and the entire Republican party. Then he riffed on the Trump media freak show in response to a passing comment by Maddow.

    Luckily, there are only a couple hundred more of these daily manufactured outrages before the election.

  256. 256.

    cbear

    April 1, 2016 at 7:01 pm

    @Brachiator: Yeah, we’re really not too far apart on all this shit.
    Nice to see you, btw–it’s almost like old times here on BJ–except for these damn know-nothing kids. lol

  257. 257.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 1, 2016 at 7:02 pm

    @goblue72: I’ve had my doubt about your claims to be a long time and effective activist IRL, but the fact that you’re bringing up the haircut again makes me think I was wrong. You’re a person of seriousness and substance.

  258. 258.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 7:03 pm

    @Technocrat:

    You need to look up the phrase. You’re using it inaccurately, as an emotional appeal. As a political attack, not a substantive one. Any number of companies have committed crimes, and been fined for them. You’re using the products of these companies daily. That doesn’t make them criminal organizations, which specialize in crime.

    Sorry, no, you are conflating a company like Apple Computer that makes legitimate products and sometimes breaks the law and gets fined, with a legalized organized crime institution like Goldman Sachs or CitiCorp whose entire business model involves breaking the law effectively all the time.

    Goldman Sachs has paid so many fines and pleaded nolo to so many counts of federal fraud that if I tried to link to all the evidence, my fingers would fall off. You can google GOLDMAN SACHS FRAUD FINES to find all the instances.

    Goldman Sachs is a criminal organization. It should be shut down by the RICO statutues and all its assets frozen and seized. Goldman Sachs and the Too Big To Fail Banks which Hillary and Bill Clinton have cozied up to belong to an entirely different category than the typical big corporation one of whose officers occasionally goes over the legal line.

  259. 259.

    Southern Beale

    April 1, 2016 at 7:04 pm

    @goblue72:

    Ah, definitely not what I have read in the coverage but again, I could give a shit.

  260. 260.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 7:05 pm

    @starscream: “Since he always ‘supports the troops,’ Sanders never opposes any defense spending bill. He stands behind all military contractors who bring much-needed jobs to Vermont.” — Thomas Naylor

    During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, US defense corporations and their overseas clients also contributed between $54 and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation. (Because the foundation discloses a range of values within which the contributions of particular donors might fall, only minimum and maximum estimates can be given.) In the same period, these US defense corporations and their overseas government clients also paid a total of $625,000 to Bill Clinton in speaking fees.

    In March 2011, for example, Bill Clinton was paid $175,000 by the Kuwait America Foundation to be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at its annual Washington gala. Among the sponsors were Boeing and the government of Kuwait, through its Washington embassy. Shortly before, the State Department, under Hillary Clinton, had authorized a $693 million deal to provide Kuwait with Boeing’s Globemaster military transport aircraft. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton had the statutory duty to rule on whether proposed arms deals with foreign governments were in the US’s national interest.

    Further research done by Sirota and Perez of International Business Times and based on US government and Clinton Foundation data shows that during her term the State Department authorized $165 billion in commercial arms sales to twenty nations that had given money to the Clinton Foundation. These include the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, all of whose records on human rights had been criticized by the State Department itself. During Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state, arms sales to the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation ran at nearly double the value of sales to the same nations during George W. Bush’s second term. There was also an additional $151 billion worth of armaments sold to sixteen nations that had donated funds to the Clinton Foundation; these were deals organized by the Pentagon but which could only be completed with Hillary Clinton’s authorization as secretary of state. They were worth nearly one and a half times the value of equivalent sales during Bush’s second term.

    If I were really trying to besmirch Clinton I might have mentioned that Saudi Arabia, Qatar et al have been the very nations who’ve been supplying ISIS with weapons, which kind of makes her whole foreign policy chops kind of fraudulent. But then, the headchoppers in the Kingdom of Saud did give her a half million in jewelry.

  261. 261.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 7:05 pm

    @eemom: I think the point is that you are a censorious twit. What do you think the point is?

    Oh, and before you answer about how your modest suggestion was merely an attempt to shut down points that have been re-hashed to death, you might want to take a gander at the top post in this thread by Mr. Cole. You’ll see that it is about Hillary getting finger jabby with someone recently. Then you can go back and read through comments for the past couple of days and you will see that there were already quite a few posts about this very video.

    So, you were saying …

  262. 262.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    April 1, 2016 at 7:06 pm

    @mclaren:

    I wrote a detailed post

    Color me gobsmacked.

  263. 263.

    liberal

    April 1, 2016 at 7:07 pm

    @drdavechemist: results like helping to turn Libya into a safe haven for ISIS?

  264. 264.

    dogwood

    April 1, 2016 at 7:08 pm

    @MomSense:
    I think the success of the Sander’s campaign rests on the idea that there aren’t many fish to fry. This shields him from much criticism and scrutiny. He is also lucky that his supporters require so little of him. Clinton has spoken at length on race, foreign policy, the judiciary obstruction, and women’s health issues. Bernie has delivered only stump speeches and those speeches haven’t changed since he started. I don’t know why anyone who is so uninterested in so many of the issues facing the country would even want to be president.

  265. 265.

    ellie

    April 1, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    @MomSense: 800K? Holy shit.

  266. 266.

    Eric U.

    April 1, 2016 at 7:13 pm

    @Bob In Portland: not arguing, not trying to be persuasive. Just want it to be over.

  267. 267.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 7:15 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    I’m far from a purity pony. Bernie Sanders has lots of flaws. He has, as various commenters have pointed out, voted in favor of a bunch of America’s endless unwinnable wars. Bernie seems much too cozy with the U.S. military-industrial complex for my taste. And Bernie’s lack of relative attention to other issues besides financial inequality is a weakness.

    Taken all in all, though, Bernie Sanders seems to me the best candidate overall on policies.

    I think the issue of the $1200 HRC haircut is significant because it stands as a placeholder for the general attitude Bernie Sanders has toward the issues vs Hillary’s general attitude. Hillary is used to living like a billionaires. A billionaire thinks nothing of shutting down an entire hairdressing shop to get a $1200 cut-and-color. Bernie Sanders is not used to living like a billionaire. He doesn’t do stuff like that.

    As a result, Bernie Sanders is more likely to have the interests of the average person in mind. Hillary Clinton has not lived like a non-billionaire for so long that she is just sealed off in a bubble, incapable of understanding the issues that affect the ordinary person.

    Now, you can claim that all ex-presidents or all ex-first-ladies are like that. They all live in a bubble. But that’s just not true.

    Jimmy Carter gets up on a ladder and pounds nails with coworkers at Habitat for Humanity. Jimmy Carter does not live like a billionaire. As a result, Jimmy Carter gets it. Jimmy Carter understands the issues that face the ordinary person in 2016, just as Bernie Sanders does. Here is Jimmy Carter talking about income inequality in 2013:

    OAKLAND, California (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that the income gap in the United States has increased to the point where members of the middle class resemble the Americans who lived in poverty when he occupied the White House.

    Carter offered his assessment of the nation’s economic challenges Monday at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in Oakland — the first of five cities he and wife Rosalynn plan to visit this week to commemorate their three-decade alliance with the international nonprofit that promotes and builds affordable housing.

    Source: “Carter: Middle class today resembles past’s poor,” USA Today, 8 October 2013.

    Hillary Clinton is not saying these kinds of things for a simple reason — because Hillary Clinton does not live like an ordinary person. Hillary Clinton lives the rarefied life of a super-wealthy 0.1-percenter, and as a result Hillary Clinton simply does not understand the issues that affect the ordinary person. Hillary hasn’t had to shop for herself or drive to the grocery store or pay an electric bill or struggle to pay off a college loan or find herself struggling to juggle 3 McJobs at once in a crappy economy for so long that she has no idea whatever of the real issues facing America in 2016.

    This is why Hillary Clinton’s speeches are full of patriotic vacuities like “America is the indispensible nation” and “America never stopped being great.”

    When we listen to Hillary speechifying, we are hearing the echoes of a closed hermetically sealed bubble of the super-rich as they sip champagne in their private jets while soaring above flyover country on their way to another $500-a-plate fundraiser populated exclusively by millionaires.

  268. 268.

    Brachiator

    April 1, 2016 at 7:15 pm

    @cbear:

    Nice to see you, btw–it’s almost like old times here on BJ–except for these damn know-nothing kids. lol

    Well, I’m a political junkie, and things are starting to get fun.

    It is a bit sad, though, to see that Sanders and Clinton partisans are at times more antagonistic than the candidates themselves.

  269. 269.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 7:17 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:

    tl;dr.

  270. 270.

    PatrickG

    April 1, 2016 at 7:18 pm

    @mclaren:

    Quite the wall of text there!

    …and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…

    The perfect distillation of mclaren’s System of Persuasive Argument:

    Step 1: Advance a proposition. Insult people who disagree with you.
    Step 2: Repeat the proposition and continue insulting people. Do that over and over and over and over and over and over … ad nauseum.
    Step 3: ???
    Step 4: Profit!

  271. 271.

    Bobby Thomson

    April 1, 2016 at 7:18 pm

    I think Sanders is being pretty hypocritical when $54.000 of his contributions came from people employed in oil and gas. It’s a bullshit criticism against anyone.

  272. 272.

    eemom

    April 1, 2016 at 7:21 pm

    Any of you Hillary haircut obsessors a woman? Just curious.

    (Already know mclaren isn’t, as he’s treated us all to the grotesque spectacle of his manly jacking off over Megan McArdle.)

  273. 273.

    Cacti

    April 1, 2016 at 7:24 pm

    @goblue72:

    and the traffic got all screwed up due to her required entourage.

    By entourage, you mean her Secret Service security detail?

    Do you also refer to Bernie’s SS protection as his entourage?

  274. 274.

    My Truth Hurts

    April 1, 2016 at 7:33 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    You realize “moot” means “debatable”, right? The word you want up in comment 102 is “academic”.

    Arrogance, thy name is Clinton Supporters.

  275. 275.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    @mclaren:

    Sorry, no, you are conflating a company like Apple Computer that makes legitimate products and sometimes breaks the law and gets fined, with a legalized organized crime institution like Goldman Sachs or CitiCorp whose entire business model involves breaking the law effectively all the time

    Not just Apple:

    Microsoft: A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm (PDF)

    As other examples, Uber and AirBnB are explicitly illegal in many of the cities they operate in, yet there’s obviously value to their services. The tension between law and corporate interests is a fact of modern life. I suppose you could go “corporations are just evil”, but then how do you get your Twitter fix, or your Facebook time? It’s a tradeoff we make as a society.

  276. 276.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 7:36 pm

    @dogwood:

    I think the success of the Sander’s [sic] campaign rests on the idea that there aren’t many fish to fry.

    You’re wrong.

    The success of Sanders’ campaign rests on the fact that the American economy is falling apart, and Bernie Sanders is the only person in this election who is actually talking about that fact.

    The plain and simple reality of 2016 is that every single one of Kaldor’s stylized facts of 1957 is no longer true.

    Those of you know something about economics will understand the gravity of that situation. Sanders is the only person talking about this. Everyone else is either ignoring the issue, or spreading around happy unicorn sparkles like “America never stopped being great” to avoid talking about it.

    Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. has ramped up spending on health-care administration by about 4% of gross domestic product and increased expenditures on overtreatment by about 2% of GDP. Countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, and France have not followed suit, and yet they do just as well — if not better — at ensuring that their citizens stay healthy.

    Meanwhile, over the same period, the U.S. has redirected spending away from education, public infrastructure, and manufacturing toward providing incentives for the rich — mostly in the form of tax cuts. The U.S. spends 10% more than it used to on making it easier for the rich to accumulate wealth, but it has cut public investment in physical and human capital by roughly 4% of GDP, compared to what would have been expected if spending patterns had followed historic trends.

    Forty years ago, for example, the U.S. spent roughly 4% of its GDP on finance. Today, it spends twice that. And the results have been catastrophic.

    Despite the plutocracy’s claims that the heads of financial companies and other CEOs deserve their increasingly outsized compensation packages, there is no evidence that they are doing a better job than they used to at running their companies or allocating capital more efficiently. On the contrary, the lion’s share of the responsibility for the economy’s continuing struggles can be comfortably laid at the feet of America’s hypertrophied, dysfunctional financial sector.

    This reallocation of investment is usually attributed to efforts to boost growth. And yet, regardless of how much one tortures the baselines or massages the benchmarks, it is clear that it has failed. Indeed, it is difficult to see the decisions of the past 40 years as anything other than a profound failure on the part of the public institutions responsible for shaping the country’s economic progress.

    This is a surprising development. Until around 1980, these institutions were clearly world-class. For more than 200 years, the U.S. government was highly successful at expanding opportunity and nurturing economic growth. From Alexander Hamilton’s insistence on promoting industry and finance, to the construction of continent-spanning infrastructure and the introduction of public education, the government’s investments paid off handsomely.

    Indeed, the government repeatedly pushed the economy into what were thought to be the industries of the future, resulting in economic expansion and a larger, wealthier middle class.

    It is only relatively recently that the bets have started being misplaced. The past 40 years of policies have failed to produce a richer society; they have produced only a richer elite.

    Source: “Ideologues have ruined America’s economy,” Brad DeLong, 1 March 2016.

    Kaldor’s stylized facts (1957) are responsible for America’s current middle class:

    1. The shares of national income received by labor and capital are roughly constant over long periods of time
    2. The rate of growth of the capital stock per worker is roughly constant over long periods of time
    3. The rate of growth of output per worker is roughly constant over long periods of time
    4. The capital/output ratio is roughly constant over long periods of time
    5. The rate of return on investment is roughly constant over long periods of time
    6. The real wage grows over time

    Every one of these was roughly true up until Reagan took office. Now, not a single one of these is true. And this means that labor is getting crushed with the result that the middle class is disappearing. And you can’t have democracy without a middle class. You get Mexico or Russia.
    The rate of growth of capital stock per worker is not increasing exponentially due to automation + robotics, which means that America’s new companies no longer employ a lot of workers and no longer spread their wealth to the middle class. Eastman Kodak employed 200,000 workers and generated a great deal of wealth for the middle class; today, Uber employs a few hundred people and keeps all its billions of dollars of wealth for a tiny handful of corporate executives. That’s radically new in America. You can’t run an economy with a viable tax base like that, where a couple of people get billions but all the workers make sub-minimum-wage.
    The rate of growth of output per worker has exploded due to robots + automation. This means that management now captures essentially all the gains from productivity and the workers get none of the gains. Commenters like Martin have tried to defend this because “it has lifted the third world out of poverty,” but the problem is that this still doesn’t make an American economy organized that way sustainable. In order to lift all those third world workers out of poverty, you must plunge America’s middle class into poverty — and when you do that, how the hell do you sustain your tax base?
    The capital-output ratio has gone haywire, with tiny amounts of capital now generating gigantic amounts of output courtesy of the internet + Big Data + robotics. This means that capital now increasingly runs the entire country, including our political system. You can’t sustain a democracy under those conditions — at some point, history shows, you will get an uprising. There will be pitchforks and violence, and it’s not a question of `if,’ it’s only a question of `when.’
    The rate of return on investment has exploded for the top 1% because as the rich get richer, there’s an ever-increasing demand for super-mansions, super-yachts, and so on, and the rich people who provide these things get exponentially richer and reap fantastic profits. Meanwhile, the rest of the U.S. economy languishes because the impoverished middle class has no money to spend. Once again, this is not sustainable.
    The real wage no longer grows over time — instead, it has fallen. This is a death sentence for capitalism, because workers won’t accept this indefinitely. At some point, things will blow, and there will be violence in the streets, just as there was during the French Revolution when mobs stormed the Bastille.

    The collapse of Kaldor’s Stylized Facts is hugely important. And Bernie Sanders is the only one talking about it.

  277. 277.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 7:42 pm

    @Technocrat:

    As other examples, Uber and AirBnB are explicitly illegal in many of the cities they operate in, yet there’s obviously value to their services.

    As other examples, guys who pimp out 9-year-old girls and street gangs that sell cocaine and crystal meth are explicitly illegal in many of the cities they operate in, yet there’s obviously value to their services.

    Yes, by all means…let’s the “magic of the market” decide how society works. Let’s have The Invisible Hand tell us which goods and services should be provided and how, rather than common human decency.

    Wow.

    Just…wow.

    I thought Balloon-Juice had hit rock bottom back when someone replied to one of my posts that we need to raise the tax on rich people above 90% with the claim “I think that’s unconstitutional,” but you have scored a new low with this one.

  278. 278.

    Amaranthine RBG

    April 1, 2016 at 7:46 pm

    @eemom: Maybe you should give yourself a time out for a couple of hours if you are going to keep posting about Hillary’s hair cut.

  279. 279.

    smintheus

    April 1, 2016 at 7:46 pm

    @Mnemosyne: You’re really struggling to wave away the evidence, aren’t you? You demanded that I prove she’s taking lobbyists’ money, I gave you links proving that Clinton herself knows she’s get a sh*t load of money from fuel industry lobbyists … and you’ve got to make a travesty of the evidence.

  280. 280.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 7:46 pm

    @Cacti:

    By entourage, you mean her Secret Service security detail?

    Do you also refer to Bernie’s SS protection as his entourage?

    This is a completely fair rebuttal, and I think an important point to make.

    Hillary doesn’t have a choice about how many Secret Service people get assigned to her, or what they do to protect her.

    I think it is significant that Hillary didn’t just drop into a corner salon and get a $20 cut-and-color job, or, better yet, invite some hair stylist in a poor section of the city to cut Hillary’s hair while she’s flying from one campaign speech to another. Hills could have scored quite the publicity coup with something like that. HILLARY CLINTON CHATS WITH ALABAMA HAIRSTYLIST WHILE GETTING A $20 PERM would have played a lot better than the $600 haircut headlines.

    This all goes to show that Hillary is tone-deaf as a politician. She really truly doesn’t get it. She’s sealed inside her little 1-percenter bubble. I think that’s the important takeaway here.

  281. 281.

    eemom

    April 1, 2016 at 7:47 pm

    @My Truth Hurts:

    Moot has more than one meaning. The dictionary is your friend.

  282. 282.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 7:52 pm

    @PatrickG:

    The perfect distillation of mclaren’s System of Persuasive Argument:

    Step 1: Advance a proposition. Insult people who disagree with you.
    Step 2: Repeat the proposition and continue insulting people. Do that over and over and over and over and over and over … ad nauseum.
    Step 3: ???
    Step 4: Profit!

    Actually I linked to 4 different sources of evidence for my claims. You, of course, have linked to none. This proves typical of criticisms of my posts.

    Notice that I continually provide links to evidence. The people who attack me do so fact-free. No links, no evidence, no facts, nothing.

    It’s typical of the Republican style of argument. Talk about tone, call names, never provide any evidence, when challenged dodge and weave and call more names.

    It’s unproductive and does not lead to a substantive discussion.

  283. 283.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    April 1, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Have had to unfriend some folks until after this goddamn primary is over, for real.

    I haven’t technically unfriended anyone, but I sure have clicked that “Stop Following” button a lot recently.

  284. 284.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 8:02 pm

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Like all the DINO far-right neon astroturfers on this forum, eemom isn’t posting about anything in particular, she’s just trying to disrupt the Sanders supporters who are talking about the real issues in this election.

    And it isn’t working.

    We will continue to talk about the real issues — about how it’s all very nice to talk about women’s rights and black rights, but if the middle class disappears and we wind up living in a police state under undeclared martial law (like, oh, say, Mexico right now), all the identity politics will become unimportant because everyone except the top 1% will wind up getting treated like blacks. Everyone will become a second-class citizen treated like chattel, without even the right to control their own bodies, as women are treated now.

    We’ve already got debtors’ prisons.

    “The Return of the Debtors’ Prison,” Huffington Post, 30 September 2015.

    Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has explicitly called for selling poor people into slavery if they steal.

    “Huckabee Suggests Poor People Should Be Sold Into Slavery For Stealing,” ThinkProgress, 2015.

    Chinese prisons harvest organs from political prisoners as a matter of routine. How long before we get that in America?

    A few years ago this would have been an outlandish notion, but then, a few years ago Donald Trump getting the Republican nomination by promising to build a wall on the Mexican border and deport 12 million Moslems would have been an outlandish notion.

  285. 285.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 8:05 pm

    @mclaren:

    As other examples, guys who pimp out 9-year-old girls and street gangs that sell cocaine and crystal meth are explicitly illegal in many of the cities they operate in, yet there’s obviously value to their services

    Yep, when you take an Uber, you are essentially frequenting a teen prostitute. Ugh. This is “crime lords” all over again man. Your sense of perspective is shot. Cabbies trying to make a buck are akin to rapists.

    You’re making Category Errors. And that’s important because those kinds of errors will fuck up an otherwise decent analysis.

  286. 286.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 8:07 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:

    Invariably, the complaints I encounter about “extreme Bernie Sanders supporters” come from people on Facebook.

    Folks, ditch Facebook.

    Studies have shown that Facebook “leads to an endless cycle of depression.” This is not my opinion. It’s not just me mouthing off. Researchers have studied heavy Facebook users and found that it leads to low self-esteem, chronic depression, and an overall lower quality of emotional life.

    I will have nothing to do with Facebook and I urge all of you shut down your Facebook accounts and rejoin the real world. You will feel happier, healthier, and smarter.

    “How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy,” The New Yorker, 10 September 2013.

    No one joins Facebook to be sad and lonely. But a new study from the University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross argues that that’s exactly how it makes us feel. Over two weeks, Kross and his colleagues sent text messages to eighty-two Ann Arbor residents five times per day. The researchers wanted to know a few things: how their subjects felt overall, how worried and lonely they were, how much they had used Facebook, and how often they had had direct interaction with others since the previous text message. Kross found that the more people used Facebook in the time between the two texts, the less happy they felt—and the more their overall satisfaction declined from the beginning of the study until its end. The data, he argues, shows that Facebook was making them unhappy.

    The problem isn’t Bernie supporters. The problem is Facebook.

  287. 287.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 8:23 pm

    @mclaren:

    Yesterday, a comment I made about a possible new blender got eaten by WordPress. I assumed it was just a website glitch, but now you’ve convinced me that Cole is deliberately censoring my ability to make margaritas this summer. Thanks a lot, Cole!

  288. 288.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2016 at 8:23 pm

    @Technocrat:

    Sorry, no, you’re the one making the category errors.

    The thieves and scammers who run Uber and AirBnB and all the “gig economy” ripoffs are exactly equivalent to pimps. They’re profiting immensely by breaking the law and exploiting the most vulnerable members of the American population.

    See the article “Don’t Buy the ‘Sharing Economy’ Hype—Airbnb and Uber Facilitate Rip-offs
    Dodging taxes and regulation isn’t just disruptive, it’s bad for the economy,”
    The Guardian, 2013.

    These scams you’re defending like Uber are no different from the company towns that ripped off mine workers in America in the 1860s. They operate exactly like pimps who whore out 9-year-old girls or drug dealers who sell to a captive market of addicts. The people working for Uber have an expensive car and can’t find a decent job, so Uber offers them a constantly decreasing salary (Uber cuts fares every year) while the workers take all the risks and get absolutely no benefits.

    If this is your concept of a viable way to run the American economy, you are completely wrong. It is unsustainable. This is not category error, it’s a very serious and very real issue.

    The kind of America your reasoning leads to is illustrated by the L.A. Times article describing formerly middle-class people in Los Angeles who now find themselves forced to pay $35 a night to subsist in windowless underground barracks because rents are so high and wages are so low.

    Airbnb, once a saviour from overpriced hotels, has become the new overpriced hotels since becoming the short-term accommodation staple. But with the rise of community living and workcations, an alternative might be to just sleep where you cowork. That’s the idea behind PodShare, a coworking space with beds, which has three locations in Los Angeles.

    Defined as a “co-living space,” PodShare was co-founded in 2012 by entrepreneur Elvina Beck and her father, who have built the shared living spaces for social travelers and mobile workers who rent the beds for $35 to $50 a night.

    Rather than having 100 beds under one roof like a hostel, PodShare has 10 to 30 beds, which turn into desks by day.

    “PodShare makes life more affordable because there is no security deposit or cost of furnishings and we provide flexible living,” said Beck. “Pod life is the future for singles which are not looking to settle down, but focus on their startups and experience something new.”

    Source: “In pod-based community living: rent is cheap but sex is banned,” Motherboard Vice, 28 March 2016.

    This is a race to the bottom.

    And we all know how that ends. It ends with middle-class Americans living like the Ant Tribes in China:

    “China’s “Ant Tribe” Lives In The World’s Most Cramped Apartments: Photos from the fringes of China’s biggest cities, toilets built under bed lofts, groups of renters crammed in underground windowless rooms — how the great migrations towards cities create cramped living conditions,” Buzzfeed, 27 November 2013.

    Keep arguing in favor of America turning into this kind of economic living hell. You are making all my points for me. This is what Bernie Sanders is talking about, and the American middle class are really seriously concerned that they are turning into Ant Tribes, just like the ones in China.

    Compare the photos in the two articles. Do you see a meaningful difference?

  289. 289.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 8:26 pm

    @mclaren:

    If I wasn’t sure you were a dude before, I sure am now. Yes, a perm is exactly the same as a cut, color, and highlights.

    Let me guess — you assume lipstick costs $1 and is all the same, right? And it doesn’t matter what color foundation you buy, because it’s all the same?

  290. 290.

    Mnemosyne

    April 1, 2016 at 8:32 pm

    @mclaren:

    I guess I’d better break it to my husband tonight that I’m really a man. We’ve been together 16 years, so this is going to be some “M. Butterfly” shit.

  291. 291.

    Technocrat

    April 1, 2016 at 8:44 pm

    @mclaren:

    If this is your concept of a viable way to run the American economy, you are completely wrong. It is unsustainable. This is not category error, it’s a very serious and very real issue

    It’s not my idea of a viable way. It’s the American public’s idea of a viable way. 2.1 million people per day choose to take Uber, and who knows how many people chose to drive for it. I personally wouldn’t care if you shut Uber down tomorrow, but lots of people would care. Lots of riders. Lots of drivers.

    Where does their choice fall in your philosophy? You’ve never said. It sounds as if you feel your personal morals outweigh the agency of millions of people.

  292. 292.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    April 1, 2016 at 9:04 pm

    @mclaren: According to the FAQs for the Clinton Foundation, Bill, Chelsea, and Hillary don’t get a salary from the Foundation.

    According to the 2014 financial report summary (1 page .pdf), the CGI spent $23.5M that year. The Foundation took in $338M and spent $249.5M.

    Oh, and the Clinton Foundation lists all their 300,000 donors (at least they claim they do – I have no reason to doubt them).

    I’m not sure where you’re getting your “$70B” number…

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  293. 293.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 9:14 pm

    @Cacti:

    Yes, Bob-O. Locally I’ll be voting for Jay Inslee, Patty Murray, and my local Dem candidates for the state house and senate.

    None of whom, Bernie could be arsed to mention during his stops here on caucus week.

    And what should he have said? “Let’s give a shoutout to the politicians here in Washington State who all endorsed Hillary.” Did any of them show up for Bernie? Hello?

  294. 294.

    Barbara

    April 1, 2016 at 9:20 pm

    @Mnemosyne: A $20 perm is like a $5 manicure, only possible when labor laws are ignored. If she did that you can be sure people would condemn her for exploiting workers.

  295. 295.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 9:20 pm

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Remember how that billionaire in Chicago (Pritzker?) donated a half million to that Flint fund (carried there by Chelsea) right after the mayor of Flint gave her endorsement for Hillary? That’s how money works. When you have enough of it you can throw it in the general direction of something you want. Hillary wanted votes. Charity is a way to buy them. That’s how the foundations have always worked. You buy something. Maybe votes, maybe respect, maybe some people thinking warm, fuzzy thoughts about you. And really, if the King of Saudi Arabia just gives you a half million in jewels and Deutsche Bank pays you 700k for deigning to chat with them, well, who needs a salary from the Clinton Foundation?

  296. 296.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 9:22 pm

    @Barbara: What a defense of wealth!

  297. 297.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 9:27 pm

    @smintheus: I’ve been trying to get her to read an article that ran in The Nation two years ago and she still hasn’t got the courage to read it.

  298. 298.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 9:29 pm

    @eemom: Your comment does not advance your argument.

  299. 299.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 9:32 pm

    @mclaren: No argument.

  300. 300.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    April 1, 2016 at 9:33 pm

    @Bob In Portland: So you and mclaren are the same person? That would explain a few things.

    ;-)

    The question was about mclaren’s claim about the CGI being a “$70B” outfit. Not about Flint.

    Are you going to bring up MH17 and the CIA now, too? :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  301. 301.

    Bob In Portland

    April 1, 2016 at 9:34 pm

    @drdavechemist: Let me see. Honduras?

  302. 302.

    PatrickG

    April 1, 2016 at 9:39 pm

    @mclaren:

    I think you misunderstand me. I’m simply calling you an asshole. That’s orthogonal to the issues you’re bringing up. You can be right and still be a colossal ass.

    It truly amazes me that you think you can call people here Republican astroturfers and have those people take you and your arguments in good faith. That’s not tone. That’s Alex Jones conspiracy-thinking. Coupled with the following turd-blossom of yours, I’m just laughing at you over here.

    It’s unproductive and does not lead to a substantive discussion.

    You really need to need to say that to yourself in front of a mirror. At least five times. Ask yourself what the fuck you’re trying to accomplish here. If that goal isn’t merely pompously making yourself feel superior by attacking others without substance, then you really, really need to rethink your strategy.

    Me, I’m convinced you’re just a narcissistic jerk with delusions of grandeur. You and Bob in Portland should start a club.

  303. 303.

    J R in WV

    April 1, 2016 at 10:29 pm

    @mclaren:

    In 2010 Hillary Clinton held no office whatsoever, federal, state or local. So I don’t know what your point is about Goldman Sachs and their legal affairs in 2010.

    Except that your points are usually unintelligible when Ms Clinton is concerned.

  304. 304.

    J R in WV

    April 1, 2016 at 10:41 pm

    @mclaren:

    You say

    But clearly your priorities are: war, war, war, more war, and yet more war, limitless expansion of corporate power, and the conversion of America into an armed garrison state under undeclared martial law.

    I was teargassed back in 1969 fighting the Viet Nam war, and you were… probably a babe in arms then? Fuck you for calling me a war-monger!

    Fuck your self-importance too. You are not the only person here who has fought the cycle of wars and extortions that the Military-Industrial Complex manages for profit. Far from it.

    Do you know how to keep teargas from eating your eyes? I bet not.

    Bernie isn’t going to do a damn thing for anybody IF he gets elected – this isn’t a monarchy where the elected dictator does what he wants. President Obama learned that in his first term. If Hillary wins the election, and a few people she helps get elected also swing the legislative branch, we’re good to go.

    But Senator Sanders isn’t doing a thing to assist down-ticket candidates. So even if a few new congressmen and Senators get elected, how dedicated to Sanders’ pledges will they be? Good or bad, Sanders intentions don’t mean much with a Republican Senate.

  305. 305.

    AirBreathingMamal

    April 2, 2016 at 12:01 am

    @Mnemosyne: Yes, but employer-directed work assignments are apparently just fine. Who do you think pays the salaries of all those oil and gas industry lobbyists who are apparently spending a lot of time “bundling” donations for her?

    And what exactly does “bundling” mean? It means convincing their connections with money to give some to the candidate. So who are those connections? Presumably people with a vested interest in having the oil and gas industries get preferential treatment by the government. Note that these deep-pocket contributors may not be actual employees of oil and gas companies. Presumably they are wealthy folk with a significant investment in the oil and gas industries (e.g. Koch Brothers, Bush family, etc.)

    As Vox says, it’s complicated. Too complicated for the simple straw-man, red herrings, and smoke screens being thrown around to work.

    For me it’s simple. 13 years ago we invaded Iraq because the Oil and Gas Industry wanted mineral rights to what was underground there. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and every day I see people missing limbs around town. We really don’t need to relive that experience. Likewise here on our own soil we’re fracking like crazy. I’m worried that there will be long-term ecological disasters if we keep it up.

    I’m confident that Sanders won’t take us to war for oil, and that he will take action on the environment. I’m not so sure about Clinton, though. Her defense of the cozy relationships she has with oil and gas lobbyists make me wonder. (And for what it’s worth, I’m absolutely certain that Trump, Cruz, or any of the other clowns in the Republican circus would be much, much worse.)

  306. 306.

    AirBreathingMamal

    April 2, 2016 at 12:06 am

    @J R in WV: “But Senator Sanders isn’t doing a thing to assist down-ticket candidates.”

    He’ll bring independents, youth voters, and liberals who had given up on the Democratic party to the voting booth to vote for said down-ticket candidates. That’s worth a lot more than money.

  307. 307.

    chopper

    April 2, 2016 at 12:06 am

    @PatrickG:

    profit? if he actually wanted money he’d join me and omnes and the rest in the cushy CIA blogfuck program. uncle sugar pays well.

  308. 308.

    chopper

    April 2, 2016 at 12:09 am

    @AirBreathingMamal:

    right, cause if there’s anyone that you can count on to show up and vote in good numbers it’s young people, too-cool-for-school liberals and ‘independents’.

  309. 309.

    prob50

    April 2, 2016 at 12:18 am

    @rikyrah:

    that Mr. Trump might become a kind of zombie candidate

    What color would ZombieDonnie’s face be and what would his hair look like? Inquiring minds wanna know.

  310. 310.

    prob50

    April 2, 2016 at 12:33 am

    As someone who works for corporations, I am particularly sensitive to the idea what we’re all evil persons. I’m only a little evil.

    Yeah, I hear ya. Almost all of my evil was personally specific and unrelated to the evil corporation I worked for.

    Now that I’m retired I’m working on expanding my personal sphere of evil but it’s turning out to be somewhat more tedious than I expected.

    It probably would help if I ran for an office of some type.

  311. 311.

    gwangung

    April 2, 2016 at 12:43 am

    @J R in WV:

    But Senator Sanders isn’t doing a thing to assist down-ticket candidates. So even if a few new congressmen and Senators get elected, how dedicated to Sanders’ pledges will they be?

    Might be a replay of the Freedom Caucus (or whatever it is) on the left. Part of what a Party can bring is discipline and focus (which is part and parcel with being a big organization). For good or for bad, I think having focus and discipline is useful for national politics.

  312. 312.

    prob50

    April 2, 2016 at 1:35 am

    @eemom:

    (Already know mclaren isn’t, as he’s treated us all to the grotesque spectacle of his manly jacking off over Megan McArdle.)

    Well, that is a “Hair Treatment” of a sort. Hopefully nobody here would be willing to pay $600 or $1200 for it.

  313. 313.

    Barbara

    April 2, 2016 at 12:32 pm

    @Bob In Portland: I have no idea what you are talking about. There is some serious inherent contradiction for us on the left (and yes, that does include me). On the one hand, if you shop at farmers’ markets, and generally spend more on things than you absolutely need to, you obviously have cash and economic privilege to spare. On the other hand, the assumed virtue that comes with being poor also requires people — usually — to buy things that are made in countries without labor protections, and generally, to support a labor race to the bottom. I don’t fault anyone who is trying to survive by spending less, but I have decided that IF you have the money, you should spend it so that people are fairly paid, buy things made in the U.S. and so on because, even though this is a very small impact that any individual could make, if you won’t, who will? I can tell you what cookware is still made in the U.S. and where (All Clad — Southwestern Pennsylvania); tableware (Fiesta – West Virginia) and shoes (Munro, Magdesian — California, mostly). And so on. The guy who cuts my hair trained as an engineer but couldn’t translate his degree to a job in the U.S. His wife is an American lawyer. I kind of feel like he deserves to be paid well and because I can, I do. And I would bet my house that Susan Sarandon and Rosario Dawson spend way more on their hair than I do, and probably more than Hillary Clinton as well. I find it obnoxious to suggest that their millions and “extravagant” material lifestyle are cleansed and purified by their support for Sanders. So you can kiss my ass whatever it was you intended to mean by your not quite clever enough one liner.

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