A little more than a year ago, I wrote the following after it was announced that Senator Sanders had raised an impressive $1.5 million in the 24 hours after he announced his candidacy:
The mister and I played a small part in Bernie’s surprisingly successful showing: We made our first political contribution of 2016 to Sanders’ campaign yesterday in the hope that his candidacy would drag Hillary Clinton a few centimeters leftward. Little did we guess we were droplets in a socialist cash tsunami!
Sanders is still surfing that tsunami, but now I am heartily sorry to have been a part of it. Sanders’ arrogant statement yesterday, in which he failed to condemn the appalling behavior of his supporters at the Nevada Democratic Convention and instead engaged in crybaby complaining about the process, was the last fucking straw for me.
For weeks if not months now, whenever someone would suggest that Sanders might screw the pooch by irreversibly ginning up ill-will toward the Democratic Party among his fringier supporters, I insisted that Sanders cared too much about making progress on his issues and preserving his influence in the senate to go down such a damaging path.
Well, the statement linked above suggests that y’all were right, and I was wrong. Sanders seems prepared to Nader us, so (to quote valued commenter Burnsie) fuck him, the horse he rode in on, the farrier who shod the horse and the farmers who grew the wheat and oats.
I still hope and trust that the vast majority of Sanders supporters will come around after Clinton wins the nomination. All the ones I personally know plan to do that — they aren’t morons.
I still suspect that many of the loopier BernieBros were never Democrats in the first place but rather Greenies who voted for Jill Stein in 2012 because Obama wasn’t pure enough for them or Paultroons who are in it for the Fed audit. So if they defect, it won’t much matter.
But I’ve learned my lesson about making political gestures. This is serious shit; it’s too important for playacting. I wish I were confident Senator Sanders understands that.
MattF
It looks like running for President is an actual, real-time test of character. A few pass the test, most fail.
Kazanir
I suspect that in 2 months this post is going to look a little rash and that everything will be fine. Do you really think that Sanders is going to mount a 3rd-party campaign, or were you using Nader as a verb for hyperbolic effect? Come on.
rikyrah
I have been told to see the long-game. I have been told to keep quiet for party unity’s sake.
but, damn, I truly am about at the end of my rope with this clown.
schrodinger's cat
Is this where I say, I told you so.
Richard Bottoms
No worries. Welcome back.
Patricia Kayden
I find the death threats aspect of what happened in Nevada particularly disturbing and inexcusable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-supporters-nevada.html?_r=0
msdc
Don’t beat yourself up too hard. Anything is fixable short of voting for one of these clowns (or not voting at all) in November.
Also, this:
They will have about as much influence as the PUMAs.
over_educated
@Kazanir: He definitely is going to cause trouble at the convention. And it is looking more likely that he won’t endorse HRC. It will reflect badly on him and torpedo everything he worked to achieve, but at this point it isn’t about the progressive movement, it’s about Bernie Sanders.
O. Felix Culpa
Bernie fooled many, perhaps even himself. Kudos to you and others who process data as honestly as possible and draw appropriate conclusions from observed behavior. Moving on to the GE, may the best [woman] win!
The Dangerman
Trump and Sanders were obvious assholes from the jump. Revolution my ass. Wall my ass. Fuck ’em.
ETA: …and, as I’ve said previously, I’m no Hillary fan, either. I’m sitting this one out.
Tim C.
Pretty Much. My Journey this time around has been.
“Probably gonna vote Bernie cause I’m still mad about Hillary’s war vote in 2003” —————> “Wow… he’s engaging in a lotta magical thinking on economics and policy, 5% GDP growth out of nowhere due to political ‘revolution’ is just underpants gnome territory, that’s up there with the right wing laffer curve nonsense, never mind.” —————-> “Now that you haven’t got the majority of pledged delegates, votes or any other reasonable metric of victory, you are going to Bern it all down? F-you.”
JCJ
@ Betty Cracker
What, no love for @dmsilev and his her addition to @burnspbesq excellent post?
I enjoyed that comment as well.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
He’s always been an asshole. Josh at TPM finally came around to acknowledging what’s been under everyone’s nose the whole time. The tell for me was that he hasn’t garnered any support from his colleagues, because they know him best. It’s not even that he’s a delusional crybaby, which he is, he’s deliberately set out to drive wedges through Obama’s winning coalition. I think deep down he’s resentful of Obama, and the success he’s had, but he can’t shine Obama’s shoes. Hence Cornel West, and his other surrogate Obama grudge holders. I don’t want to call him a racist, but he’s awfully dismissive of anyone not white, and he’s after the same demo as Trump is, so…. Fuck him and the borrowed horse he rode in on, indeed.
Bill
This is what’s going to happen. Everybody needs to take a breath.
TaxesMyCredulity
I, too, donated to Bernies campaign last year with hopes that this would help pull Hillary farther left. Seemed like a great idea at the time, but now I’m left with buyer’s remorse.
Kay (not the front-pager)
This morning my son said this about Sanders: “he could ruin a generation of voters with the same bullshit. I’d rather millennials not turn into self centered yuppies like the boomers.
That’s how we got Reagan.
I just don’t want him to turn a bunch of millennials into the same thing. One of the things that was so heartening about the Obama phenomenon was it got a huge amount of young voters excited about data driven empirical policy making. Bernie is nothing like that at all, if the facts disagree with him that a policy is good then the facts have sold out and are in the tank for the establishment.”
I’m pleased I raised such a smart person, but more than a little depressed at his conclusions, which are pretty accurate.
ETA: Like most of our conversations, this was an IM conversation. Gotta love technology for communicating with people 1200 miles away!
Tegdirb
If he Naders us then it’s time for Howard Dean to prepare for a Senate run.
[email protected]
Curious how “I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals” is failing “to condemn the appalling behavior of his supporters.”
Thoroughly Pizzled
Black Lives Matter is always right.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Pierce had a post yesterday about Minchin, Headlamp and Tester soft-pedaling their opposition to Trump and talking about how they’d be willing to work with President Trump, to make deals if those deals were good for the American People. Whether it’s the Bernie Bros or the ones who insisted in debates about the Stimulus, Health Care Reform, anything, that it was all about Obama and what Obama was willing to fight for, what he really wanted… Not only does Pierce’s Ghastly Trio not exist for these people, they seem blissfully unaware of people like McCaskill, Bennett, Casey and Carper. They are clueless about anything outside their own echoey self-righteous bubbleheads. Clinton is the enemy!
and I knew Bernie was going down this road as soon as I heard him embrace the line Chuck Todd fed him about The Speeches (just saying’). The man is drunk on his applause.
Jeff
Obama ran on “Change you can believe in.” Being old enough at the time my thought was, we’ll see. I do still like him but he’s not what I wanted. I wants FDR and the New Dael 2.0. I liked Sander’s positions, Bernie himself not so much. He’s was too much like Abe Simpson for me.
rikyrah
@over_educated:
IF true, then totally phuck him.
dmsilev
@JCJ: Glad you enjoyed it.
(It’s ‘his’, just for the record)
chopper
i’d predict a TBU but i’m not sure the commentariat has it in it anymore. i just want this lousy primary to be done.
amk
What’s ironic or moronic is that bs was painted as the honestest and the cleanest pol. Never bought that load of bs.
schrodinger's cat
I am also tired of Trump and Sanders negative Nelly campaigns. Hearing their rhetoric one would think that we live in some hellscape like Syria.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Then what you wants is a different electorate. And a time machine.
NR
Oh look, it’s another post whining about Bernie Sanders.
Meanwhile, Hillary’s lead over Trump has vanished, Trump’s favorability rating is rising while Hillary’s is still dropping, and he hasn’t even really started attacking her yet. And FYI, for all you guys think that Bernie Sanders is Satan given flesh, the fact is that he pulled his punches on a LOT of things he could have hit Hillary with during the primary. Trump won’t do that. For example, I can only imagine how voters are going to react when they find out that Bill flew over 20 times on a private jet to an island where a billionaire and his friends had sex with underage girls.
But hey, it looks like we’re going to get a chance to find out! How exciting!
dmsilev
@[email protected]: That sentence was immediately followed by the word ‘But’. In other words, “sure I don’t condone violence, but…”, which is perilously close to the sort of logic that abusers use to justify slapping around their abusee.
Fair Economist
I’m starting to wonder if Sanders is some kind of Manchurian candidate. Demographics had us on a path to a Democratic party-controlled country in the near future, and Sanders’ support among the young indicated that was going to be a very leftish Democratic party. But if he manages to split the younger socialists from the party by saying raising raising money for Democratic candidates is “corruption”, he could put us on a path to indefinite Republican domination by the time-honored method of one rightist party vs. two leftist ones.
Betty Cracker
@Kazanir: Sanders is pulling a Nader by convincing a new generation of gullible assholes that the Democratic Party is irretrievably corrupt. At this point, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if he quits the Democratic Party in a snit and signs on with the Greens to run as a third party candidate. I don’t think that will happen, but then again, I didn’t think he’d be telling his supporters that the party is screwing him out of the nomination when that’s not remotely true. So who the fuck knows?
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay (not the front-pager): Your son’s fear is mine exactly. Also, I think Sanders’s most ardent followers (possibly lead by him) would like to do to the national convention what they did in Nevada.
Kazanir
@over_educated:
I don’t really have a problem with him trying to have a platform fight at the convention. I do have a problem with him and his campaign exaggerating what is possible to his supporters, of which I am one. And of course I (like his statement) condemn violence and condemn death threats. That shit is far beyond ridiculous although god knows whether it is an actual delusional Sanders supporter or someone who was an insane psycho long before Sanders started running. (Similarly I don’t blame Clinton for Wendell Pierce attacking someone at a hotel over a political argument.)
That said, while the statement was very poorly worded and poorly edited, the double standard present in it is very real. The convention in NV disqualified a HUGE number of Sanders delegates without giving them the ability to respond. It was massively out of order. Of course his supporters were fucking pissed. But are there threads on Balloon Juice about that? No. Was there big media coverage about the violence against Sanders’ campaign office? I don’t remember more than one article although I confess to trying to not pay much attention to the gory details of this primary season.
The point is that while the primary hasn’t LITERALLY BEEN STOLEN from Sanders, there is plenty of bullshit that has happened and that he and his supporters have a right to be upset about those things even if that doesn’t change the ultimate outcome.
L Boom
Yep. I was truly hoping my senator wouldn’t be the asshole I’ve known him to be. I’m curious what happens in 2018, but there are a few too many people in VT who live daily in a bubble of magical thinking to consider an alternative. Hell, after voting for him for 20 years, it feels bizarre for me to say.
But if you want to know what a lot of his VT base looks like, I’ll leave you with this image: one of the houses right outside of town (about a quarter mile from the state capitol building) has several each of two signs on their yard. The first is “Healthcare is a Human Right.” The second is “Jets Spray Us.” Yes, universal healthcare and chemtrails. That’s my hometown.
MazeDancer
Hearing Bernie’s statement about the Democratic Party “has to open its doors to people who are willing to fight for social and economic justice” made me spit firey anger this morning.
Thought of all the Democrats who, literally, died in the Civil Rights Movement fighting for justice. Thought of the Women’s Movement and all the Democratic Women who fought on the front lines for so long. Thought of Unions. Thought of all the Democrats over the decades who have fought tooth and nail for every advancement in Freedom and economic parity.
And this do-nothing-for-30-years, free-riding piece of patriarchy perpetuating egotism insults every Democrat who ever fought the good fight. While still not releasing his freaking tax returns.
Donations for his primary opponent in 2018 – no matter what party he chooses for his run – are going to be record high levels from all those Democrats he’s attacking now.
Gin & Tonic
@The Dangerman:
Every Democrat who sits home in November is a vote for President Trump.
Chyron HR
@NR:
Oh look, it’s another post whining about Hillary Clinton.
Napoleon
As of yesterday I am sorry I voted for the guy. What an ass.
Hildebrand
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: When he started musing that perhaps someone needed to primary Obama in 2012, I knew he was simply a shit-stirrer. He doesn’t want anything to actually change, just be able to yell at those damn pragmatists on his lawn.
DanF
Yup. NV tore it for me too. He needs to stop it. He’s blowing any goodwill he generated within the party. All those people that normally sit out elections could have been brought into the fold for a more progressive Democratic Party, but he decided to go for broke rather than be effective. Sounds like his entire career actually.
chopper
@The Dangerman:
your post was fine until the last sentence. if that’s true then GFY.
The Other Chuck
@Fair Economist:
“Longing” … “Eight” … “Freight Car” … “Income Inequality” …
Kay (not the front-pager)
@[email protected]: It is failing ot condemn because “I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals” was followed immediately by “but.” There is no condemnation in “but.” There is only excuse-making for bad behavior.
Zinsky
Betty – I tossed Bernie’s camp $100 about six months ago and also regret it now, as well. We helped fund this internal purge of the Democratic Party which is not helpful at this point in time. We need to keep the barbarians away from the gate before we can purge the gatekeepers and ensure they are philosophically pure and lilly-white.
dmsilev
And well played, Sanders supporters. This was on the front page of the LA Times this morning:
I’m sure calling Barbara Boxer a b*tch is a sure-fire path to victory in the California primary.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Cole went on twitter and asked Bernie for his $27 back
Tegdirb
@NR: And Dukakis was winning at this point of the Election.
Miss Bianca
@Jeff: You want FDR and the New Deal 2? Great. Give us an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress, a hand-packed Supreme Court, and oh yeah – a President whose populist rhetoric hides the intense skulduggery, wheeler-dealing behind the scenes, and willingness to throw minorities under the bus to get racists to sign onto his/her social programs.
Read some more history before you start talking about what a disappointment Obama has been to you compared to FDR. And then walk back in amazement and say, “Damn: how did a decent man with none of FDR’s advantages social and political – to say nothing of melanin-deprivation – manage to get done what he did?”
Libby's Person
My way of coping is to limit my news consumption and spending the time I save working to get out the vote. I did a stint of voter registration/education on Monday and it made me feel a little less stressed; I’m aiming to do this at least once a week until the start of Early Voting. I really feel like I’m doing something useful with this work – my county needs to turn out big for Dems to do well in national and NC-wide elections, and there’s a lot of confusion about NC’s voter suppression ID rules. By the way, anecdote not data: I didn’t hear much about Bernie or about “Dems in Disarray” on Monday; I did hear “got to stop Trump” from several people.
low-tech cyclist
Betty, I don’t think you were wrong at the time. Who could have seen, back then, that Sanders and his followers would have gone over the edge like this? This time last year, keeping Hillary honest seemed like a really good idea, even to many of us who supported her from the get-go.
I’m genuinely sad to see Bernie going down this way. He was a better man than this. But right now, he isn’t anymore.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@NR: Yes, this is the one, the actual scandal that will finally bring the Clintons down.
And do you not see a connection between Trump’s favorability rising and the Republican party coalescing around its winning candidate?
nihil obstet
Yes, this is serious shit, too serious for the kind of crackpot realism that thinks the current status quo must go on, no matter how many of the losers object. If Clinton can offer nothing better than “You have to be realistic — your life is going to continue to suck. But look how awful Trump is,” we will have President Trump. And of course, the Democrats who just wanted “a few centimeters” of difference will have a good old time blaming everybody who refused to accept a continued deterioration in their and their children’s prospects.
This is serious. Quit pearl-clutching over electoral ploys.
Boussinesque
Well said, Betty. Long-time reader, first-time commenter.
I don’t personally know any dead-enders, so I hope you’re right about the vast majority of Sanders’ supporters coming around to support Clinton, but the NYT front paging an article today about Sanders remaining “defiant”, and mentioning various groups and supporters preparing to demonstrate/protest in Philadelphia makes me somewhat nervous–I thought the Republican convention was supposed to be the real shitshow, y’know?
My very first Presidential vote was cast for Gore, and this cycle is bringing up a lot of bad memories of the leftier-than-thou Naderites at my undergraduate college. I try to tell myself that a lot of these people didn’t personally live through the 2000 election, but then I hear that most of the dead-enders come from the older cohort of supporters, so they don’t even have that excuse.
Can’t wait for this primary to be over so we can focus on the real enemy.
SiubhanDuinne
@[email protected]:
It was buried in the middle of the third paragraph, after attacking the party whose nomination he is seeking. The third paragraph began by essentially denying that what happened, happened (violence or threats of violence), then the obligatory “of course I condemn” sentence, then a whine of “But Dad, she started it!”
HRA
There are 9 of my nieces who were deep into HRC months ago. Then for whatever reasoning switched to BS and remain there to this day. This day I got a bit of a shock to receive a message from one of them on FB that said REVOLT. I can’t help to think ’68 will be mild in comparison of this keeps on going the route it is going on now.
Hoodie
@msdc: I wish I could be so sanguine. My son and I were recently talking about the “Hillary is dishonest” meme that has taken on a life of its own. He understands that it’s BS, but noted that not an insignificant number of his Bernie supporter friends have deeply internalized this crap. When he asks them to be specific about what she lied about, they typically have no answer, or vaguely refer to things like Benghazi, email, or Wall St. I suspect that some of them get this from their parents. It’s exasperating how long lies can hang around and how eager people are to believe them. I remember going through this with Bush and Gore, I was hoping we’d never see that again.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@dmsilev: As usual, I should have read all the comments before I posted.
JustRuss
I’m still glad Bernie ran, he said things that needed to be said. But it’s time to dial it down. He needs to look at what he accomplished, get some perspective, and move on.
dmsilev
@Kazanir:
Not true. Firstly, the Sanders campaign was notified two weeks prior about the challenges to the delegate’s credentials and secondly, the bulk of the disqualified delegates didn’t actually show up and hence would have been irrelevant either way. And thirdly, those delegates were disqualified either for (a) not being a registered Democrat and/or (b) not living in the state of Nevada, both of which seem to me to be reasonable requirements for being a delegate to the state convention of the Nevada Democratic Party.
Citizen_X
Y’know, for a while I thought it was good that Bernie was legitimating the concept of social democracy for American politics. But if you don’t believe in following the outcome of an election, going against both the popular vote and the rules as set up ahead of time, you can’t call yourself much of a social democrat. “Social democracy” means, among other things, that if you lose you go home.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker: Democratic party supporters are convincing me that their party is irredeemably corrupt by distorting facts and language beyond recognition, excusing behavior and arguments they would never accept from Republicans, being collectively too focused on short-term BS at the expense of their own long-term prospects, and basically putting partisanship over respect for people generally.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Hildebrand:
He’s completely full of shit, and a cowardly egomaniac – he didn’t have the balls to run against Obama himself. His run against Madeleine Kunin in VT was a foretelling of his decision to run against Hillary, with the same result and his same bullshit justification about why he’s doing what he’s doing. Where are his fucking tax returns?.Why isn’t he being asked over and over about them?
Tegdirb
@HRA: I hope you’re pointing out to them why their emails are (no pun intended) BS.
Kazanir
@DanF:
Yes, how dare he spend 25 years in Congress championing progressive causes while the rest of the Democratic Party was busy selling out the poor to welfare reform and voting for the Iraq War? His entire career is basically trash!! Give me a break with this shit — considering his political views, Sanders was almost supernaturally effective (via amendments) during his time in Congress.
@Betty Cracker:
I would be absolutely shocked if he ran as a 3rd-party candidate. He has said explicitly in the past that he’ll never be a spoiler, and has re-iterated at many times throughout this campaign cycle that either he or Clinton would be vastly superior to any of the Republican candidates. He spends a huge slice of his campaign speech attacking Republican policies and Trump specifically rather than Clinton. I think people are getting all hyped up as the primary drags on into the summer and just overreacting a tad — Sanders ran as a Democrat for a reason and isn’t going to be narcissistic enough to usher in a Trump presidency.
I would have worded and edited that statement much differently but I think it is justified to be pissed off about what went down in Nevada. (And I think the caucus/party convention process should also reflect the popular vote as accurately as possible — I’m aware that Sanders’ supporters were trying to circumvent this in some fashion, which is bad.)
Betty Cracker
@[email protected]: Because it was preceded by a dismissal of a strawman accusation that Sanders supporters are violent in general and followed by claims that his NV campaign is the real victim. As a condemnation, it was on par with the the “I’m sorry if anyone was offended” brand of apology. There’s a way to condemn violent acts and harassment perpetrated by one’s organization. That wasn’t it.
amk
@Libby’s Person: This.
chopper
@dmsilev:
“Even though The Leader himself is completely non-violent, he urges you to be as violent as you like in capturing the Simpsons.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: the rules should not apply to Bernie! supporters because they were too busy yelling “Whooo!” when ever his name was mentioned to learn the rules. They are passionate.
rikyrah
@Kay (not the front-pager):
You raised a smart egg, Kay.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Kazanir:
It would have been hard to get a response from them since they weren’t there. Kinda hard to seat someone who is not on the premises.
The Dangerman
@Gin & Tonic:
Every Democrat who sits home in November is a vote for President Trump.
This is nonsense; I live in the very Blue State of CA. I’m fairly sure it’s safe for Hillary.
Tegdirb
@Kropadope: “Independents” (read – mostly under 50 white dudes who think the Republicans are a little too right for them) were never the future of the Democratic Party.
germy
Salon’s H.A. Goodman is a Paultroon.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Kazanir: He wasn’t even the most effective Senator from Vermont. I respect mixed success over purity. Purity tells me that someone cares more about looking good than helping people.
gratuitous
What I don’t understand about Sen. Sanders statement is his appeal to the party to “open its doors.” Sanders knows, I hope, that joining the Democratic party is as easy as registering to vote and checking the little box next to “Democrat” on the form, right? There are no passwords, secret handshakes, or entry fees to join the party.
But here’s the part that I see a lot of people not getting: There are people in the party now who have been here before you. Some of them for years and years. They’ve been working, polling, canvassing, walking neighborhoods, handing out literature, staffing phone banks, attending meetings, and doing all the things that make a campaign go. Sometimes they’ve won, sometimes they’ve lost, but they always come back to do it all over again in two years or four years. It’s nice that you’ve found your way in. But recognize that this is an established organization with its forms and functions in place, not some brand new creation that fell unformed out of the sky.
Learn about the process and how individuals get things done. Then do that to work on the changes you want to see. I will warn you, though, that if you reorganize things so that a small, loud, insurgent bunch of people can come rolling in at any time and totally take over, that you won’t be running the party for very long.
StellaB
One time in seventh grade, the class brain said in reference to one of my test scores, “She must have guessed on that test because girls don’t know about science.”
I suspect that BS is just a little bit stunned about losing to a girl.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
A socialist radical who’s played footsie with honest-to-Che leftists over his years as a career politician is continually disappointed by the lack of what he sees as true leftist change in American politics. Now, in his ripe old septuagenarian years, he decides to make one last stand on the biggest national stage, if only to remind the major liberal party that it does have a left wing and they’d like to have their voice heard in this election. Also, he discovers that crowdfunding’s a pretty nifty tool. He’s not thinking big, but at least he’s doing something.
Nine million votes, a dozen plus states, and nearly two hundred million dollars later, Bernie Sanders has a problem.
Sanders has caught the tiger by the tail. If he suspends the campaign now, its a betrayal of all the passion he’s inspired from his supporters. He stood up to the establishment, only to invariably bow down to the ‘coronation’. If he takes this thing all the way through, though, he risks having American socialism’s epitaph being “Nach Trump, uns.” He has to land this thing gracefully, a contingency he never planned for and never had to once even consider in his thirty-plus years in American politics.
He’s in over his head. The $64,000 question is: Who gets to play Ted Stryker in helping him land this thing?
Kropadope
@Kay (not the front-pager):
I think this particular “but” was used to point out that violence has been directed at his campaign too. I think that’s a perfectly valid thing to point out, especially given the treatment his campaign has gotten in the media.
Morat20
@Kazanir:
It disqualified 58. 8 for either not being residents of the county they were delegates of OR not being registered Democrats. (one, rather infamously, deregistered as a Democrat to protest the NY primary. Oops). 50 for not showing up. I know, it’s very anti-democratic and elitist to insist that you be present to vote as a delegate.
They disqualified 6 of the Clinton candidates.
So either “8” is “a lot” in which case “a lot” of Clinton delegates were disqualified — or you didn’t know that 90% of those disqualifications were actually “no-shows” from Team Sanders.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: If you’re talking about my post, be more specific, and I’ll be glad to discuss points of disagreement respectfully.
rikyrah
@MazeDancer:
come sit by me and we can be pissed together.
Tegdirb
@Kazanir: By voting for the Iraq War do you mean the Iraq bombing campaigns Sanders voted for in the 90’s? Or were you thinking of the Afghanistan War that Sanders voted for? And by progressive causes do you mean voting to deregulate the banks, pass the 94 crime bill, and dumb toxic waste on a poor Latino community?
Just checking.
rikyrah
@The Dangerman:
So, you got it like that that you’re ok about the MILLIONS of Americans who would be negatively impacted by a Supreme Court nominee of Donald Trump?
Wow…..I wanna live in your world.
Hildebrand
@nihil obstet: Jeez, stop being willfully obtuse. What part of ‘we are not where we want to be, but we need to continue to make sure things are going in the right direction’ sounds exactly like ‘everything is awesome’?
shortstop
Another entry in the Why I Love Betty book.
@schrodinger’s cat: Not unless you’re trying to be a jerk.
D58826
earlier thread seems to have died and this may be more appropriate on this one any way.So if I may repeat myself
chopper
@The Dangerman:
and every down ticket office is also guaranteed as well?
Benw
Great, now all I can think about is a gif of Bernie superimposed on a surfer dropping in on a huge wave at Wiamea or Mavericks while holding fat wads of Tubmans. Thanks, Betty/Obama!
SANDERS 2016
EZSmirkzz
Next up, the media will report that Sadass Hussein has weapons of mass destruction!
I’m not quite sure people understand just what it is Sander’s is up to. Paying attention to the political press and party officials is one way of making sure you don’t either.
We all like to say play by the rules, but I wonder how many people commenting on the playing by the rules have actually participated in a caucus and had to deal with those rules. Obviously Sander’s supporters in NV got an education in that, and some behaved inappropriately – and as expected to the education.
It’s going to take everything the Democratic Party has got to get Hillary into the White House given the odds stacked against her, and they are formidable odds. Playing into the media narrative of the Democratic split is just utter horse manure, and needlessly alienates people that are both young and or new to the process.
The art of politics remains knowing when to pull the trigger. Y’all are shooting like hell and hollering while some of us are cleaning and oiling our guns.
This debate is just media Henry High Schooling.
(edited for extraneous E’s)
schrodinger's cat
How did St. Bernard vote on the Gitmo closings?
The Dangerman
@chopper:
If that’s true then GFY.
What, I have to vote for Hillary? Bite me.
Iowa Old Lady
After Sanders issued his statement yesterday, the Nevada story for me became about him not his supporters. There is no “but” in a condemnation of violence or anything else for that matter.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Kazanir: I think it’s very likely. I hope he realizes he’s done in politics if he does so. He’ll be primaried and he will lose.
@Fair Economist: This is how Canada got Harper for almost, what, 12 years? In an overwhelmingly liberal country.
chopper
@Kropadope:
this particular “but” was used to rationalize what happened. that makes for a fucking weak-ass ‘condemnation’. as betty said, it’s like a ‘sorry you were offended’ nonpology.
Jeffro
@Kay (not the front-pager):
And having Reagan spouting his smiling, stupid, government-is-always-the-problem nonsense in the background for almost a decade is how we got so many IGMFY Gen-Xers.
Poopyman
Even if he were to come to the convention to endorse Hillary, this attitude and this kind of statement leave the door wide open for some nasty ratfvckery before, during, and after the convention. All in his name, and he’ll have no say or control over those people.
NR
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Yeah, because the Clintons have had scandals in their past, they’re automatically immune to all future scandals. Including ones involving pedophilia. I forgot that’s how it works.
rikyrah
@Miss Bianca:
Generations of Black folks got little to no Social Security when it was time for them to collect due to the ‘ deals’ that FDR made, that cut them out for decades, in terms of making contributions.
But, since it wasn’t YOUR Elders that got screwed, I guess that’s ok.
Never ever forget:
Obamacare was the first expansion of the American Social Safety net that, did not have – IN ITS DESIGN
the EXCLUSION of huge swaths of the American populace.
It took the John Roberts Court to do that.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Dangerman:
Let’s just hope that all the other Democrats in the very Blue State of CA don’t make the same decision.
cdmarine
A-fucking-men, Ms. Cracker.
Tired of this shit.
Kazanir
@Kay (not the front-pager):
Then there should have been no reason to rush through a voice vote and close the convention early, should there? I must be missing something here…
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Somehow I don’t think that Bernie Sanders is the right person to accuse of being overly concerned about “looking good”. Sometimes purity (and he has compromised on plenty of shit, see guns and Iraq War I) is an effect of being able to stick to some actual beliefs about how things should be.
Sanders’ record in Congress is admirable and it is the Democrats of the 90s and early 00s who should be criticized for not being more like him — if they had been, America would be a lot better place for 300 million people and the world a lot better place for everyone whose lives American has touched.
Bill
Everyone needs to chill the fuck out for a bit.
Bernie and SOME of his supporters are living in a fantasy land where he can still win. No matter how much they hold their breath, stomp their feet or chain themselves to barricades, there is no actual way he can win at this point. We all need to remember that and just let them tire themselves out.
The VAST majority of Bernie supporters – including myself – are “blue no matter who.” We are all going to come together in support of Secretary Clinton.
I wish Bernie would pack it in and work on uniting the party behind Hillary. I’m disappointed he isn’t at this point. Some of his supporters are acting like assholes, so yeah fuck them. But What they’re doing now is going to matter about as much as what the PUMA brigade did in 08.
Kropadope
@Tegdirb:
Yeah, you really have the pulse of the independent voter. You’ve just perfectly explained why MA has “unenrolled” as its largest voting bloc, yet manages to seat a veto-proof Democratic majority every election cycle.
Citizen_X
Is it the millennial Sandersites who are threatening to sit the election out if they don’t get their way? Because I get the distinct impression that it’s mostly cynical old X-ers/younger boomers who are throwing the tantrums (and, in NV, the chairs). My peers. People who poof up their chest as they proclaim, “I’m an independent!” People who sit out most elections anyway. You know, unreliable voters who never make the difference in elections.
WarMunchkin
Co-signed. As someone who defended Sanders for months in several places.
I’m a liberal, I’m a New Deal Democrat, I’m young, and I give a shit about labor and working families. Sanders is now doing massive, irreversible damage to the liberal brand for a generation. These people who he’s getting to turn out for him are going to grow up to become Republicans. Their resentment towards black voters and older Democrats will manifest itself in a hostility towards government, a cynicism towards system and convention, a devout anti-intellectualism and a desire to tear everything down at all costs to quality of public life.
I want no part of the liberal revanchist shitshow that his campaign has become, and I want him nowhere near the Democratic National Convention. If his supporters go third party, good riddance. A job of a political party is to build a coalition to win elections and deliver for its constituents (and all Americans). We will do so without Bernie and his policy-free and fact-free coalition of the whining.
Woodrowfan
is Thom Hartman still fluffing Bernie on the radio??
chopper
@The Dangerman:
yes, you do. and you have to vote for dems down the ticket as well. you think this is a game?
shortstop
@Kay (not the front-pager):
@Morat20:
If we were truly an inclusive, welcoming party, we’d allow ghost delegates! Disenfranchising will-o’-the-wisps is a thug Establishment move to keep its boot on the neck of the non-present!
Ugh. Screw Sanders for purposely repeating this zombie untruth in his reprehensible sorry-not-sorry statement yesterday.
Kazanir
@Tegdirb:
Why should I bother replying to you if you’re going to lie about “voting to deregulate the banks” in this way? Sanders’ vote on this in 2000 was for an omnibus appropriations bill to which the “deregulation” was tacked on last-minute without anyone being able to realize what was going on. It is one of the most egregious lies of the Clinton campaign.
I acknowledge that Sanders voted for Iraq I and Afghanistan and wish he had not. I don’t know much about the Sierra Blanca thing but I assume it was deplorable NIMBYism. That doesn’t change my conclusion from my previous post — billions of people would be a lot better off if the Democratic Party had been more like Sanders for the past 20 years and his record in Congress is one to be proud of. This doesn’t seem like it should be a controversial conclusion.
D58826
he pulled his punches on a LOT of things he could have hit Hillary with during the primary.
The Dangerman
@chopper:
I’ll vote down ticket; just not President. I’m sitting out President only (or any office or issue I can’t support, I suppose).
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Kazanir: I commend him for his votes, but I must condemn him for his campaign.
Fair Economist
@nihil obstet:
Clinton is proposing among many other things:
Doubling the minimum wage
Taking the Federal Reserve out of the control of the banks
Increasing taxes on unearned income
Providing affordable childcare
Ending gender pay disparity
Reining in corrupt cops
Legalizing medical marijuana
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions
Seriously, WTF are you complaining about? She has a great, ambitious, program and all our lives will be vastly better if she’s elected. If you’re OK with hundreds of billions less for lower paid workers, ineffectual public control of the Federal Reserve, vast tax loopholes for the Romneys of this world, no good childcare options for most workers, 70% pay for equal work, hundreds dead for walking while black, millions in jail for smoking pot, and ongoing climate catastrophe, all because Hillary won’t promise a unicorn of an unworkable single-payer plan, something is SERIOUSLY wrong with you.
nihil obstet
@Hildebrand: What part of “‘we are not where we want to be, but we need to continue to make sure things are going in the right direction’” don’t I interpret as everything is awesome? The same part that many voters whose inflation-adjusted income has declined over the last ten years and whose lives have gotten more precarious don’t interpret as awesome. It would be different if things were going in the right direction for them, but an awesome stock market doesn’t make up for the loss of middle class jobs. So things will “continue” to go in this direction is not attractive to them.
carame
@Kazanir: Dude, most of them were disqualified because they didn’t register. Not because DWS tricked them… because they couldn’t be bothered to register. Same as the dumbasses in NY who didn’t bother to register as Democrats to vote in the Democratic Primary and acted like that was some kind of super secret Hillary trick instead of the established process in NY for 70 years. The primary has been “stolen” from them in the same way that your apartment will be “stolen” from you if you decide to stop paying rent for a few months because you’d rather spend the money on video games.
EconWatcher
@Miss Bianca:
Obama is a better president and a better man than FDR. No one could have played the hand Obama was dealt better than he has. I don’t have any doubt about that at all.
different-church-lady
@chopper: You know, every time someone refers to a TBu, the veins in my neck swell with pride.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@NR: Do you also have some fresh revelations on the Zapruder film, or the Music City Miracle?
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Let’s not forget Anderson Cooper’s response when the Donald tried that nonsense with him. It applies just as well to Bernie: “Sir, with all due respect, that’s the argument of a five-year-old.”
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker: I was talking about behaviors I’ve seen in the community more broadly and, by and large, you’ve been one of the good ones. You’re dipping your toe into the vitriol pool with this one, though, denouncing his lack of condemnation of violence. The condemnation was certainly there. The fact that he simultaneously condemned violence against his campaign (not just threats, actual violence) doesn’t change this fact.
ETA: But mainly I meant the more strident supporters of the party generally and the denizens of this site particularly as a microcosm of interactions between generally leftish people..
Kay (not the front-pager)
@rikyrah: Yes I did. :-)
JMG
Sanders is a fighter and I respect that. But every fighter needs a trainer in his corner to tell him “champ, it’s not your night” when all that’s left is hurting himself. Bernie has no Eddie Futch who’ll cut off his gloves the way the real Futch did to Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@chopper:
If it is, only white men have the luxury to play it. The rest of us are literally voting for our lives. It would be nice if that were respected by so called “progressives”, a word, by the way, I never want to hear again after this primary. Every time I see that word I hear a high whining sound.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah:
err…that *is* the general point I was driving at, yeah.
different-church-lady
@NR:
Oh look, it’s another comment whining about people whining about Bernie Sanders. With some wingnut talking points thrown in for extra goodness.
SteveinSC
@Kazanir:there is plenty of bullshit that has happened and that he and his supporters have a right to be upset…
Oh, dear the pearl-clutchers at BJ are pants-wetting again. God forbid that someone from the left like Sanders puts pressure on the Corporatist Triangulator-in-Chief to be progressive. Oh!, the wasted money from Wall Street speeches, the many useless, never-to-be-won-by-a-Democrat states in the south she has “won” to puff-up her support.
Yes, lets push Bernie out and forget letting the rest of the country have a say.
He got money from me and my wife and he is likely to get more. And by the way if Bernie loses, I will hold my nose and vote for Hillary to stop Trump.
shortstop
@The Dangerman: Aren’t you the same guy who threatened not to back abortion rights legislation and other policies benefiting women because your feelings were hurt when someone pointed out problems with institutionalized sexism? As I recall, it was something along the lines of, “Fine, if you’re ever going to criticize men, I’m not going to be your political ally!”
D58826
@NR: I have a solution for you. Vote for Trump, have him appoint Ken Starr as Atty. General, and then spend millions on more investigations. Trump can even call it his economic stimulus plan.
msdc
@Hoodie:
I hear the same shit from a few of my Bernie supporter friends. To a man (gender exclusivity very much intended) they are purity trolls who insist that they aren’t Democrats and don’t vote for Democrats and St. Bernie was the only politician who could earn their vote yada yada yada…
In other words, we could never count on them come November because they have already taken themselves out of the voting pool. Net loss: zero.
Most of the Sanders supporters I know realize that he’s lost and are slowly working themselves up to voting for Clinton in November. (More than a few have lost any patience with Sanders after this Nevada crap.) The dregs will be very loud, but they won’t amount to much.
The Dangerman
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, in the .00000001 percent chance that happens, Hillary doesn’t deserve to be President, does she?
I don’t vote straight party ticket; I vote for the person. Hillary doesn’t get my vote (well, unless things change, I suppose, which could happen, in theory). It’s not that hard, Folks.
Soylent Green
Here in Oregon some of the Berniacs are crowing to the media that they will sit this election out (while reciting the new meme “straight outta options”) and some are opining that a Trump victory will lead directly to their progressive revolution. Burn it down baby.
Keith P.
Did Nader ever recover from 2000? I hear his name pop up every cycle, but I also hear Geraldine Ferraro’s name every cycle but AFAIK her political career is over.
singfoom
Just under 3 weeks until the California primary. It can’t get here quickly enough. Here’s to hoping that Bernie’s campaign winds down peacefully after the California primary results again show the math isn’t possible.
If that doesn’t happen, then here’s to the convention not being an acrimonious shitshow. For all binary people, remember it’s a fucking spectrum. It is not and certainly never was Bernie equals progress and HRC = no progress. But you gotta, you know, dig some fucking nuance to get beyond that and the whole horse races quality makes being not binary really difficult.
Cheers
divF
@D58826: Trump could have Reality Show Trials.
ksmiami
@Kropadope: Bernie has no realistic chance for the nomination and needs to end his campaign like yesterday. He has proven time and again that he is not presidential caliber and now his ego is playing with fire, so take your self-righteous selective bs back to your college dorm – we have an election to win with or without the Bernfeelers who seem to not grasp what’s at stake.
L Boom
@Kazanir: I’m curious. You keep talking about “his record in Congress.” What specifically are you referring to, apart from voting correctly on a number of important issues? Has he pushed through any key legislation or done a great job chairing any important committees? Hell, my 2018 Senate vote might be riding on this very post.
JPL
@rikyrah: Me too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
janeform
A delegate’s account of what happened in Nevada.
Face
Cant really “Nadar” the Dems unless he’s actually on the ballot as a 3rd party. Which he will not do.
Joel
@Bill: I wish people would pay more attention to statements like these than those by obvious trolls.
The Dangerman
@shortstop:
Almost surely not (hell, I coulda been drunk off my ass and posted just about anything, but THAT is extremely unlikely).
shortstop
@Soylent Green: The smugly oblivious airing of pure, unadulterated ignorance of history. So precious.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Keith P.: Yeah, her career is pretty dead.
NR
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Nice try, but the flight logs prove that Bill flew out there over 20 times. It’s a fact. And one that he is going to have to eventually explain.
JMG
@SteveinSC: Steve, if you really are from South Carolina you had your say back in February, as I did here in Mass in March. Over 80 percent of the country has voted. The idea that somebody’s being “shut out” of the process if Sanders were to drop out today, which he won’t, is ludicrous. If he wants to keep going, fine. But the idea that because he and his followers are pure at heart, they can’t lose but only be cheated is nonsense unworthy of adults.
Chris
@rikyrah:
This. I’ll hold off on judgment till the convention. I’m still not convinced he’ll Nader us. If he does, then of course, fuck him.
(The horse he rode in on, as I said yesterday, bears no responsibility for all of this. I will not blame him by association).
srv
The caucus Birkenstock Riots will continue, and Trump may send in his own people to help ensure there are good optics.
How come no one is talking about the Megyn Kelly interview? They had a really nice, professional chat. She even ran her fingers through his hair. Trump has been great in boosting her lackluster career.
Kropadope
@ksmiami: I wouldn’t like this sort of behavior if Bernie never existed, so my complaints still stand. If I wanted to throw my lot in with a smug, self-righteous group of hyper-partisans who can never admit error and will distort reality to fit their narrative, Republicans are way better for that.
sherparick
I am very much with Robert Farley at LGM. I am not exactly happy with Hilary Clinton’s interventionist proclivities (although watching last night Front Line on ISIS seems to indicate that we are damned if we intervened and damned if we don’t.) But on so many levels a Hilary administration would advance progressive goals (particularly anchoring a progressive majority in the Supreme Court for perhaps the next 20 years and at least doing something about humans cooking the planet to death. Trump elected as an Leader for the White Murrican Tribe to lord over and move back the country would be a catastrophe to millions of people, and perhaps for the human race if he destroys all hope of slowing AGW.
“…The long Democratic primary season, drawn out by the endless proportional division of delegates, may not end up hurting Clinton in the end. It certainly didn’t hurt Obama in 2008. It is good, however, at two things; emotional exhaustion, and generating bad arguments.
With respect to the former, the memory of 2008 is, for me, so scarring that I declined to endorse either Sanders or Clinton this time around, or really engage with any seriousness in the policy debate between them. You may recollect the endless, bitter comment threads here at LGM in 2008, waged between Clinton and Obama supporters. I wasted far, far too much time with that nonsense, and I’m simply not at a place in my life when I can do that again. And if anything, the greater prominence of social media (in my life, and in general) has made it clear that engagement this time around would have been even more exhausting. I did serve briefly, and in an extremely small capacity, as part of a group that advised Sanders on foreign policy, but more out of a commitment to the idea that any Democratic presidential candidate should have access to expertise than out of specific enthusiasm for his candidacy.
That said, friends have been lost. “Bernie or bust” advocates are making no meaningful contribution to the Democratic primary race; they’re simply helping to elect Donald Trump. And I struggle to remain friends, or continue cordial relations, with any progressive who thinks that electing Donald Trump would be a good idea. On this point I’ve been vicious on social media, and the nastiness has been returned twofold. But no great loss….”
And from the comments, the problem with Bernie is that he is a solo artist trying to become an orchestra conductor, he just does not really play to well with others and is not happy when he does not get his way.
Halloween Jack says:
May 18, 2016 at 9:33 am
The particular set of messages that he’s used is that he’s a pure progressive–the sort of purity that Barack Obama never achieved, and that Clinton can’t or won’t. Whether or not he has any hope of achieving these goals is something that the Bernistas seem absolutely loathe to examine too closely.
Dr. Ronnie James, DO says:
May 18, 2016 at 10:03 am
What really bothers me about his approach is that he’s shown very little interest in using his momentum / attention / fundraising to support local candidates in his mold. I can’t see how Bernie’s revolution happens without this, and he’s done very little in that direction.
Case in point, John Fetterman in PA, who supported Bernie 100%, campaigned on nearly all the same issues and positions. Despite some major handicaps, Fetterman got voters here really excited and punched well above his weight in the PA senate primary, and he ended up having a decent chance of knocking out Katie McGinty, a very bland mainstream Democrat candidate, and Joe Sestak, a warmed-over leftover who’d lost the previous Senate race to Pat Toomey.
Bernie gave Fetterman’s campaign basically zero support (maybe even harmed it – direct quote: “Honestly, I don’t really know John.”) “Why the hell isn’t Sanders backing Fetterman?” was the subject of several articles here. If Bernie had lifted a finger for him, he might well have won the primary. It’s hard to conclude Bernie’s not being a little disingenuous.
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ChrisTS says:
May 18, 2016 at 10:11 am
Agreed. I ended up voting for McGinty just because she seemed, at that point, more likely to put Sestak away. That “Honestly, I don’t really know John” line killed him.
Dr. Ronnie James, DO says:
May 18, 2016 at 10:37 am
Glad somebody else was paying attention to this! It seems like Fetterman just got snowballed by his early low polling which drove a lot of people to vote for a “more viable” candidate.
Just curious (and of course feel free to remind me it’s none of my damn business): what were your issues with Sestak? I wasn’t a PA resident during the last race. Also, did you consider Fetterman? Did anything in particular lead you to not vote for him?
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MacK says:
May 18, 2016 at 10:55 am
Yes, what has annoyed me about the Bernie Bros is that they keep making demands from Hilary for things the President has little or no ability to implement – but rather it’s the House/Senate/Statehouse – threatening to hurt the down-ticket races that Bernie is doing nothing to help. It is dishonest and stupid.
shortstop
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Don’t count her out! Were she so ideologically inclined, Team Bern would still argue for making her a delegate. She could be the 59th “unheard” victim.
Miss Bianca
@EconWatcher: No more do I. But my (white, natch) Sandernista friends who insist on trying to get me to acknowledge what a “disappointment” PBO has been because he hasn’t been able to wave a magic wand and get every single item of *their* agenda passed – in the face of the incredible – and incredibly RACIST – obstruction he has been facing his entire time in office, has made me feel crazy enough to…err…brandish, if not actually throw, a chair.
WarMunchkin
@Kropadope: This makes no sense. Adding a sentence saying that you abhor violence in a statement that is entirely comprised of lies about the Nevada Democratic Party and its (made-up) role about how it was unfair to you is not leadership.
The reality is that the chair of the Nevada Democratic Party has gotten numerous death threats over text and voice mail. She is a waitress, and her workplace’s phone was disconnected after an overwhelming number of people wouldn’t stop calling her boss, demanding her firing.
Someone on this blog last night (singfoom, I think) posted a classier, well-thought out response that Sanders could have used that was respectful to both his supporters and the victims of harassment. But Sanders didn’t opt to display leadership and a call to heal, he opted to double down, play tit for tat and do everything he could to mislead his supporters into thinking they’d been cheated, that the election was fraudulent.
I have no problem with his policy ideas – they’re also the ones that I claim as my ideological alignment. I do have a problem with Bernie Sanders, the candidate. He has failed a basic leadership test that we should expect of American public officials.
And by the way, notably, he gave the exact same response that Donald Trump did when Trump was asked about violence at his rallies – he pointed at other rallies that were peaceful. Sanders condemned him for that. Zero self-awareness.
Amaranthine RBG
I know that the default Balloon Juice approach to political analysis is to talk about FEELINGS: e.g., how pissed off we are by something or other, but I would be curious to know if the factual assertions in Sanders’ statement are accurate or not:
SenyorDave
@The Dangerman: Every Democrat who sits home in November is a vote for President Trump.
This is nonsense; I live in the very Blue State of CA. I’m fairly sure it’s safe for Hillary.
If you don’t like Candidate A, but this person is still light years ahead of Candidate B, why wouldn’t you vote for Candidate A?
I remember watching a PBS documentary on the Civil Rights struggle, and they interviewed an elderly African-American gentleman who had lived in Alabama his whole life. He said the first time he was able to vote (this was when he was in his 40’s – this was Alabama) he voted for a candidate for mayor who was an open racist. His opponent was known to be a official in the local chapter of the klan. They asked him if it was difficult to vote for a racist, and he replied not at all. He had spent a lifetime of voting for the lesser of two evils, and sometimes it wasn’t a matter of voting for someone who would make the world a better place. It was voting against someone who would make the world a worse place. That’s how I feel about Trump. A missed vote against Trump is a missed opportunity.
I think that elderly gentleman they interviewed was a very man.
boatboy_srq
@DanF:
This.
This is the same problem I have with Snowden: motivation and timing. Sanders’ ideals are good, but his ability to address allies or potential allies directly (and without p!ssing them off with tone-deaf non-dismissive ripostes) falls way short, and his unwillingness to rein in his…. um, more boisterous supporters isn’t helping.
The problem the Dems have this cycle is a dearth of high visibility alternates. Dean screamed out of the running, Edwards shot himself in the shorts, O’Mallet policed away his chances, and Warren is happier in the Senate. Reid, DiFi, Boxer and the rest of the visible folks are all retiring or close to it.
There really is little in the way of visible alternates to Clinton. Sanders exploited that, and for a while we had a decent chance at a worthwhile dialogue on the future of the party. Sanders has spent the last couple months throwing that away as hard as he can with the conspiracy theories and the consistent unwillingness to lend a hand downballot – and that last is where we will see the most risk and need the most help.
? Martin
@NR:
Probably the same way when they find out that Donald Trump was even better friends with the guy and also partied with him. I’m thinking in a binary choice, voters will choose the spouse of a pervert over the pervert himself.
This is one of those ratfucks that can’t be played because it hits the Republican even harder than the Democrat.
MomSense
@Kazanir:
I do have a problem with his trying to have a platform fight at the convention. First, he has millions fewer votes so if there are any changes to the platform they are a courtesy. Secondly, WTF would he insert into the platform?? He has been so vague, his policy proposals so lacking detail and credibility that I honestly can’t imagine what he would contribute to the platform. We are going to break up the banks at some big size still to be determined and by a process to be determined although we may already be able to do that but I don’t really know because I haven’t given it much thought.
The Dangerman
@SenyorDave:
I don’t vote for people I don’t support; seriously, this is not that hard.
trollhattan
Back when there were three candidates debating Bernie fit into the triad as a refreshing (usually) contrast to the more doctrinare Democratic responses from the others, but then it was just the two and the tone changed for the worse. It became more combative and personal, making it seem, well, Republican. I stopped watching because I couldn’t tolerate the tone.
Underpaid Propagandist
So many problems in teeming Brooklyn for eons. Racial. Economic. Environmental. You name it.
And this schmuck heads up to wealthy all-white Vermont with the population of a subway train to play socialist.
Sanders is such an ass clown.
ksmiami
@WarMunchkin: @WarMunchkin: As an add on I think Bernie should be primarid by a real Democrat in Vermont when all is said and done. And his whole campaign has been dishonest from the outset. He should have run as an Independent, not used the infrastructure of a party he seems to denigrate at every turn. FUCK HIM.
? Martin
Continuing a series… When talking about economic conditions from the ground, pay close attention to the details. I point you to the 2nd chart.
In that chart, it shows that adjusted for inflation median income has grown from 1984 to 2009 (worst year of the recession) for households headed by someone with a bachelors degree or higher. It has grown since 2009 as well. Median income has fallen for everyone without a college degree. The simple implication here is that everyone should get a college degree, but there’s a more important way of looking at this.
The group with falling incomes are generally in manufacturing, trade, and low-skill service jobs. They are in the place where automation and technical innovation is focused, because they are generally low-value-add jobs and best suited (compared to other tasks) to technological replacement. And other areas will be felt in time – so ask a lawyer how their profession is faring with streamlined processes and online services. So the call for trades to be a substitute for college is okay in some cases but not in others. It’s not that plumbing can be automated, but it can be improved substantially compared to the historical practices in the US (PEX vs soldered copper) eliminating a lot of the labor involved in installation and maintenance. These jobs will always exist, but likely in smaller numbers such that sending someone into the occupation is a bit of a risky proposal – there will continue to be downward pressure on wages due to oversupply.
In a sense, Bernies ‘free college for all’ is along the right direction but it doesn’t inform the public why it’s the right direction, and it’s a bit too coarse anyway. And taking care of the next generation is only a part of the problem. It does little for the millions of workers that already set their educational direction and are now struggling. Again, calls for manufacturing or other industrial revolutions are misplaced – they aren’t coming. Even in service sectors the areas with demand are those that require a degree of some sort – teacher, nurses, etc. There are a lot of other value-add service areas that don’t require a degree, but they are still relatively boutique things. Even personal trainers are increasingly needing degrees in exercise science for better paid positions.
Those wage trends are not going to reverse under any circumstance. Clapping louder won’t make it so. We are facing a combination of widespread retraining, to the extent that can be successful (limited) and a guaranteed minimum wage. We are also facing a pretty serious gutting of how higher education works in this country. The sooner Democrats start talking about these things in a manner that demonstrates their viability (rather than Sanders way of demanding things from the clouds with no plan to attain them) the sooner they’ll start winning back some of these voters.
D58826
@Face: In a close election if enough of his supporter stay home in otherwise reliably blue states he can Nader Hillary and give the election to Trump. At a slightly different level but the ‘stay at home factor cannot be dismissed. Enough democrats stayed home in 2010 to give the Obama state of Pennsylvania to the GOP senate candidate.
SenyorDave
@SenyorDave: I think that elderly gentleman they interviewed was a very man.
very wise man
Miss Bianca
@Keith P.: Well, it would be very interesting to watch Geraldine Ferraro trying to campaign from wherever her current address in the afterlife might be…
Shell
Gave up even a cursory, once a day look at Daily Kos (well, except for their pootie diaries). The snarling, back-biting over there has gotten beyond ridiculous. Also, something with that site has been playing havoc with my browser.
So there.
EZSmirkzz
Does anyone remember the police riot in Chicago in 1968? Political bosses, and smoke filled rooms?
Hmmmmmm
? Martin
@Kazanir:
Fighting for something that has no value is just a waste of resources and energy. He should be fighting Trump instead.
Kazanir
@L Boom:
Other than not voting for most of the bullshit that the Democratic Party helped get through Congress in the 90s and early 00s, I mean this:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-gets-it-done-sanders-record-pushing-through-major-reforms-will-surprise-you
http://observer.com/2016/03/how-bernie-gets-things-done-in-congress-without-being-bought-off/
It is not realistic to expect Sanders to have pushed through major, marquee legislation given the composition of Congress. Much like I did not expect Obama to have pushed through single payer with a wave of the magic bully pulpit — that would have been silly. And the responsibility for those things is on Congress, not on Obama or Sanders. Sanders was effective at doing what he could via amendments as the above articles show, and was busy standing for something resembling integrity and good political values the rest of the time. Not perfect, but a damn sight better than most of the squishes inhabiting the Democratic Party for my childhood and youth.
Like I said, I think the standard is actually “would the world have been better off if Congress had been more like Sanders,” and the answer is quite obviously YES. But he was surprisingly effective in spite of how awful the 90s and 00s were for progressively policy.
NR
@? Martin: Trump was friend’s with the guy, sure. Did he fly out to the island?
Linnaeus
Honestly, Betty, I don’t think you have anything to apologize for. As others have pointed out, you had no way of knowing that things would develop as they did and your initial support for Sanders stemmed from a commitment to dealing with important and serious issues facing this country. The message has value, even if the messenger is flawed. You and your husband weren’t the ones making death threats and engaging in harassment.
Poopyman
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Well, Ferraro’s political career is only as dead as she is. And after 5 years, she’s still dead.
trollhattan
@The Dangerman:
At some point you might stop feeling so special and instead use your lone vote wisely. Or not, it’s not that hard.
gbear
@The Dangerman:
If the electorate is stupid enough to elect Trump, then we deserve him.
Winning attitude.
gwangung
@Kazanir:
What part of “not there” don’t you get?
Psych1
It still ain”t over till its over but I got to admit the Kentucky loss hurts the cause big time. The improbable, but not impossible, chance that the Supers will see the light and flip looks much less likely today. Barring a big email or Bengazi break, gotta admit it looks like the dangerous war hawk really does take the nom.
Getting close to the time to move over to Jill Stein and take as many as I can with me.
West Texan 1958
Texas primary Bernie voter here. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I voted for Bernie because I’m a goddam socialist. However, I completely understood that if Sen. Clinton won the nomination (which she is doing according to the rules Bernie signed up for), I would crawl over broken glass to vote for her in the general election.
You are out of your mind, Psych1. “I think Hillary might start a war, so I will vote to ensure that the person who takes office is someone who almost certainly will because my fee-fees are hurt!!” I’ve been a Socialist and a card-carrying member of the IWW for years. Sometimes, you gotta vote for the least-worst candidate. That’s the harsh reality. Deal with it.
Origuy
So, if you are a Sanders supporter who thinks Hillary is too close to Wall Street, why would you let Trump win. He’s going to dismantle Dodd-Frank.
SiubhanDuinne
@Keith P.:
The fact that she’s been dead for five years, of course, has nothing to do with it.
The Dangerman
@trollhattan:
I am. Thanks for the concern, though.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Jeffro:
Yup. That self-centered YUPPY Boomer crack was a private in-joke (I’m a self-centered YUPPY, he’s an ignorant, self-involved Millennial). But yes, Reagan’s was a malevolent influence on a generation of voters. I really don’t want to see either Sanders or Trump have such a negative impact on another generation.
Matt McIrvin
@? Martin:
Even if the pervert is a man and the spouse is a woman? I’m not so sure. I know there are people who blame Hillary Clinton for Bill’s behavior more than Bill himself.
Amir Khalid
Before the Nevada contretemps, my main (and oft-stated) objections to Bernie were that he didn’t seem able to think beyond the admirable ideals in his stump speech and grasp the full scope of the Presidency as an executive job; that he didn’t seem to have anything like Hillary’s executive, political, and diplomatic skills. What we’ve seen in Nevada and his statement about it appears to add another two deficiencies: of character and of leadership. What kind of person is it who can’t condemn without caveats violent behaviour that disrupts a political process? What kind of leader is it who can’t tell his followers that such behaviour is beyond the pale?
patroclus
I continue to believe that this is much ado about not much. Primarily because it’s not about any actual issue – rather, it’s just about process and convention rules and superdelegates and horserace stuff. There really aren’t any crucial issue differences between Sanders and Clinton. He’s pulled her to the left on some issues (trade, Dodd-Frank changes, minimum wage) and she’s pulled him to the left on some issues (immigration, guns, women’s rights). The result is that the party has moved leftwards overall; which is a good result. Which is why I’m glad Bernie ran although I certainly didn’t vote for him or give money to him. He’s lost but he has three more weeks or so to continue to campaign; which is a precedent set by Hillary herself 8 years ago. He’s gonna endorse her (although it might take awhile for that to set in) and help unify the party. The convention cannot possibly be like 1968 because there is no Vietnam War or gigantic generational divide or Mayor Daley with “shoot to kill” orders or unaddressed nascent women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights divides between the candidates. Passions are high, Bernie’s supporters are desperate, but it was just a frickin state convention arguing about 2-4 delegates while nationally, Clinton has about an 800-delegate lead. Everyone should chill – the party is going to unify and we’re gonna beat the Fascist because the country needs it.
D58826
@Kazanir: AH I believe that he voted for the much despised crime bill. Not so pure after all. I rather suspect that the American political scene would be a lot different if the democrats had retained control of Congress in the 1990’s, even with ‘horrible’ Bill in the WH
shortstop
@SenyorDave: Well, he was a black man, and as such had lifelong experience in choosing the path least threatening to his health, happiness and even survival, however imperfect and sometimes even awful some of those paths could be. He lacked the self-congratulatory luxury of making a tin-eared ass of himself through Whiteman C. McPrivilege statements like, “I don’t vote for people I don’t support. It’s not that hard.”
singfoom
@Psych1: Do you value your vote in purely symbolic terms?
Benghazi is complete bullshit, through and through. A republican talking point that has been beaten to death and repeatedly proved to be a nothingburger.
Do you think “I’ll vote for Stein and that’ll show the Democratic party not to take me for granted?” I’m honestly curious.
Because it seems to me that instead the party would look at you and those who leave and vote for Jill Stein as “Well, they’re gone we don’t have to care about their interests.”
This is always what confuses me about the whole “I’ll show that party by not voting for them” stance. The party will consider you a lost cause and move on and you’ve done….what exactly?
gwangung
@Amaranthine RBG: What were the voting status and party status of those 58?
Matt McIrvin
@msdc: Most of the Sanders supporters I know IRL are women. There was never the slightest question about their voting for the Democratic party nominee in the fall, whoever that might be. The Bernie-or-Bust business is in another universe.
But I don’t think it’s possible any more to dismiss it as just a few crazy people on the Internet. There’s potential for real damage.
Bartholomew
What krackerbarrel is really trying to say is … she’s feeling the bern.
Miss Bianca
@Kazanir:
In other words, it’s not “realistic” to expect a guy who can’t be bothered to compromise his purity in any way to actually, you know, get any shit *done* in the real world, not the ideal world you and he want? Yeah, we get it. You think that’s bitchin’, we think that’s bullshit. Your point?
schrodinger's cat
@shortstop: I am glad that Betty figured out that St. Bernard is not all that saintly but some of us were on to him quite early in the game. All it took was looking at his actual record and not his finger wagging pronouncements. Not that hard, actually.
chopper
@The Dangerman:
pro-tip: when referring to the general election, saying ‘i’m sitting this one out’ implies you’re not voting at all, ergo a complete piece of shit.
Fair Economist
@The Dangerman:
So you don’t support a living wage for lower income workers. Got it!
So you don’t support public control of the Federal Reserver. Got it!
So you don’t support a woman’s right to choose. Got it!
So you don’t support childcare options for most workers. Got it!
So you’re ok with crooked cops gunning down kids for their race. Got it!
So you’re ok with millions in jail for marijuana. Got it!
So you’re ok with voter suppression. Got it!
Why are you posting here?
Kay (not the front-pager)
@rikyrah:
I think that was Miss Bianca’s point. FDR was fine and dandy if you don’t look too closely at who he excluded or how he accomplished what he accomplished or what he left undone. The same can be said about LBJ. Both were flawed men who accomplished a great deal and left a huge amount undone. Enraging, but true.
Tegdirb
@Kropadope: Go look up the actual statistics for Independent voters in the US instead of cherry-picking, dipshit.
Matt McIrvin
@patroclus:
Instead, it’s taking place in the only American city whose police department once resorted to aerial bombing of their own citizens!
Granted, that was a while ago…
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: Precisely. He’s gone from well-intentioned naivete and insufficient preparation/planning to outright malice and vengefulness. That is a failure not of homework but of character.
dr. bloor
@gwangung:
The “party status” might well have been “pajama party” since they were DQ’d for not being in attendance at the convention.
raven
@Psych1: Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.
Chris
@Kazanir:
Let’s also acknowledge that the Gulf War was a reaction to Saddam’s invasion of a friendly country, and the Afghanistan war followed the 9/11 attacks and was directed against the regime that had for years sheltered the headquarters of the organization that performed them. That doesn’t mean you can’t argue that diplomacy should’ve been given more of a chance, or that the objective still wasn’t worth the price we paid for it, or that the U.S. might have been able to prevent the attacks in the first place if it had had smarter leadership. But no, neither of these was equivalent to the unilateral war against an enemy that hadn’t attacked us, posed no threat, and the war on whom was based on complete fabrications from the start.
Tegdirb
@Kazanir: I thought he was the “Amendment King”? He couldn’t fix that? Why, did he have a post office to rename?
It’s funny how Sanders never has to explain his votes nor does he offer to. Has he apologized for the crime bill vote? Has he ever apologized for anything in his life?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kazanir: Supposedly there were Clinton delegates that weren’t seated, also too. But beyond that, … LetsTalkNevada:
Hillary won the actual vote in Nevada. Bernie’s people then tried to bend the rules after that to get more delegates. But they messed up in the Paris and didn’t have enough people there to do it again. And then some of them threw a tantrum.
At least that’s what it looks like from the on-the-scene reporting I’ve seen. I wasn’t there (and I dare say that most of the people setting their hair on fire about this weren’t either).
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike J
@singfoom:
And where are the Democrats supposed to look for votes to replace the purity ponies? If the left fringe absolutely refuse under any conditions to vote for a Democrat, then the Democrats have to go find persuadable centrists who are disgusted by Trump.
Whose agenda is going to get more attention when they win?
joes527
Meh.
Perspective. It is a thing.
Just remember. Peak Clinton Meltdown didn’t come till the end of May, and her campaign didn’t really dial back the craziness ’till the eve of the convention.
So the losing campaign is a shitshow in the final stretch. Big deal. This is how we roll.
With his performance this year, Bernie is on track to be the universally loved candidate in 2024
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: THIS
Tegdirb
@Chris: It would have been easier to just type, “It’s okay when Bernie does it.” Save yourself the time and energy next time.
Jeffro
@Kay (not the front-pager): I’m with you on the in-joke…I’m one of those dastardly Gen-Xers (just not the IGMFY variety!) Fortunately Reagan’s nonsense never ‘took’ with me, but it’s amazing how many HS classmates are still wrapped up in that kind of thinking.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Kazanir:
It was closed early by Security at the venue. Security closed the convention early because the behavior of (some of) the Sanders delegates was so egregious that the safety of other convention goers could not be assured. Sorry you don’t want to acknowledge it, but them’s the facts.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh
………………..
Exploitative Financial Scheme That Fueled America’s Racist Housing Legacy Makes A Modern Comeback
BY ALAN PYKE
MAY 17, 2016 8:00 AM
Investigators in New York will probe the resurgence of a dangerous housing finance practice that was historically used to target low-income black families who dreamed of owning their own home, the state’s Department of Financial Services announced Monday.
Investigators have sent subpoenas to at least four separate companies that are helping drive a boom in a long-dormant alternative to a traditional mortgage, the Wall Street Journal reports.
While the mortgage alternative is not inherently illegal, its shady legacy of exploitation has already prompted scrutiny from federal officials this spring.
The tactic is often called “contract for deed” home finance. Under this model, investors purchase homes, often at the minimal prices afforded by foreclosure sales, and then seek out potential “buyers” who do not qualify for a mortgage because they are too poor. They then market a contract to the would-be homeowner under which she agrees to pay a fixed monthly fee for decades, knowing she will not actually get the deed to the place until the contract is fully paid off.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Fair Economist:
Everything good we can point to in this country came from liberal Democrats pushing legislation through by working together, and nothing came from useless whining independent progressives sniping from the sidelines.
Kazanir
@Miss Bianca:
I truly don’t understand this post. Democrats in Congress in the 90s and 00s got plenty of shit done. Most of it was bad shit, where they voted with Republicans to pass Republican agendas and hurt hundreds of millions of people. I would prefer purity over that sort of “compromise” and Sanders is to be honored for sticking to his guns on most of those issues.
Meanwhile, the Democrats from 2008 to 2010 got plenty of good shit done, all of which Sanders voted for despite it being a compromise from his preferred, more left-wing positions. I endorse this behavior as well, and I think that this and his record with amendments shows that he’s plenty open to practical maneuvering and not actually an insane purist!
There just haven’t been any situations where Sanders could have magically gotten something positive if he had compromised a little more, but did not. It would be silly to expect him to achieve things like that when the rest of Congress had such comparatively shitty, unprogressive views for such a long time.
Poopyman
Well, since we constantly keep shooting for a TBU around here anymore, I might as well pull up this old chestnut of his and air it out. Probably not for the last time this election:
Mike J
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Don’t forget they had another 350 who hadn’t been challenged by the credentials committee, but just hadn’t shown up. 98% of Clinton delegates showed up. 78% of Sanders delegates.
The Dangerman
@chopper:
I dunno, but since I was referring very specifically to the potential Presidential candidates, I would have thought that I meant Presidential candidates might have been, ya know, inferred. So sorry if you have a problem with context.
Now, I have work to do. This is stupid.
shortstop
@Kazanir:
Just so. It’s even less realistic to expect that as a president with only the barest interest in helping to elect other progressive candidates to Congress — and then only after much public criticism for his refusal to do so earlier — he will be able to attain his stated goals.
? Martin
@The Dangerman:
Well, I too am sufficiently well insulated that I can weather a Trump presidency pretty well. My straight white maleness has always allowed that, and the many benefits that have accred from that are now banked as I approach 50. I have enough cash to send the kids to college and probably help them buy homes. I always have the option of burning my retirement and taking the easy way out when I run out of cash late in life. Or I could pack up the family and head for another country, they’ll likely have us. I can outspend most anyone on the FYIGM front.
But that’s just not how I roll. There are a lot of people on this board that will be fucked over hard in that case – not to mention my neighbors, relatives (my immediate family tree, like many others, has an african-american branch and a number of LGBT leaves), and so on. If we’re willing to put in for pet rescues and unforseen hardships, the very least I can do is vote for someone that will help them. It’s not about me. My vote is an asset I’m willing to share with others.
D58826
@West Texan 1958: To all of the I can’t vote for Hillary because she isn’t as progressive as Bernie. I have one word for you SCOTUS. If you want to live in a country that moves forward into the 21st century rather than backward to the 19th then just one word – SCOTUS. In November close your eyes, say a prayer and vote for the next Justice of the supreme court and just consider the name Hillary a fill-in.
This is what is at stake – the average age on court is 69 with three 77 or older. Counting the current opening that means the next POTUS could very well appoint 4 justices. Garland gives the liberals a 5-4 majority and a Kennedy (age 77) replacement would make it 6-3 . Thomas is 67 and not likely to be replaced in the first Hillary term, he is no spring chicken either. A second Hillary term (from my keyboard to FSM’s ears) might see him being replace as well. Hillary in the WH and a democratic senate can give a generational boost to Bernie’s progressive dreams. A Trump/GOP senate will lock in the 1890’s for 100 years.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Libby’s Person: Thank you for your work. It’s vitally important.
Cheers,
Scott.
BernieBros>HillaryBots
Wow, what an incredible load of horse shit. And you top it off with a Nader comparison? When the “Gore would’ve been elected if it hadn’t been for Nader and those meddling kids” myth has been systematically debunked on numerous occasions? Seriously? You should be ashamed — not for being a Hillary apologist (lots of Dunning-Kruger Dems do that), but for being so intellectually dishonest.
Here’s what REALLY happened in Nevada, from someone who was THERE, with video evidence:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4jwfvu/how_democrats_manipulated_nevada_state_party/d3aa0so
Now how about applying Occam’s razor to the Hillarybot/DNC version of events, compared to this:
https://shadowproof.com/2016/05/17/democrats-manipulated-nevada-state-party-convention-blamed-sanders-chaos/
Do you think you can do that with an open mind? I doubt it… because you’re a Dunning-Kruger Dem. I defy you to prove you’re not.
Here are several articles debunking your pathetic slander of Nader. There are a lot of reasons Gore lost, including Gore himself. Nader isn’t one of them.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/6/1260721/-The-Nader-Myth http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/lewis/pdf/greenreform9.pdf http://prorev.com/green2000.htm http://www.salon.com/2011/04/04/third_party_myth_easterbrook/ http://www.salon.com/2000/11/28/hightower/ https://shadowproof.com/2012/08/26/debunking-pathological-myths-of-the-2000-election-part-1-cnn-exit-polls-prove-that-nader-did-not-cost-gore-fl/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/11/1/harvard-letter-stein/
mkro
Classic libtards. You just can’t understand how the Repubs beat you every time yet you keep on making this same mistake over & over & over.
Well, guess what? You, Cole, Pierce, everyone here who you all worship here are to blame for this mess.
By casting your “symbolic” vote and sending your $$ to Sanders, you made him and his believe that you were in it to win it and he is doing exactly that.
Congrats, libtards!! You’ve successfully sabotaged your own easy win again (ala 1980 and 2000). And now we all get to suffer for your ineffectiveness.
Partisancheese
Oh come on, this is ridiculous. There was no violence in Nevada. I love how you fpers just suck up the DNC manipulations hook, line and sinker. Sanders has run a relatively good campaign, but any minor thing and all the sudden he is satan. Calm the fuck down. I don’t get how you guys can act like its the poor little establishment getting attacked, and not see how powerful and advantageous the democratic establishment has it. It is the same shit as conservatives acting like the victims all the time. Sad to see the DNC and its supporters have become the same shitty ‘Who me? We never make mistakes! Everyone else is being mean!’ It’s sad. Clinton is not going to win by leaving Sanders supporters feeling bitter and left out. I love how you are already bringing out Nader rather than bearing any responsibility for Clinton being a weak candidate, just as Gore was. No, its the boogyman third party! Never Dems fault, they cannot make them. The partisanship is ridiculous.
Chyron HR
@The Dangerman:
The Democratic party establishment’s grandchildren aren’t going to threaten themselves, right?
NR
@D58826:
Then the Democrats probably shouldn’t be nominating the worst candidate since 1972. You know, since the SCOTUS is so important.
Loviatar
one eyed man bitches
trollhattan
@The Dangerman:
Yes it is, just not in the way you think.
gwangung
Lot of sock puppets here, I suspect.
chopper
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
exactly. i mean, i understand the idea of trying to work the system after the caucus to increase delegate numbers. if clinton’s people didn’t show up thinking the caucus was the only part of the job that mattered and bernie’s people came in and hoovered up some delegates, i would argue she deserved to lose them.
but her people showed up and bernie’s people didn’t. that’s why the bernfeelers’ tantrum was so silly and childish.
shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: Jesus, you’re still doing it. The point is not that “some of us were on to him.” When someone makes an eloquent, humble admission of having made an error of judgment, jumping up to twist the knife and congratulate yourself makes you seem very small by comparison.
@? Martin: I thank you for totally getting it.
Chris
@Tegdirb:
The fuck are you talking about? I voted for Hillary.
patroclus
@D58826: Clarence Thomas promised us 40 years and he’s got about 15 more to go before he fulfills it. Hillary or Trump won’t replace him – whoever we elect in 2028 will. I’m hoping President Franken will nominate someone good then.
Chyron HR
@NR:
Why is it the Democrats’ fault that Sanders ran a losing campaign? Do you think a politician is somehow entitled to our votes?
Betty Cracker
@Psych1: Good riddance.
@Bill & @patroclus: I sincerely hope y’all are right.
Villago Delenda Est
@Psych1: The Superdelegates have not once gone against the general trend. Why do you think they will for Bernie?
Mike J
@BernieBros>HillaryBots:
I’d lay a lot of that on his shitty campaign manager.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kazanir: Um, Sanders wasn’t ‘the amendment king’:
Don’t drink the kool-aid.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Redshift
I’m still getting Bernie emails (presumably they got me from some Dem email list, since I never signed up.) Today’s key paragraph was:
Bernie, you’re winning white working class Democrats. In some states. Describing this as winning the votes of working class Americans isn’t helping with your general attitude of questioning the legitimacy nonwhite voters.
Or maybe he’s buying into the phony media narrative that Trump is winning (white) working class voters, and he can bring them back. If that’s the case, it’s even worse.
Cckids
@Kazanir:
Well, due to the shouting, threats, and brandishing of chairs by BS supporters, security from the hotel told them they had to leave. They were well past the time they’d booked already.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@over_educated:
“Work” is a relative term.
Bernie doesn’t work – he runs his gaping maw of a scowling facial orifice (to judge by the Bernshevik memes) in utterance of bitchy platitudes in that shitmouth accent he never lost.
Villago Delenda Est
@NR: Cripes, you’re stupid.
Miss Bianca
@Kazanir: two words for you: Barney Frank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Frank
Man got a lot of good progressive stuff passed by rolling up his sleeves and working with people he didn’t necessarily like. Including, from what I’ve been able to tell, one Bernard Sanders. ; )
Aqualad08
@EZSmirkzz:
You forgot the Vietnam War and Bobby Kennedy lying dead in a California hotel kitchen… world has changed, keep up…
Mike in NC
Drumpf will be meeting with noted war criminal Henry Kissinger today, in order to learn about that thing called ‘aggressive foreign policy’.
chopper
@Kay (not the front-pager):
the head of venue security is the fourteenth cousin of hillary clinton’s old college roommate so you know it was all a setup from the get-go.
Fair Economist
@NR:
Sorry, but no.
Read her platform? It’s great!
Watch her debate? She’s great!
Watch her speeches? She’s great!
Meet her in person? She’s REALLY great!
See her accomplishments? She’s great, all the way back to when she saved the Legal Service Corporation from Reagan back in 1981.
Clinton is a great candidate. The only way she isn’t great is that a lot of the media and her opponents SAY that and hope people won’t read her policies, watch her speak, go to her rallies, and look at her accomplishments.
zzyzx
@Kazanir: the convention didn’t end early. It got shut down because they ran out of time after hours and hours of disruptions and their rental was over.
Mike J
@patroclus:
We won’t replace Thomas, but Kennedy is 79, Notorious RBG is 83, Breyer is 77,
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
The Bernsheviks will Bern it all in support of the inevitable victory of the Proletariat.
Today on the Mother Jones Facebook comment interface, I learned that Kevin Drum is a neoliberal corporatist shill.
Hildebrand
@Partisancheese: @BernieBros>HillaryBots: Swell, someone must have alerted Salon or the GOS – shiny happy people have arrived to enlighten the masses.
Miss Bianca
@Poopyman: Words to live by forever. And they still crack me up every time.
joes527
@Mike J: He ran a piss-poor campaign, and when shit got real in Florida, he made every wrong move possible.
But yeah, let’s blame the hippies. It is more narrative friendly that way.
shortstop
@Psych1: While you’re over there, see if you can help her address those fantasies about being kidnapped and held in dark sites. Girl is not sounding too stable.
EZSmirkzz
Oh Las Vegas
Seems appropriate.
Peace
Gin & Tonic
@gwangung: Sure are a bunch of nyms I haven’t seen before all of a sudden.
Aqualad08
@mkro:
Well, not EVERY time…. :)
gwangung
@chopper:
This exactly what happened at stage 2 of the NV caucus. But Sanders needed to seal the deal at the third stage. But he didn’t, leaving his campaign to argue the ridiculous position that they were cheated out of the effort to overule the will of the people who voted the day of the original caucus.
JMG
@patroclus: I’ll try to keep this brief. If the Sanders people are perceived as the reason we have a President Trump, no candidate from the “progressive” side of the party will ever be nominated for decades, and many of them will lose what jobs they have now. Franken, et. al. will suffer for the sins of the white, comfortable leftier than thou types, because sitting elections out and third parties are a game others can play, as is revenge. Good luck advancing your agenda without help from Hispanic-, Asian- and African-American voters.
patroclus
@Betty Cracker: I was alive (albeit young) in 1968 and remember it well. This ain’t that. Not even remotely close. This isn’t even as bad as 2008 (although it’s getting close). It was just a frickin state convention about 2-4 delegates (and a mealy-mouthed “apology”). These things happen – I’ve been to some. We’re Democrats – this is how we roll.
Raven Onthill
Supporting the most disruptive elements is a time-tested way of disrupting a political movement. Care to bet this wasn’t done in Nevada?
Chris
@Mike in NC:
Oh boy.
I wonder how many Bush administration retreads would show up again in a Trump administration. Would they have the balls to bring back Cheney or Rumsfeld? … probably not. But people slightly lower on the totem pole could come back. Bolton? Wolfowitz? Definitely John Yoo.
kd bart
Bernie’s true chutzpah is that if he were somehow able to obtain the nomination, he would expect all of Clinton’s supporters to turn around and whole heartedly support him without question.
John D
@Amaranthine RBG: All of it is bullshit. https://www.scribd.com/doc/312952650/nsdp contains the response for all those points.
The voice vote at the start was NOT a clear no, according to Jon Ralston and other impartial reporters there. So bullet point #1 is a lie.
The “58 delegates” included 8 who either were not registered Democrats or were not otherwise valid delegates, and 50 who simply Did. Not. Show. Up. Hard to argue that they should have been seated. There goes bullet point #2.
The Sanders delegation fucked up so many basic rules of parliamentary procedure, again, according to Jon Ralston and others, including Angie Morelli, a Sanders delegate. They simply did not know how to properly submit their motions. And #3 and #4 go down in a heap.
More to the point, the Rules (which were the contention in point #1, and a whole other bullshit talking point) were hammered out by BOTH Sanders and Clinton supporters in early April. They were available for all delegates to peruse well before the Convention. Section V was all about Decorum, and frankly, damn near every fucking Sanders supporter *should* have been ejected and barred.
V. Decorum
a. All delegates, alternates, and guests are entitled to attend and participate in the convention free of harassment or intimidation. Anyone harassing or attempting to intimidate any delegate, alternate, or guest to the convention shall be ejected from the convention immediately and shall forfeit any fees paid for the convention or other convention activities.
b. Any intentional disruption of any convention activities may result in immediate ejection from the convention, including the forfeiture of any fees paid for the convention or other convention activities.
c. Guests invited to speak to the convention shall not have their remarks or presentations interrupted or interfered with in any manner, including auditory or visual distractions from the floor. Violation of this rule may result in immediate ejection from the convention, including the forfeiture of any fees paid for the convention or other convention activities.
d. Noisemakers of any kind are prohibited at the convention.
e. Conversation on the floor should be kept to a minimum out of respect for guests, delegates and speakers. Those delegates, alternates, and guests wishing to converse should exit the floor.
f. The Sergeant(s) at Arms shall have the authority to enforce these rules with the approval of the Convention Chair.
Please, explain to me how the ones booing and calling Barbara Boxer a bitch are proper behavior under these rules. PLEASE.
The fact that Sanders delegates weren’t ejected shows just how fucking restrained the NSDP was in handling them, and they are STILL bitching about their mistreatment. Fuck them, fuck Sanders for his mealy-mouthed statement on the violence, and fuck anyone that supports this kind of boorishness.
NR
@Fair Economist:
A candidate who 55% of the country dislikes and two-thirds think is dishonest is by no means a “great” candidate. Quite the opposite, in fact.
chopper
@The Dangerman:
you’d have thought so, but then again you’re an idiot.
Scarcelight
LOL, all over the web, Clinton supporters are certainly rather ranty today. Clinton’s apparent inability to close the deal is causing a great deal of angst and bloating, apparently.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@NR:
Presidents Eugene McCarthy and Jimmy Carter’s second term heartily endorse this approach.
trollhattan
@patroclus:
Clarence probably loves going to the office just to get away from Ginny, especially when she’s on one of her drunk-dialing jags. He wants nothing to do with retirement.
mr_gravity
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If you can get the time machine the electorate comes with it.
Fair Economist
@gwangung:
FTFY (in a friendly way)
Freemark
I read Bernie’s letter and he was correct on all counts. It is a very reasonable letter so I don'[t know why the fit. He denounced the violence and the threats and then told the truth about the issues at the convention.
The NDP and the DNC may or may not have had the rules on their side to handle things as they did, but when you obviously screw people over the people screwed over are going to get angry whether or not the rigged rules are followed ‘correctly’. Anyone who acted violently needs to be arrested. But when you shit on people don’t expect them to not be angry about it even if the rules state you can shit on them. Especially, as in this case, where it appears they didn’t even follow their own rules fully where they might give some power or voice to Sanders’ supporters.
Most of my Bernie friends will be voting for Hillary in November. The few, who as of this moment aren’t, I hope will come around, but they weren’t Democrats before so effectively no loss according to Hillary supporters. But in reality she may need at least some of them and having state parties and the DNC shit on them because it feels good to do so is really stupid. That is what happened in Nevada. The higher ups wanted to teach the ignorant Bernie supporters a lesson on how things are done in the ‘real world’ and they got the response they were hoping for. So now they can try to make Bernie’s supporters as the bad guys because the more ardent of them reacted seriously poorly. It may work, but they may well win this battle but lose the war in November because the DNC higher ups wanted to put Bernie supporters in their place and enjoy being the superior assholes that they are instead of doing things smarter. Most of the Bernie supporters who acted stupid and childish did it when they became too emotional over their being screwed over. The DNC and NDP acted stupid and childish after much thought and deliberation. I know which ones I have more sympathy for.
To be absolutely clear I think the Bernie supporters acted badly in Nevada, but Bernie isn’t getting the nomination. The DNC, NDP, and the Democratic establishment were much more mature and less emotional and still acted like idiots who have no clue. That worries me much more than some fanatical Bernie supporters being stupid.
trollhattan
@Scarcelight:
Pro tip: LOL instantly self-identifies wingnuts.
gwangung
@Scarcelight:
Rather like Barrack Obama in 2008, eh?
Cripes, you’re stupid.
shortstop
@Scarcelight: The deal has been closed for many weeks. You’ll catch up with that reality eventually.
Betty Cracker
@Raven Onthill: What do you mean?
NR
@JMG:
And if the Dems play out your childish revenge fantasy, they will never win an election again. Which long-term would be a good thing, because it means the party will die and a party that actually cares about the 99% can take its place, but in the short term it’s going to suck pretty hard.
patroclus
@JMG: Agreed. It probably won’t be Franken. I’ll change that to President Javier Becerra to nominate someone to replace Clarence frickin Thomas.
Scarcelight
@shortstop: Yeah, but he’s still in the race, and he’s discovered that Clinton supporters are really incredibly easy to troll, apparently.
D58826
@NR: Neither you or FSM are on the ballot so you go into the general with the candidate you have not the one you dream about. And I am not in the least bit convinced that Bernie, after the GOP dumps its opo research on him, will be any stronger a candidate.
For example
I would pay top dollar front row ‘Hamilton’ prices for a ticket to see Bernie explain his support for the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. The GOP will simply put that on a 24 hour video loop. They won’t even have to talk about the 15 trillion dollars (over 10 years) in tax increases to pay for his 30 trillion dollar legislative package.
Oh wait that doesn’t add up. He must use republican math also
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/bernie_sanders_electability_argument_is_still_a_myth.html
gwangung
@Freemark:
Not seating delegates who were not physically present is indeed a lesson in how things are done in the real world. But I don’t think that’s “shitting” on people.
The Thin Black Duke
@JMG: Thankfully, everybody else in this country who isn’t a privileged straight white guy will Do The Right Thing in November. Again.
Mike J
@joes527:
Handling the shit show is the campaign manager’s job. And it;s pretty hard to call Gore’s manager a hippy. He’s as establishment as it gets. He’s lost campaigns for Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry. You don’t get to lose for that many heavy hitters without being the very definition of establishment insider.
? Martin
@NR:
Yes. Epstein’s brother testified that he had. Trump is in Epstein’s little black sex book (Clinton is not). Trump is on record stating:
Trump is personally named in an underage sex abuse case. Clinton is not. One of Eppstein’s accusers was recruited out of Mar-A-Lago. The media will ask about that.
Eppstein leaves some direct doubt about Trump’s presence from his own testimony:
That shouldn’t be taking for more than it is, but it is a guaranteed launching-off point for the media should this come up.
The problem with someone like Eppstein is that he knew everyone and he had resources sufficient that everyone would have benefitted from them at one point or another because he could literally host everyone. So you have these circumstantial ties to everyone in power, everyone wealthy. It won’t come up because in doing so, everyone gets indicted. It’s a wash. Nobody comes out ahead, and arguably Clinton does because Bill was not subpoenaed in the Eppstein case, but Trump was. Trump is named, Trump’s properties are named. And the behavior in question arguably fits Trump better than it does Clinton, even with Lewinsky out there, just to tell you how fucked up a candidate Trump is.
? Martin
@Matt McIrvin:
Sure, they’re called men. You can’t win the general election on men alone.
Aardvark Cheeselog
@The Dangerman:
Because you are a very special snowflake, I get it.
Which makes you part of the problem.
Tangential question: is there any electoral system where “voting the person, not the party” is not shit-for-brains stupid, if you care about policy outcomes as opposed to feeling good about yourself?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Scarcelight:
The deal is closed. The ranting is frustration with St. Bernard and his supporters refusing to deal with reality, and the all around assholishness. It’s over, bucko.
JMG
@NR: It’s not a fantasy, it’s just a prediction. Did Nader drive the Democrats to the left, or did he leave a Democratic party unable to unite against Bush on anything, and a party hierarchy determined to favor “centrist” candidates in what was obviously going to be a wave election in 2006. I’m not the one who’s going to be mad. I’m retired, well-off and can spend the Trump years on the golf course. Others don’t have that luxury, and they will be mad.
NR
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: On the other hand, destroying your opponent had worked quite effectively on other occasions. So we’ll see how this plays out. I think Bill flying out to “Pedophile Island” on a regular basis is going to be quite damaging. We’ll see.
chopper
@Scarcelight:
dogg, clinton ‘closed the deal’ in march. this is just the opposing team spending the rest of the game trying to put as many people on the injured list as possible out of spite.
NR
@? Martin: All good points. Thanks for engaging honestly.
schrodinger's cat
@shortstop: I was not really looking for a certificate of good behavior from you.
cleek
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
indeed. the (newly-registered Disqus account) Pure are vewy vewy upset at his latest Sanders post.
Mike in NC
MSNBC just trotted out a group of white frat boys who were enthusiastic for The Donald. They couldn’t sat exactly what it was that appealed to them, but ‘angry bully’ was probably close enough.
Hob
Just have to vent a little, may as well be here. One of many very angry friends-of-friends on Facebook, in a thread on the alleged Nevada outrage (which was entirely based on USUncut-type articles), just wrote this:
“Bernie won Oregon last night and he’s only getting 1 delegate to Hilary’s 6. It’s fucking bullshit.”
I broke my “DO NOT EVER reply to the friends-of-friends” rule to say that Oregon has 74 delegates, not 7; that Sanders ended up with a majority of them even counting the 6 superdelegates who declared for Clinton; and that there are also 6 superdelegates who haven’t declared either way yet… so maybe yelling about a very small number that didn’t prevent your candidate from winning is not helpful.
He replied by ignoring everything I said but the word “yelling”. “Who said I was yelling? Bernie has been burned in several states. It gets frustrating after a while.”
OK man, so you were saying “it’s fucking bullshit” quietly, but… now I kind of think you didn’t even know that Oregon has 74 delegates. There’s a lotta people looking for reasons to be outraged. It’s a hell of a drug.
Kropadope
@The Thin Black Duke: He take off your racist blinders for a minute and you’ll realize not everyone fits your stereotypes. A strong majority of the Trump supporters I know are non-white. The world doesn’t always fit your preconceived notions and this us vs. the others mentality you’re helping to cultivate isn’t helping anyone.
D58826
@Aardvark Cheeselog: While I generally vote for the party, I did vote for a very conservative, and later proven corrupt, Gooper for Congress once. There were 8000 reasons why I did it. He was the incumbent and on the House Military affairs committee and was in a good place to fight to keep the Phila. Naval shipyard open along with it’s 8k jobs and related tax revenue. And I make no apologies for voting local self interest over long term public policy goals. Heck my very conservative BIL talked about voting for Senator Joe Biden, since he delivered the bacon to Deleware.
patroclus
@chopper: Not really. Under the rules and because of the 2008 “Hillary precedent,” the deal isn’t really closed until she gets 2383. Which she’s about 100 or so away from today. The deal will be closed with California and New Jersey. Now, we all know because of the “fair reflection” proportional rules that this is going to happen and, knowing this, Sanders could suspend his campaign now, but he doesn’t have to until the deal is actually closed. And, based on what he’s saying, he’s gonna play out the string.
chopper
@Hob:
a-yup. self-righteous indignation sure as shit is.
MazeDancer
@rikyrah:
Delighted! We may need a big, big bench.
Like you mentioned upthread, I, too have restrained myself on Twitter. Party unity. Help all feel included. Be understanding of youthful enthusiasm. Good people like Bernie. Be the adult, leave room for the Kumbaya.
This morning, hearing Bernie deliver that insane insult to every Democrat of the past 7 decades, I lost it. The man is a thief of Democratic hearts, toil and effort that made the Democratic Party structure. He is only interested in his tiny, non-inclusive, egoist agenda. And doesn’t care about Women, Minorities, or anything but, it seems, hearing applause.
A lot of people have been holding back in the name of party unity. Bernie trashed that. And the roar in return is going to be loud. Thank you, Betty, for your strong voice.
And, thank you, choir, for letting me rant that preaching.
chopper
@patroclus:
in the real world, she ‘closed the deal’ the day it became pretty much mathematically impossible for bernie to catch up and pass her. obama didn’t hit that point until later on in the 2008 primary but he did get there as well.
NR
@JMG:
Then perhaps they should direct their anger where it really belongs, at the candidate terrible enough to lose to Trump, and the party establishment that supported her in lockstep every step of the way.
Matt McIrvin
@Aardvark Cheeselog: The original version of the US presidential election process was predicated on electors “voting the person, not the party”. The happy situation lasted for about five seconds into the first campaign in which George Washington was not a candidate.
In the second campaign in which George Washington was not a candidate, things got so screwed up that the Constitution was amended to make sure it would never happen again.
Bobby Thomson
@Tegdirb: Al Giordano is already preparing to primary him.
gwangung
@Kropadope: Anecdotes are not data. And I really wouldn’t go there if I were you.
NR
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
So if David Duke somehow got nominated on the Democratic ticket, you would vote for him? I mean, the person doesn’t matter at all, only the party, right? And he had a “D” beside his name, so….
patroclus
@chopper: It’s still mathematically possible if Bernie wins California and all the other remaining states by, say, 90-10. Granted, as you say that’s “pretty much” not gonna happen and it was really over on 3/15, but, like in Nevada, the rules are the rules. Bernie’s got three more weeks.
Lynn Dee
@[email protected]:
But he didn’t quite get around to saying he sees such reprehensible behavior in the actions of his own supporters, did he? Probably he does see it (I hope), but he hedged his expressed condemnation — I’m guessing so his supporters won’t feel chastened and can maintain their aggrieved heads of steam.
scav
Amusing and revealing to watch certain, ususally white men, freak the bloody hell out when they run into a system/situation where the existing rules aren’t going there way and the existing old-buddy network might not be in their rolodex/contacts list. Within months it’s burn the entire corrupt system down!!!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@The Dangerman:
What you should do is Vote the Person in the Primary, and Vote the Party in the General.
What maters in DC is who controls the leadership. Having Lefty McLeftish in the House or Senate isn’t going to do you or the people you care about much good if Ryan and McConnell are still the leaders. The leaders set the agenda, determine what can be voted on, etc., etc. Similarly with the White House. You need to vote the party so that there are enough votes to change the leadership to the right team.
If you don’t vote for the Democratic nominee this November, you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. You’re not helping the causes you care about.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who learned this simple lesson the hard way after voting for John Anderson in 1980, and Nader in 2000, in states where “it didn’t matter”.)
Bob In Portland
You are so easily manipulated.
MCA1
@Jeffro: Wait, what? Most Gen-Xer’s were less than 10 when Reagan entered office. No doubt a big portion of the phenomenon of older ’40s to mid ’50’s Paulite libertarians had its roots in the Reagan Era’s demonization of government generally. But for me, born smack dab in the middle of the X years, I was way too young to be paying attention to politics until after he was out of office. I think the Reagan years successfully preyed on a lot more coddled from the moment they were born, never hearing the end of how awesome they were, Boomers, giving them license to morph from socially aware youth into IGMFY midcareer yuppies, than it did lay a foundation of anti-government bias in Gen-Xers.
Your point was well made generally. I took issue only with the condemnation of Xers, most of whom graduated from college into underemployment in the early to mid-’90s, and are epitomized more by the drop out of participation in anything resembling the “system” types you see in “Singles” or “Slackers” than the yuppsters in “Wall Street,” who were the very oldest of the generation and arguably Boomers.
shortstop
@Kropadope: Be serious, girl. You know you don’t know any non-white people.
chopper
@patroclus:
oh, is that all? larf.
jsrtheta
@NR: Yeah, Trump’s getting better reviews now. He just locked up the nomination, so it’s expected. Right after the ’84 convention, Mondale was leading Reagan in the polls. In the end, he only carried his home state.
Polls right now are worse than meaningless, and will change day by day. It amazes me that people fail to remember this. We only go through it every four years.
But Bernie will try to Nader this election. Remember this about him, which is something everyone else seems to ignore: He has spent his congressional career purposely choosing the least risky path, and the path that has ensured he will accomplish virtually nothing. This is why he has never been taken seriously by his peers.
Being a professional gadfly makes him exactly like Nader. A gadfly is never responsible. All he has to do is criticize, not take risks.
For years I heard him every Friday, “Brunch with Bernie,” and I learned to actively dislike him then. He’s the Cliff Clavin of politics. He’s always right, everyone else is always wrong. It is no surprise he is leading a Children’s Crusade. And we all know how well the first one ended.
Bob In Portland
@shomi: Really? I heard that progressives are boycotting DKos because of his censorship rules.
shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s just as well, but I’m not the one you need to be thinking about.
SFAW
@BernieBros>HillaryBots:
Right. The last time I saw a “debunking” was when someone tried to convince people that Nader voters, had they decided not to vote for Nader, would have split evenly between Bush and Gore. He referenced some study done by (I think) tenured PoliSci prof somewhere. Even provided a link to the study.
Which was all well and good. Until you read the paper, and realize that the author’s methodology was — wie sagt man? — suspect. As in, a bunch of assumptions not borne out by reality, etc. But it fit the “narrative” that Nader had nothing to do with Gore’s loss, so it was all good.
The only thing that would have made that paper more credible was if the author were Dean Chambers. Wait, did I say “more credible”? Well, whatever.
Rick Taylor
My own evolution was
Sander’s seems like a principled guy and better reflects my political views
->
I think Clinton is better suited to be President by temperament and background, but voting for Sanders could still send a message
->
Ugh. This is not actually the message I wanted sent.
In the future, I’m going to have to think long and hard about supporting a candidate who isn’t a long time Democrat who supports the party.
different-church-lady
@singfoom:
You showed them, that’s what!
SFAW
@Bob In Portland:
.
Maybe you can sign up over there, then boycott the site. That’ll learn ’em!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@janeform: Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kropadope: The non-white folks who support Trump are like black Republicans, friend. Ain’t enough of them to be worth a fart. Bottom line, Trump is going to get probably over 60% of the white vote, mostly stupid angry white guys, sorry. And it won’t matter.
schrodinger's cat
@MazeDancer: He is a distraction to the task at hand, beating the Republicans and their latest monstrous nominee.
Emma
Is it me or are we having an infestation? I recognize our three usual suspects but who are these other Bernie knights?
Lynn Dee
@rikyrah:
Not to mention: Fer crying out loud, Bernie & Company, the door is open: walk on through if you want to. In fact, many of us thought you had. Don’t like the rules in this or that state? Get to work.
Chris
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
The biggest beef I have with this is the easy separation between “person” and “party” (it’s usually rendered as “vote for the person of the best character, not just the person who agrees with you on everything.”) Left unstated is that your political views are kind of a huge part of what makes the “person” and his “character.” Whether you believe women have a right to control their own bodies, whether you believe gay people have the right to marry, whether you believe minorities have a right not to be shot by cops, whether you believe poor people have a right not to starve in the streets… those are all pretty important parts of your “character,” and whether you align with the party that agrees with you or not on all these things is a non-trivial part of what makes “the person.”
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope:
Then I would suggest your sample is far from representative since Trump supporters are overwhelmingly white and his campaign has definite white nationalist overtones.
@NR: What do you get out of this, Stillwell Angel?
@Bob In Portland: And you’re a crackpot.
different-church-lady
@kd bart:
Hell, he expects that now.
Aimai
@Kropadope: you are really confused about what those facts mean.
different-church-lady
@NR:
Show your work on that formula.
cleek
@Kropadope:
got any data?
in CNN’s exit poll data i’ve only found one state where minorities even make it above n/a on the R side: TX, and Cruz won that.
http://www.cnn.com/election/primaries/polls/tx/Rep
the GOP primaries are typically +90% white.
shortstop
@NR: If only poor folks, people of color and women would just listen to what’s best for them and their interests! Their imperviousness to reason is a stubborn problem with which I’ve seen many a helpful Berner wrestle.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
So are you going to STFU about “Pedophile Island” now that you have some actual facts, or are you going to keep bringing it up again in thread after thread while pretending no one has ever addressed it?
Given your past history here, I’m guessing it will be the latter.
different-church-lady
@shomi:
Interestingly, as of last night large sections of DKos rec list read rather like this thread here: Nevada was a tantrum too far for even them.
Aardvark Cheeselog
@NR:
I tell you what. If that ever happens, you can get back to me.
In the meanwhile, why don’t you try restricting your hypotheticals to situations that might actually arise in the real world. Because if you think you made some kind of point with that remark, you should realize that all you managed was to make it clear that you’re a fool.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Sorry, but I’m calling bullshit on this. Show us some actual polling, not claims that a friend of a friend totally says he’s voting for Trump.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@SenyorDave: Indeed he was.
Purity kills.
Look at the death rates for African American males in the Reagan and Bush years vs. the Carter, Clinton and Obama years. That’s just one example.
These really are life-and-death choices we make. Waiting for the purer candidate to “earn our vote” gets people killed.
Cheers,
Scott.
NR
@shortstop: Well it’s good to know that poor folks, people of color and women are incapable of making a mistake and nominating a shitty candidate. I mean, we have so many warning signals about Hillary, but since the people you mentioned are infallible, we don’t have to worry about anything. Carry on.
Yellowdog
@Kazanir: Too late for indie run. But he will try to discredit Cllnton and do as much damage to the Democratic Party as possible. Prepare for Bernie inspired riots in Philadelphia.
NR
@Aardvark Cheeselog: It’s a simple hypothetical. If David Duke was running on the Democratic ticket, would you vote for him? Yes or no?
Aimai
@scav: so true. And i get the same smell of outraged white guy from all the bernie supporters who are eager to point to the passion of the revolution as a triumph for bernie and then swivel to scilding everyone else for noticing that passion has turned putrid snd hate filled and directed at more than half the democratic party. Not only did we not choose bernie for our nominee but we didnt elect any of his dead enders national hall monitor. People who want bernie style politics are going to get it–warts and all. And we are not obligated to pretend he snd his fanaticsl followers ardnt shitting the national bed.
schrodinger's cat
@shortstop: I have nothing against BC, she is my favorite FPer. I think her initial myopia regarding Sanders is understandable, Trump’s win would not be an existential crisis for her or JC for that matter.
scav
@SFAW: I believe the most effective techniqus is to lurk at DKos and then sign up, tear up your id card in a snit because you’ve been silenced and u welcomed.
NR
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The irony of a Hillary supporter whining that their opponents are going to get people killed is rich.
Oh, I forgot. Arabs don’t count.
Bob In Portland
H. Clinton’s huge victory in Louisiana doesn’t seem quite so impressive now.
Aimai
@NR: oh come now-bernie isnt nearly as bad as david duke! His actual policies are nearly identical with hillary’s.
Miss Bianca
@NR:
God, do you have the SLIGHTEST idea what a racist, sexist fuckstick you sound like, NimRod? To say nothing of pouty and pissy? Evidently not. What the fuck are you on about? “The people have spoken but they’re the WRONG people, so they’re WRONG.”
Take your pouty, pissy, sexist white-entitled bs and cram it, clown.
Librarian
@NR: And you’re seriously saying that Bernie would have done better in the general than Hillary? Really?
El Caganer
Damn. It only took a few months for him to morph from left-wing justice warrior to the Democratic Party’s own version of The Donald. The convention here in Philly could wind up looking like the circus the Republicans will have in Cleveland. Think I’ll go out to West Chester for a couple days while it’s in progress.
D58826
@NR: Well in that case, if Hitler or PolPot were running as a republican, I probably would. But on the democratic side in 2016 Hitler is not running, pol pot is not running, and David Duke is not running. Hillary is a boringly mainstream democrat. Bernie is an eccentric left wing sorta democrat. So as another commenter pointed out your example proves nothing other than that you are a fool.y
different-church-lady
Ah, there we have it again at 294: Black people who don’t vote for Bernie are the real racists.
Amazing how often this little phenomenon happens, considering the fact that it claimed to be non-existent.
Bob In Portland
These death threats. Has anyone heard the tapes of them? Are the police investigating? Anyone see a transcript of them? Who were the death threats directed against?
Anyone have a link to any information besides Wasserman Schultz’s interpretation of what happened?
I’ve heard it was texts and I’ve heard it was phone messages. Anyone know?
schrodinger's cat
Also enlightening will be how much of the social democracy that Bernie promised survives in Western Europe. Austria just voted for a right wing head of state.
Bob In Portland
@NR: She came, she saw, they died.
NR
@Miss Bianca:
There was nothing racist or sexist in what I wrote. Try reading it again.
I never said they were the “WRONG” people. I said they nominated a shitty candidate. Which they objectively did. BTW, a lot of white guys voted for Hillary too. They made the same mistake.
Take your bullshit accusations of racism and sexism and kindly cram them where the sun don’t shine.
singfoom
@NR:
I’m less concerned about foreigners being killed than our own citizens. Maybe you think that’s a horrible position, but I think it’s pretty goddamn typical and human. I’m more worried for our non-white fellow citizens if Trump is elected than I am about Arabs.
Emma
@Miss Bianca: Ole! Brava!
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Bob In Portland: Any other goodies from the FSB Big Book Of Agitprop you’d like to share?
singfoom
@Bob In Portland:
They were directed against Roberta Lange. Not sure what DWS has to do with at all.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=roberta+lange+death+threats+audio
Audio is there Bob: http://realtimepolitics.com/2016/05/17/bernie-sanders-supporters-sending-death-threats-to-nevada-officials/
gwangung
@NR:
Maybe to privileged folks. But you don’t seem particularly self aware.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady:
Except that the post at #294 doesn’t mention Sanders at all. Perhaps the reason why you keep seeing something that’s not there starts in your head.
different-church-lady
@NR:
I know what you mean when you say “so many” — this “NR” person keeps repeating them every 15 comments.
D58826
@different-church-lady: LBJ knew the game was over when he lost Cronkite. Hopefully Bernie and his supporters reach the same conclusion now that they have lost KOS
LAO
@Bob In Portland:
Here’s one link
boatboy_srq
@Chris: It’s not the potential Bush retreads the scare me – it’s the Bush rejects.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Try following the thread, junior.
Or don’t. Frankly I couldn’t give a shit.
Bob In Portland
In Oregon Clinton got the votes of the wealthy, in suburbs. Techs for computer companies, Nike employees, etc. Ultimately the only county she won outright was Gilliam County out along the Columbia in wheat country, which she won 101 to 100. She lost in Portland where the largest populations of minorities are.
The Thin Black Duke
@Miss Bianca: What’s sad is that these type of Bernie Sanders supporters have no fucking idea why people of color ain’t buying what they’re trying to sell.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@NR:
They only count when you get to soapbox your moral superiority to everyone else, duh.
Immanentize
@Bob In Portland: Mr. Google can be your friend too! Just ask him.
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-supporters-nevada.html
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@LAO: Hokey smokes, that last one they called. What the everliving fuck.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: I read 294. Did you transpose the numbers? Actually, I know the game here. You guys can’t help playing the skin game because normal insults aren’t enough. When you accuse people of racism when racism isn’t the issue then you become a racist. You, church lady, are a racist. An ugly racist.
chopper
@LAO:
don’t bother. it’s clear to bob that the whole thing is a setup, a ‘false flag operation’.
if there’s a conspiracy theory out there, guarangoddamnteed bob’s gonna latch onto it like a tick on a cock.
D58826
@different-church-lady: Rather than argue with B-I_P and NR I think I will go do something productive – like explain to the fire hydrant out on the curb why water runs down hill.
patroclus
@D58826: The GOS yesterday was amazing! After months of utterly dominating it, Bernie supporters were overwhelmed with, shall we say, different interpretations of the Nevada Convention and its aftermath than they were pushing. My personal view remains that it’s all a tempest, but for the GOS, it was a watershed.
glory b
@schrodinger’s cat: Me too.
My friends and family members know that I will jump on the “told you so” train in a heartbeat.
All aboard!
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: I’m sorry, did you say something?
NR
@gwangung: Today I learned that saying that people of color and women are human beings capable of making mistakes is racist and sexist. Who knew?
Shell
Well, judging by his televised rallies, (and CNN, god bless em, has made sure weve seen lots of them.) there havent been many non-white faces in the audience. Unless you count that one black guy you got sucker-punched by a Trump supporter.
different-church-lady
@D58826: Odds are the fire hydrant already knows.
patroclus
@D58826: It’s a waste of time. The bald-faced liar will never admit that there really were death threats or vile name-calling phone messages or threats to Lange’s grandchildren or anything of the sort. He’s more likely to believe that it was the CIA and Hillary personally planned and implemented the whole thing.
SFAW
@scav:
Wow, I need a card for my id? Half-assed joke aside — I think you may be right. BiP can burn it right after he burns his draft card. [Please note the self-restraint I exhibited by not writing it as “d(r)aft card.”]
LAO
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: You know, I didn’t think 2016 could top 2008 in awfulness, but I was wrong. I wish the primary was over.
gwangung
@NR: But you never learned that people of color have their own valid criteria that may not match with others.
Hard lesson for progressives to learn at that; much easier for them to be patronizing pricks.
LAC
@The Dangerman: no, but you can shut your principled ass up if there are policies you don’t like. Sit out but shut up.
Mike J
Shell
@Bob In Portland: Oh, so now even her votes arent pure enough?
The Thin Black Duke
Maybe I’m cynical, but when Bernie finally gets hit with the bill for his doomed presidential campaign, it’s going to be remarkable how quickly he’s going to step in line.
chopper
@Mike J:
DWS could totes make that happen but she’s in the bag for clinton dontchaknow.
LAC
@D58826: or just argue with the fire hydrant. It is far more useful then boob in Portland and NoReality and a better conversationalist.
NR
@gwangung:
I’m sure they do have their own criteria. Doesn’t change the fact that they (along with some white guys) nominated a shitty candidate. And it doesn’t make it racist and a sexist to point that out.
Bob In Portland
@patroclus: Hey, you called me a liar the other day and I showed you were wrong. You were huffing over Trump’s threat to deport eleven million and I point out that Obama has deported more people than any other president, then asked you if threatening is worse than actually deporting. I guess that you’re the liar. But when you live in a bubble that’s to be expected.
But, you know, you don’t need 45% of the Democratic Party to beat Trump. Let me know when you guys are ready to kiss and make up, and what you plan on giving to Sanders supporters at the convention. Maybe tax cuts for the wealthy, eh?
Shell
I have a feeling that most black people are sick and tired of being told who they should vote for.
Mike J
@chopper:
We start by annexing BC.
shortstop
@Bob In Portland: And when you say she lost in your town (informal slogan: Keep Portland White!) where the “largest populations of minorities are,” you mean, “Even though Portland is consistently ranked as one of the most Caucasian largish cities in America, we do have a few minorities here. I don’t know how many, and as we’ve established, I don’t know how to google, but I’ll try using this to show that Bernie’s a hit with racial minorities despite mounds of objective evidence to the contrary.”
different-church-lady
@NR: I’ve a feeling you didn’t actually learn a damn thing today.
Bob In Portland
@NR: Wait, one of those links, the one from the NY Times, shows a black woman holding a Sanders poster. There’s something wrong. I thought that black voters and women all stood in solidarity with the neoliberals. Whoops.
Maybe she’s a self-hating black woman. Yeah, that must be the ticket.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Must be the teachers. You use race as a cudgel then you’re a racist, lady.
different-church-lady
@Mike J: FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT!!!
shortstop
@The Thin Black Duke: Bet Jane wishes she’d grabbed an even more golden parachute when she left Burlington College after enduring its destruction.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: There’s that noise again.
patroclus
@The Thin Black Duke: Helping him with campaign debts, I think, will be a major part of the ultimate compromise that will get him aboard. That, and a speaking role at the convention, Sanders delegates on the platform committee and promises to keep his seniority in the Senate and no Hillary-supported primary challenger.
But one of the amazing things about 2016 and 2008 has been that challengers can continue to fundraise – by crowdfunding – even after they’re effectively beaten early in the primaries. It used to be that their big money supporters would simply say “no more money down this rathole” and they’d drop out early because of money issues. Hillary in 2008 and Bernie in 2016 have changed the whole paradigm, which despite Citizen’s United, has meant that even states late in the primary season still get to have their voice. Which I think is a good thing, despite making the process much longer and (in its later stages) more contentious.
SiubhanDuinne
Just stopping by to do my bit for the TBU.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland:
An espresso and a puppy.
gwangung
@NR: Doesn’t change the reality that what you THINK are facts are affected by your privilege. And that their choice is BETTER for them than the alternative.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne: You came at a bad time. The race-baiting freak-flag was just hoist upon the poll.
gwangung
@Bob In Portland: Heh. So say the twit with unexamined assumptions
Bob In Portland
@shortstop: Hmm, when was the last time you were in Portland?
And are you accusing all Oregonians as being racist. One aspect of racism is branding all people one thing, usually a negative thing. I want to know how wide that brush of yours is.
Hillary came close to winning in a couple of counties that are extremely white and extremely rich. Your point is that because the town with the largest minority population in Oregon voted for Sanders that all Oregonians are racist.
Beautiful. You may feel pretty good about yourselves there in Balloon Juice Land, but you’re pretty despicable.
patroclus
@Bob In Portland: I’m willing to kiss and make up with all Bernie supporters, but not bald-faced liars like you. But go ahead and call me a Nazi again like you always do. You’re a bald-faced liar, you know you are, and responding to you is an utter waste of time. Deal with it, Nazi lover!
shortstop
@Bob In Portland: most of your comments are word-for-word identical to long-established Republican talking points.
NR
@different-church-lady: Well that’s clearly not true. I learned that it’s racist and sexist to say that people of color and women are capable of making mistakes like every other human being on the planet. I’m glad I had BJ to educate me on that fact. Thanks, guys!
Matt McIrvin
@The Thin Black Duke: If Trump can get about 66% or 67% of the white vote, he wins. But that’s a tall order; that’s like Reagan vs. Mondale 1984 numbers.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: It’s okay, you’ve already proved yourself to be a racist. You can shut up now, dclady.
different-church-lady
@NR: I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
divF
@NR: No, the assumption without any shred of doubt that they are objectively wrong and you are objectively right is racist and sexist.
NR
@gwangung: “My privilege” is what makes two-thirds of the country think Hillary Clinton is a liar. Okay.
Do you guys even think about what you write, or do you just bang on the keyboard because you like the sound it makes?
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: You are so easily manipulated.
Bob In Portland
@The Thin Black Duke: So it’s all settled, the predictions are in. Your lifeless cadaver of a candidate is going to sweep into glory in November clutching those jewels that the House of Saud gave her.
shortstop
@Bob In Portland: is it really possible you’re this dishonest? Juicers, help me out; I’ve been gone for a while. Is this character a Trumpian concern troll, or just the least self-aware person I’ve seen all week next to TheDangerman and NR?
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Would you stop talking to me? I have no time for racists like you.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: With pleasure.
Bob In Portland
@gwangung: Patronizing pricks? Wasn’t that the old name of this site?
NR
@divF: Hillary Clinton’s terrible favorability and honesty numbers are objective facts. It’s not racist and sexist to point out that a candidate with those numbers is a bad candidate. But somehow I’m not surprised that you guys are claiming it is.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: It would be my honor to respect your request.
shortstop
@different-church-lady: No live animals until they take anger management classes. And decaf only. Safety first.
Richard Mayhew
@shortstop: MOSTLY B
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Certainly I would take no pleasure in annoying you.
Uncle Cosmo
@The Dangerman: You show the fuck up & vote for Democrats downticket no matter what you do with the Presidential line. Is your state/CD/LD so goddamned safe you can blow it off? You sure? You sure???
FTR I live in Baltimore, in Elijah Cummings’s district (MD-07) — which has got to be at least as safe for Dems as wherever you are — & I wouldn’t dream of not voting.
orogeny
@NR:
I’m curious…are you a bar manager in Birmingham? I swear I’ve argued with you on Facebook a couple of times. If not, y’all are singing from identical hymnals.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: This will be the last you hear from me, per your desires.
Bob In Portland
@Matt McIrvin: He seems to be doing really well in all those states where H. Clinton won 80% of the votes.
The Thin Black Duke
@shortstop: Not for nothing, but the day when Bob said shit about John Lewis was the day when this motherfucker was dead to me. Life is too damned short to get caught in a sick circle jerk with an useless troll.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: I thought you left.
NR
@Matt McIrvin: Well Trump is certainly no Reagan. But Hillary is a worse candidate than Mondale. So it looks like we’ve got a race to the bottom on our hands.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Most assuredly, I have no desire to continue a conversation with someone who finds my contributions to be lacking.
Emma
@shortstop: He’s a man who hold his greatest admiration for a former head of the KGB. Enough said.
Bob In Portland
@Miss Bianca: Miss Bianca, you are a racist. I’d explain again but you’re not worth it.
And I didn’t see you marching in the sixties either.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: And of course, I would never deign to bring this up again. And certainly not as my last word.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: So, once again, I would like to reiterate that will henceforth honor your request to cease all communications with you, now and in the future.
Trollhattan
Jeez, leave for awhile and the joint not only doesn’t clear out, it’s completely infested now. Luckily, Orkin man is on speed dial.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: You shalt have to ask twice, I can assure you.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Nor thrice.
patroclus
@shortstop: He’s a name-calling bald-faced liar and a Nazi. His presence ruins every single thread in which he participates.
pacem appellant
Very very late to this party (I lost my job so I’m looking furiously for a new one. My child needs uninterrupted healthcare asap). But I just wanted to say that the Bernie-supporter kerfuffle is on the Internet, but not really anywhere else. No Bernie or Hillary support out there in the wild knows what’s going on, and would likely shrug when it was explained to them. So while I, like many here, do not approve of Sanders’s stance, it’s wonk and most people aren’t tuned in enough to care.
different-church-lady
@NR: PRESIDENT DUKAKIS IS AN OBJECTIVE FACT!
divF
@NR: Your bald-faced assertion that more people think Hillary is dishonest than approve of her is somewhere in the range between “lies, damned lies, and statistics”, and “78% of all statistics are made up”.
IAC, it doesn’t matter. This is the candidate the party has nominated, and after the fact sneering on your part *specifically at women and POC* is still sexist and racist condescension. You disgust me. You should dress up in your white sheet and hood elsewhere.
The Thin Black Duke
@patroclus: Thing is, all people have to do is ignore him, but they don’t.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: However, before I depart, I should like to point out that someone has called you a name-calling bald-faced liar and a Nazi whose presence ruins every single thread in which you participate.
I shall not repeat that in any replies to you going forward.
Linnaeus
The thread might be dead by now, but here is a counterpoint to Betty’s argument that Sanders will pull a Nader on the Democratic Party:
shortstop
@The Thin Black Duke: I shall now that I know the score. Many thanks.
Bergman
I wonder if Sanders is going to discipline Joan Kato?
Trollhattan
@divF:
They really haven’t changed a note of this tune since they first wrote it in 1992, why should 2016 be any different? Funny thing is, like the Republicans projected their “Affirmative action president” beliefs on Obama, then were surprised each and every time he shellacked them” they’re doing the same to Hillary, only it’s been going on for much, much longer. Pretending to be a “concerned lefty” is just an odd twist on the same song, like a drunk Madonna changing the lyrics to Like a Virgin.
She’ll have the last laugh.
cleek
@shortstop:
the latter.
also… whenever BJ breaks the pie filter, people always come to me and tell me that they need it fixed ASAP because they can see Bob again. like patroclus said ” His presence ruins every single thread in which he participates. “
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: I should also point out that other people have suggested the course of action you have so kindly requested of me be taken unilaterally. Certainly this is a good place to make my final word.
SiubhanDuinne
@different-church-lady:
Oh, I was here earlier and having been reading through the thread on and off for hours now. I was just boosting the numbers a tad.
patroclus
@pacem appellant: I agree with you. It was just a state convention and it was a puny little argument over about 2-4 delegates. Most Bernie supporters are loyal Democrats and are voting for him for good and valid reasons – there really aren’t many substantive issue differences between Hillary and Bernie at all. They’ve both pulled the party to the left (Bernie on the minimum wage, financial reform and trade; Hillary on immigration, guns and civil rights), and that’s a good development, in my view. There’ll be unity ultimately, except for a few outliers. And there’s just 3 remaining weeks of this to go.
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
Don’t forget the nutty conspiracy theories. If the UN and Doctors Without Borders say that a refugee camp in Syria was bombed, Bob knows it’s not true because he knows some guy on the internet who looked at a few pictures and declared them fakes.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Once again, you have my assurance that my prose shall not be darkening your screen again.
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: He’s a crackpot. He was a crackpot long before Trump came along.
Bob In Portland
@NR: Because a lifeless candidate, dripping with jewels from the House of Saud (figuratively), surrounded by DNC grifters and Big Pharma execs and their lobbyists, Dr. Strangelovians who are ready to march on Moscow and Tehran, energy corporatists, is going to lead the poor out of poverty. It will be glorious.
The last I saw over sixty percent of Americans don’t trust her and don’t like her. If they read Balloon Juice they wouldn’t support her supporters either.
NR, racism is the fallback defense for these people. Essentially, underneath it all, is “Don’t raise our taxes because black people in Georgia voted for Hillary.” It’s a pretty sad commentary on these fools, but necessary to keep their places of privilege. Or imagined privilege.
H. Clinton will probably get the nomination and she’ll probably limp across the finish line. But the size of her victory will speak volumes. How many Dems will she carry on her coattails? It’ll be the same damned setup that her husband and Obama used to remain right-of-center while “lifting the chains off Wall Street”.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob, I don’t know if you’re still here, because you haven’t said anything in a while, but I just want to make sure you understand that I intend to honor your request.
Brachiator
One of the talk radio stations interviewed a number of Bernie people who were at his event in Carson, California.
Only one of the people interviewed said that she would vote for Clinton if she were the nominee. Everyone else said that they would rather not vote at all than vote for Hillary Clinton. A common theme to these people was that the Clintons represented an oligarchy as corrupt and foul as the Bush family.
Others sounded much more like Naderites than PUMAs. They yearn for a new, pure, clean political order, and they are adamant that the Democratic Party cannot deliver unless Sanders is the standard bearer.
D58826
@patroclus: At one level it is a tempest in a democratic teapot. But at a deeper level if Bernie and the progressives that he leads want to be players in the party going forward they have got to brush up on their people skills. Call people c**nts and criminals will not make for long lasting friendships. Like it or not political movements/parties are based on people developing long term personal relationships. The most obvious and most joked about is the rubber chicken circuit.
Mike J
@different-church-lady: Bad news for bernie bots who think annexing BC would actually win it for them:
NR
@divF:
It’s not made up. It’s well-supported by polling data.
I specifically mentioned on multiple occasions that lots of white men voted for Hillary too. But really, I’ve been hearing bullshit accusations of racism and sexism from you guys for pretty much the entire primary now. Do you think they bother me at this point? They don’t. Mostly, I just think it’s really sad that you have to resort to bullshit name-calling because you don’t have any decent arguments.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Uh, Miss Bianca is my age or younger. It’s hard to participate in marches that took place before one was born.
patroclus
@The Thin Black Duke: I’ll try. The good thing is that it’s a beautiful day here in Chicago, Hillary is on the cusp of clinching the nomination, the Horned Frogs are in the Round of 16 at the NCAA tennis championship and I’m off for a bike ride on my day off (although I might stay to make the TBogg). And we’re gonna beat the Fascist in November!
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob, I’ve got to apologize. I suspect you have the compulsion to answer every comment addressed to you, and I assure you there is no need in this case. I just wanted to take every step necessary for your understanding that I fully intend to honor your simple request that I no longer address you in any fashion, as you would probably find that to be an irritation, given the personality quirks you have displayed over these many years. This will be my last comment on the matter.
Bob In Portland
@Emma: As opposed to the former head of the CIA being president of the ol’ USA? Or the son of the former CIA chief being president? Or the former spokesman for the CIA op importing Nazis (the Congress For Freedom) being the president? Or the former member of the Warren Commission and best friend of the CIA not even being elected but appointed to the presidency. Oh, those are large stones you’re throwing from your glass house, Emma.
The best I can say for Putin is that he’s acting in his country’s self-interests and against western capital. Which is more than can be said about Balloon Juice villagers.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: And with this, consider the issue closed.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: But, apparently, even harder for BJers to recognize snark directed at them.
D58826
@Brachiator: Well unless these folks are willing to do the 24×7 grunt work rather than just boo from the cheap seats, Bernie is going to be a very lonely standard bearer. And unless they figure out how to finance that 24×7 grunt work Bernie will have to get his standard from the goodwill store.
NR
@Brachiator: The Democratic party made the choice to get in bed with the big banks and the corporate interests. You shouldn’t be surprised that there are people out there who don’t like that.
Emma
@Bob In Portland: No glass house at all. A million bad Americans don’t change the facts. You’re in love with a psychopathic murderer.
gbear
This Bob asshole is one sore loser, isn’t he?
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Oh, and let me just add that I will encourage other BJ “villagers” to join me in this non-responsiveness going forward.
D58826
@Bob In Portland: Aside from the fact that so was Stalin is there a point to your first paragraph?
patroclus
@Brachiator: Yeah, but California hasn’t voted yet – most of the rest of the country has. Feelings harden right around primary day; they soften thereafter. I suspect that if you interview Bernie supporters here in Illinois, the answers would be different (at least according to my anecdotal evidence they have).
@D58826: I think the fact that we’re running against Trump will help the unification process.
Emma
@different-church-lady: You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? *snicker*
Trollhattan
@patroclus:
I am completely ready for somebody to drill into the rich strata of the many similarities between Trump and Mussolini.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
It’s weird how you keep assigning Trump’s weaknesses to Hillary, from Trump’s actual known presence at parties with underaged girls being assigned to Bill and Trump’s abysmal favorability ratings being assigned to Hillary.
Is there a particular reason you’re taking Trump’s greatest weaknesses and insisting that they belong solely to Hillary while ignoring them in Trump?
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob, before I honor your request, I do feel the need to point out that you have been accused of being an “asshole” and a “sore loser.” I would suggest you make the same request of this person that you have made of me, and I’m sure that person would gladly honor your request just as vigorously as I have
Trollhattan
@gbear:
I’m not sure, losing seems to invigorate him. What’s the DSM# for that?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Trollhattan: Obligatory driftglass.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Bob In Portland:
Yes, because partisan alignment is starkly racial in those states, and Southern black people have been voting for Clinton. Is this a reason not to support Clinton?
Meanwhile, Sanders has been winning most of the states that are very white. Many of those are deep red states that will vote for Trump, and some aren’t. Clinton’s stronghold is the racially diverse East Coast, particularly south of New England; Trump isn’t doing very well there.
Bob In Portland
@Brachiator: I hope they consider Jill Stein. You know, if Bernie doesn’t win. Or maybe Clinton and Wasserman Schultz, in their imperial dictatorial way, will so insult Sanders supporters that they all walk away from the corporatist Dems. And their pilot fish supporters. Hope your grants all come in.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
As with so many words, Bob, your definition of “snark” seems to differ from everyone else’s. Will you be issuing a Bob-to-English dictionary anytime soon, or will we have to keep guessing?
Aleta
Sanders seems to be having a deja vu delusion about the 60s working out OK this time as long he”s at the wheel.
I used to think one reason for his continuing was his caring about his supporters and contributors. Now I think he’s using them for the “greater good” in his mind, the arrival of the revolution. That’s been done before, including by Marxists in the 60s.
Age-wise he doesn’t have time for incremental change or to follow rules that don’t work for him right now. The age and future of his younger supporters don’t seem to matter to him as much as it does to Obama (who also believes in miracles, but also says: stay positive, act decent, and never give up).
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob… it’s alright if I call you Bob, yes? Bob, listen, something has come to my attention. There’s this person at 479 — or it it 749? I get so confused and I transpose numbers sometimes — but no matter… Listen, Bob, I just want to make this quick so I can get on with honoring your request, but there’s a person at roughly 479 who thinks that for some reason I might be intentionally needling you.
And I just want to assure you — assure you in a truly comprehensive and final way — that this is not at all the case, and that my intent is pure.
You shan’t hear from me again on this matter.
Bob In Portland
@Matt McIrvin: Like Michigan.
Meanwhile, what you’re saying is what I said two months ago and for which I got a lot of shit. While Balloon Juicers were touting Clinton as the Great Emanicpator, I said that she wasn’t going to win those states anyway. I guess you’re agreeing with me, finally. Okay, it took awhile but thanks for the little that passes for sanity here.
patroclus
@Trollhattan: That’s a good link – there are a lot of similarities between Trump and the Italian brand of Fascism. I think that once we get our Bernie-supporting attack dogs on board, there will be much more focus on Trump and the “issues” upon which he stands.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Trump also has terrible favorability, yes. However his numbers are going up and Hillary’s are still dropping. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was ahead of her after the conventions.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Well, if I get enough requests I can explain the snark in every request, perhaps setting it apart in parentheses. But wouldn’t you consider it condescending?
By the way, have you gotten anymore info on that twist party in Mexico City?
Bob In Portland
@NR: Well, the corporatists would win either way.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob? Hi. It’s me again. I just wanted to make sure you saw my final statement to you at 489. (or is it 948? Hmmmm… wait a second, I better go double-check…)
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: OK, I double-checked, and it is 489!
OK, so what was I saying?
Oh, yes! So, Bob… You do prefer Bob, yes? Or maybe I should play it safe and call you Robert. But then again, perhaps your name is Roberta and I shouldn’t be making these assumptions… hang on, I’m going to think this over for a bit…
D58826
@patroclus: Hope so. The PUMA’s mostly saw the light in 2008 and McCain, his VP choice not withstanding, was mostly a reasonable mainstream conservative republican.
It’s just that the young’ins are the future of the party and many of the points that Bernie brings up are legitimate. There is to much money in the political system. While I don’t think the democrats should unilaterally disarm in the money race but it would be nice to see more campaign funding coming from other sources than just the financial sector. The idea of checks and balances works there as well as in the three branches of government.
I’m just afraid that on the Bernie side supporters will take the burn the place down message to heart w/o having something to replace it. And on the Hillary side the establishment will say we don’t need these know nothing whippersnappers. We can win the way we always have (not that they always have). It’s like the baseball team that doesn’t invest in its farm system because the major league roster still has one or two more pennant runs left in them
Bob In Portland
@patroclus: Read George Seldes’ 1943 book, Facts and Fascism, the best book on fascism written contemporarily with WWII.
Mussolini’s rise to power was funded in large part by Italian corporatists. You know, like Hillary. He was fond of invading Africa, like Hillary.
divF
@NR:
I don’t see any “dishonest” numbers in the link. Those are made up ?
So only most of the time you use a condescending racist and sexist trope?
I’m done with you. You’re going in the “skip the post” category that Bob in Portland now lives in.
Betty Cracker
@NR: So only the pure who plan to sit out the election (i.e., morons) are concerned about money in politics and wealth inequality now? What a steaming load of horseshit.
ETA: Woohoo! TBU achieved!
gbear
@Aleta:
Yes! Bernie and his followers are like Dr. William Haber in Ursula LeGuin’s ‘The Lathe of Heaven’, thinking that if only THEIR dreams could come true, they could create the perfect world – the greater good. Of course, it didn’t work out all that well for Dr. Haber, or Portland Oregon for that matter.
Bob In Portland
@gbear: Sanders won here in Oregon last night, by nine percentage points.
That kind of loser? Okay, you’re forgiven. If you read the MSM you might have missed it. They don’t report much on Sanders besides saying that he should quit because they’re measuring for the crown and it takes a lot of concentration.
Amir Khalid
Fünfhundert!
ETA: Ähm … Fünfhundertdrei.
patroclus
@D58826: But we do need those young whippersnappers and most Bernie supporters are welcome. Just as Sanders needs to tone it down in three weeks, Hillary needs to be far more magnanimous as well. I think she should have made a statement last night along those lines after she won Kentucky. Her not doing so, when she had a national stage, was a mistake in my view. In 2008, Obama was already doing that at this stage.
And that should be the TBogg, so I’m off for a bike-ride.
Brachiator
@NR:
The difference between and adult and a child is that an adult realizes that the simplistic idea of a Big Bad Wolf is the stuff of fairy tales.
Berniebots are infantile if they truly believe that big banks and corporate interests are the biggest and baddest Big Bad Wolf.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Hey Bob! (Which is what I’m going to call you for the time being until I’ve completed my think about what I should call you in the future when I’m no longer addressing you…) It looks like someone else at #499 (or is it 666? Sometimes I transpose numbers…) already had the great idea that you and I had! Great minds and all that, huh?
Okay, so just wanted to say that before I go off and think about what I’m not going to call you when I don’t talk to you in the future, starting now.
D58826
@Betty Cracker: and a standing ovation!!!!!!!!!!
Applejinx
@Amaranthine RBG: My take on that is: all that is correct but irrelevant. It’s a black mark on the Nevada Democratic party, but Sanders was not going to win and more importantly the way his people were acting was NOT BETTER than any sketchiness the convention chair was up to.
And that matters, and that makes me real unhappy. You cannot beat someone playing fast and loose with the rules, by playing fast and loose with the rules and then claiming purity. I’ll excuse sketchiness from the Clinton people, such as that procedural bullshit brought on by a venue security concern. I will NOT excuse it from Bernie or his people in Nevada. They fucked it up and I need them to set a higher standard, otherwise I’ll straight up go with Clinton who is more experienced at sketchy wheeler-dealering, and whom I think can balance that with positive agendas and get shit done, cynically but realistically.
You CANNOT convince yourself you’re purity and above wrongdoing, and then get sketchy. Bernie’s doing that and it suggests he doesn’t see when he’s being cynical, and that is a serious problem. Hils knows when she’s pushing the limit, and has been going all-out to win, but she fucking knows where the line is and it seems Bernie does not, which is worse.
…holy god, TBogg already?
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Hell, even children understand it.
gbear
@Bob In Portland:
That reply tells me that you are exactly that kind of loser. Loser.
artem1s
when I was in college, twice I had professors urge me and other students to go to the administration to complain about another professor they did not like. It was couched as 1 ) he doesn’t contribute to the department 2) he is a bad teacher 3) he doesn’t do his job anymore 4) his work is substandard or he doesn’t publish anymore. Every single one of these professors were white males and tenured and most of their real complaints were more about professional jealousy than job performance. They were generally pissed about anyone else getting more attention than they were getting, and saw anything good for someone else as a negative for them. And they had no problem egging on students to complain to the Dean or President about stuff they wanted changed, knowing full well that any unintended consequences would have no affect on their jobs or status with the university. They loved having little sycophants hanging on their every word and threatened students who wouldn’t do their bidding with bad grades and other punishments (usually as empty as their shirts). They were not only bitter, but also vindictive. The final time I had this happen, instead of fretting about it, I told the old fart that it was his job to fix it, so why did he think a student could do something he clearly couldn’t do no his own? And why did he have such a hard time working with his colleagues and how was it my job to fix that?
Sanders immediately reminded me of these jerks. now that it is time for him to take responsibility for hiring Devine and Weaver and letting them run this horrible campaign, he is out to lunch. I don’t have much hope that he or his delegates will behave any better in Philly than they did in NV. California could be very ugly given some of the stuff that has happened there in the last few weeks.
D58826
@Applejinx:
I would call it politics as usual since the time of the cave man.
NR
@divF:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Hillary+Clinton+honesty+numbers
Oh no! Whatever shall I do without your bullshit accusations of racism and sexism? I can’t imagine how I’ll go on.
Linnaeus
@D58826:
I wonder if social media is distorting the picture somewhat and making the “burn it down” contingent look larger than it is. The polling data I’ve seen indicates that most Sanders supporters (like my mom and stepdad) will support Clinton in the general. If I had voted for Sanders in my state’s caucus, I would also be one of those voters.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob… you still here?
NR
@Brachiator:
Yes, the big banks and the mega corporations are benevelonet forces in US politics and only have our best interests at heart.
Isn’t it interesting that, the more one defends Hillary Clinton and her wing of the party, the more one sounds like a Republican?
different-church-lady
@NR:
I also find it interesting that the more one attacks Clinton, the more one sounds like a Republican.
D58826
@Linnaeus: Could be. Being an old fuddy duddy I’m still more comfortable with my quill pen and ink pot than I am with social media. I voted for Hillary and at the time would have voted for Bernie in the general w/o a problem. Given what has been happening recently, I’d still vote for him but might have to say a brief prayer to the FSM before pulling the lever (which is actually a touch screen now, see I told you I was a fuddy duddy)
Bob In Portland
@patroclus: Could you please link to where I ever called you a Nazi? For Americans I generally reserve the term for the folks who wear armbands.
I said that the US has been working with old Nazis in Ukraine since WWII. This has been known for decades. If you support the Nazis in Ukraine that doesn’t make you a Nazi. It probably makes you a very uninformed or possibly wretched human being, but it doesn’t make you a Nazi.
Glad to help out with that. Now, once again, Patroclus, which president has deported more people than any other president? You know, outside of the bubble here at Balloon Juice, in the real world.
Brachiator
@patroclus:
Californians have had ample opportunity to see what is happening nationally, and how important it is to defeat the Republicans.
Voting for Bernie is fine. To stubbornly hold on to the idea that it is “Bernie or Bust” is boneheaded.
D58826
@Betty Cracker: can we try for a double TBU? baiting B-I-P seems like shooting fish in a barrel just to get there
different-church-lady
@D58826: It depends on whether I have the time to continue not responding to Bob/Robert/Roberta.
glory b
@nihil obstet: Wow, too bad the majority of those people voted for Clinton.
wonder why Bernie couldn’t convince them otherwise?
Bob In Portland
@Brachiator: Ah, another attempt by the Clintonistas to reach out to their intellectual lessers.
Read Listen, Liberal yet?
chopper
@divF:
eh, when people like NR lean on the whole ‘SHE ISN’T LIKED!!!’ thing really they’re just saying “I DON’T LIKE HER AND DEMAND AFFIRMATION FOR MY FEELINGS”
D58826
@Brachiator: Given the Trump alternative my only problem with ‘vote for Bernie to send a message’ is that it diverts time and money from the real prize – defeating the GOP in detail in November. Other than the Iceman that they dug up in the Alps a decade ago, everyone from Obama/Hillary and I suspect even DWS has gotten the message. Right now the message is getting muddled and skewed negatively in the heat of the moment. Plenty of time after Hillary is sworn in to go back and clean up what every one agrees is a totally fubar primary process.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Ah, good, you are still here! So listen, I’ve thought about it a bit and I’m thinking this Bob/Robert/Roberta thing is going to take me a little more time than I thought to get sorted out. So it might be a while before I figure out how to correctly honor your request. I ask for your patience. You shall not hear from me again, except for my letting you know what conclusion I arrive at. Thanks for your patience in advance.
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
look, if people want to understand your thought processes by reading a book, i recommend the DSM-V instead.
Bob In Portland
@nihil obstet: I guess that things are going great for all the Clintonistas in the village here. Of course, Cole would rather spend $1500 on a vacation than going to something for his career, and I did shed a tear for him over that. These darned Bernie Bros have no sympathy for the plight of college professors. I cried for Cole right after I cried for the fifteen million kids who go to bed each night hungry. Or the unemployed or the underemployed.
Bob In Portland
@chopper:
Funny, chopper, that you think it’s a great idea to ignore the working class in your calculations, considering from your ignorant, bullying posts that you’re probably part of us. But, whatever, you have a choice to remain in ignorance.
Yes, Thomas Frank wrote Listen, Liberal about me. Now, remember, if Hillary loses or limps across the finish line with a Republican congress that you blame me personally.
Poopyman
@Betty Cracker: Congratulations! Now let’s see if Cole 2 posts up can do the same. He has the wind at his back since he’ll catch the evening shift, although I suspect there’ll be a bunch of posts through the evening to water the comments down a bit.
Brachiator
@NR:
RE: Berniebots are infantile if they truly believe that big banks and corporate interests are the biggest and baddest Big Bad Wolf.
I repeat. Banks and corporations are not the biggest baddie. The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the Waltons are not banks or corporations.
We see from the Panama papers that the accumulation and movement of billions by oligarchs and plutocrats distorts national economies and impoverishes nations. I bluntly do not see anything in Bernie’s blather about breaking up banks or taking on corporate interests would do anything about this. Sanders is stuck in a 1930s reverie about political revolution.
You hear what you want to hear.
Linnaeus
@D58826:
That gave me a chuckle.
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
lol, i forgot, when you make fun of bob you’re shitting on the entire working class. DID YOU SEE HIM REPRESSING ME?! YOU SAW IT, DIDN’T YOU?
Bob In Portland
@chopper:
As of two hours ago, H. Clinton’s unfavorability rating was 55.4%. So, at least at far as your happy fizzy party here in the Balloon Juice compound, you are in the minority. So, yes, NR is correct that Clinton is untrusted and unliked and more than half of the US agrees with him.
I know, it’s shocking, what with all the work that BJers have done to bring the party together that Clinton’s negatives keep going up. Does the half million in Saudi jewels go well with any of her outfits?
Bob In Portland
@chopper: Considering some of your homophobic comments I wouldn’t doubt that you’re repressed, but not by me.
Brachiator
@Bob In Portland:
Sorry, I refuse to take the bait.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Hey Bob?
Applejinx
@Brachiator: I’ll buy that, though I don’t see the distinction between Waltons and Wal-Mart.
Soooo… what do you figure is a better thing to do about it? I’m open to hear any ideas that aren’t ‘down with the death tax on job creators’. What you’ve outlined is a very real and serious problem, that’s damaging capitalism a lot.
Also, the size of European banks vs. European national economies is more conducive to calling banks ‘the big bads’. Just because America under Obama has handled things better, doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.
Brachiator
@D58826:
Yep.
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
no, i keep explaining to you, i’m a homophone. jesus chicken-fried christ, get it straight.
gwangung
@Brachiator:
Huh. You’re right. And it’s arguably much more dangerous, because individuals are less predictable and subject to whims and tend to be more extremes than collectives.
D58826
@different-church-lady: Many years ago I learned that in trying to teach a pig to sing you were just wasting your time and annoying the pig. In this case you are just wasting your time and feeding the troll.
Bob In Portland
@Brachiator:
You mean like this, from a year ago? Or do you mean the portions of that free trade bill with Panama that eased regulations about parking money there, voted for by H. Clinton and voted against by Sanders?
You may bluntly no seeing anything, but again, maybe it’s hard to look through the Village’s bubble here.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob?
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
obama’s favorability rating only just got back above 50. yet he could easily have won a third term. it means nothing.
clinton’s unfavorability rating is meaningless. it only matters to people like you who want emotional affirmation for their own personal hatred of the woman.
different-church-lady
@D58826: He’s not responding to me. I’m not sure if he understands how much I want to honor his request.
Plus he seems to cry a lot. I’m worried about him.
different-church-lady
@chopper: President Dukakis agrees with your analysis.
Bob In Portland
@rikyrah:
Who are the people who are going bankrupt from healthcare? Those eventual bankruptcies were predicted before they happened. What about people who can’t afford their medicines? That was predicted too.
So the legislation wasn’t directed against any specific race, just people who aren’t wealthy. Well, now I feel so much better.
chopper
hell, at this point in 2012 obama’s favorability rating was around 46%. so the fuck what? he still did great and knocked romney right out. yet i’m sure there were some shitheads out there who wanted to primary the dude and pointed out his ‘low favorability numbers’ which ‘portended doom’.
Amir Khalid
@chopper:
I do remember there was one guy who was really in favour of it — Barry from Vermont, I think his name was.
NR
@different-church-lady: Nice. What’s next from you? “I know you are, but what am I?”
Bob In Portland
@chopper: Okay, meaningless that over 55% of Americans don’t like and trust Clinton, but they’ll still vote for her. Got it.
D58826
From a political writer in Philly who has blasted Obama and Hillary on more than one occasion for those who wish to say he is in the tank for Hillary or DWS, an interesting write up His lede says it all
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/national-interest/item/93807-trump-loves-the-taste-of-bernies-sour-grapes
NR
@chopper:
55% of the country is upwards of 160 million people. But you’re right, it’s all about me.
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
how did O win reelection when only 46% of americans thought he was doing a good job the May before the election?
AxelFoley
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
This. So very much this.
AxelFoley
@TaxesMyCredulity:
You should let Bill Press know that. ;)
Bob In Portland
@Brachiator:
Thank you, Brachiator. You have defined the world of Balloon Juice. When money moves among the rich it doesn’t hurt the peons. Oligarchs are a force of goodness, and if we just give them enough time things will be better for their lessers. Sort of like trickle-down but more magical.
And it’s true. Families will starve more slowly on 12 dollars an hour in 2025 than on 7 bucks.
glory b
@Psych1: They are politicians too. No one is pure, get over that.
Must be nice to be so privileged that you can shake your head and “tsk tsk” from the sidelines while people’s families get deported by the trump police state, women get imprisoned for having abortions, black people are executed when innocent (See Trump’s reaction to the Central Park 5), the environment crashes, etc.
I’m of the opinion that anyone doing this has forfeited their liberal cards. It means you didn’t really care after all, you just wanted a win in your column, other results be damned.
And hey, ask Jill Stein why HER party has closed primaries, while she rails against the Dems having them.
And don’t forget to ask about the Republican/Haliburton money the Greens took to throw the PA senate election to Santorum.
Stop the juvenile search for purity.
(spits)
Bob In Portland
@over_educated:
Wasn’t Hillary and Debbie going to offer something to the Sanders people to bring them into the big tent (the big tent sponsored by all those corporate friends of Hillary)?
Come on, where’s that piece of cake?
AxelFoley
@Miss Bianca:
I love you for this post.
Fuck Jeff and other lazy, whiny fucks who won’t assign blame to the GOP they gave the House and Senate to by not getting off their ashes and voting in the midterms.
Bob In Portland
@glory b:
Obama has deported more people than any other president. Oh, I know, the Republicans made him do it. And if I’m not recollecting, black people are still being shot in the streets, and last month was the hottest month in the world in history.
So what you’re saying is that the Trump presidency will pretty much be the same as the Obama presidency? I thought that the Clinton presidency was going to be a continuation of the Obama presidency.
So I guess you must be privileged enough to ignore what is happening around you while worrying about Trump. Beautiful.
Bob In Portland
Oh, and Betty Cracker: You’re still wrong. Glad to help out.
Brachiator
@Applejinx:
Good point. People can be rightfully unhappy how Wal-Mart treats its employees and the negative impact of that business on the country. But in addition, the Walton family exercise a pernicious influence, and would do so even if they sold off the business and wallow in the income they would gain from the sale.
I’m not running for office. The best I can do is vote for someone who would do their best. There are people here who have a lot of good ideas about what they think should be done, but I am not that creative.
But I guess the Democrats have to work hard to get a majority in the House. This would be ideal since this is where the money bills originate. In my ideal world the president would de-emphasize the importance of the macro-economic policy guys in Treasury and focus more on the details of jump starting the economy. You need geniuses at Commerce and Labor, and this means not just people who are pro-union (and yes, unions are important, but they don’t create businesses).
I would take a chance on a deeper lower and middle class tax cut, but one which encouraged savings and investment. I would not tax unemployment compensation, and would give bigger breaks to single people. I would begin to phase down some credits for families with more than 5 dependent children. Birth control is real, people.
I might lower corporate tax rates, but also consider extra taxes on companies that park their profits overseas.
I would phase out Roth IRAs and look at other tax incentives that permanently exempt income from taxation.
I would expand the IRS and increase enforcement against employers who use illegal aliens and who push employees off the books and pay them as self-employed contractors or as limited partners who receive a K-1 for their income.
This is kinda off the top of my head.
D58826
@Psych1: As that great philosopher George Jefferson said – ‘don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you’ as you depart
Bob In Portland
@AxelFoley:
Do you like the DNC’s choice for senator from Florida?
D58826
@Miss Bianca:
For a person who can get his birth announcement retroactively added to a microfiche copy of a newspaper
published in 1961 it’s a piece of cake :-) Those Kenyan Marxists are just so sneaky
different-church-lady
@NR: Maybe you should request I not talk to you anymore.
different-church-lady
@NR:
Because they usually include children in these polls, dontchaknow.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Bob??
chopper
@different-church-lady:
my 3-year-old got a poll call on his toy phone. he was about to call up a horsey and it suddenly rang and it was Gallup wanting to know his opinion on TPP.
LAC
@Bob In Portland: and your fuck useless ass comb over candidate is going to be back picking which useless D list celebritry will be his apprentice. And you will here offering your useless ass poseur bullshit opinions. And the world turns.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Robert?
different-church-lady
@chopper: I bet it was one of the more informed opinions they got that day.
LAC
@different-church-lady: Don’t! NR would be soooo lonely. I imagine this is one of the few places where he doesn’t actually have to see people rolling their eyes when he starts to speak. ???
Sal
This is getting some play at Democratic Underground and Betty is taking some hits for her name …
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1993323
chopper
@different-church-lady:
well, he thought they said “pee-pee” and he did in fact have some solid opinions on the matter.
different-church-lady
@LAC: I’ve been around some lunch counters, and believe me, when these people get going nobody makes eye contact.
glory b
@Bob In Portland: As an African American female living in an inner city community (Homewood for the BJ folks from Pittsburgh to confirm) I see more of it than you can imagine. Kids I volunteered with when they were in kindergarten are dead in their twenties, the parts of my neighborhood that haven’t been restored from the last time we had a “Revolution,” etc.
So don’t lecture me from oh-so-pure Portland.
If you think Trump and Obama are the same, you’re too delusional to conversate with (yeah, that was on purpose).
LAC
@different-church-lady: true. On the metro, that usually clears out a car.
elftx
@Freemark:
I think I understand now why there are ‘flat earthers’.
Badtux
A friend of mine was a Bernie delegate at the Nevada convention. As in, she was there. She is an elderly woman from a rural county, certainly no anarchist or newbie (she was an Obama organizer in 2008 after all). She says she saw no violence, just protests after the Democratic chair called for a voice vote that was inconclusive and then refused to actually hold a ballot or even listen to requests to hold a ballot, instead proclaiming that the Hillary side had won the voice vote and there would be no more discussion because she was the Party chair and the Sanders’ delegates role was to obey her decrees, period. At the end, she called in police to form a line between her and the Sanders delegates and issued decrees from behind that line of police officers. Yeah, nothing says “democracy in action” like someone issuing dictatorial decrees from behind a line of police officers…
Anyhow, my friend was one of the last delegates to leave, staying for about fifteen minutes after the party chair decreed the meeting over and fled with an escort of brown-shirted police officers. My friend stayed in order to talk with her fellow Sanders delegates about the way they’d just been steamrollered, then left after about fifteen minutes. She says if there was any violence, it must have happened after she left, because she certainly saw nothing while she was there.
Yeah, there’s two sides to every story. Having been on both sides of media hack jobs in the past where what the media said was nothing like what I saw with my own two eyes, I prefer to believe a trusted friend who was actually there, rather than media hacks proclaiming whatever fits the agenda they’re trying to promote. I’ve only been quoted accurately once by the media in my whole entire life, every other time it’s been spun by the reporter and editor to fit their agenda, sometimes ludicrously so (as in, claiming I said exactly the opposite of what I said — and I know this was deliberate, because I repeated my talking point five times and requested acknowledgement twice before they claimed I said exactly the opposite). So yeah, I’m skeptical as hell that whatever you are seeing in the media is what happened. Who should I believe, my close friend who’s been a Democratic operative for years and saw it first-hand, or the media? Well, I know my friend, and I know the media and what they do to the truth. I believe my friend.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Well, okay, but isn’t the harm that WalMart does as an employer and a competitor far more direct and widespread than the harm the Walton family does through that influence? Same with your general question above: yeah, the banking/finance industry as a whole might not be as loathsome as the Koch brothers, the Walton brothers, and Sheldon Adelson, but when did these people cause any disaster as immediately and massively harmful as the Great Recession?
(I’m legitimately asking: I don’t know that this is true. It just seems to me like the systemic flaws are a bigger problem than individuals like those cited above. And I’m not asking this in the context of the Clinton/Sanders debate, I realize that Sanders’ idea of how to fix things has shortcomings to say the least).
aliz
@Kazanir: I suspect he’s going to lumber around being angry and dismissive and claim that he was cheated at least into December. I see no indication at all that he will stop complaining and calling everyone who isn’t him “corrupt.”
Ridi James
“BernieBros” is a misandric epithet, equally wrong as misogyny. You are correct, though. This is serious “shıt,” as you say. The right to self-determination is worth fighting for, even dying for. Our country has a history of that. Naughty texts and booing loudly are not how these things have been won in the past. I am grateful it didn’t end in bloodshed, and hope it will continue to be thus. But take away American’s liberty, their right to self-determination through a fair and open democratic process, and they bite. Hard. I wish I were confident Clinton and the DNC understand that.
joel hanes
@[email protected]:
I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals
He shoulda stopped there, if that’s the best he could do.
The next word in his statement is
BUT
whereupon he forfeited the last shreds of respect I had for the man.