Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He really is that stupid.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Bernie Sanders 2016 / Late Night Drama Open Thread: There’s No Self-Pity Like White Male Self-Pity

Late Night Drama Open Thread: There’s No Self-Pity Like White Male Self-Pity

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bernie bro death threats morin

(Jim Morin via GoComics.com)
.

The first professional sophist claimed that Man is the measure of all things, and the (white) men in charge have yet to get over it…

And the thing is, they still feel like the victim(s) here. Further reading:

Rolling Stone, “Pro-Bernie Trolls on Why They Harassed Nevada’s Democratic Chair”. Guy who sent text messages you’re fired bitch… someone will hurt you… with images of slaughtered animals to the personal number of Nevada state Democratic party Roberta Lange —

… You’re right, stuff like that doesn’t benefit the campaign, but it’s not necessarily about his campaign, as [much as] it is [about] anger. And I’m not justifying any threats or anything like that, but I would justify people who were upset. Because there is clearly stuff that should not have happened that did happen on Saturday. I can speak for myself: that was very upsetting to me, and the person I was viewing it with, because it felt like democracy was stolen. Like, people weren’t getting their voices heard…

Jezebel‘s political subblog The Slot, “We Called Up Bernie Fans Who Threatened Nevada Dem State Chair and Asked Them to Explain Themselves” —

… “I can’t really say for sure if there was an intention on that,” he replied. “I don’t really want to say too much.”

He was “of a younger age,” he explained—older than 18 but younger than 25. “This is our first primary,” he said. “And watching the convention on Saturday, watching the livestream, was very frustrating. I think there were a lot of people who were angry. But I don’t personally have anything against anybody. I never had any intentions of any negative actions or anything like that. I made that very clear. A lot of people are angry.”

I asked if he would’ve done the same thing if he knew people would be able to call him back.

“I wouldn’t have done it had I not been hyped up and angry,” he said. “ But I’m not saying I did anything. I’m not saying I made any threats. I had no intention of threatening anyone.”…

Nobody understands that they have been misunderstood! Wounded! Deeply wounded in their feelings! Their precious, precious feelings!

Reader Interactions

421Comments

  2. 2.

    randy khan

    I won’t say that Sanders could have shut this down, given the apparent level of entitlement (I mean, really, people who gamed the process at the next level down are complaining that Clinton’s side gamed the process by, uh, showing up at the state convention?), but he almost certainly could at least have gotten some of them not to be such tools by simply saying there was nothing wrong with what happened at the convention.

    I get that he’s not going to do that, since unfairness is his brand. It just would be, you know, the responsible thing to do.

  3. 3.

    Emma

    Christ. I am effin’ fed up with this. I know the right-wingers have “poor little White man” syndrome but now here it is on the left. The political Ouroboros is chewing its own tail.

  5. 5.

    ? Martin

    I think it’s noteworthy that the Sanders supporters can’t even bring themselves to criticize the other Sanders supporters that are calling Hillary, Boxer, and Lange ‘bitches’ and worse.

    Interesting expression of liberal ideals.

  7. 7.

    ? Martin

    @randy khan:

    I get that he’s not going to do that, since unfairness is his brand. It just would be, you know, the responsible thing to do.

    I’ll note that John McCain put up a stronger defense against personal attacks against Obama than Sanders has lately put up for Clinton. It’s not a big thing to do, but its an important thing to do.

  9. 9.

    kindness

    There’s some things Bernie says I like. And you can get Americans to vote for small tax increases if it’s important to them. You can’t get them to vote for big increases. Not gonna happen. And all Bernie’s programs cost a lot of money. Bernie’s downplaying it now but in a general election setting he’d get clobbered with that along with his quote supporting the Iranians during the 80 hostage crisis & pics of he and Jane honeymooning in Moscow (no doubt with giant USSR flags fluttering everywhere).

    Nope. The Supreme Court is too important to blow it on Bernie. It’s OK though. I like the Clintons.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    In any event, it’s all over but for the shouting (and granted, there will be plenty of that over the next few weeks). FEC reports for April were due today, and not particularly surprisingly, the Sanders campaign was almost out of money at the end of April (cash on hand of less than $6 million, much much lower than at the end of March). With fundraising also down significantly, that’s a problem. It hasn’t been widely appreciated, but Sanders has actually been spending more than Clinton in the primary. He won’t be able to do that in California.

  15. 15.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    We’re watching a C-Span rebroadcast of Thomas Frank on BookTV. I just listened a few minutes, but I can’t recall hearing such a collection of strawmen so earnestly described in a long time. I enjoyed “What’s the matter with Kansas?”, but he seems to have really gone off the rails here. Perhaps I was wearing rose-colored glasses when I read it. :-/

    I’m listening to Blue Sky Mining instead now.

    Bernie’s campaign is in its death-throws now. It’s unpleasant, but it will be over soon. We need to save our energy for the fall, IMO. Most of Bernie’s fans supporters will be joining us, I’m sure. I’ll guess that even in Vegas, the loudest people were a small minority of Bernie supporters.

    We’re going to have an amazing team working together before November. Barack and Michelle, Joe and Jill, Elizabeth and Al and Nancy and Dick and Jim and Harry and Patrick and all the rest. They know that this is the time to pull together and run the table as much as possible. And I’m sure Bernie’s going to do his part to make sure his Revolution™ doesn’t die on the vine… There’s too much at stake, at home and around the world.

    Eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    Mnemosyne

    @? Martin:

    I think it’s noteworthy that the Sanders supporters can’t even bring themselves to criticize the other Sanders supporters that are calling Hillary, Boxer, and Lange ‘bitches’ and worse.

    To be fair, the Sanders supporters who didn’t like that have walked away saying, “Nope.” What we’re hearing from now are the real dead-enders who were never going to vote for Hillary anyway, and probably didn’t vote for Obama, either.

  19. 19.

    patroclus

    Just to get in early, Dick Durbin talked with Sanders today and reported that he was absolutely sure that Bernie is going to endorse Hillary and be a team player going forward. And he toned down his rhetoric in his events today in California. I think, with respect to Bernie himself, all this criticism is finally making an impact.

    About some of his supporters, though, I have my doubts. Roberta Lange is a day manager at a lower end restaurant; hardly an oligarch. It was really despicable for the slimeballs to publish her personal info and then rant and rave, with vile insults, on her phone, even threatening her grandchildren. She’s been in the trenches, fighting for positive change for decades, she followed the rules, and she gets endless vilification from the Bernie supporters because they lost 2-4 delegates. This is really horrific and the more I learn about it, it just gets worse. And yesterday, a man was arrested for threatening a Congressman for not voting for Bernie.

  25. 25.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    On vacation with the in-laws. The white nationalism is definitely being stoked. They hate LBJ. And one weird comment re: Jews, but not a passion driver like LBJ and the blacks / Medicare.

    Lone female isn’t a Trump supporter.

    We are moving back to California. Just scary.

  27. 27.

    SRW1

    If Bernie is serious about what he told his Senate colleagues and the polls for California and New Jersey are anywhere near accurate, he’ll use the outcome of those states to tell his supporters ‘we fought a valiant fight, but now its over’. Looks like the last opportunity to have his campaign end with a halfways decent landing.

  28. 28.

    Helen

    Just got home from the NYC meet up. Great people, great conversation, and great drinks. Thanks to RedDirtGirl for organizing and being the best hostess ever.

  29. 29.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Ruckus: Good news? ;-) It beats hearing something like:

    “Local man, Ruckus, had to be rescued from his pickup truck today after he was trapped inside by the sudden appearance of a huge swarm of cicadas….”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  30. 30.

    gf120581

    @patroclus: I would expect that he got read the riot act by somebody. There does seem to be a tug of war in his camp between the sane ones and the “nuke the fuckers” faction represented by Comic Book Guy. The sane ones seem to be winning out for now.

  36. 36.

    ? Martin

    @Mnemosyne:

    To be fair, the Sanders supporters who didn’t like that have walked away saying, “Nope.” What we’re hearing from now are the real dead-enders who were never going to vote for Hillary anyway, and probably didn’t vote for Obama, either.

    Indeed that is fair. More of an indictment of what exactly the remaining Sanders supporters actually stand for. How many dead bitches is single payer worth?

  37. 37.

    gf120581

    @RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac: He can’t. His campaign is running on fumes right now. I expect that’s why he wanted yet another debate; he wants the free advertisement because he can’t afford anything else.

    It’s amazing not just how much cash he’s pissed away, but how poorly he’s spent it. Everyone points at his little stalk the Pope jaunt to the Vatican, but I’d say blowing all that cash holding rallies where half the people who attend don’t even show up to vote later is a bigger problem. He simply doesn’t know how to run a national campaign and neither does that fuckwit Weaver. (As for Tad Devine, well, he’s like walking kryptonite to Democratic campaigns.)

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @randy khan:

    (I mean, really, people who gamed the process at the next level down are complaining that Clinton’s side gamed the process by, uh, showing up at the state convention?)

    This is another thing that makes me think we’re dealing with former Paulites in Nevada. Gaming the process was one of their favorite tricks at Republican caucuses in 2012, but they’re not really used to being outgamed. It makes them pouty. They’re the only ones who get to bend the rules, damn it!

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    I”m staying in a lovely beach condo all by myself — well, me and my sister’s dog. There was an incredibly fierce storm awhile back, which was entertaining. Some guys who had been fishing on the beach came running back toward the complex and then couldn’t figure out the gate code. I felt bad for them, but damned if I was going out in the rain and lightning to help. They finally gave up and ran around the side of the building. Hope they found their way in.

    There’s a really fucking irritating whine in the water pipes. No way am I going to be able to sleep with that racket, so I’ll just have to hope the upstairs people stop using water at some point. I can’t figure out the damn TV, and I’m usually pretty good at that sort of thing. I can get on the streaming channels but not cable. First world problems!

  45. 45.

    Mike J

    The ultimate in white dude entitlement: Complaining that people you terrorized are complaining about it.

    See also Matt Bruenig.

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: You keep this up and someone in NC is going to propose legislation about nym-birth gender equivalencies in Balloon-Juice posts. For the children of course.

  52. 52.

    gf120581

    @Adam L Silverman: Saw that earlier today. Marshall’s had some very entertaining things to say about Weaver.

    Weaver’s probably the most detestable member of Bernie’s campaign.

  53. 53.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yum! ;-)

    “And nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground!”

    “Our daughters’ll never need guns… These are the years that were hard fought and won.”

    There are some great songs on that album. I hope Hillary and her team listen to things like it now and then.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  56. 56.

    dmsilev

    @gf120581: Tad Devine is one of Sanders’ money problems. Specifically, the vast amounts of commission fees on the media buys that amounted to a tax of ten or fifteen percent on every ad the Sanders campaign runs. Most campaigns have agreements with their consultants to cap the commissions, but not Bernie.

    Probably a side effect of how his campaign started; remember, it was initially a ‘let’s raise attention for these issues’ campaign, not a ‘let’s win the nomination’ campaign, and that showed in the infrastructure.

  58. 58.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @? Martin:

    I think it’s noteworthy that the Sanders supporters can’t even bring themselves to criticize the other Sanders supporters that are calling Hillary, Boxer, and Lange ‘bitches’ and wors

    Calling them Bitches is Misogynistic.
    Agreed.
    I would have called them all Assholes :)

    Aren’t yall tired of Bernie Bashjng on this site yet?

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gf120581: I think he’s out of national Democratic Party politics after this. He’s made himself toxic. Pretty sure the same thing will happen for Devine.

  63. 63.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    To be fair, the Sanders supporters who didn’t like that have walked away saying, “Nope.” What we’re hearing from now are the real dead-enders who were never going to vote for Hillary anyway, and probably didn’t vote for Obama, either.

    I voted for Obama in 08 just like most of my young friends.

    Sanders has got the youth vote LOCKED UP in this Democratic Campaign!

    He attracted 8K more folks today in Cali, most of them participating in the political process for the first time. I’m excited to see the future of the Democratic Party supporting the issues of Working Class people.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    Well I guess that the extremist wing of the Bernie bros has stepped over the line of stupidity into Onion level parody. Fortunately it should be over soon with the last primaries.

    Did I hear correctly that Sanders wants another debate?

  67. 67.

    gf120581

    @dmsilev: Devine’s been making out like a bandit. If he has any motivation to keep Bernie going until the end of the primaries, it’s largely because he doesn’t want the gravy train to stop. But given he’s a longtime Dem operative with a career after this, he has motivation to bring this to a relatively smooth landing. Whereas Weaver will just sulk back to his comic book shop and stop annoying the rest of us.

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: No. Because he deserves it with his recent behavior.

    And while you probably don’t want to hear anything bad about Saint Bird Man, there is an unfortunate misogynistic streak running through Bernie’s camp recently and not just from the Bernie Bro-types. Personally, the stuff from that asshole Weaver pointed out above and Bernie’s angry temper tantrums come off in part as the anger of a couple of entitled old white guys who can’t believe they’re getting their ass kicked by a woman.

  69. 69.

    Mcc410x

    Right or wrong: This is kids’ play compared to the next phase of the election. Not a lot of evidence yet Democrats are going to figure that out.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
    You guys don’t know me at all.
    I WAS KIDDING. It’s all a joke that seems to have ridden itself off the rails. Or I’m being had, one or the other.

    ETA Look in the middle of the original post. CNN screen shot.

  71. 71.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Adam L Silverman says:
    May 20, 2016 at 11:49 pm
    @gf120581: I think he’s out of national Democratic Party politics after this. He’s made himself toxic. Pretty sure the same thing will happen for Devine.

    Yeahhhh no

    The only people making him out to be toxic are all the Clinton diehards who were sure the manufactured outrage of Nevada would ring the death knell of Sanders.

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    The only woman in the Presidential race, who’s being attacked on two fronts now, is the only one not whining about “fairness.”

    This. So much this.

  73. 73.

    gf120581

    @Brachiator: He does. On Fox News no less.

    He won’t get it, however. As Hillary said, she’s the nominee, she’s focusing on Trump, and there’s no point in having another debate when the race is decided. Also, given Bernie’s running out of $ and can’t afford to advertise in CA, a debate comes off as a desperate attempt to get it for free.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Helen: FWIW, a commenter who had a few drinks misidentified the organizer a couple of threads below, and some shit has been given. That’s all.

  76. 76.

    Mike J

    @Betty Cracker:

    I”m staying in a lovely beach condo all by myself — well, me and my sister’s dog. There was an incredibly fierce storm awhile back, which was entertaining.

    There was a beach place in Rehobeth is used to take for a week in the winter and I loved it. Nobody in town and storms all the time. It was a great date place, mainly to see if they understood the attraction.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Fortunately for all of us, most millennial voters are smarter than you and will support Hillary once Bernie drops out.

    I’ll be curious to see how many of the people “participating in the political process for the first time” in California remembered to register to vote in the primary, and knew to register as either Democrats or “decline to state.” If they registered as Independents, that’s an actual party in California and they won’t be able to vote for Bernie. But I’m sure that will be the next conspiracy theory you start whining about.

  78. 78.

    AkaDad

    If you’re posting here on a Friday night, you probably get called sir or ma’am IRL.

  79. 79.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Ruckus: “In other news, local man, Ruckus, was found stuffed in his pickup truck with a large swarm of angry cicadas after a joke went awry on a small chat room called Balloon Air reportedly run by a hermit cat lady in West Virginia. Police are investigating…”

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  81. 81.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Sanders has been dead for months, at the very least since NY. (I notice that his behavior really got worse after NY, which leads me to suspect that he really convinced himself he was going to win there and when he got blown out instead, it really did a number on him.)

    And you are wrong. Weaver is done in politics after this (not Devine; he’s got too much of a history with the party to ever lose that). But then, that’s to be expected for reasons that have nothing to do with his incompetence and plain old asshole behavior. He’s only worked for Bernie.

  82. 82.

    dmsilev

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: I hate to break it to you, but the death knell of the Sanders campaign tolled out, at best, a few weeks ago when he got blown out in the Northeast in late April. At this point, his campaign is pining for the fjords. Nevada didn’t change that.

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    Took the new Expo line for a ride today, testing out for a daily trip I’m going to have to make in the near future. Posters in every car reminding people to register and to vote. Nice to see.

  84. 84.

    patroclus

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: No. This was a watershed moment that has completely changed my opinion of Bernie’s campaign; albeit not him personally. Unless he does something to redress this pathetic display by his supporters, it will come to define him as well. He was in Puerto Rico that weekend and wasn’t directly involved. But his supporters, after disrupting the convention repeatedly, published Ms. Lange’s personal info on-line and people from around the country sent her hundreds of really vile messages, threatening her and her grandchildren. And, she did nothing to deserve it – she followed the rules. It was the Clinton campaign that out-organized the Sanders campaigned for 2-4 delegates and the Bernie supporters at the convention couldn’t handle losing and acted like children. It was despicable.

  86. 86.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    And while you probably don’t want to hear anything bad about Saint Bird Man, there is an unfortunate misogynistic streak running through Bernie’s camp recently and not just from the Bernie Bro-types. Personally, the stuff from that asshole Weaver pointed out above and Bernie’s angry temper tantrums come off in part as the anger of a couple of entitled old white guys who can’t believe they’re getting their ass kicked by a…

    I’m a Bernie supporter and I haven’t made one comment supporting ur stereotyping. As a matter of fact most of the insults being hurled around here are by Clinton supporters. Ageist, misogynistic, and sexist comments are the order of the day when replying to what I have to say.

    Fuck those misogynistic Bernie supporters. FUCK THEM, they make the rest of us look bad.

    And Bernie hasn’t thrown any temper tantrums. Seriously, if that’s the best yall have for him dropping out its not gonna work.

    Sanders is on yalls side. We are all working class people who need to stand up to the corruption that has plagued this country for too long.

    Sanders needs ur support!

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: You do understand how political parties work, right? If you go out of your way to crap all over the organization you’re trying to be part of/take over, when you fail they tend to do whatever they can to ensure you are locked out. As I’ve written here many times before: I don’t do endorsements and I don’t care who anyone votes for. I just care that everyone who is eligible to vote does vote. My view of Weaver and his prospects is based on looking at how institutions work. Since he won’t have a powerful advocate once the primary is over, he’s burned too many bridges. There’s a reason he was running a comic book store for all those years rather than being actually involved in Democratic Party campaigns. He’s been banished to the wilderness once and would have remained there had Senator Sanders not brought him on board. His behavior, and the language he uses when he gives interviews, demonstrates he has no interest in the Democratic Party. The result of that is likely to be that the Democratic Party has no interest or use for him going forward.

  88. 88.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Ruckus:

    Look in the middle of the original post. CNN screen shot.

    D’oh!

    Hey, after more than two screens scroll by some of us don’t remember what’s there!

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    Brachiator

    @gf120581:

    . He does. On Fox News no less

    Wow. That would be something to see. Even if he doesn’t have money for ads, he could get a lot of tv and radio interview time, and work social media. Oh, well.

  94. 94.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    From Salon, that Sexist Leftist site yall hate so much:

    At 9:30, a full half hour before registration closed, [chair Roberta] Lange read the results of ballots that had been passed out to early arriving conventioneers regarding temporary rules for the convention, rules which would discount the results of the county convention (the second tier of the caucus process, where Bernie had won more delegates), rules which would require that all votes at the convention be decided by voice alone, and which ruled that the decision of the chairperson would be final. These temporary rules had passed by flying colors, which did not sit well with the Bernie delegates, many of whom had not been given ballots.

    warning Naked Capitalism quote below, that evil nexus of sexist racists!

    In other words, the entire process was illegitimate from the beginning. As a display of raw political power by Harry Reid’s machine, it’s impressive. As a foundation for elusive party unity, less so; see under inequity aversion. (Note that the revised rules permitted the chair to call for a vote by division if the results of a voice vote were not clear. Throughout the very long day, that’s all that Lange had to do to legitimate Reid’s process. She chose not to.)

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    KPCC was pretty much the Expo Line station today. It sounds like it goes right through my old West LA stomping grounds, so I may have to go just for the nostalgia tour. Plus I love trains. It’s in my genes — my maternal grandfather was a conductor on the North Shore Line in suburban Chicagoland.

  97. 97.

    Davebo

    kill 64 delegate votes

    So they actually killed the delegates? That explains why 58 of them didn’t show up I guess.

  98. 98.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @dmsilev: Honestly, Bernie was done after NH. He didn’t beat HRC by enough in Iowa and New Hampshire to change the calculus. If he had blown her away in both those places, then he might have gained more traction in the south and elsewhere. But he didn’t. She was too strong from the beginning for him to win.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    So, clearly, Lange deserved to have people call her restaurant over and over again with vile death and rape threats until they were forced to turn the phones off entirely.

    Y’know, if you want people to stop calling you sexist and misogynistic, you should probably stop making excuses for sexist and misogynistic behavior first.

  101. 101.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: He doesn’t deserve my support and he won’t get it. In no small part because it’s pointless. He’s lost. Move on already.

    I seriously don’t understand the cult-like devotion Sanders gets from his diehards. It’s downright creepy. (But then again, I don;t get anyone being fanatical about any politician.) But mostly I just wonder, why him? I can get that type of devotion when it’s someone like Obama, who is truly an inspirational figure, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why some people look at this angry, humorless, self-righteous old scold and view him as this saintly savior who is going to change everything by, I don’t know, pointing fingers at everyone or something. I mean, him?

  102. 102.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: You do understand how political parties work, right? If you go out of your way to crap all over the organization you’re trying to be part of/take over, when you fail they tend to do whatever they can to ensure you are locked out.

    Actually Weaver called out DWS of the DNC specifically. If you watch the videos of the CNN you can see that.

    Oh and there’s a big campaign push to Primary DWS in June/July. Sanders supporters (those 28$ elitists) are donating big to her opponent.

    Why yall are trying to defend DWS is beyond me. She sucks and she should’ve been fired long ago.

  103. 103.

    AkaDad

    I’ll stop bashing Bernie and his supporters when they stop doing and saying bashable things.

  106. 106.

    Mike J

    @Ruckus:

    That might explain why so many posts veer off the rails after 50-60 comments.

    The rule is that after 100 comments, every threads is an open thread.

  108. 108.

    El Caganer

    People don’t have a right to feel threatened? Even when they’re getting death threats? WTF? No wonder so many Democrats are pissed off at the Sanders campaign. This sounds like the same type of shit Trump’s supporters pull.

  111. 111.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Ruckus: Yeah. We wouldn’t have these problems if we had threaded comments. It’s quite popular in some places.

    Maybe I’ll write JC a letter in ALL CAPS and suggest that. I hear that’s the best way to get his attention.

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: I have never defended Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz. The one or two times I’ve ever referred to her on here I’ve said she’s been an ineffective member of the House in a safe seat with few to none notable achievements to show for her time on the Hill. That said, unfortunately, she’s valuable because of where her district is and who the constituents in it are.

  116. 116.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: And I don’t know why you’re defending the ,likes of Weaver. That incompetent fuckwit would have been fired long ago by any halfway decent campaign. He’s Bernie’s Mark Penn.

    And while nobody’s going to praise DWS, I find it amusing how Bernie diehards like you seem to think she’s the devil incarnate. She’s a lackluster party apparatchik, much like her opposing number on the GOP side (Priebus is arguably more pathetic). She’s not the evil mastermind conspiring to keep your beloved savior Saint Bird Man from his destiny.

  118. 118.

    gf120581

    @El Caganer: In no small part because it comes from the same kind of people; angry, entitled white guys with easily aggrieved egos.

  119. 119.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Learn to use the fucking block quote function. And I will take your response to mean that you don’t know the answer to my question.

    On another note, you are a veteran, yes? MOS?

  122. 122.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    . I’ll be curious to see how many of the people “participating in the political process for the first time” in California remembered to register to vote in the primary, and knew to register as either Democrats or “decline to state.”

    There are news stories about 32,000 people who switched their registration from American Independent Party to”decline to state or Democratic Party.

    These dopes thought that they were registering as Independents, but instead had registered for one of the minor fascist and bigotry parties.

    Voters in California who need to change their registration must do so by May 23, I think. They can check the California secretary of state website for details.

  123. 123.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: And I don’t know why you’re defending the ,likes of Weaver. That incompetent fuckwit would have been fired long ago by any halfway decent campaign. He’s Bernie’s Mark Penn.

    Well, Bernie has been on a winning streak. You have to admit that right? Weaver doesn’t say the right things 24/7 but he sure has his boss winning big in certain demographics.

  125. 125.

    ? Martin

    @gf120581: I’m curious what women Democrats these guys are okay with. I’ll assume Warren, but she’s a HRC supporter as well. But they’ve turned pretty ugly against Clinton, DWS, Boxer, Lange. What men have they gone after?

    Sensing a pattern here.

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    It pretty much runs the gamut of LA life. I like the light rail, cars are new(ish) and in good condition. Rode the subway to get from Union Station (Gold line) to the Expo line. It’s fast and all but it actually gets used a lot so is not the cleanest nor the newest. However the cost for an old geezer is pretty good, 75 cents and all transfers within 2 hrs are included. So it cost me 75 cents to ride from Pasadena to Sepulveda on three trains. And back. Yes I know that the Expo line is free today and tomorrow. It would still be 75 cents.
    IOW go. I wouldn’t go tomorrow, the crowds will be horrendous. They were when the gold line had it’s free day opening.

  129. 129.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    On another note, you are a veteran, yes? MOS?

    Sorry, lone Bernie supporter here. Trying to answer everyone will take some time.

    94D! Air Traffic Control Equipment Repairer at your service!

    I really find all that vulgar language beneath you. Remember I do have a Latin Major!

  130. 130.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Interesting. JHB seems to have broken cleek’s filter. But maybe isn’t something on my end…

    BRB.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  131. 131.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Davebo:

    Sadly, I think you’re setting your sights a little high. Baby steps Jonathan.

    Hey, one can dream right! Maybe that could be concession to Bernie to get him to change his mind.

  133. 133.

    ? Martin

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Well, Bernie has been on a winning streak. You have to admit that right?

    More accurate to say he’s on a tying streak. He hasn’t beat her by more than 10% since March, while she’s covered him by closer to 50% in several states including large ones like NY and PA. That’s not winning, that’s losing less quickly.

  135. 135.

    gf120581

    @? Martin: Some Bernie diehards have gone after Warren simply because she didn’t endorse him. Really, all it takes for a Democrat, no matter how sterling a career they’ve built as a progressive, to be attacked by the Bernie diehards as a traitor or sellout or whatever is simply to endorse Hillary. Hence you’ve got the likes of Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, Thomas Perez, John freaking Lewis, etc. getting slammed.

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: You really have no clue how this primary thing works, do you? I suppose you’re saying that Bernie’s won a few contests lately, but (a) they’re meaningless at this stage of the game, (b) he needed massive landslide victories in every single one and he did not get them, not even close, (c) he’s on track to lose the remaining major contests (CA and NJ) by hefty margins and (d) he’s running out of money. So no, Weaver has been awful.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @Mike J:
    And thank your personal deity that we don’t have an asshole hall monitor to remind us and yell and scream about process and staying on topic. That would be a line about 10000 miles too far.

  138. 138.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @? Martin:

    @gf120581: I’m curious what women Democrats these guys are okay with. I’ll assume Warren, but she’s a HRC supporter as well. But they’ve turned pretty ugly against Clinton, DWS, Boxer, Lange. What men have they gone after?

    We love Warren! Zephyr Teachout in NY, but she hasn’t won yet :(
    Umm, warren hasn’t endorsed a candidate yet. I suppose it’s because her political beliefs align more with Bernies than Clinton. She knew who was going to win, but she’s holding back her support til after the Convention.

    Why would Sanders and his constituents support all those Dem Sens women who have straight up caucused for Clinton?

  139. 139.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: 1. Deal with the language. Or faint about it. 2. 13A05P.

    And, fuck you, you aren’t the only Bernie supporter here. You are just one of the few who are complete douchebags about it. It makes a difference.

  140. 140.

    Davebo

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    I love the way the Army does their MOS descriptions. In the Navy it’s all Avionics Technician or Aviation Structural Mechanic,.

    Only the Army would decide on “Repairer”! As a fellow Vet I respect your service. But seriously, “Repairer”? :0)

  141. 141.

    BD of MN

    I’m riding the light rail between Minneapolis and St.Paul after watching the Twins get spanked by the Blue Jays. i blame Hillary. And/or Obama.

  142. 142.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Adam L Silverman: Ah, Bill.

    For me ACK! always refers to Cathy.

    @efgoldman: A high school classmate of mine posted an article about how the “three million votes” thing is a lie. Didn’t click through. If I’m being charitable, I’d guess that it has something to do with caucuses (though he’s behind in pledged delegates by, you know, a lot as well, but math is not these folks’ strong suit), but I’m feeling uncharitable so I’ll guess some sort of conspiracy theory involving Brooklyn and Arizona and DWS.

  145. 145.

    Redshift

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    he sure has his boss winning big in certain demographics.

    Which ones would those be? You do know that it’s not like TV ratings, where winning “the key demo” is more important than total audience, right?

  147. 147.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: You really have no clue how this primary thing works, do you? I suppose you’re saying that Bernie’s won a few contests lately, but (a) they’re meaningless at this stage of the game, (b) he needed massive landslide victories in every single one and he did not get them, not even close, (c) he’s on track to lose the remaining major contests (CA and NJ) by hefty margins and (d) he’s running out of money. So no, Weaver has been awful.

    Sanders has won 10 million Votes to Clintons 13 mil. Sanders went from a complete unknown with single digit support to winning 20 states! That’s fucking impressive by any standard.

    When you have Clinton go on CNN and tell Cuomo that she’s the Democratic Nominee, when in fact she’s not, that tends to irritate a bunch of people.

  149. 149.

    Ruckus

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
    Now that’s depressing news.
    I left the young rebel out in the open hoping that he might, just might have at least one lick of sense. Nice to see the old adage to wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first still holds true.

  150. 150.

    Helen

    Holy crap. Cher turned 70 today. I feel old.

    Also, too, you guys gotta stop feeding the trolls. Seriously.

  151. 151.

    ? Martin

    @BD of MN:

    i blame Hillary. And/or Obama.

    We’re still blaming Obama. It’s one of Clinton’s planks at the convention.

  153. 153.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Redshift:

    hich ones would those be? You do know that it’s not like TV ratings, where winning “the key demo” is more important than total audience, right?

    Why, the YOUTH of course! IOW the future of the Democratic Party.
    While Sanders will lose eventually, Clinton will not win the majority of pledged delegates before the Convention.

  154. 154.

    ? Martin

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    That’s fucking impressive by any standard.

    Indeed it is. A standup triple is pretty fucking impressive, but it doesn’t give you the right to declare that you won the game.

  155. 155.

    patroclus

    @? Martin: Not entirely. The Bernie guy in Washington was arrested after he threatened Jim McDermott hundreds of time; Al Franken has been threatened multiple times by a Bernie supporter in Minnesota. They’ll go after men too; it’s just that they are particularly vile and vehement against women.

    But, the guy in Washington threatened to cut off McDermott’s tongue.

  156. 156.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @? Martin:

    The bitches!

    Bitches is sexist. I’d prefer to call them part of the establishment which is beholden to corporate lobbyists and not working class people.

  159. 159.

    Redshift

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    From Salon, that Sexist Leftist site yall hate so much

    Weird how you neglect to include a link, so we can see who the author is. Almost as if you don’t want us to know, because you know it would undermine your argument. “Salon” doesn’t write articles, and they’ve published both people with a clue and some truly delusional Bernie backers. The fact that it’s in Salon gives no clue about whether it’s credible or not.

  160. 160.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @patroclus:

    @? Martin: Not entirely. The Bernie guy in Washington was arrested after he threatened Jim McDermott hundreds of time; Al Franken has been threatened multiple times by a Bernie supporter in Minnesota. They’ll go after men too; it’s just that they are particularly vile and vehement against women.

    Everyone here at BJ does know what the Clintons are known for right?

    Don’t cross a Clinton isn’t in political lexicon for nothing!

  161. 161.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Redshift:

    Weird how you neglect to include a link, so we can see who the author is. Almost as if you don’t want us to know, because you know it would undermine your argument. “Salon” doesn’t write articles, and they’ve published both people with a clue and some truly delusional Bernie backers. The fact that it’s in Salon gives no clue about whether it’s credible or not.

    http://www.salon.com/2016/05/20/i_watched_hillary_clintons_forces_swipe_nevada_this_is_what_the_medias_not_telling_you/

    Thank you for asking, and indeed I do!

  162. 162.

    Ruckus

    @Redshift:
    Pretty much any more it does give you a lot more than a clue. Seems like about 90% chance these days that no clue is the operative concept at Salon.

  165. 165.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Davebo:

    Only the Army would decide on “Repairer”! As a fellow Vet I respect your service. But seriously, “Repairer”? :0)

    Haha, I know right! When people ask me MOS, the repairer word doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. It’s a new Army these days, and that’s a good thing.

  166. 166.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: But she is. Sorry, at this point, it’s only a matter of making it official when she clinches in the next couple of weeks.

    Sorry that your beloved Saint Bird Man lost, but you need to get over it and focus on more important matters.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    @Helen:
    70 isn’t that old. At least I hope it isn’t.
    And they aren’t feeding the troll, they are playing with it. It is after all Friday night and they don’t have anything better to do.

  168. 168.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Adam L Silverman: Me too. I don’t think anybody actually reads Cathy (hint: it’s not good). But for whatever reason, she was always on the comics page, going ACK.

    I think it was unearthed in my mind by 30 Rock with the “Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, ACK!” gag.

  171. 171.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @efgoldman:

    ary was smart enough to have the guys that offed Vince Foster sent to Benghazi, where the “rebels” took care of them. Nice, clean, neat and no backsies.

    Speaking of Benghazi, Gowdy admitted that support wouldn’t have made it in time.

    Anyways, all I wanna know is WHO WAS DEALING COCAINE IN ARKANSAS! Lol jk

  175. 175.

    Mike J

    Grr. I love the Democratic party, but I hate getting emails telling me to sign up for the week of action where we’re going to sign up 1000 new voters, and neither the email nor the web form want to tell me what week they have in mind.

  180. 180.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    gf120581 says:
    May 21, 2016 at 12:42 am
    @Omnes Omnibus: Nah. I’d say merely a sore loser Bernie fan who is trolling to sooth the pain of the downfall of the beloved Saint Bird Man.

    Sore? Nah, just a little disappointed but I always knew Clinton was gonna win.
    And why am I a troll? I’m a loyal reader here, I just disagree with yall on how to get corruption out of America. Yall say incrementally and I say now. I’d say that’s the biggest diff.

    Oh, and I wanted to paint a different picture for what yall think of Sanders supporters. Yall propagate this stereotype of a BernieBro when 9 out 10 times it just isn’t true.

    I mean, look at Bob in Portland, am I right?!! Lol

  185. 185.

    StellaB

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Your mathematical skills are shaky. There are 4051 (odd number!) pledged delegates and two candidates to split them. One of the two candidates is guaranteed to reach 2026 before the convention where the additional, but redundant, superdelegates will be determined.

    Is Barbara Boxer no longer a progressive? Jeepers, it must be my old age, but I need a program to keep track of the players.

  187. 187.

    Redshift

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    While Sanders will lose eventually, Clinton will not win the majority of pledged delegates before the Convention.

    You do realize that statement makes no sense whatsoever, right? Unless you’re either delusional enough to believe that Sanders will win the remaining contests by the 30+% margins he would need to make up his pledged delegate deficit, or you’re using Jeff Weaver Calvinball math to define “majority of pledged delegates” as “majority of total delegates counting only pledged delegates,” which isn’t what “majority” means.

  188. 188.

    scav

    Not a way in hell that pale masculoid idiot actually felt what a black man in the 50s felt, because a black man in the 50s undoubtedly recognized that throwing a loud vocal hissy fit with threats of violence (even “unintended”) was not on the agenda — and, moreover, knew that there’d have to planning, effort, and cooperation needed in order to make things better, rather than self-indulgent cries of “Unfair!” even accompanied by pouty lower lips.

  191. 191.

    gf120581

    @StellaB: For some of these folks, Liz Warren is no longer a progressive. Or Al Franken. Or Sherrod Brown. The list goes on.

  192. 192.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    You win for understatement of the year.

    You know who was really, really good at math? The Obama campaign.

    Mrs M, you really do have the utmost contempt for Sanders supporters, don’t you?

    Quick question, why haven’t the remaining Superdelegate come out and supported Clinton yet? That would surely put her past the threshold!

    And yet they haven’t!

    Math, cuz I know you think I’m bad at it. Hillary is up 290, but there’s like 900 pledged delegates left. Yes it’s virtually impossible to win 65% of Cali’s vote, but why not try anyways?!

  193. 193.

    ? Martin

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    While Sanders will lose eventually, Clinton will not win the majority of pledged delegates before the Convention.

    There are 781 pledged delegates yet to fight for. Sanders is 274 behind. He needs to win 528 to 253. Basically he needs to win 50% of California and 100% of every other remaining primary, including DC and NJ. You think that’s going to happen? He basically needs to pull out Vermont margins from here out.

  194. 194.

    patroclus

    @StellaB: Well, technically, there are a handful of uncommitted delegates too. And I thought Barbara was a liberal.

  195. 195.

    Ruckus

    @StellaB:
    Boxer hasn’t changed other than gotten older but for some that means 100% getting more conservative. Except for Sanders of course, there are always exceptions. But anyone else over 35 is a conservative, they just have to be, it’s the natural order of things as they age. Just ask anyone on BJ who is 30 or under.

  196. 196.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Mnemosyne: In 1981 the Cincinnati Reds had the best record in baseball. They made a flag and everything. But they didn’t even make the playoffs. So they weren’t really the best. Even though they had the flag and some impressive numbers (if you squinted at them the right way).

    Winning is what matters in a contest like this. Bernie’s not winning. Too many of his fans supporters are trying to turn themselves into the 1981 Reds. They’re not, and they’re not winning either.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  197. 197.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    I’ll say this once again, WARREN IS OUR HERO!

    Why hasn’t Warren come out and supported a candidate yet, when pretty much everyone’s taken a side?

  198. 198.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: This a discussion for another time, as its a prolonged one and I’m going to rack out in a few. That said, and as someone who has done some work on these issues, 1) you can never completely remove corruption from a political or economic system and 2) it may not always be desirable to do so completely even if you could. Neither of these are an endorsement of corruption, but certain amounts of low level, horse trading – to use the expression – types of activities are often useful in informally bridging cleavages and divisions and ensuring that the system functions. The real issue is do you want these things done in the light of day with as much transparency as possible or do you want them done so far in the shadows that no one has any ability to know what manipulations are being introduced into the system and process. The former is obviously the preferable of the two.

  200. 200.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    Winning is what matters in a contest like this. Bernie’s not winning. Too many of his fans supporters are trying to turn themselves into the 1981 Reds. They’re not, and they’re not winning either.

    When have I ever said we are winning? Sanders has been behind since before the race even began when those 400+ Superdelegates declared for Clinton!

    Now, if you were to say Sanders is winning the future direction of the Democratic Party, then ud certainly be correct!

  202. 202.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Okay. Thanks – I think. What’s interesting about your comment is I’m a genetic smartass. I’m usually the one making the arch comments. I do have a somewhat dark/gallows sense of humor though – partially as the result of some of the work I do.

  204. 204.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The real issue is do you want these things done in the light of day with as much transparency as possible or do you want them done so far in the shadows that no one has any ability to know what manipulations are being introduced into the system and process. The former is obviously the preferable of the two.

    I applaud you engaging with me in a civil manner! Yes, I agree with everything you said.

    Removing All Corruption would of course be “pie in the sky” as so many often say!

  205. 205.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Because she’s far more useful as an ambassador to unify the party now that the race is just about over. (Or as I’ve heard it described, she’s on the “talk Bernie off the ledge” team.) It’s for the same reason Obama and Biden have not officially endorsed Hillary even though they clearly support her

    Once again, you clearly don’t understand how the primary process works. That’s been made painfully obvious. But then, neither does much of the Sanders campaign apparently, so you’re in good company.

  206. 206.

    Redshift

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    I’m a loyal reader here, I just disagree with yall on how to get corruption out of America. Yall say incrementally and I say now. I’d say that’s the biggest diff.

    If you want to compare and contrast between what the Sanders campaign says he’s all about and what the Sanders campaign says Hillary is all about, you don’t really need to come here and involve us. Because that statement had nothing to do with anything outside that bubble.

  207. 207.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Yes it’s virtually impossible to win 65% of Cali’s vote, but why not try anyways?!

    Well, you can try, but after the way your guys booed Boxer in Nevada, you’re going to be lucky to get 30 percent of the vote here. You may not like Boxer, but California Democrats do and — newsflash! — California Democrats are going to be the ones voting on June 7th.

  209. 209.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    It takes good ideals and experience to make positive political progress most any where in humanity. Because of course you need to know how organisms work and whose back to scratch. Young idealists usually don’t understand back scratching. Or compromise. Or much of anything except ideals. But this is humanity, there is nothing idyllic about it.

  211. 211.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: It also takes into account that for a long time our social and political and economic surveying showed that Americans were often all over the place on different issues despite what party they belonged to or ideology they claimed to espouse. I was still seeing survey results like this in 2000 while taking advanced survey design methods for my doctorate. Senator Boxer, like many Americans, has joined a party and embraces a specific ideology, but that ideological attachment may not mean the same thing to her as it does to others with the same label. She is likely far more liberal on certain issues and far less liberal and closer to center on others.

    Now the above has begun to give way as the parties finished the processes of consolidating their realignments that began in the mid to late 60s in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, so it probably doesn’t hold quite as true as it did, but there is almost no one who is ideologically consistent. I saw an interview yesterday with the California Trump delegate who is a white supremacist – the one that caused all the flap last week. He’s surprisingly very much in favor of doing something about climate change. Unfortunately its because he sees it as a threat to white people. But if you were just surveying him on that issue in isolation, you’d get a very liberal response. Or on a range of issues without him being able to qualify his responses, he’d have some that stood out as liberal even though what we know of his views would make him a reactionary.

  212. 212.

    ? Martin

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    When have I ever said we are winning? Sanders has been behind since before the race even began when those 400+ Superdelegates declared for Clinton!

    You know, the same thing happened in 2008. Clinton had 274 superdelegates before Iowa, yet Obama picked up superdelegates at a faster rate than her until he was ahead by this date. The uncommitted ones (of which there were just as many as now) waited for the convention.

    The more relevant question then is why isn’t Sanders picking up superdelegates like Obama did? He’s picked up 50. That’s it. If he’s the future of the party, how come almost nobody in the party agrees? They recognized it with Obama but not Sanders.

    Is there no self-reflection why the difference? Or is ‘the system is rigged’ the answer to every question?

  213. 213.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Because she’s far more useful as an ambassador to unify the party now that the race is just about over. (Or as I’ve heard it described, she’s on the “talk Bernie off the ledge” team.) It’s for the same reason Obama and Biden have not officially endorsed Hillary even though they clearly support her

    Once again, you clearly don’t understand how the primary process works. That’s been made painfully obvious. But then, neither does much of the Sanders campaign apparently, so you’re in good company.

    “Talking Bernie off the ledge” is simply inaccurate. What has he done lately that suggests this?

    Pretty sure its the Clinton supporters at this point antagonizing Bernie fans with their condescending and patronizing attitudes.

    Mark my words, come August, Clinton will cause schisms in the party with her pivot to Republicans.

    Why is it that Big Corporations support Clinton 2:1 over Trump?

  214. 214.

    patroclus

    @Redshift: Yeah, that’s one of the biggest loads of BS coming from the Sanders campaign. There’s nothing incremental about a comprehensive Immigration Act. Nor an Employment NonDiscrimination Act. Nor an Employee Free Choice Act. Or a new Voting Rights Act. Nor a Dream Act. Nor an Energy Conservation Act. Nor an opening to Cuba. Or Iran. Nor a Dodd-Frank fix. Nor the Basel capital adequacy accord. Nor the Paris accord. Nor an assault weapon ban. Nor a Democratic majority USSC. Nor medicare for all. Nor a public option. Nor ending the gun show loophole. Nor marriage equality. Nor equal pay. Nor hiking the minimum wage. All of which Clinton favors. And that’s just for starters. That is a truly Sanders bubble comment that shows virtually no depth

  215. 215.

    ? Martin

    @efgoldman: Psifighter I think still is. He was around 21 when he first showed up here.

    But yeah, we’re a bunch of old fuckers. All the cool kids are on Snapchat.

  217. 217.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: No disagreements here. As I’ve written here a few times: you can have process or you can have progress, but you usually can’t have both.

  219. 219.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I presume he meant this:

    Former Nirvana frontman Cobain took his own life in 1994 and, in the final letter he left to his fans, friends and family, reprinted the phrase “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” from Young’s track “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black).”

    I consider myself somewhat musically literate, but I had to Google it.

  220. 220.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Well I try to engage with everyone in the spirit in which they are commenting. So a serious comment gets a serious response. A non-serious one gets a non-serious response.

  221. 221.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    A small slice at our current antagonist. He’s got to be that age or thereabouts. But maybe I’m giving him too much credit.

  222. 222.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @? Martin:

    The more relevant question then is why isn’t Sanders picking up superdelegates like Obama did? He’s picked up 50. That’s it. If he’s the future of the party, how come almost nobody in the party agrees? They recognized it with Obama but not Sanders.

    I agree with this ^^^ 100%!!!
    TBH I don’t know why the Supers of states in which Bernie won 70%+ of the vote haven’t switched their pick to Sanders.

    In 1981, the supers were created to prevent the Mcgoverns and Carters from getting the nomination. The supers are their to prevent the unruly mobs from picking an unworthy candidate.

  223. 223.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Why is it that Big Corporations support Clinton 2:1 over Trump?

    Because, like anyone with two brain cells to rub together, Big Corporations realize Trump would be a total fucking disaster as president? The man went bankrupt running a casino, for fuck’s sake. Any rational CEO will look at Trump’s business record and run screaming into Hillary’s arms.

  224. 224.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @? Martin:

    Maybe because they realize that Trump is a fucking lunatic and Clinton is not?

    Can’t argue with that assessment. They’re money is on Clinton to give them the most bang for their buck!

  225. 225.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Secretary Clinton doesn’t think she can default on the debt, take the country into US Bankruptcy Court, and use that as leverage to renegotiate US debt obligations for pennies on the dollar. Lobbyists and donations to PACs and SuperPACS and speaker’s fees aside, if I was running a major corporation I would be supporting the candidate that wasn’t spouting dangerous economic gibberish while at the same time telling the country that he understand economics, they don’t, so just leave it to him. The people that run these companies may be greedy, but they’re not stupid. For all that they work every angle they can, they also know that if the system goes up in smoke that their wealth won’t be worth a tinker’s damn.

  226. 226.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    The part about Senator Boxer was real. She has been and still is a liberal by pretty much any definition. But she’s been doing this for some time and I’d bet she’s tired. I’m not that much younger than her and I am.
    The rest of this was just me poking at our trollish person.

  227. 227.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    Because, like anyone with two brain cells to rub together, Big Corporations realize Trump would be a total fucking disaster as president? The man went bankrupt running a casino, for fuck’s sake. Any rational CEO will look at Trump’s business record and run screaming into Hillary’s arms.

    I agree. Everybody’s donating to Clinton.

    Except all those millions of 2 brain cell people giving away those measley ~28 $ donations.

  228. 228.

    patroclus

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Perhaps McDermott isn’t switching to Bernie because a Bernie supporter threatened to cut off his tongue. Perhaps Franken isn’t doing it because he got the Roberta Lange treatment too. It’s not rocket science – threatening to cut off someone’s tongue doesn’t strike me as a particularly convincing or persuasive argument.

  229. 229.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Ruckus:

    The rest of this was just me poking at our trollish person.

    Can I get another nickname besides Trollish Person? How about Becnel? That’s my last name, and I usually go by that.

  230. 230.

    Soylent Green

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Why is it that Big Corporations support Clinton 2:1 over Trump?

    Because they’re not stupid, you dolt. They would rather see an adult in the Oval Office than Eric Cartman.

  231. 231.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Yes with the caveat that the final consolidation of the realignment of the parties is the other driver of this. Specifically in that the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate, despite the Freedom Caucus folks, have decided to function like a parliamentary party since Inauguration Day 2009. This is especially powerful on the Senate side given the Senate’s arcane internal rules. The two of these together has largely ground the process based nature of legislation in both chambers to a complete halt.

  232. 232.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    They’re money is on Clinton to give them the most bang for their buck!

    So I’m assuming that if the primary election had gone the way you wanted and corporations were supporting Bernie 2:1, you would be declaring your intention to vote for Trump, right?

    Because if you think corporations are going to support Trump in any scenario, you’ve lost your fucking mind.

  233. 233.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Adam L Silverman:

    he people that run these companies may be greedy, but they’re not stupid. For all that they work every angle they can, they also know that if the system goes up in smoke that their wealth won’t be worth a tinker’s damn.

    Once again, I agree with you.

    GOOD TALK, A-TRAIN!

  234. 234.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh, the gender-nym correlation? Some other time. Just a stupid attempt at a crack. Which amazingly, given how incredibly sharp my wits are right before bedtime, appears to have fallen flat.

  236. 236.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: I understand where you’re coming from. My point was that like all of us, she’s not made out of whole cloth.

  237. 237.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    So I’m assuming that if the primary election had gone the way you wanted and corporations were supporting Bernie 2:1, you would be declaring your intention to vote for Trump, right?

    Ugh, if all that money went to Sanders…yes, absolutely FUCK HIM.

    But what you say is demonstrably false and you know this. What scares big business about Sanders over Trump is that Big business knows for certain that Sanders knows how and will go after Corporate profits and practices.

  242. 242.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Soylent Green:

    Because they’re not stupid, you dolt. They would rather see an adult in the Oval Office than Eric Cartman.

    Speaking of South Park, I just watched the season with PC principle and the coming of the Whole Foods. SODASOPA

    Haha fucking hilarious!

  243. 243.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Of course this is true, none of us is whole cloth. But she seems to be closer than many. Her senate mate from CA for example. You’d still have to call Sen Feinstein a liberal but using your whole cloth ideal she’s like a loosely woven sweater with a few loose threads.

  246. 246.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    But what you say is demonstrably false and you know this.

    Nope. If it was Bernie vs. The Donald, corporations would be lining up to throw their money at Bernie. Not because they would suddenly love Bernie and all he stands for, but because they would know that Bernie was not going to tank the economy and start three new wars by mistake.

  247. 247.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: Yeah, Senator Feinstein drives me nuts at times. Emulating to the distinguished Ladies from Maine should never be a positive career choice!

  248. 248.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Noooooo. That’s impossible, saying that he’s ignoring important bits.

    Oh wait, what I meant was that he ignores entire chapters, not just important bits.

  249. 249.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Nah, I’m pretty savvy with the politics. I understand your point.

    TRUMP WITH THE NUCLEAR ECONOMIC CODES AHHHHHH!!!!

    Just because I’m a Sanders supporter, you shouldn’t underestimate my ability, wit, and charm :)

  252. 252.

    patroclus

    @Ruckus: Feinstein is a liberal hawk who protects California industries. Boxer’s a liberal. Feingold is a progressive. Durbin’s a liberal dove. McCaskill’s merely center-left. There’s overlap between all these labels and loose threads with each as well, but they’re all good Democrats. Sanders? He’s an independent democratic socialist. He caucuses with the Dems but he isn’t one.

  253. 253.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    Nope. If it was Bernie vs. The Donald, corporations would be lining up to throw their money at Bernie. Not because they would suddenly love Bernie and all he stands for, but because they would know that Bernie was not going to tank the economy and start three new wars by mistake.

    Does any one else here really believe this? Seriously, I’m not concern trolling here?

    Sanders has, quite literally, based his entire campaign against the millionaires and billionaires of Big business.

    OTOH, do yall know who have been the main campaign contributors to Trump?
    If you said small business owners, then you would be correct!

  255. 255.

    Anne Laurie

    @? Martin:

    I’m curious what women Democrats these guys are okay with. I’ll assume Warren, but she’s a HRC supporter as well.

    Nah, she’s drawn torrents of sexist abuse on her official Facebook page more than once because the BernieBros were angry she failed to endorse Their Hero. Those incidents were widely publicized in the local news, and let’s say they did not convince a lot of dependable Democratic voters that Sanders was the new hope of our party.

  256. 256.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    One day a few yrs ago I was thinking that I should run against her for her senate seat. I mean I’m far more liberal than she is, from a state that seems to elect liberals now that we realize that conservatives come in, shit on the floor, roll around in it and then want to rub up against you to let you experience the joy of fresh dog shit. But then I realized that she has money, the party, experience, the name and I had, well let’s be honest, fucking nothing. It was an interesting 2 minutes though. And of course we have 34 people running for her seat in the primary. About 30-32 of them have the same chance that I did.

  257. 257.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @patroclus:

    He caucuses with the Dems but he isn’t one.

    Patroclus, my dear friend! Surely, caucusing with the Dems for over 20 yrs should at least get an asterisk!

    Besides, Sanders is an old school democrat plain and simple. It’s the rest of the party who’s moved away from him. The Democratic Party used to be about the working class poor person. Now it’s all about the “professional” class meritocracy.

  259. 259.

    aimai

    Sanders has, quite literally, based his entire campaign against the millionaires and billionaires of Big business.

    OTOH, do yall know who have been the main campaign contributors to Trump?
    If you said small business owners, then you would be correct!

    First of all–no one who has watched Sanders campaign thinks he will be effective as president at all. He barely new what to say during the NYDN interview about his signature issue and if the Koch brothers could have Sanders and a Republican Senate and House they would sleep very easyily indeed.

    Second of all “small business owners” are really stupid people.

  260. 260.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Ruckus:

    ut then I realized that she has money, the party, experience, the name and I had, well let’s be honest, fucking nothing. It was an interesting 2 minutes though. And of course we have 34 people running for her seat in the primary. About 30-32 of them have the same chance that I did.

    I think you’re underestimating yourself. I would’ve voted for ya! Especially the next couple elections…I think there’s a real shot at getting rid of the Blue Dogs out there who actually stand for something.

  261. 261.

    patroclus

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): Thanks for that link! That was a very powerful argument about the way the Clinton campaign truly wants to improve lives for those with disabilities (while the Sanders campaign ignored them for months and remains uniformed about the issues). So Clinton is further to the left on disabilities issues than Sanders! I’ll add that to the list (which already includes guns, immigration and civil rights (including gay rights)).

  262. 262.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: I have a friend from grad school at UF who is a political professional in statewide Florida politics. He works the GOP side, but he’s really a Rockefeller Republican type. When I got back from Iraq and heard that Governor Bush (JEB!) was considering running for the Senate I contacted him and told him I was against primogeniture, had just completed a war zone deployment as a civilian on contractor status as an augmentee on a Brigade Combat Team’s senior staff, and would he run me for Senate (not as a Republican). He responded enthusiastically, but JEB! decided not to run and after speaking with a colleague, I understood that if I go that route, even if I’m not successful, I can’t go back to doing the type of work I do as I’m suddenly a partisan political professional. But I too thought about it.

  263. 263.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Sanders has, quite literally, based his entire campaign against the millionaires and billionaires of Big business.

    I’m emphasizing that phrase because you just moved the goalposts. Big Corporations =/= millionaires and billionaires. CEOs of big corporations have a much greater sense of self-preservation than the Koch brothers do.

  265. 265.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @aimai:

    First of all–no one who has watched Sanders campaign thinks he will be effective as president at all. He barely new what to say during the NYDN interview about his signature issue and if the Koch brothers could have Sanders and a Republican Senate and House they would sleep very easyily indeed.

    Second of all “small business owners” are really stupid people.

    So because he couldn’t answer a really detailed policy question, which no other candidate gets asked BTW, he’s totally incompetent?

    Second, yes a majority of small bus owners tend to a bit too conservative for my tastes. But they’re still people. They’ve just been misinformed and angered for 20 years. I know because these are the people who live around me. The economic system sucks in this country and they’re pissed off. Trump speaks to their frustration.

    And the NYDN interview was blown up just like the Nevada convention and the rest of the mainstream left ran with it.

  266. 266.

    RK

    White male self-pity? Who cried for themselves last go around? Clinton supporters really make me laugh sometimes.

  268. 268.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Ah, yes, Sanders is the only pure Democrat and all others are unbelievers, right?

    Such beliefs are why the Sanders diehards are insufferable. Only Saint Bird Man is pure at heart and holy and good. Everyone else is a dirty, traitorous sellout who is part of “the establishment.”

  270. 270.

    StellaB

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: HRC isn’t going to “pivot toward the Republicans”. You’re criticizing a caricature, not Hillary or her actual record.

    “Corporations” aren’t going away. We’re not going to return to a Jeffersonian country full of honest farmers and hard working artisans. We’re going to continue to have modern corporations, a modern banking system, and electricity. Corporations and banks need to be regulated, not crushed. You wouldn’t like living in the country that you think you want.

  271. 271.

    patroclus

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Bernie gets an asterisk, but he’s not a Democrat. The Democrats have always been for the “People” writ large. When most of the people were poor, that meant being for the poor too. After WWII, and because of Democratic policies, most of the people are no longer poor and are mostly middle income – the Dems are now for those people too. Democratic policies benefit wealthy people as well because, virtually always, the economy performs better with Democratic policies and when the economy does well, so do wealthy people. But Democratic policy is mostly geared to middle class people these days. However, to the extent that anybody does anything for poor people, it is always the Democrats. The Republicans, simply could not care less about poor people – sometimes they give us some rhetoric, but it’s all for show; they never have developed policies to benefit poor people. Your binary dichotomy is not accurate – you should rethink it and examine history.

  272. 272.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m emphasizing that phrase because you just moved the goalposts. Big Corporations =/= millionaires and billionaires. CEOs of big corporations have a much greater sense of self-preservation than the Koch brothers do.

    I apologize if I moved the goal posts. Fuck the Koch Bros.

    And Fuck CEOs of Big Corporations too. They make way too much money for not producing anything good.

  273. 273.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: It was a poor interview. Admit it. He wasn’t prepared for it and he blew it. Whereas Hillary would have aced it, because (like Obama) she’s a policy wonk who knows these things. Bernie did not.

    It’s perfectly understandable to think Sanders would do poorly as president and not just because of his lackluster standing among his fellow members of the Senate. He seems to have no interest in helping get other like-minded candidates elected to office (the few he has endorsed seem like they were done only as a PR move after people were getting on his case about it) and his idea of getting the Republicans to go along and pass his policies are silly things like getting a million people to stand and protest outside Mitch McConnell’s window. Well, unless those million (a) vote and (b) are from KY, McConnell is not going to give a shit. He’ll merely close the window and then later fundraise off it.

    My favorite description of Sanders is this. Think of the Democratic Senate caucus as a team working to achieve a goal. Someone like Liz Warren in a team player who pitches in and does the hard work to accomplish the goal. Sanders, on the other hand, is the guy who stands off to the side and does nothing, but complains about how everyone else is doing.

  274. 274.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: No, most small business owners are unsophisticated, not because they’re conservative, but because most people are unsophisticated; and depending on how you determine “small business owner”–if you include 1099 “self-employed” contractors for instance–well… it’s a big enough group that you can basically fit the sample to say whatever you want, depending on how you tweak it.

  275. 275.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Ruckus:

    Yeah, it’s amazing to me that some people write Clinton off as insincere when, even if she can’t personally attend to a problem, she gets her staff right on it. That makes for a good executive.

    (And as someone who’s been on total disability since being diagnosed with a nasty terminal cancer, I know the struggles, both physical and financial, that the author is going through. The ACA has worked for me just the way it’s supposed to, and I’m on Medicaid at 50- and I was accepted instantly- and I don’t want to see it torn down to be replaced by some epic failure like Green Mountain Care.)

    Also, I think this story illustrates how Sanders is incapable of thinking outside the little box he’s built for himself.

  276. 276.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @patroclus:

    The Republicans, simply could not care less about poor people – sometimes they give us some rhetoric, but it’s all for show; they never have developed policies to bebefit poor people. Your binary dichotomy is not accurate – you should rethink it and examine history.

    Ugh, really? Examine history? You were being so nice and then you say that. When someone says, reexamine history it’s basically telling them to Fuck Off. Yeah lemme just go “reexamine history” real quick and I’ll be right back with a response.

    I’ll tell you my sense of “History”. Clinton went after Wall St and stole them from the republicans. The Democrats simply cannot be the party of the working class and Wall st at the same time. If they were, then wages would’ve gone up in a similar trend as the rest of the 1%.

    The Democrats pay lip service to their base then sell them out for campaign contributions from big donors.

  278. 278.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    And Fuck CEOs of Big Corporations too. They make way too much money for not producing anything good.

    The fact that they make too much money is immaterial to this discussion. What we’re discussing is whether or not they’re rational people who will act in the best interests of themselves and their corporations.

    Even the Koch brothers are reluctant to support Trump, because they know he’s incompetent. Corporations are going to support Hillary not because they love Hillary and think she’s going to bow down to them, but because they don’t want Trump to crash the world economy.

  279. 279.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Sounds like you spent more than 2 minutes on the subject. Either you didn’t think it all the way through on your own or are slower than I am. And as I don’t think either of those are true I’ll go the third way, you were serious. Mine was wishful thinking about a job that pays well during a huge fucking recession while losing my shirt and pretty much everything else.

  281. 281.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    I’ll tell you my sense of “History”. Clinton went after Wall St and stole them from the republicans.

    Your “sense” of history is factually wrong. If you want to be accepted by a fact-based community, you have to have actual facts to back up your assertions, not vague assertions supported only by your emotional reaction to buzzwords like “corporations.”

  282. 282.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Your sense of “history” does not really have anything to do with actual history.

    Oh well, I guess “Bernie History” is much like “Bernie Math” in that regards. No basis in fact, logic, or even basic sense.

  284. 284.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @gf120581:

    Everyone else is a dirty, traitorous sellout who is part of “the establishment.”

    A true believer would call them Pharisees.

  285. 285.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    Even the Koch brothers are reluctant to support Trump, because they know he’s incompetent. Corporations are going to support Hillary not because they love Hillary and think she’s going to bow down to them, but because they don’t want Trump to crash the world economy

    Nah, Clinton will bow down before them, just as she has done for the past 16 years. The Clintons haven’t made over a 150$ mil since 2000 for nothing ya know!

    And if you think Trump crashing the world economy is an actual thing that could happen, then I’ve got news for ya.

    Trump is a rich businessman. Don’t you think he would act in his own self interest?

  287. 287.

    Ruckus

    @StellaB:

    You wouldn’t like living in the country that you think you want.

    This. This is why I don’t like Sanders. What he wants seems to be a world where all whites are equal (or at least far more equal than currently) financially and if minorities come along for the ride that’s OK. And if they don’t get to come along, does he really need to sweat it. And really, how different is this effectively from conservatives? That conservatives don’t want minorities to come along at all?

  289. 289.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Mnemosyne:

    Explain why Medicare For All is better than Medicaid For All. Please provide at least one weblink supporting your position

    You first. Bet you can’t find one ;)

    Medicare, Medicaid, Universal Health coverage, whatever you want to call it.

    1) cuts out middle people only there for profit and to make money off of sick people.

    2) ability of State to negotiate better prices with Big Pharma, Etc.

    3) Working class people should not lose their homes over unpaid sick bills.

    You know, M, we agree on 99% on this stuff. It’s only your blatant disregard for anything Sanders that makes you hold me in contempt.

  290. 290.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Trump is a rich businessman. Don’t you think he would act in his own self interest?

    Trump is not a rich businessman. Trump is a celebrity who makes the majority of his money by renting out his name. His actual business deals tend to crash and burn in spectacular ways. Again, to emphasize, Trump went bankrupt running a casino. Do you have any clue how hard it is to lose money in a business where people walk in and hand you cash in exchange for nothing at all?

    Trump would crash the world economy and then look around for the same kind of bankruptcy court that’s saved his ass multiple times in the past. But government doesn’t work that way. The Koch brothers know that, but Donald Trump doesn’t.

  291. 291.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Can we do more recipes, because Designated Bellend Deathknell is here failing to blockquote correctly?

  292. 292.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Ruckus:

    This. This is why I don’t like Sanders. What he wants seems to be a world where all whites are equal (or at least far more equal than currently) financially and if minorities come along for the ride that’s OK. And if they don’t get to come along, does he really need to sweat it. And really, how different is this effectively from conservatives? That conservatives don’t want minorities to come along at all?

    Have you been to a Sanders rally?

    so all those non-Caucasian Sanders voters out there, what their votes don’t count?

    Clinton won the South. This is not in dispute. It’s really a generational gap between old and young.

    The old vote Clinton, the young vote Sanders.

    Especially as seen here in the Ballon Juice comment sections!

  293. 293.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Medicare, Medicaid, Universal Health coverage, whatever you want to call it.

    And yet when Max said he was happy to be on Medicaid, your immediate, knee-jerk response was, “Medicare for all is the best policy.”

    Perhaps if you would actually stop and read the words that other people type before replying, you’d look like less of an idiot.

    You know, M, we agree on 99% on this stuff. It’s only your blatant disregard for anything Sanders that makes you hold me in contempt.

    Sorry, but I’m a pragmatist. If I have one candidate who promises me pie in the sky but no plan for how to get it and another candidate who promises me a root beer float at the corner drugstore at 3:00 pm on Tuesday, I’m going to take the root beer float, because I know I’m probably going to get it long before that pie in the sky ever materializes.

    But, either way, I have a few more rows of knitting to get done before bed, so I’m out.

  294. 294.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    ability of State to negotiate better prices with Big Pharma, Etc.

    How do you propose incentivizing companies to do R&D for new drugs? These medicines exist because high drug prices for Americans essentially subsidizes the production of medicines for the world. This is a de facto tax that Americans pay for drug research, so moving it into some sort of public research process (established how exactly?) wouldn’t really shift costs around.

  295. 295.

    Ruckus

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
    Sorry about your issues. Best of luck.
    I’ve got a couple of pretty good ones going myself but generally they aren’t terminal and are for the most part treatable, at least to a degree. Not that the treatment is all that and a bag of chips but doable is better than not. But I started to read some of the comments on her site and once again realize that there are lots of people with chronic pain and that it is a huge issue. And you can fix all the financial issues you want and that pain will still be there.

    Oh and just because it’s another day and this needs to be repeated often, FUCK, Fucking Cancer.

  299. 299.

    Kropadope

    @Ruckus:

    What he wants seems to be a world where all whites are equal (or at least far more equal than currently) financially and if minorities come along for the ride that’s OK.

    That’s fucking ludicrous.

  300. 300.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Major Major Major Major:

    How do you propose incentivizing companies to do R&D for new drugs? These medicines exist because high drug prices for Americans essentially subsidizes the production of medicines for the world

    I was under the impression that most R&D was govt sponsored grants and such.

    And no, exorbitantly high drug prices only serve to enrich those who don’t share their profits with the rest of us common folk.

    As a matter of fact I’d say that resources would be allocated in a much saner fashion under Medicare for all since all the best R&D folks aren’t figuring out ways to make Viagra and Pain Pills.

  301. 301.

    Luthe

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: If you’re such a loyal reader, how come you suddenly appeared with St. Bernard’s campaign? I’ve been hanging out at this pit of jackals for almost ten (!) years and I don’t recall seeing you around.

  302. 302.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Kropadope:

    What he wants seems to be a world where all whites are equal (or at least far more equal than currently) financially and if minorities come along for the ride that’s OK.

    That’s fucking ludicrous.

    lol i don’t even know how to respond to this stuff half the time.

  303. 303.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Nope, it’s not nearly as simple as a clearly simple person like you seems to think it is. But that simplistic black and white view of the world seems very common among that certain type of Sanders supporter like you.

    @Mnemosyne: Speaking as a fellow pragmatist, one does tend to go for the candidate with actual plans to accomplish something (not the least of which is working to elect members of Congress that would be necessary to pass said legislation and accomplish things) than the one with a lot of pie in the sky promises but no plans to actually accomplish said promises.

  304. 304.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Mnemosyne:

    There are a lot more out of pocket expenses with Medicare, including supplemental insurance to make one’s coverage more complete. Most of the people I know who can afford that supplemental insurance get it. IIRC, it was GOP tinkering that created a greater need to get that supplemental insurance, which, of course, is sold by a third party.

    Here’s a difference, too: Back in late April I was hospitalized with low blood pressure. A kidney specialist prescribed a 30 day scrip for a $1300/per pill med. The hospital fought for the insurer to pay for it, but I got it. Under Medicare, there’d have been one helluva co-pay.

  305. 305.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Luthe:

    You haven’t, because I’ve never commented before. There’s been a few of us Bernie supporters who have come out of lurking recently to combat the railroading of the Sanders campaign.

    I’m of the opinion that Cole and Cracker should lay off the MSM falsehoods being manufactured by the Clinton campaign. I’ve come to tell them that it’s basically not cool, and I believe they should do better than to carry water for Clinton on certain issues.

  306. 306.

    Redshift

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    So because he couldn’t answer a really detailed policy question, which no other candidate gets asked BTW, he’s totally incompetent?
    …
    And the NYDN interview was blown up just like the Nevada convention and the rest of the mainstream left ran with it.

    Geez, listen to yourself! Do you honestly believe that Sanders and his supporters did nothing wrong, and these things were just “blown up” by people who were out to get Bernie?

    Both candidates have been asked policy questions in interviews. The NYDN interview alarmed quite a few people not because Sanders couldn’t answer some random gotcha question, but because he couldn’t go much beyond stump speech lines on the issues that were central to his campaign.

    Nevada wasn’t a manufactured controversy, there was some genuine bad behavior, for which there is no “both sides do it.”

    One of the less commonly mentioned elements of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is never admitting failure. It’s always someone else’s fault, or bad luck, or an unfair situation. Think about it.

  307. 307.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Nope, it’s not nearly as simple as a clearly simple person like you seems to think it is. But that simplistic black and white view of the world seems very common among that certain type of Sanders supporter like you.

    Of course it’s not that simple. Gahhh, I’m not a policy expert in healthcare! Lol geez

    Once again I’m reduced to “simple”. At least it’s better than moron, idiot, trump supporter, Paulite, and FUCK OFF.

    Healthcare is a human right deserved to be enjoyed by all. I know you agree with me on this and are only arguing the particulars because of my support for Sanders.

  308. 308.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: It would be best if you dropped the conspiracy fantasies and joined the real world. Trust me, you’ll be happier if you admit that your candidate is human and has made some very bad mistakes recently.

  309. 309.

    Kropadope

    @gf120581:

    Trust me, you’ll be happier if you admit that your candidate is human and has made some very bad mistakes recently.

    There’s a lot of that going around.

  311. 311.

    Kropadope

    @Redshift:

    Nevada wasn’t a manufactured controversy, there was some genuine bad behavior, for which there is no “both sides do it.”

    Except Bernie condemned the violence, but the condemnation was rejected because the local commentariat has had a visceral negative reaction toward Bernie from day one he pointed out his campaign has had ACTUAL violence directed toward it.

  312. 312.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Redshift:

    Regarding the NYDN interview, Sanders misspoke and didn’t know whether the Treasury of SEC head was in charge of breaking up the banks or something along these lines. Once again, it was a gotcha question asked right before the NY Primary.

    Here is how Bernie will reform Wall St, since you apparently think he doesn’t have a clue:

    Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial decisions while expecting the public to bail it out.

    It is time to break up the largest financial institutions in the country.

    The six largest financial institutions in this country today hold assets equal to about 60% of the nation’s gross domestic product. These six banks issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards and over 35% of all mortgages. They control 95% of all derivatives and hold more than 40% of all bank deposits in the United States.

    We must break up too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Those institutions received a $700 billion bailout from the US taxpayer, and more than $16 trillion in virtually zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve. Despite that, financial institutions made over $152 billion in profit in 2014 – the most profitable year on record, and three of the four largest financial institutions are 80% bigger today than they were before we bailed them out. ‎

    Our banking system must be part of the productive, job-creating economy. The Federal Reserve, a government entity which serves as the engine of the banking industry, must eliminate its internal conflicts of interest, provide stricter oversight, and insist that the banks serve the economy in a way that works for everyone, not just a few.

    If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.

    These institutions have acquired too much economic and political power, endangering our economy and our political process.

    KEY ACTIONS
    Introduced the “Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act,” which would break up the big banks and prohibit any too-big-to-fail institutions from accessing the Federal Reserve’s discount facilities or using insured deposits for risky activities.
    Led the fight in 1999 defending Glass-Steagall provisions which prevented banks (especially “too big to fail” ones) from gambling with customers’ money, and currently is a co-sponsor of the Elizabeth Warren/John McCain bill to reinstate those provisions.
    Has proposed a financial transaction tax which will reduce risky and unproductive high-speed trading and other forms of Wall Street speculation; proceeds would be used to provide debt-free public college education.
    Is co-sponsoring Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s bill to end Wall Street’s practice of paying big bonuses to bank executives who take senior-level government jobs.
    Introduced a tax on Wall Street speculation to make public colleges and universities tuition-free
    Supports capping credit card interest rates at 15%.
    Sponsored an amendment calling for an audit the Federal Reserve. The audit found that far more had been spent in the Wall Street bailout than previously disclosed, and that considerable funds had been spent to bail out foreign corporations.
    Warned about the risks of deregulation eight years before the fiscal crisis of 2008.
    Has proposed limiting the ability of bankers to get rich from taxpayer bailouts of their institutions

  314. 314.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    gf120581 says:
    May 21, 2016 at 2:30 am
    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: It would be best if you dropped the conspiracy fantasies and joined the real world. Trust me, you’ll be happier if you admit that your candidate is human and has made some very bad mistakes recently.

    Like what? Tell me all the bad mistakes Sanders has done?

  318. 318.

    AnotherBruce

    @Adam L Silverman: Fuck, are adult human beings really taking the exploits and moral dilemmas of comic book heroes seriously? Yes, as a kid growing up in the sixties I read a lot of comic books. But I grew up and realized that human beings do not have super human powers. I think that believing in super powered heroes explains a lot of things that have gone wrong in the recent decades. We’re always looking for that great man to solve our problems. That relieves us of the responsibility of ever having to be accountable for what goes wrong in our lives. We just pass the buck and blame it on politicians because they fail our expectations. The truth about bad politicians is that we deserve them because, as an electorate, we’re really lazy.

  319. 319.

    tastytone

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Sanders misspoke and didn’t know whether the Treasury of SEC head was in charge of breaking up the banks or something along these lines. Once again, it was a gotcha question asked right before the NY Primary.

    When a candidate says “We must break up the big banks” literally every single time he stands in front of a mic, and a newspaper (be it NYDN, NYT, or the Onion) asks said candidate to explain how they would go about doing this, how exactly does this amount to a “gotcha” question?

  320. 320.

    Steeplejack

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Sorry, you’re wrong here. A lexicon has come to mean “the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge,” so he’s using it correctly. There’s even a Balloon Juice lexicon, which has nothing to do with “laying out the evolution and usage of a language.”

    And axiom is right out in this context.

  322. 322.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Ruckus:

    No reason to apologize- I don’t think you caused the mutation or blocked my auto-immune system from shutting it down. But I do sincerely thank you for the well wishes.

    The way this cancer goes, I could suddenly shuffle off my mortal coil in two weeks, or become an ex-parrot in seven years. I feel kinda healthy now- I’ve got some hearing loss, neuropathy in my fingers and toes, and I can do a single lap around the mall and then feel exhausted (and I used to work intense janitorial jobs that had me hustling for almost a full eight hours, and feel great afterwards, if underpaid)- but I don’t feel really sick and I’m not all jaundiced looking. I looked and felt that way when this was caught in late July last year- two fucking days before my birthday (thanks, Obama)- but I think that chemo saved my life at that point.

    I plan on keeping on with the good fight, and there’s a chance some new DNA-based immunotherapy will come up before I’m done, but if that day comes too late for me, I’m prepared to give my atoms back to the cosmos for recycling.

  323. 323.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Major Major Major Major: Philosophically, sure.

    One of the things that’s really bothered me about Sanders as a candidate is his seeming reliance on shibboleths–“Medicare for all!” has been a rallying cry on the left for a while, and in this campaign it’s been treated as an unalloyed good that’s automatically better than anything else you may suggest because mumble mumble insurance companies. A lot of this is also being pushed disingenuously by the ‘professional left’ types who many here may remember saying we should “kill the bill” in 2010 because Obamacare wasn’t good enough, Obama sold us out, etc.

    So since Obamacare is a priori a sellout bill that indicates corruption on the part of its creators and supporters (such as Hillary), only Bernie’s plan is the One True Liberal Plan, and Bernie’s plan is Medicare For All!, and opponents of Medicare For All! are Corporatist Sellout Neoliberal DINO Squishes.

    This line of reasoning is being successfully sold to a lot of people who we really need in the trenches and Bernie isn’t pushing back against it.

    This is something that’s been discussed ’round these parts a fair bit, so when (pardon if this sounds rude) you come in talking about how Bernie is offering true change and Medicare For All! is what we need and everything else is (pick a derogatory term from above), you’re repeating a shibboleth that indicates membership in the leftier-than-thou, bernie or bust, jane hamsher/ralph nader crowd. Whether you mean to or not.

  325. 325.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @AnotherBruce:

    Sanders is reduced to pie in the sky huh?

    Why all this cynicism and pragmatism?

    Republicans don’t give any quarter whatsoever.

    Obama should’ve went after em when he had a supermajority. Instead all we got was OBAMACARE and Dodd-Frank, two watered down laws that didn’t go nearly as far as they should have.

    Sorry if there’s 45% of the democratic electorate out there that wants that pie in the sky.

  326. 326.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: If you even need to ask that question, you must have had your head in the sand for the last week or so.

    But one big one I could name; blowing tons of $ on rallies while neglecting the ground game (crowds don’t mean shit if the people who show up to hear you talk don’t show up to vote). Or jaunting off to the Vatican to stalk the Pope right before a critical primary. Or writing off an entire region of the country and letting Hillary run up massive victories across it, then proceeding to insult the voters of said region by saying they didn’t really matter. Or blowing that NYDN interview. Or the blatant hypocrisy of railing against superdelegates and then turning around and demanding they give you the nomination over the will of the voters. Or keeping Weaver around. Or refusing to release your tax returns. Or…do you see where I’m going with this?

  327. 327.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: I have a friend in a relatively denote position at a small but mighty hedge fund. He’s usually the lime democratic voter. This year his whole office is voting d. They all hate Clinton. They’d rather vote for a dead skunk than for HRC and he told me they wye routing hard for bernie to take her out. But they will never vote for trump. The businesses and banks are voting against trump not for hillz.

  329. 329.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Do you remember how much effort it took to get those laws passed? Or is it yet another thing you willfully block out because it doesn’t support your version of reality?

  330. 330.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    The businesses and banks are voting against trump not for hillz.

    I’ve read the same about Silicon Valley Squillionaires and their employees too.

  331. 331.

    Kropadope

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Instead all we got was OBAMACARE and Dodd-Frank, two watered down laws that didn’t go nearly as far as they should have.

    Those laws went as far as they could given the political landscape. Both passed only by the skin of their teeth and the so-called “supermajority” was illusory at best. Consider the deaths of Kennedy and Byrd, the prolonged recount of Franken, the existence of Lieberman, etc.

  332. 332.

    Luthe

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: You clearly didn’t read Richard Mayhew’s post about how much people on Medicare pay for things like co-pays, supplemental insurance, and cost-sharing. The upshot was that people on an Academy exchange plan made out better than a large number of Medicare recipients.

    P.S. How do you intend to square the circle of contraceptive/abortion coverage in Medicare-for-all? Because that is a huge issue for women and a guaranteed sticking point for the GOP mouth-breathers.

  335. 335.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    Of course not. I was right there protesting the Tea Party in 2010.

    All I’m saying, is that Obama should’ve started off with the position of Single Payer for all AND THEN compromising. Not kowtowing to the repubs right away.

    Ugh

    Fucking Blue Dog democrats too

  340. 340.

    magurakurin

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Who fucking cares? Sanders lost. It’s over. He’s not the nominee. I’d think youse guys would be more concerned about all the money Tad has been raking in throughout this process. The hard numbers are starting to come in.

    One of the great ironies of this primary is the fact that while Sanders was haranguing against the millionaires and billionaires, his campaign was actually turning more than a few individuals into millionaires themselves. Not the least of them, Tad Devine. Here, though, Tad explains how much he actually sacrificed by taking only a few million from the campaign.

    In an interview, Devine acknowledged that he has made more money than expected from the campaign, but he noted that he is working for a much lower rate than usual. While he usually gets a double-digit percentage of a campaign’s ad spending, the veteran admaker is instead splitting a single-digit-percentage commission with the media buyers at Old Towne Media.
    …
    As of the end of March, Old Towne Media had placed nearly $60 million worth of commercials on local television and radio stations, according to ad tracking data obtained by The Post. Such volume translates into significant fees, even with a single-digit commission split between the media buyers and Devine’s firm, Devine Mulvey Longabaugh. A small fee of just 5 percent, for example, would equal almost $3 million. (Ad buyers alone typically get between 2 percent and 5 percent commission.)

    but, you know, like, revolution and stuff…

  341. 341.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Kropadope:

    onsider the deaths of Kennedy and Byrd, the prolonged recount of Franken, the existence of Lieberman

    And McConnell vowing to say no to everything Obama. This is one of the issues I have with the DNC. They didn’t fight the smear job against Obama in the 2010 midterms. It’s like they were asleep at the wheel, or more likely didn’t give a fuck.

  342. 342.

    Steeplejack

    @Adam L Silverman:

    [. . .] you can have process or you can have progress, but you usually can’t have both.

    WTF? Maybe it’s good that you’ve “racked out,” because this makes no sense. You can’t have progress without some sort of working process. The fact that the GOP has chosen to blow up the “process” is why we have so little progress on anything at all.

    Shorter: How do you have progress without process?

  343. 343.

    tastytone

    @Major Major Major Major:

    the ‘professional left’ types who many here may remember saying we should “kill the bill” in 2010 because Obamacare wasn’t good enough, Obama sold us out, etc.

    Oh hell yes, we remember. Some of us also remember standing at ACA town hall meetings with Tea-Baggers screaming in our ears about tyranny and threatening violence, and boy-oh-boy the bullshit in Nevada last week sure brought it all back…

  345. 345.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @magurakurin:

    One of the great ironies of this primary is the fact that while Sanders was haranguing against the millionaires and billionaires, his campaign was actually turning more than a few individuals into millionaires themselves. Not the least of them, Tad Devine. Here, though, Tad explains how much he actually sacrificed by taking only a few million from the campaign.

    You think I’m gonna take Devines side in this? Fuck Crony Capitalism.

    But since you went there, the Clintons have made over 150 mil since 2000.

    The revolution already started when Sanders proved that a candidate can run a small donor campaign. This is what truly frightens the big wigs in the DNC. All that money that can’t siphon away.

  346. 346.

    Cacti

    @magurakurin:

    I’m guessing that there was some self-enrichment going on too. I’m sure Jane has been drawing a handsome salary for her services.

  347. 347.

    gf120581

    @magurakurin: “Mr. Devine, why do you and the campaign keep telling your supporters to keep sending donations even though you cannot win the nomination? Isn’t that dishonest?”

    “Let’s just say it moved me…TO A BIGGER HOUSE!!! Oh, crap. I said the soft part loud and the loud part soft, didn’t I?”

  348. 348.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Kropadope:

    Kropadope says:
    May 21, 2016 at 3:08 am
    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: More like scared to the point of inaction. They went into the reflexive devensive crouch they’ve perfected in the years since the Reagan admin.

    I’d argue it’s by design. They all got paid off. Nelson AND Landrieu, who has now become a big energy lobbyist. Fuck her.

  349. 349.

    magurakurin

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: huh? Tad Devine is the most senior of senior campaign advisers. Whatever. Good luck to you, whatever future endeavors you choose to pursue. I imagine we won’t here from you much more after the 7th of June…

  350. 350.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @tastytone:

    Oh hell yes, we remember. Some of us also remember standing at ACA town hall meetings with Tea-Baggers screaming in our ears about tyranny and threatening violence, and boy-oh-boy the bullshit in Nevada last week sure brought it all back…

    All those Nevada Chair Brandishers giving me the Vapors!

    I’ll take ur Town Hall and raise you a Tea Party rally I single handedly disrupted on the steps of the Louisiana Capitol.

    They’re not the same whatsoever.

  351. 351.

    gf120581

    @magurakurin: I imagine it causes some major cognitive dissonance for Sanders diehards in trying to justify how the “revolution” features the likes of Devine, who is as “establishment” Democratic as it gets. For crying out loud, he was instrumental in creating the whole superdelegate system (you know, those “undemocratic” superdelegates that Sanders is now expecting to override the election results and give him the nomination?).

  352. 352.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @magurakurin:

    huh? Tad Devine is the most senior of senior campaign advisers. Whatever. Good luck to you, whatever future endeavors you choose to pursue. I imagine we won’t here from you much more after the 7th of June…

    I’d say he’s run an excellent campaign wouldn’t you?

    20 states.
    10 million voters
    An energized Youth vote

    I’d say he’s earned most of that money. And I’ll keep donating til Sanders drops out, because at this point it’s about the future of the Democratic Party.

    What about this don’t yall understand?

    Sanders keeps winning. And yall keep calling for him to drop out.

    Unless you’re saying that the voters of Cali and NJ and DC don’t matter?

  354. 354.

    Kropadope

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    I’d argue it’s by design. They all got paid off. Nelson AND Landrieu, who has now become a big energy lobbyist. Fuck her.

    Everyone has groups they support or with whom they’ve developed mutually supportive relationships. Much of it often has to do with the economy of their very own state. Besides which, reasonable people can disagree on what is good and right. A mixed record is better than a near-uniformly bad one.

    Sanders keeps winning. And yall keep calling for him to drop out.

    It was a little ridiculous before Iowa had happened. It makes sense for him to, if not drop out, focus more on party building and reconciliation at this point. Still, that doesn’t justify the general caricaturization, dismissiveness, and rudeness.

  356. 356.

    tastytone

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:I’ll take ur Town Hall and raise you a Tea Party rally I single handedly disrupted on the steps of the Louisiana Capitol.

    Single-handedly and all? My mistake: You’re a total bad-ass.

    And maybe you’re right–Tea Party comparisons are a bit gauche. Let’s call NV a Kombucha Party.

  357. 357.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    @magurakurin: I imagine it causes some major cognitive dissonance for Sanders diehards in trying to justify how the “revolution” features the likes of Devine, who is as “establishment” Democratic as it gets. For crying out loud, he was instrumental in creating the whole superdelegate system (you know, those “undemocratic” superdelegates that Sanders is now expecting to override the election results and give him the nomination?).

    The Revolution happened already. You missed the forest for the trees. Sanders proved that you can run a campaign off the backs of working class people and not big donors.

    For every Devine, I’m sure there are a 10 Clinton examples

  360. 360.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Some people come from states which draw much of their taxes from businesses that harvest ingredients for certain types of pie. A person who comes from a state that relies on pecans to cover a large part of of their state’s revenue is going to ask that retaurants feature pecan pie.

    Now some people are going to be annoyed at this person for lobbying for pecan pies because pecan pies are bad for the teeth- and probably a bit more of the human body. But there’s a demand for pecan pies, and a dip in pecan pie sales might cost the pecan state a lot of jobs as well as taxable dollars. So people, even those with the best intentions, have some tough choices to make. It’s hard to tear them apart if they’re saving their own state fro going pie-less.

  361. 361.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @tastytone:

    Single-handedly and all? My mistake: You’re a total bad-ass.

    And maybe you’re right–Tea Party comparisons are a bit gauche. How ’bout Kombucha Party?

    Thank you! It was a very exhilarating experience. At one point they all started praying around me. Very surreal.

    And idk what Kombucha Party? I’m guessing it’s another sarcastic response.

  362. 362.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):

    So people, even those with the best intentions, have some tough choices to make. It’s hard to tear them apart if they’re saving their own state fro going pie-less.

    Pecan Pie happens to be my favorite pie :)

    I know you’re making an analogy here, but I don’t accept the premise. Everyone should enjoy pie. To simply dismiss that is what is ruining the two party system.

  363. 363.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Nope. If he’d run an excellent campaign, he wouldn’t be where he is now. It’s rather pitiful that you keep trying to convince yourself otherwise.

    Besides, this isn’t a revolution. It’s a cult of Sanders. An actual broad political movement would be run by someone like Warren. Sanders is all about himself.

  364. 364.

    Amir Khalid

    It’s 3:30pm on a Saturday here and the neighbours are doing wedding-song karaoke. Earlier today I heard a groom reciting his wedding vows over a PA system, which I’ve never heard anyone do before.

  365. 365.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Kropadope:

    was a little ridiculous before Iowa had happened. It makes sense for him to, if not drop out, focus more on party building and reconciliation at this point. Still, that doesn’t justify the general caricaturization, dismissiveness, and rudeness.

    I think he is TBH. He was vilified and attacked over the last couple days. I don’t fault him for taking it to the DNCs doorstep.
    He has said from Day one that he will support the Democratic Nominee. That’s what I don’t understand.

  367. 367.

    tastytone

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    off the backs of working class people

    Perfection.
    Now get them to believe you’ll instantly stop immigration, gay marriage, and abortion give them universal healthcare, break up the banks, and provide free college without any feasible strategy. If they ask for one, accuse them of a “gotcha question”.

  368. 368.

    Ruckus

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
    This was my argument against Medicare for all when President Obama was trying to get the ACA passed and many people kept saying Medicare for All. It’s lousy health care insurance. It is of course far, far better than nothing at all but it is not the panacea that some tend to think it is. And to participate there is a monthly charge, use it or not and this is after paying in with payroll taxes for the last 50 yrs. So on top of the generous benefit that is SS there is a monthly deduction from it for Medicare part A plus you still owe for anything over and above what Medicare pays for. It is not free, not in any sense of the word.

  369. 369.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: He brought it on himself with his tone deaf response to the NV mess. He has no one to blame but himself.

    The reports that he is mending fences with Boxer and the rest is good to hear, but he needs to do it in public for the sake of his reputation. He needs to denounce the worst of his supporters and ensure civility. And he also needs to be straight with his supporters and stop lying to them about the state of the race.

  370. 370.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    Besides, this isn’t a revolution. It’s a cult of Sanders. An actual broad political movement would be run by someone like Warren. Sanders is all about himself

    Then we are gonna have to agree to disagree!

    We care about the issues, be it Sanders or Warren, makes no difference to us.
    I’d argue that Sanders has run a campaign based on issues and that there’s a Cult of Clinton, especially from some supporters here in Balloon Juice.

    Like I say all the time, Sanders is gonna lose. But the facts are that Clinton WILL NOT win a majority of delegates until the DNC. So barring a Clinton blowout win in Cali, Bernie is in it til the end, LIKE HES SAID FROM THE BEGINNING. Now instead of offering him a deal, like Obama did in 08 with the SoS position, Clinton hasn’t offered anything besides a few measley seats at the DNC dinner party.

    Bernie has leverage right now, and he will use it to help shape the future of the Democratic Party, which most of yall already agree with me on anyways.

    It’s more about BernieBashin at this point than any real discussion.

  371. 371.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    The reports that he is mending fences with Boxer and the rest is good to hear, but he needs to do it in public for the sake of his reputation. He needs to denounce the worst of his supporters and ensure civility. And he also needs to be straight with his supporters and stop lying to them about the state of the race.

    He has condemned the attacks. He has denounced them. Has Clinton denounced the worst of her supporters yet?

    That Female Sanders supporter didn’t punch herself in the face.

    Once again, if ud actually read an account of what happened in Nevada you will see some very underreported aspects concerning the shitty things Lange did, Boxer being an asshole to the Bernie faction, and some over reporting of falsities like violent chairs from Ralston and the rest of the Media.

  372. 372.

    Cacti

    @gf120581:

    He brought it on himself with his tone deaf response to the NV mess. He has no one to blame but himself.

    Bernie’s most unbecoming trait as a candidate has been his total inability to lose with any grace, class, or composure.

    Rather than just taking his lumps and moving on from his losses, his wounded ego needed to delegitimize something about the process in each defeat. And now, he’s created a monster in the form of supporters with a carefully cultivated, but completely bogus belief that something has been stolen from them.

    Part of mending fences will require Bernie to acknowledge that he gave it his best, but lost the race fair and square.

  373. 373.

    magurakurin

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    wrong. Clinton will have a majority of all delegates (2383) when the polls close in New Jersey. She will secure a majority of pledged delegates(2026) when the vote is counted in CA. The fact that none of the votes of the delegates aren’t cast until the convention is immaterial. That is always the case. It was the case in 2008. But there will be no question in any sane mind on the night of June 7 that Hillary Clinton is the nominee for president of the Democratic Party. I imagine that Bernie Sanders will concede as much by the end of that same week.

    You, I don’t know. Maybe never. But I don’t give a fuck what you do, think or say, actually.

  374. 374.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    A few nights ago, I said that I’d be posting a scene that may or may not be the start of a new novel, but would at least give an idea of what that novel would be like. Well, it’s posted. It’s really rough, and I’m not sure just how engaging it is, but it does touch on a lot of what it would be about, especially the protagonist Walsh.

  375. 375.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @tastytone:

    Perfection.
    Now get them to believe you’ll instantly stop immigration, gay marriage, and abortion give them universal healthcare, break up the banks, and provide free college without any feasible strategy. If they ask for one, accuse them of a “gotcha question”.

    Ummm, Bernie has NEVER said it would be easy. We are not as dumb and cultish as u make us out to be. It’s called ACTIVISM. Ya know, that thing the right wing has been using for years to enact their draconian and fascist laws. Except the opposite, with democrats that won’t sell out to lobbyists BECAUSE WE WILL FUND THEM.

    This is what Sanders has proved. We can elect democrats representing us without all those pesky millionaires and billionaires stealing from us :)

  376. 376.

    Ruckus

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
    I’m told that a good attitude is one of the best things for illness, no matter what the cause. I hope so because that good attitude is about all I have and it continues to be tested. Like I said I’m not at the same degree as you but issues are issues and they can be a bitch to live with. But I’m not ready to give up or go willingly (and at least my current prognosis gives me a pretty good chance of being around to find out how much I can stand) so I’ve got that going for me. But the docs aren’t finished scratching their heads as to the what and what’s next so it may be somewhat early to start thinking about this too much. But I’ve got the fatigue and the chronic pain part down pat, along with a few others, some of which are affecting my work. I can still work part time but 3 days of work takes 4 days of rest to get over. As you know that’s pretty discouraging for someone used to going strong way too many hours a week.

  377. 377.

    Steeplejack

    Comments so far: 379.
    Becnel: 70 (18%).
    Replies to Becnel: 96 (25%).
    Total Becnel-related: 43%.

    “I’m not sucked in by the troll. I’m just playing with it.”

    “No, officer, really, I was just helping that sheep over the fence.”

  378. 378.

    Damien

    Bernie has been a really awful candidate, a cardboard stand-in Obama for people who apparently badly, badly need to get a thrill up the leg before they’ll get in the mud fight that is politics.

    Obama made a new, strong coalition; saved the auto industry, staved off the Great Depression, got us closer to universal health coverage than anyone on either side has in a century, expanded gay rights and even fought for trans and disabled citizens. Plus he did the one thing that Bernie simply hasn’t: he won.

    If you think that Obama wasn’t an insurgent candidate, who came out of nowhere to ignite the imagination, you’re wrong. I was there, I saw him do it, and with far less money and opportunity than Bernie has had. He was fueled by small donations, he had the youth, and he inspired on dozens of issues, not just three. He was smarter, he was better, and he has demonstrated everything that made him great as he’s governed a split government where half of it has been run by children.

    Bernie Sanders didn’t create a revolution, he took the revolution that Obama built and decided to add some engines to his hobby horses. He lost, and the level of whinging and retconning about it has grown intolerable.

  379. 379.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Hillary wasn’t offered the SOS post until after the election. And Obama had to convince her to take it.

    It’s hard to take you even remotely seriously when you don’t even know basic facts.

    And just FYI, Hillary is going to win a majority of pledged delegates. That is assured. The SDs will then do as they have always done and put her over the top. There’s no “special exemption” because your beloved Bird Man is the chosen one or some other nonsense.

    And no, Sanders did not condemn the worst of his supporters or denounce them. He was tone deaf and condoning of them in his response, which has backfired badly on him. He appears to be changing his tone now, but don’t spin me this fantasy that he did. It makes you look like even more a liar than you’ve already shown yourself to be.

  381. 381.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @magurakurin:

    wrong. Clinton will have a majority of all delegates (2383) when the polls close in New Jersey. She will secure a majority of pledged delegates(2026) when the vote is counted in CA. The fact that none of the votes of the delegates aren’t cast until the convention is immaterial. That is always the case. It was the case in 2008. But there will be no question in any sane mind on the night of June 7 that Hillary Clinton is the nominee for president of the Democratic Party. I imagine that Bernie Sanders will concede as much by the end of that same week.

    I agree she will be the nominee. But based on polling, she won’t get the required pledged delegates she needs. Of course if I’m wrong I’ll promptly admit. I am a gracious loser after all and not a Sore Winner.

    You, I don’t know. Maybe never. But I don’t give a fuck what you do, think or say, actually.

    Yes you do, or else you wouldn’t be responding to me :)

    I’ve enjoyed conversing with you immensely!

  383. 383.

    Ruckus

    @Luthe:
    GOP mouth-breathers
    I really think this should be changed to GOP ass-breathers. A mouth breather would not normally have shit coming out of the same orifice.

  384. 384.

    John M. Burt

    J-San ‎@lawdood
    The only woman in the Presidential race, who’s being attacked on two fronts now, is the only one not whining about “fairness.”

    I was very polite to @lawdood.
    All I said was, “Secretary Clinton does not have the right not to be ‘attacked’ by someone who is running against her for the Democratic nomination. That isn’t how elections work”
    I didn’t say, “There aren’t special rules for girls”.
    I didn’t say, “True, only Clinton is being attacked from both left and right.”
    I didn’t say, “The only Jew in the race is being attacked from the right and from the far right.”
    I didn’t say, “True, Secretary Clinton is not complaining about malfunctioning voting machines, or about the DNC showing favoritism to Senator Sanders, or about her delegates being excluded at the Nevada caucuses, or….”
    See? I was downright gentle with him.

  385. 385.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    And no, Sanders did not condemn the worst of his supporters or denounce them. He was tone deaf and condoning of them in his response, which has backfired badly on him. He appears to be changing his tone now, but don’t spin me this fantasy that he did. It makes you look like even more a liar than you’ve already shown yourself to be.

    Actually, polling has shown that Democratic opinion of Hillary has gone down while Trumps has been going up.

    Clintons the one antagonizing the voters now saying that she’s the nominee (and therefore your votes don’t count Cali, NJ, DC). I really expected her to handle this more smoothly, but she always did like to Punch Dirty Hippies and embrace Republicans.

    And I was wrong about the SoS timeline.
    See I can admit when I’m wrong!

  386. 386.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: She is the nominee, stupid. I don’t know how much more blatantly one can make it to you, but someone as clearly in willful denial as you are about, well, everything can pretty much do so even if reality is in your face and shouting at foghorn levels.

    I’m glad most Sanders supporters are not like you, because you pretty much do them a disservice with your behavior. The ones like you are unfortunately the ones giving the large majority a bad name.

  387. 387.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    pid. I don’t know how much more blatantly one can make it to you, but someone as clearly in willful denial as you are about, well, everything can pretty much do so even if reality is in your face and shouting at foghorn levels.

    She is a candidate. NOT the Nominee. She WILL be the nominee, but until then, sorry, Clintons still gotta primary campaign to run!

    And you’re making it pretty loud and clear BTW.

  388. 388.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    And really it’s Friday night and we are here doing what, blogging? Yeah that’s productive. Like we’ve solved the world’s problems tonight or any night for that matter.

  389. 389.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @gf120581:

    Pick on the little person in the club huh?
    “Dumb Troll”

    As far as I can tell its me debating you at this point. You don’t own this blog. Its a nice comfy safe space for people with differing views to discuss good political topics!

  390. 390.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Ruckus:

    And really it’s Friday night and we are here doing what, blogging? Yeah that’s productive. Like we’ve solved the world’s problems tonight or any night for that matter.

    That’s tommorrow night!

  391. 391.

    gf120581

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: She’s “not the nominee” in the same way Trump is “not the nominee” in that neither of them have officially clinched it yet. But that’s only a formality. They are their respective party nominees. Best accept that and move on from Sanders and his “revolution,” which, given it’s largely about him, will likely die quickly unless he decides to turn it from a vanity project into something actually useful. Working to get other candidates for office elected downticket would be a wise idea.

    Oh, and just FYI, using CAPITAL LETTERS at random moments does NOT MAKE YOU sound any less ridiculous than you would using NORMAL caps.

  393. 393.

    Kropadope

    @Cacti:

    Rather than just taking his lumps and moving on from his losses, his wounded ego needed to delegitimize something about the process in each defeat.

    Not all, but there were some that were legitimately problematic. I think the complaining about Iowa was off base. Winning an improbably high percentage of coin tosses will happen. Each toss is 50/50, a small sample will be less likely to reflect that. Arizona lost registrations of people who legitimately registered and changed parties and even changed parties incorrectly. That, however, is more reflective of local Republican negligence and antipathy toward voting.

    New York’s voter registration laws, while well established, are pretty extreme for requiring 6 months to change party affiliation. New registrations require only one, and even that’s long. It would seem they took the criticism seriously, though, I heard they were considering changing it.

  397. 397.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Kropadope:

    For some, particularly cacti, it was that from the word very beginning.

    I noticed that Betty,
    Miss Bianca, Les, Mnemosyne, Flpyrwig, J R, and a few others have not been receptive as I would have liked.

    Adam, Patroclus, you, have been pretty cool though!

  398. 398.

    magurakurin

    you’re a fucking moron, mate. A true blue moron. And considering that you actually work for the campaign it is exceedingly clear as to why Sanders has lost. Heck of a job, Brownie.

  399. 399.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gf120581:

    I seriously don’t understand the cult-like devotion Sanders gets from his diehards. It’s downright creepy. (But then again, I don;t get anyone being fanatical about any politician.) But mostly I just wonder, why him? I can get that type of devotion when it’s someone like Obama, who is truly an inspirational figure, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why some people look at this angry, humorless, self-righteous old scold and view him as this saintly savior who is going to change everything by, I don’t know, pointing fingers at everyone or something. I mean, him?

    I don’t feel it, but I understand it. The country may be in better shape than it was in 2009, but the system is still just not working for a lot of people, and they’ve lost all hope of improvement from any kind of normal politics. An angry, humorless, self-righteous old scold is the kind of person who expresses the anger and frustration that they feel themselves. It doesn’t really matter whether there’s a detailed mechanism or a plan for how he’ll change things. He’s the guy saying “fuck all this”, so they support him, because fuck all this. Other, more clueless people get driven to Trump for the same reason.

  400. 400.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kropadope:

    I think the complaining about Iowa was off base. Winning an improbably high percentage of coin tosses will happen. Each toss is 50/50, a small sample will be less likely to reflect that.

    Also, that wasn’t even the whole set of coin tosses, it was just the subset mentioned in a certain article, which may well have had some kind of sampling bias. The article didn’t make that clear, though.

  404. 404.

    StellaB

    @Cacti:

    I’m guessing that there was some self-enrichment going on too. I’m sure Jane has been drawing a handsome salary for her services.

    Why do you think they won’t release their 2015 taxes?

  405. 405.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Steeplejack: I think, with the earlier context, he was saying something like (without enough words):

    “You can have a (n extremely low corruption) political process, or you can have (effective, timely) progress, but you can’t have both.”

    Politics is horse-trading and compromise. Horse-trading means that things not related to the immediate issue get talked about and agreed to (“you vote for my bill here and I’ll help you with that project of yours”). If you take out earmarks (which don’t increase the amount of money spent, just directs where some of it is spent), if you take out people being able to vote with the other party, if you take out people being told to be responsible to more than the party’s position on an issue, then the system may be “pure”, but it’s not effective.

    I think that’s what he was saying. Could be wrong though. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  406. 406.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Major Major Major Major: Beagle is evocative of an earlier research ship. Or Beagle II or something. It might connotate something a little too light-hearted though. Or maybe you could take advantage of that like King (apparently) did with Cujo.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  407. 407.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Steeplejack: When the last line on a comment is:

    Aren’t yall tired of Bernie Bashjng on this site yet?

    it’s pretty easy to see what the intent is, and how he hopes it will go….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  408. 408.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @Damien: Well said. I think Bernie and his supporters underestimated the difficulty of doing what Obama’s campaign was able to do. Like a kid who sees a video of Steph Curry draining Three-pointers and thinks “I can do that” and goes out and gets on the court lunging and barely getting the pall past the free-throw line. (Or replace that with whatever analogy best suits your understanding.) And the biggest mistake is that Bernie didn’t bother to follow the tutorial on how to succeed. He didn’t understand the importance of geography and demographics in trying to replicate Obama’s successes in 2008/2012. To return to the basketball analogy, he didn’t even learn to hold the ball correctly in his hands before shooting and he never learned the importance of the follow through on generating backspin. And Hillary did. She went to the b-ball clinic and studied up and listened to learn the mechanics that were needed and she stuck with them. The great irony is that Bernie was warned early on that he would never win unless he got the Black vote and Southern states onboard. He thought he could get the 2008/2012 results without following the very well documented roadmap that led to them. And then, sadly, he started complaining about the refs and the rules and the sponsors whose name are on the stadium. Like many here, Bernie’s stances are actually closer to my own than HIllary’s and I welcomed his oportunity to woo me to his side, but at this point it’s become painfully obvious that he’s not in the same league as Obama (to be fair, who is?) or Hillary.

  410. 410.

    Mark B

    @Major Major Major Major: There’s this common misconception among Bernie supporters that the states that don’t allow non-democrats to vote in the Democratic primary are disenfranchising voters. Which is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of a primary. Also it assumes that if independents were allowed to vote in a party primary that they weren’t qualified to vote in, suddenly millions of them would descend down and lift Bernie to heaven on their magical wings. Which isn’t a given.

  411. 411.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    “I am a whiteman who feels like a black man in 1950”

    I am not found of purity tests, but seriously, anyone who uses language like that can’t possible be a liberal of any kind.

  413. 413.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Ruckus:

    Is medical marijuana available to you? Have you tried it for your chronic pain?

    Hang in there and try to stay positive. You’ve always got awesome things to experience.

  414. 414.

    Martha from Augusta

    @redshirt: All we’re saying, Miss Fletcher, is that wherever you go, there always seems to be a murder.

  415. 415.

    scav

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel: Better with blockquotes than when you started? Jaybus, you do grade yourself on an easy curve. Your mistakes with the things reveal a basic and repeated misunderstanding of opening and closing tags in html (seriously, you run a site?) and the belief you’re getting better reveals you haven’t a clue what their use should look like. All of piece with your use of basic logic in argumentation.

  416. 416.

    Miss Bianca

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): @Ruckus: Very late to the thread but wanted to say, very best of luck to both of you. Cancer and chronic pain are two of the most horrible health scourges of humankind. Hang in there – seconded on the MMJ, if that’s feasible – it’s amazing the number of conditions it’s supposed to be good for – and if nothing else, as Grandpa Jones said of moonshine: “it makes bein’ sick a whole lot more interesting.” ; )

  417. 417.

    Cleos

    Oh for fuck’s sake either GROW UP or find a 40-story building to jump off of. I’ve had it with these excuses.

  418. 418.

    Cleos

    @? Martin: NALTS are like that. It’s always, always, always all about them and they don’t give a damn about the consequences.

  419. 419.

    Bobby Thomson

    I feel happy every day knowing that Sanders lost, lost badly, and that all of his soft support is deserting him rapidly.

    Couldn’t happen to a more obnoxious demagogue.

  420. 420.

    PatrickG

    @Steeplejack:

    The troll is obvious, but some of those responses are quite good. Becnel’s an idiotic troll, but he’s at least provoking some really incisive comments by regulars. I’m happily pirating some of the driest, wittiest responses for re-purpose elsewhere (reuse! recycle!).

    It’s at least a step above Bob in Portland, who’s long since stopped interesting people enough for intelligent response.

    Of course, I’m only seeing portions of his comments in blockquotes. I love me some pie filter. :D

    ETA: @Major Major Major Major: Becnel test made me chortle SO HARD.

  421. 421.

    Ruckus

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
    @Miss Bianca:
    Well my docs are all federal employees so they can’t prescribe.
    But I do live in CA so finding one is not all that difficult. Probably take 10-15 minutes.
    But I’m not interested. I used to partake but stopped 31 yrs ago. I like my life straight up, I’ve tried it sideways and upside down and that’s why I became not interested.
    My pain is chronic and present all the time but in the upper levels for only rather short periods and is not my worst issue at this time.
    And thank you both.

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