President Obama is off the sidelines and has released an endorsement of Hillary:
The general election is on. Time to pummel Trump and take back our statehouses, courthouses, and the House and Senate.
I can not wait for Obama to start beating Trump around the head and neck. It’s going to be fucking beautimous.
Corner Stone
B. Barry Bamz The Islamic Shock coming off the top rope!
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Corporatist neoliberal shill, selling out true progressives for billionaire money. He’s not a real Democrat, and wants to destroy the party on behalf of multinational oligarchs.
Luthe
FINALLY. Time to drop the infighting and get to work. Let’s get this show on the road, people.
PST
He laid it on with a trowel, didn’t he? That’s what he should do. Hope Sanders appreciates the gesture.
Immanentize
With a big fat ‘BAMhammer! I guess this is really what Obama and Bernie discussed today — the pivot to Sander’s coming utter irrelevance.
C. Isaac
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
But what’s he done to disappoint me lately?
I mean, I still don’t have the diamond pony named Butt Stallion I was promised.
Major Major Major Major
Oh man. This will be fun.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Can we please consider this as Sanders getting his participation trophy and move on now? kthnxbai.
lethargytartare
Obama sold us out
Ninedragonspot
That DC primary should go well for Sanders now.
rikyrah
The election season is now ON
LAO
I was going to post this below, but got busy — will the jerk cutting onions in my office, please stop. I can’t be sitting at my desk crying when there’s work to be done!
Good Dog, I can’t wait to see Mr. Obama on the campaign trail again. There is no one who gets under Trump’s skin quite like the President.
Corner Stone
Mein Gott! Two whole minutes? ***OUTRAGE***
D58826
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: THe Obama announcment will step all over Bernie’s post meeting statemewnt but it seemed to boil down to:
1. he will continue campaign thru the DC primary
2. will work to prevent trump from being elected
3. will meet with Clinton in the near future
4. will monitor the calif. vote count because it is a lot closer than it looks.
I think there is still a lot of work to be done to get him off the cliff
Betty Cracker
Since I know President Obama reads Balloon Juice, I’ll just drop this here:
Please, Mr. President, ask Trump when he’s going to finally reveal the “absolutely unbelievable” findings of the birther investigation squad he sent to Hawaii a few years back. Please, O Lion King! Ask Trump this question!
Gin & Tonic
Forget first black Pres or first woman Pres – what’s historic is an outgoing Democratic President full-throatedly endorsing the next Democratic candidate, and that candidate fully accepting of such endorsement. I’m pretty old, but that’s never happened in my memory.
petesh
I dont know how helpful this is, but I engaged with a leftist anti-Hillary person on another site, who claimed that HRC opposed all 7 of the policies they picked. Anti-Hill in italic, my responses regular. Copied without any kind of permission but also without any identification. I think it’s a fairly typical list.
Here are some policies I support:
Single-payer health care.
I agree. In principle, so does HRC, but her campaign only says she will expand the ACA.
-No torturing political prisoners.
I agree. HRC changed her position to support a ban on torture at least two years ago:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-pass-laws-forbidding-torture-113631
-Raise the minimum wage.
We all agree on this. HRC is only committed to $12/hr but publicly supports those campaigning for $15, at least at state level.
-End the imperialistic wars.
I agree.
-Expand Social Security and pay for it by levying Social Security taxes on capital gains.
HRC is committed to expanding social security and raising taxes on the rich to pay for it; I agree with that. I also agree with taxing capital gains, as does HRC, but I would not tie the two together,
-Ban inheritance of wealth above $250,000 (not counting first homes and farms).
I’m not sure about the number, but I like the concept. HRC is more incremental: she would lower the exemption (from $5.45 to 3.5 million) and rate the tax rate (from 40% to 45%).
-End NSA mass spying.
I like the concept but it’s unrealistic. HRC undoubtedly disagrees with both of us.
I work with what I can get, in an imperfect world. If you need more links, the positions attributed to HRC were all from the first page of a Google search for her name + a short description of the issue; most are on her extensive website.
Trentrunner
@Gin & Tonic: Crap, you’re right. True, but sad. But glad for today. :)
Amir Khalid
I know I haven’t paid much attention to Bernie’s BFF Cenk Uygur, but I look forward to Uygur’s reaction.
Immanentize
@LAO: Tears of joy, I guess?
Hungry Joe
It’s looking VERY good, and I’m feeling positive and all fired up … at the moment. But I asked my wife if we have any pearls (we don’t) because I’m sure there’ll be times between now and Nov. 8 when I feel the need to clutch them. I’m also in the market for a fainting couch on which to collapse when, inevitably, I get the vapors. I think a lot of us will, between now and Judgment Day; I ask that everyone here try to be understanding when those of us with jellied backbones and feverish imaginations freak the fuck out on occasion. We mean well, really we do.
Major Major Major Major
I’m guessing Warren will endorse next, Sanders will have his Downfall moment, and then it’s ON, baby.
But man, why does Obama always have to clean up all these white dudes’ messes for them. Poor guy.
LAO
@Immanentize: Bad on me — yes. Tuesday night, I was surprised by my emotional reaction to Hillary’s speech. I remain pretty emotional about finally having a woman at the head of the ticket of a major party.
Ben Cisco
OMG THAT’S BARACK OBAMA’S MUSIC!!!
D58826
mOre from Bernie
Doesn’t sound like he is going to be very helpful
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/06/09/bernie-hil-i-will-talk-beating-trump.html
lollipopguild
@D58826: One way to get him off the cliff is kick him in the ass.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major:
For the same reasons that Democrats always must clean up Republican messes — he/we really care about progress.
Chris
I remain convinced that the fact that Obama made Trump look ridiculous in front of the entire world back in 2011 is the reason Trump wants to be president. It’s the only way he can feel like he’s got a sufficient “hah. I showed you!” moment.
aimai
Bbbbamms! That is all.
bemused
Tromp the Trump. Thump the Trump.
petesh
Oh, and by the way: Truck the Fump
Mnemosyne
@lollipopguild:
This. I’m sure Obama told Bernie that he was going to endorse Hillary today.
And I am already loving the image of Democrats standing shoulder-to-shoulder against Trump, saying, “Not today, asshole.”
Miss Bianca
I love our President. I love how he’s out there swinging for our President-to-be.
Bring it ON!
lollipopguild
Time to take Donnie the Dumbass to the woodshed.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Thanks…folks in the office are wondering what the hell is so funny in here…
L.O.to the L
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: Well I knew the answer, silly. ?
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Didn’t Warren endorse already?
James E Powell
@Hungry Joe:
Be sure to have the pearls, the couch, the smelling salts, and a cold wet towel ready for the first debate. A tranquilizer gun for Chris Matthews also too.
The corporate press/media are going to be working very hard to keep this race close.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: Which, for me, is going to make it all that more delicious when both Obama AND Clinton hand Trump his sorry white onion.
@LAO: Speaking of onions…that guy is visiting your office, too?
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
Stop it, y’all, I’m dyin’…
bobbo
When was the last time an incumbent President actively campaigned for the person running to succeed him? Pretty damn exciting.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: Ah — tricked again by the old rhetorical question — DRAT!
Gene108
I hope the combined firepower of Obama, Liz Warren, Biden, et. al. can start forcing the MSM to keep pestering down ticket races to either publicly acknowledge Trump’s racism or denounce Trump.
Really use Trump to tear apart the GOP.
Arclite
Also Hillary too.
MattF
@D58826: Actually, I had the opposite response to Sanders’ statement. I agree with Greg Sargent.
ETA: And… Thanks Obama!
Chat Noir
Game on!
Betty Cracker
@Chris: I agree, and that’s why I’m so eager for Trump’s birther crusade to return to the headlines. No other candidate would be able to get away with questioning a sitting president’s citizenship all over TV for months and then just wave it off with an “I don’t talk about that anymore” now. That racist motherfucker needs to own that shit! If the president brings it up, maybe the media will finally do their goddamn jobs and question Trump about it.
Rick Taylor
Yay!
catclub
@bobbo: I am pretty sure Johnson did not. Maybe Eisenhower did? I doubt Truman did – he was pretty unpopular in 1952. Roosevelt died. Reagan was already in Alzheimer’s and Bush wanted to be his own man.
So I think the best chance is Eisenhower.
kdaug
@Betty Cracker: Also. Mr. President, please have Hillary ask Mr. Trump how many illegals he’ll need to build his wall.
Technocrat
“Hey, here’s the Presidency. It was kind of shitty when I found it, but I cleaned it up for you”.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: He didn’t record that video *after* his meeting with Bernie.
D58826
@MattF: Hopefully he is correct. He is closer to the tea leaves than I am.
gvg
@catclub: Eisenhower hated Nixon and just used him. Can’t recall the details but I think he actually endorsed someone else…..
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: Not officially.
NonyNony
@Gin & Tonic:
Let’s see –
* Gore famously didn’t want Clinton to campaign for him. In the biggest mistake made by a candidate for office I think I’ve ever seen in my lifetime (and I just watched an entire clown car of Republicans lose to Donald Effing Trump
* Carter got unelected after one term. And after his own party tried to primary him to boot.
* LBJ chose not to run again and because of that wasn’t really able to be an effective advocate for the next president
* Kennedy – yeah
* Truman. Not old enough to be alive during Truman’s presidency, but I’d assume he had the same problem as LBJ – leaving office very unpopular without being elected to a second term.
* FDR – again, yeah
And prior to FDR we’re into a lot of back-and-forth with few two-term Democrats and then back to prior to the Civil War where I have no idea how the endorsements might have worked.
This could very well be historic – it may be the first time a two-term Democratic president leaves office on a high note rather than being ejected and is actually able to endorse his successor. (To be fair, the Republicans only have one in that time frame too – Reagan. W got two-terms but couldn’t be effective as an advocate for anyone, Nixon got two terms but, well, Nixon. And Ike endorsed Nixon but IIRC wasn’t really keen on it.)
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Ah.
Ella in New Mexico
I KNEW this was how it would all go down today after “The Meeting”. My Prez, the adult in the room. A classy, gracious, full-hearted endorsement of Hilz with total positivity and inclusiveness for Sander’s supporters. So, if he can do it, can we do it, too? Can all the trolls and trawling for trollers and beatin’ up on punk little brothers just STAAAAAAHP now?
Cuz the real fun is just starting folks.
It finally, truly is “Time to Make the Fucking-Shredded-Donuts” on Donnie-baby.
“Singing’ don’t worry
’bout a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singing’ don’t worry
(don’t worry) ’bout a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be alright…”
gvg
@petesh:
Did you mistate this or do you actually mean confiscate everything above a $250,000? If so forget it. You’d be lucky to get 1% support in this country. Now TAX a % above a certain amount yes, that would be good.
Gin & Tonic
@NonyNony:
1 1/2.
Ian
@Ben Cisco: Good gawd almighty! Good gawd almighty!
Trollhattan
@bobbo:
Dubya was going to endorse and campaign for John McCain, but Sarah ™ penny-locked him in the Oval Office closet while McCain threw an extended kegger for the girls in the back of the Maverick Express.
LAO
@Betty Cracker: You know to me, the whole crazy, racist, judge bashing was just an extension of Trump’s birtherism. The belief, that a member of a minority group — no matter how educated, accomplished or successful — is not actually “an American” because of the color of his/her skin.
Turgidson
Hopefully we can move on from the “zomg Trump is (almost) tied with HRC!” couch-fainting, which occurred at the peak of Trump’s triumph in forcing the surrender of the GOP to him but before he ran his mouth again, and at the likely height of the Berniacs’ outrage that they had lost/were losing and saying they couldn’t support the Hildebeast.
Hillary looked as happy and relaxed as ever in her anti-Trump stemwinder and her Tuesday victory speech. She’ll probably always have “high negatives” but I think this confident general election Hillary will bring more people around to her candidacy than anyone is expecting now. Some Berniebro deadenders will sit out or vote Stein, and a vanishing few might vote Trump to speed up the revolution or whatever nonsense Sarandon is spewing. But most of them will come around to Hillary when she’s contrasted exclusively with the Vulgar Talking Yam, and making the case for a lot of the same things Bernie talks about (albeit in more measured, achievable terms).
Let’s get on with crushing Trump like the orange, short-fingered racist roach that he is.
lollipopguild
@gvg: Eisenhower said once that if Nixon had been in the army in europe he would have demoted him. Nixon was a supply officer in the navy in the south pacific.
gvg
@shomi: I disagree. Obama is very popular among Democrats, i.e. people who are possible Hillary voters. The racists already are nuts so no harm in firing up the democrats and it would hurt her if Obama didn’t vocally support her, people would wonder, etc.
joel hanes
@D58826:
4. will monitor the calif. vote count because it is a lot closer than it looks.
Jesus H. Christ on a crutch. The delusion dies hard in this one.
rp
Stupid eyes producing random moisture.
Patrick Thompson
@James E Powell:
While the corporate media’s first instincts will of course be to try to keep the race close, an alternate scenario exists whereby a total beatdown is an even greater story. Think of it this way: “Secretariat is moving like a tremendous machine!”
Russ
TTR?
Trump’s Tax Returns? Every day someone in the press should ask where they are?
TTR?
TTR?
TTR?
robert thompson
It’s times like this that remind me not so long ago there was young man I never saw or heard of that spoke at the 2004 Democratic Party convention saying things that made actually joyous and hopeful to be hearing a political speech at yet another three day political commercial. I sat up and turned the sound from the TV way louder than my spouse likes and listened to it all and in all God’s truth turned to my spouse and said that man is going to be president some day. I am sure a lot of other can say that too; remembering that moment. He will go down in history as one of our best presidents and after seeing HRC’s foreign policy speech she will as well. The Executive Branch tends to trade back and forth between parties but I thinking it won’t this time. It can’t. The short fingered vulgarian is too scary.
Monala
I received my first cell phone political survey call yesterday. The young woman conducting the survey began by asking me who I would support if the election were held today:
1) Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders?
2) My Democratic governor, or his Republican challenger?
3) My Republican state senator, or his Democratic challenger?
I said Sanders to the first, but I was thinking, “WTF? Did Clinton not just win the Democratic primary?”
For the next two, I said the Dems, but I added that I hadn’t heard of the Dem challenger to the state senate seat. (Our local primary is in August). She went on to ask a number of questions related to this person, such as, “If you knew she supported X, would you be or less likely to support her?” and “If you knew she is against Y, would you be more or less likely to support her?” So I assume that the whole purpose of the survey was about this woman candidate and trying to refine her messaging.
While she’s talking, I walk over to my laptop and Google the candidate, and gasp, “I know her,” although I wasn’t quite sure where I knew her from. Surveyor ignores me and keeps asking questions. While trying to think where I know her from, I glance at the wall, where I see my daughter’s 4th grade science fair certificate, signed by the Democratic challenger, who was president of the PTA at my daughter’s elementary school.
When I get off the phone, I ask my daughter if she knows the woman. She says, “Oh, yeah, remember that kind of weird kid who was in my class in elementary school? She’s his mom.”
(FWIW, my Dem state rep was also a PTA mom at my kid’s elementary school. )
bemused
@LAO:
Would a white male judge be biased in favor of Trump? Someone should ask Donnie that question.
daves09
@gvg: Eisenhower insisted on being strictly neutral. Didn’t endorse Nixon until the convention.
Dumbass Al Gore ran away from Clinton.
aimai
@LAO: to me the judge thing was epiphenomenal. Just an extension of Trump’s narcissism. I mean, the flip side of the anti mexican remarks are not, actually, pro white remarks about white judges who Trump fears will rule against him. Trump is a racist, of course. But he is equally filled with loathing for any kind of push back against him. He would have found a reason that a white judge was also untrustworthy/to be attacked. He’s a very opportunistic hater, very flexible in his self justifications.
Calouste
Sanders’ new slogan “The struggle continues” was the slogan of the fight for Mozambique independence (“A luta continua” in Portuguese), and is well-connected to anti-colonialism and anti-apartheid in general.
Another sign the Sanders is tone-deaf and/or that he just wasn’t as much of a leftie as he pretends to be if he is unaware of its previous use.
Chris
@NonyNony:
FDR/Truman is a comparison that’s popped into my head from time to time. Truman, too, initially got a lot of shit from liberals who’d loved his predecessor but perceived him as a party hack (in his case, it was rising through the ranks in a less than reputable political machine whose boss was eventually jailed for income tax evasion).
Truman surprised his critics (and disappointed at least some backers who thought he’d be a return to status quo) and turned out to be a staunch defender of his predecessor’s legacy, and even more liberal than him in some ways. Can’t say for sure, but I’ve got hopes that Hillary Clinton will turn out the same way, and the signs so far are promising. She’s smart enough to have learned from 2008 and learned from the last eight years, and positioned herself as following in Obama’s footsteps (intentionally going after as much of his coalition as possible).
Jeffro
Kinda OT but when do we get an utterly useless but fun VP speculation thread? The WaPo had up two articles yesterday speculating on 27(!) possible choices for Clinton and 35(!!) possible choices for Trump.
My top three most likely (not preferred, just ‘most likely’) for Clinton:
1) Julian Castro
2) Tim Kaine
3) Tom Perez
wildcard: Elizabeth Warren
top three most likely for Trump:
1) Chris Christie
2) Newt Gingrich
3) Joni Ernst
wildcard: I dunno…how do you have a wildcard Veep pick for a clown like Trump? They have everyone from Ben Carson to Ivanka Trump listed in the article. Let’s go with Chewbacca Mom
J R in WV
@catclub:
Ike hated Nixon, and barely endorsed him at all. He never hit the campaign trail for Tricky Dick, who already had that nickname. Don’t know how Nixon got the VP nom with Eisenhower disliking him so much – maybe working together Ike discovered what butthole Nixon was in person?
Corner Stone
HAHAHAHAHAHA!! *GASP* BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
MisterForkbeard
@petesh: I just had a similar conversation with an anti-Hillary voter on the Facebooks.
The difference is that every time I’d post a reasoned rebuttal with evidence showing Hillary supported their position, they’d just say “I don’t believe that, that’s wrong” or say “why didn’t she support that EARLIER?” and then reply with videos from Jill Stein or The Young Turks.
What’s infuriating is that there’s literally a candidate that does 99% of what they want, but they’re determined to hate her Because Reasons.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Patrick Thompson:
Most chilling stretch run in the history of thoroughbred racing, and in the top of five sports videos of all time.
It is worth a few minutes of your life to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V18ui3Rtjz4
Trollhattan
@Calouste:
Problematic at best, considering the German word for “struggle.”
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: Somebody on her staff understands the Twitter.
Corner Stone
@Calouste:
It’s also what Melissa Harris-Perry’s dad always signed onto her birthday cards. So I’m assuming it’s kindof a big biden deal with African Americans here in the states also, too.
Reggie Mantle
Obama AND Clinton being gracious to Bernie and supporters. Bernie saying “I look forward to meeting with (Clinton) in the near future to see how we can work together to defeat Donald Trump and to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1%,”
Unity without anyone having to sit down and STFU.
It must be really eating at some of y’all’s livers.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: You know, I keep expecting it to be Castro but I just haven’t really heard from the guy since the last convention. I know he’s at HUD but… eh? Shouldn’t he be out there?
Turgidson
@bemused:
Of course not. White people aren’t capable of being biased, duh..
Trollhattan
@Reggie Mantle:
There are meds to control those hallucinations, you know.
robert thompson
@Chris: The Pendergast machine in Kansas City. They were bad. My spouses great uncle was a shoulder puncher for them. Truman went along and forced through some good things like farm-to-market paved roads. And Truman actually started the Civil Rights era by moving forward to desegregate the most socialist of of US institutions; the US military.
greennotGreen
@gvg: Yeah, this. As someone who stands to inherit something in the seven figures, I’m not too big on that.
1) My nephew has cystic fibrosis. My sister and I need that money to keep him alive.
2) Because we stand to inherit, we were able to focus on careers that didn’t make us a lot of money but were a net gain for society: biomedical research and science editing. If we’d had to worry about our retirements, I’d probably just be poor and my sister would have made wads moving money around.
Yes, the rich need to pay more, but not everything more.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Reggie Mantle:
Hated your character in Archie. Only an asshole would select the name.
Reggie Mantle
@Calouste:
Reminds me of the Rethuglicans griping that Obama’s slogan “FORWARD” was a tip of the hat to the Commies. Which is to say reeeeally stretching.
rp
@Jeffro: I think Perez and Gingrich.
Mike J
@Calouste: http://www.annefrankguide.net/en-AU/content/struggle.jpg
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s what I’m saying. It was a this video is being released right after our meeting meeting. A heads-up about what was already going to happen.
daves09
@Jeffro: Try to think of a VP choice who actually mattered. It used to be strictly an internal party thing, i.e. Johnson to help carry the south; Nixon to calm down the McCarthy people. And it’s really not a good path to the oval office, as Presidents Quayle and Alben Barkley will tell you.
Trollhattan
@joel hanes:
Lying to his folks does them a disservice. Very disappointed he’s glommed onto this mirage.
Immanentize
@gvg: I know that confiscating wealth is not so popular today, but Andrew Carnegie said that a thoughtful person would rather leave a curse to his children than the ‘almighty dollar.’ I am with Carnegie on this — inherited wealth is anti-democratic.
Gin & Tonic
@rp: Can’t be Gingrich. There isn’t a building in the US big enough to house those two egos simultaneously.
Turgidson
@MisterForkbeard:
Yep. I attempted a Twitter intervention with an initially nice-seeming Berniac who said they didn’t trust Hillary’s judgment and would vote Trump over her but probably not vote at all. After getting nowhere trying to point out all the areas where Hillary and Bernie have similar goals and beliefs, I said they should think about reconsidering, if only to make sure a Democrat is nominating our next SCOTUS judges, and this person says, “nope, I don’t even trust Hillary to get that right.” Pointing out that Hillary’s far less liberal husband put Notorious RBG on the Court had no effect. It was like talking to a fucking brick wall. Last time I bothered with that.
Emma
Personally I think Obama will campaign mostly on the positive side — making the register and vote case. Yes, he will slash Trump but he’ll use a stiletto, not a broadsword.
LAO
@aimai: Trump is absolutely a narcissist, so I agree, And, I agree with you that had the Judge not been a minority, he would have found some other grounds to attack a Caucasian Judge — put the presumption of “unamericanism” which lies at the heart of his attack on Judge Curiel is the same as the attacks on President Obama’s citizenship.
Corner Stone
@greennotGreen: Have I ever told you how delightfully fabulous you look in that color?
Ajabu
I am old enough to remember.
Ike was asked by the press to name Nixon’s accomplishments as VP.
Ike said, “Give me a week. I’ll think of something.”
Not what you’d call a ringing endorsement.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Looking forward to the Trump-Trump ticket. Even money says he names either Melania or Ivanka.
Combover Caligula will not be outdone by the original Caligula.
bemused
@Turgidson:
Duh. You’d think someone would have asked him that question and I’d like to hear his answer, not that it would make any sense….
Reggie Mantle
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
That’s nice, dear.
Trollhattan
@rp: @Gin & Tonic:
Gingrich would be fvcking hilarious. How many wives would that total, between them? Plus, ol Newton would be sniffing after Melania out of the gate. Best buddy movie, evah.
Calouste
@Trollhattan: Bernie is probably planning to cash in after the elections with a campaign memoir. He could call it “My Struggle”.
eclare
@Turgidson: Hopefully that voter will come around, but if not, what a great legacy for the revolution.
Jeffro
@Major Major Major Major:
Maybe he’s been holding back, waiting until PBO gave his endorsement? I can see the President asking his Cabinet secretaries to hold off until the primaries were over and he had weighed in.
Trollhattan
@Calouste:
Thanks for takin’ that one in for me. :-P
Amir Khalid
The BBC story notes that a number of sharp-eyed people have noticed that in the endorsement video, Obama is wearing the tie he wore on Tuesday.
Tom Q
When Ike was asked what important decisions Nixon participated in, Ike, unbelievably, said “if you give me a week I might think of one”. He technically supported him, and campaigned for him at the end, but clearly didn’t love him.
robert thompson
The troll is either obsessed with with self-consumption or he is a cannibal. I hear a lot of eating phrases from him.
D58826
@lollipopguild: Ike was also asked to name some of Nixon’s accomplishments. He paused and said he would have to think about it for a few minutes.
Eric U.
@gvg: yeah, I think too many people would be affected. I’m not sure I would bother with changing the limit downwards, I would just raise the rate above that. Confiscate anything over $100 mil
Miss Bianca
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Oh, boy. HRC as Secretariat, Trump as – wait for it – Sham. 31 lengths behind.
*there’s* a horse-race analogy I can embrace!
robert thompson
@Trollhattan: Six.
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
So much for the sales in Germany, then.
Major Major Major Major
@daves09:
Sarah Palin.
Chris
@robert thompson:
Yeah, the desegregation was the main thing I was thinking of when I said “in some ways more liberal” than FDR. Actually, it’s under Truman and not Roosevelt that the Democratic Party as I identify with it today fully takes form. (Full credit to Roosevelt; he was an extraordinary, once-in-a-century president whom I totally would have voted for, but without civil rights, it’s not my Democratic Party).
Sorry to hear about your spouse’s ancestors. From what I vaguely recall (it was McCullough’s biography of Truman, but I read it years and years and years ago), Truman did have a reputation for being an honest guy, at least when compared to the politicians the machine normally put out. Boss Pendergast was willing to indulge him, because 1) Truman was good at what he did, and 2) he realized that having an honest guy working for him would be good for the machine’s PR. Truman himself ultimately turned out very differently from what Pendergast probably would have wanted, but remained fond of him all his life.
JCJ
@Major Major Major Major:
He was on Colbert’s show about two months ago. Is he perhaps covered more in Spanish language media? When he was on Colbert’s show he said he was learning Spanish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx1XDOZkbZU
Jeffro
@Turgidson:
Just give the next one the “so your grocery store was out of your favorite beer…you’re gonna drink bleach?” line I saw earlier on BJ (H/t to whomever threw that one out there).
People really do need to get it…they’re welcome to petition the store to carry their favorite microbrew in time for the next party, but the guests are arriving any moment now, so what’s it gonna be, Bud Light or bleach?
Turgidson
@Immanentize:
If you really, in your bones, believe in the infallible virtue and fairness of capitalism, you ought to believe in an extremely confiscatory estate tax. Strangely, none of the mostly-GOP dolts who worship the Almighty Invisible Hand hold this position.
I think it’s perfectly honorable for parents to want to pass on their bounty to their children, to a point, and to set them up to have the resources to life comfortably and provide for their own families, again, to a point. I’m fine with a progressive estate tax that begins with an exemption up to, say $500k but not more than a $1mil, then gradually gets more severe until it’s taking 75% or more of huge multi-million $ estates. Plus a tax code that makes it harder for the aging rich to evade the tax. I don’t expect to ever see this unless we find ourselves fighting a world war and confiscatory wartime taxes are urgently needed to pay for the war effort. And I’d prefer to avoid that.
Humboldtblue
@Amir Khalid: He’s already called for Bernie to drop out and back Clinton.
Reggie Mantle
@Trollhattan:
https://collinsassassination.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/easter-1916-the-struggle-continues/
Gin & Tonic
@Calouste: Wow.
Lee
Are we sure the Trump is still going to be the nominee?
I see more & more reports of ‘very serious’ Republicans calling for the party to abandon him.
The Other Chuck
@Corner Stone: Wow, she’s just straight-up trolling him now. So much awesome.
daves09
@Mnemosyne: I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama told him on Tues., which is why Sanders asked for the meeting to present his case for holding off. Considering how rageful Sanders has been I guess it’s good he didn’t blow up at the press conference.
Chris
@Tom Q:
For that quote, even as a slip-up, to have come from a guy like Eisenhower who’d spent a lifetime as a manager-type trying to get very difficult people to work together and do their jobs (Montgomery and Patton, for crying out loud)… probably should’ve told everybody a lot about Richard Nixon right then and there.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: I mean out there doing, like, anything. Seriously, where did Castro go? He was obviously supposed to be VP this cycle.
rikyrah
Maybe Trump studied Campaign Management 101 at Trump U
06/09/16 12:53 PM—UPDATED 06/09/16 01:04 PM
By Steve Benen
When Donald Trump recently scheduled a speech on energy policy in Bismarck, North Dakota, many Republicans wondered why in the world he didn’t pick a bigger city in a swing state. When he soon after started campaigning in California, where Republicans stand no realistic chance of winning the presidential race, GOP insiders scratched their heads once more.
This New York Times article today won’t improve the party’s confidence in Team Trump’s strategic thinking.
Donald J. Trump has hired a new pollster to help him capture an elusive Republican victory in New York, his home state, two people briefed on the move said.
The pollster, John McLaughlin, will be focusing exclusively on New York, polling to determine what type of climb Mr. Trump would face in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican in a presidential race since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Though recent polls show Hillary Clinton leading Trump in hypothetical match-ups in the Empire State, the Times article added that the Republican is nevertheless “adamant” about winning New York.
As for how, exactly, he intends to pull this off, Trump isn’t just hiring a pollster. Failed New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, Trump’s campaign’s co-chair in the state, told CNN the campaign will prevail by “blanketing the upstate region with signs and bumper stickers.”
You might think I’m making this up. I’m not. Hitting upstate New York with yard signs is part of the campaign’s recipe for success in one of the nation’s most populous states. (Carl Paladino lost his 2010 gubernatorial race in New York by 29 points. I just thought I’d mention that.)
Note, the same CNN report added that Republican officials in North Carolina and Michigan are “yet to hear from” anyone with the Trump campaign, and the presumptive GOP nominee “doesn’t have so much as a state director” in battlegrounds such as Ohio and Colorado.
Trollhattan
@Lee:
I don’t see how. It will take some kind of historical shenanigans and the clown car doesn’t seem sophisticated enough. But I’d LOVE to see them try.
Amir Khalid
@Reggie Mantle:
You’re the kind who’s never happy unless there’s a hair in your soup to complain about, aren’t you?
Iowa Old Lady
@Corner Stone: God, whoever is writing her tweets is good. I hope it’s her.
robert thompson
@Chris: Elanor shoved, gently, FDR to at least do somethings that were a crack in the Jim Crow South and elsewhere. She was his better nature. The war ended a lot of work related racism. Labor was just too short to deal with that crap. But yes, you are right, it was Truman, not FDR, who actually was the father of the modern Democratic Party.
patroclus
@Gin & Tonic: Regarding Democratic incumbents campaigning for their successors, Franklin Pierce was ALL IN for James Buchanan in 1856. I’m surprised you don’t remember that!
Lee
@Trollhattan:
Actually I don’t think it would be that difficult. There is a rules committee meeting prior to the convention. All they would have to do would be to release the delegates from having to vote as selected on the first ballot. Basically throwing the convention into the ‘contested’ category.
I have no idea how difficult it would be to get that rule passed.
petesh
@gvg: Well, the person I was discussing with wrote that, about confiscating estates over $250k. I do kind of agree with the principle, but yes it is completely in pink-unicorn territory. I’d go further than HRC in lowering the exemption but probably not that low, and I doubt I’d go for confiscation above any level, havent really thought that through because it aint gonna happen and there are much more important bridges to burn or die for or whatever first.
Also, people with extensive anticipated medical needs — they abso-f*cking-lutely should not have to pay for them, and that includes the not-obviously-medical expenses that come with that particular territory. That IS something to draw a line in the sand for, but it should not be relevant to the estate tax issue; I can see how in practice it is, but. Sheesh. What a mess our country’s priorities are.
Mnemosyne
@Eric U.:
The median home price in the US is about $189k. Here in California, it’s $393k. If the limit was set at $250k, that means that the majority of people in California would have to sell their parents’ house immediately after they died.
EllenH
@Jeffro: Both Julian Castro and Tom Perez have endorsed and campaigned with Hillary. Castro in Texas and I know Perez campaigned for her in Arizona. I heard he was excellent on the stump with her.
Gelfling545
@Mnemosyne: Ah, yes. The day may come when we have a short fingered vulgarian with an opossum on his heads for president but TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.
JCJ
@Immanentize:
Like @greennotGreen at comment #91 I would suggest considering the implications for families with health care concerns. My daughter has significant problems with lupus including chronic pain and fatigue. It would be nice to be able to leave her enough to buy insurance (thanks to ObamaCare she will be able to buy it) or pay for her monthly infusion of belimumab (about $60,000/year). If you say that such taxes could pay for national health care that could cover this I would reply that that is a leap of faith I am not willing to risk.
Reggie Mantle
@Amir Khalid:
I am provided with abundant hair.
daves09
@Major Major Major Major: as far as winning. quayle is right up there as an object of derision from the get go. and of course there was ferraro. and the electro shock guy. cheney-the most hated man in america. The more I think about it, the more it seems VPs are neutral to bad as far as elections go. might as well pull a name out of a hat.
Major Major Major Major
@daves09:
I believe that’s the general consensus, actually, though a surprising number (>0) of campaign managers seem to have missed the memo.
Another reason not to pick Warren.
Gelfling545
@shomi: He won’t be speaking to the base. We were never getting their votes anyway. It will be for the benefit of those who haven’t had the leisure to think about this mess until now. Also he’ll do it in such a way that Trump won’t know he’s been insulted until everybody around him starts giggling.
bemused
@rikyrah:
That Carl Paladino? Scummy sleeze Carl Paladino?
smith
@rikyrah: Saw that, and laughed out loud. From the infinite wisdom of his gut, the Trumpster will throw himself at solid blue states and ignore the swing states? This will be good.
Chris
@robert thompson:
I mean, FDR, I rank as overall neutral on race. Not actively racist like Woodrow Wilson, and not actively pro-civil-rights like Harry Truman. He was a massive improvement over the average Democrat (there’s a reason the black vote started moving over to the Dems in large numbers under him), but his help to black communities was largely on the down-low, he still caved in to the Southern Democrats and other racist blocs when they applied the pressure (things like excluding blacks from Social Security benefits). You never would’ve gotten the kind of out-of-the-closet statement of support from him that you got from Truman when he put a civil rights plank onto the Democratic platform in 1948.
(Not even really a criticism of FDR – the dynamics of Democratic Party politics were changing and he had to take them into account. More an acknowledgment of his limitations).
Immanentize
@JCJ: I do understand — the system creates its own need for inherited wealth. But the easiest way to go about this is to create a significantly progressive taxation system, exclude real property excluded from taxation (first and second homes probably), and allow trusts up to a certain amount for individuals, This was the system when some inheritance over a certain amount was taxed at the 90% plus rates.
This is also very helpful for non-profit organizations and causes….
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Reggie Mantle: You are such a putz.
D58826
Reporter on MSNBC is saying there is still no commitment from Bernie for a full throated endorsement of Hillary any time soon. Schumer is saying that Bernie will be ‘constructive’ going forward. There still seems to be a lot of tiptoeing around Bernie’s fefes.
Major Major Major Major
@smith: The blacks love him in New York. He’s very popular. Very popular.
Mnemosyne
@JCJ:
I’m also guessing that you are not going to be leaving Andrew Carnegie levels of $$ for your daughter. $250k is not much to leave for an anticipated lifetime of care.
I do agree that the top limit for what’s non-taxable should be lower than it currently is, but $250k is insane.
patroclus
@Chris: I just don’t agree with your comment. The FDIC protects depositors regardless of race. The securities laws protect investors regardless of race. The transportation laws -specifically the Motor Carrier Act, protects passengers regardless of race, the Rural Electrification Act provided electricity to everyone, labor laws do the same. The FEPC, a forerunner to to the EEOC protected workers. In example after example, the new deal laws were non-discriminatory. African Americans started voting for Democrats in 1934 – the first black Democrat ever elected was Arthur Mitchell then. The actual policies of the Democrats, starting in the New Deal, actively worked for civil rights. The Truman-era built on that, but it started in the 1930’s under FDR and Rayburn.
Amir Khalid
@Lee:
The rule change per se might not be technically difficult to do. But that’s not the problem. The objection commonly raised to doing it that way is that it amounts to cancelling the people’s choice by fiat, with potentially dire consequences for party unity.
gwangung
@Reggie Mantle: Well, you should stop doing that. Having it on the palms is inconvenient.
Iowa Old Lady
@smith: The map I saw of states he thought winnable included California. He’s just delusional.
les
@Major Major Major Major: Remember Obama’s first Onion headline: Black man given nation’s worst job.
Major Major Major Major
@gwangung: LOL!
joel hanes
@J R in WV:
Don’t know how Nixon got the VP nom with Eisenhower disliking him so much
Republican party ENEMY NO 1 was then INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM. Much of the nation was paranoid about it.
Ike was perceived to be a squish on that isssue, and needed a vicious Cold Warrior to shore up his relationship with the R base.
Nixon was perfect for the role: the press called him Ike’s “hatchet man”, Nixon’s hatred and paranoia was given an approved outlet, and it removed Nixon from the kinds of public office in which he could do more substantial damage to the nation.
Alas, not forever.
Corner Stone
@Gelfling545:
I disagree. Obama may not take a sledgehammer to Trump but it will be obvious that he’s on his ass. Obvious enough that even thin skinned “very good brain” Trump will jut his jaw and look around the room daring anyone to have a hint of a smile on their face.
gwangung
@Mnemosyne: $250K affects a lot of middle class families, which sorta runs counter to the purpose of the regulation.
Lee
@Amir Khalid:
Right and at this point the ‘very serious’ Republicans are asking themselves which would be worse Trump or cancelling the people’s choice.
I’m guessing they are thinking Trump the far worse .
D58826
A reporter at the WH briefing asked if the Obama endorsement isn’t a message to the DC voters that they don’t count. How do people so stupid get a pass into the White House.
Corner Stone
Oh my god. That dude can’t hear a word anyone is saying because all he’s hearing is the ching-ching-ching noise a sl0t machine makes when it hits 7’s.
Any R stupid enough to concentrate money for polling in NY will believe absolutely anything you tell them. The only risk is to go too positive too early.
Gelfling545
@Reggie Mantle: you just can’t take yes for an answer, can you?
Gin & Tonic
@patroclus: Thank you for pointing that out. I’m not sure James Buchanan is the best role model for HRC, though.
Amir Khalid
@smith:
The Donald is attempting an innovative strategy, you see: nobody’s ever tried it before. And in a few months, the Donald will find out why they didn’t.
slag
@Reggie Mantle: Is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ddfwqoLnu0 you?
Trollhattan
@Lee:
Now you’re just getting me all riled up. Let’s do this, Republicans!
Can you imagine the Trump howler monkeys after maneuvering their guy out of the nomination? Glory be!
robert thompson
@Chris: I don’t claim to be a historian on the time of FDR, but I am pretty sure it was largely on the down low. And yes patroclus is certainly correct that supposedly the Depression era legislation was color blind. It just didnt apply to very many sharecroppers and urban poor because they had no savings to speak of. Or shotgun shacks close enough to a powerline for quite awhile. TVA mainly helped poor whites due to the location. From what I have read FDR was very protective of that unholy alliance with Southern D’s. He needed them to push the R’s outta isolationism and he knew it.
D58826
Oh god, Jeffrey Sachs is saying that Bernie should have the final say in picking Hillary’s cabinet. Bernie has a movement and it should take precedence over Hillary’s voters. Unless she gives into Bernie then she won’t deserve the support of the Bernie voters.
Trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Pro tip to all Trump campaign consultants and vendors: “Payment due in Advance”
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
Shorter me: the majesty of the law prevents both rich and poor people from sleeping under bridges.
Longer me:
Except that African-Americans had a hard time opening bank accounts due to discrimination.
How many African-Americans do you think were doing a lot of investing in the pre-Civil Rights days?
And in the Jim Crow segregation days, when blacks and whites had to use separate transportation, how did that work, exactly?
Sure, if the cities and counties bothered to extend electricity to the “wrong” side of town.
Good thing racial discrimination in employment didn’t exist, huh?
Except that racial discrimination in employment was totally legal.
Having theoretically “non-discriminatory” laws doesn’t do any good if existing discrimination — including Jim Crow — prevented people from being in a position where those laws would benefit them.
It’s like saying that the Freedom Riders weren’t needed because African-Americans in the South had the legal right to vote thanks to the US Constitution, so there was no barrier to them voting. Are you really this clueless about what life was like for non-whites prior to the Civil Rights Movement?
Thymezone
What a great day for Democrats. It’s so good, I am thinking of bringing the TZMOBILE back to the Balloon Juice oval. This is going to be a fun year. If what I think is going to happen, happens, this could be a wave election and we could get not just the White House, but the Senate, and some SCOTUS seats, and progress toward single payer, and minimum wage increases, and more banking reforms.
Donald Trump will spend next year reading a new book, “The Art of the Real Deal”, written by Democrats. The failed casino operator will be taken to school, only this time, unlike at his bogus “university,” the lessons will actually be worth something.
joel hanes
@D58826:
How do people so stupid get a pass into the White House
I can live with dumb as long as smart is also allowed.
Where now are the Helen Thomases of yesteryear ?
And in seven years, the Obama WH has never credentialed someone like Jerry/Jeff Gannon/Guckert.
Reggie Mantle
@slag:
No, dumbass.
I knew someone would eventually make the Downfall video, because everything eventually gets a Downfall video. How terribly original.
daves09
@Major Major Major Major: And yet for the next six weeks there will be endless nattering about who it will be. I would think most people wouldn’t want to be considered just because of the humiliation of the “vetting” process.
“Are you pure enough?’ and then when they don’t get picked, everyone wonders what the skeleton in the closet was.
D58826
@patroclus: A lot of the laws were race-neutral but the enforcement/enrollment process/etc was left to local officials appointed by local politicians. And needless to say the Jim Crow officials found many ways to disqualify non-whites.
There is a good book on the subject ‘ WHEN AFFIRMATICE ACTION WAS WHITE’ by KATZNELSON, IRA
Reggie Mantle
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Finally ran out of those cutesy little pancake references?
Kay
D58826
@Kay: Hmm a couple of potential recruits to the democratic side :-)
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major:
Even if the VP pick made a difference, the conventional wisdom is they’ll help you pick up their home state. I don’t think Clinton needs any help with MA.
Kay
What if they kick Kasich out of the Party? I think they should :)
Matt McIrvin
@bobbo:
I imagine Hillary Clinton is keen on not repeating Al Gore’s mistake on this score.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
It’s very strange and ahistorical to claim that any laws passed in the US while racial discrimination was legal in the North and codified in the South were “race neutral.” There were large numbers of people who did not benefit from those laws because they were legally barred from meeting the requirements.
Trollhattan
@Reggie Mantle:
Study your Yiddish. “Putz” means “really nice blintz.”
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Reggie Mantle: Those are the only references your comments deserve. Nope, here ya go.
Miss Bianca
@Reggie Mantle: More hair than wit, that’s for sure.
Kay
@D58826:
Oh God no. Shannon Jones was the state rep who carried the anti-union law in Ohio.
They can keep her. Her law went down 60/40 with voters. Now Republicans will hate her too.
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: The Freedom Riders arose in 1961 because of Boynton v. Virginia, which was a case construing the Motor Carrier Act, which was enacted in 1935, which made discrimination in interstate commerce illegal. John Lewis mentions it specifically in his autobiography – saying that it was “eartshaking.” If Rayburn and FDR had not enacted it; no Boynton; no Mitchell, no Morgan, no Freedom Riders. Further, the Securities Laws, the Transportation Laws, the Banking Laws, the Communication Laws, the Public Works, the Labor Laws (ALL non-discriminatory) broadened the interpretation of the Commerce Clause, on which ALL civil rights are deemed constitutional. No, there weren’t many depositors, investors, etc… at the time of enactment that could immediately benefit from all the non-discriminatory language in Rayburn’s (a Southern Democrat) laws, but over time, there were. And it wasn’t just that, it was electricity and all utilities, it was farming (in the AAA), it was ALL transportation, including buses and trucks, it was phones, it was roads, it was minimum wage laws, it was maximum hours laws, it was the right of everyone to challenge administrative rulings under the APA, it was employment under the FEPC, it was implied private rights of actions, it was the NRA, the WPA, the NYA, the CCC and even the Federal Theater Project. It was non-discrimination written into federal law across the board (with a few exceptions). The House passed an anti-lynching law TWICE in the 1930’s; using a discharge petition to force it onto the Floor. These efforts were all led by Democrats, with full-throated support from Eleanor and Harold Ickes and Francis Perkins and many other Democrats. Granted, it took time to have effect, but it was those efforts which led to greater change later.
slag
@Reggie Mantle: Thanks for clarifying. Granted it’s not as original as donating $27, upvoting Salon articles, or retweeting HA Goodman headlines, but it’s still pretty funny.
Immanentize
@D58826: @Kay:
I think this might prove to be a real opportunity for the Dem.s to start picking up some moderate republicans and flipping them to dem in the House — and maybe even the Senate. If it looks like things will go south badly, there will be a stampede to switch. It happened with the Rep.s before, it can happen back.
different-church-lady
@Reggie Mantle: Forgive me, who are you again?
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize:
Would that be the same Andrew Carnegie who – presumably in the name of making sure they had nothing left to give their children – ruined the men whose businesses he targeted for take over – the very model of the modern vulture capitalist – drving them to suicide? Would that be the same Andrew Carnegie who broke strikes and tried his best to ruin his workers, as well? Sorry, not even his devotion to public libraries is enough to make that man an authority I’d quote on social justice and the evils of wealth.
D58826
@Mnemosyne: When I said ‘race neutral’ I meant that there was no explicit ‘colored need not apply’ or on a broader scale ‘jews need not apply’ wording in many of the laws. The ‘whites only signs were on the water fountains. Of course the people who wrote the laws knew who would be included and excluded. But even the GI Bill that should have covered all returning GI’s was interpreted to exclude some vets just based on skin color.
It’s like the voter-id laws today. All you need to get a photo id is a birth certificate. It’s not the ‘fault’ of the GOP that most people w/o a birth certificate are African American. A white person without a birth certificate will be denied a photo id just as well.
Maybe shout have put the race neutral in quotes.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: More importantly, only recently, the Department of Agriculture settled a case of discrimination against black farmers. The programs were not actually made available to them. hoocoodanode
Miss Bianca
@Kay: OMG, is this for real?
Trinity
That video made me giddy. Thanks Obama!
chopper
@Reggie Mantle:
to be fair, neither clinton nor obama have to listen to your self-absorbed, melodramatic whiny bullshit all the time.
Kay
@Immanentize:
You can have that other guy but I don’t want Shannon Jones. She’s unbearable.
That convention is going to be delightful though, I must say.
LAC
@Reggie Mantle: then was this you? Because it does seem about right.
https://youtu.be/raqlt1tDZMA
Chris
@patroclus:
I did not know that, but yeah, my impression before was that it was, to repeat myself, mostly on the down-low and what they could get away with without pissing off the Southern Democrats (an open challenge a la Truman’s civil rights movement wasn’t in the cards). Thanks as well to Mnemosyme for pointing out where those laws essentially didn’t have much effect.
@robert thompson:
I didn’t know that that was the reason, but I did know they were one of the people FDR could count on the most to nudge away from isolationism. Ironically, this is one time where white Southerners’ brand of ethnic/cultural politics was helpful – IIRC, one of the main reasons they were sympathetic to FDR’s foreign policy was Anglo cultural solidarity with Great Britain.
Chyron HR
@Reggie Mantle:
Shouldn’t you be in California threatening to kill election officials until they count the votes the “right” way?
As the Great One decreed, The Struggle Continues!
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Someone really needs to make a parody Trump bumper sticker with that as the slogan.
D58826
@Kay: ok.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
Trump is too wild for Republicans in Ohio. These are people who think it’s unseemly that Kasich sometimes wears a suit w/out a tie. They’re like “why doesn’t he wear a tie?” OMG, the things they care about.
It’s the temperament. He’s too wacky for them. Clinton should say it over and over- make him out to be unhinged. It should be easy, too! He is unhinged.
DCF
Robert Reich’s Open Letter to Bernie Sanders Is Going Viral
http://usuncut.com/politics/robert-reich-thanks-bernie-sanders/
Cacti
@shomi:
Go hide under a bed and we’ll call you when the election is over.
President Gore got similar advice about distancing himself from “the hated” Bill Clinton.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
I know this will hurt a lot of feelings, but I’m getting tired of people giving Bernie credit for Obama’s hard work.
DCF
Anthem for Bummed Youth
by
Thomas Frank
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/06/09/anthem-bummed-youth
patroclus
@D58826: Indeed, supercession of the state Jim Crow laws didn’t take place until after Boynton v. Virginia, the Freedom Rides, Bobby Kennedy’s ICC ruling of November 1, 1961 and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It took a quarter of a century for the Motor Carrier Act to actually have the effect which was intended (in transportation), with a much more favorable USSC, activists like King and Lewis and an even stronger Civil Rights Act (covering all public accommodations). But the point is that it all started in the 1930’s, under Democrats and FDR. African Americans realized it at the time and started voting for Democrats, electing Congressman after Congressman (once gerrymandering allowed it). The real turn took place in 1934, with Mitchell’s election, replacing Percy DePriest, in Chicago. And then, it just grew and grew thereafter as more and more Democrats starting favoring civil rights, culminating at both the 1948 DNC (when the Biemiller resolution passed as championed by Humphrey) and 1964 (when the Mississippi Freedom Democrats forced a later McGovern Commission) on voting.
Major Major Major Major
@DCF: Holy copyright violation, batman!
robert thompson
@Chris: FDR’s most virulent opponents in regards to islolationism were R’s. LaFolette in WS and Johnson in CA and he didn’t have quite as much opposition from the cracker D’s and the Far West R’s but he reeled them i with pork and the BofR. What the African-Americans got was largely trickle down. But Eleanor got out there and talked to people in poverty and being so unfortunate as to be of color and she was reviled for it. Social welfare was OK as long as went to the right people as you probably know. It is hard to imagine a time when the US was not a global cop. The Neutrality Acts were something to see.
LAC
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: I agree with you. As tired as I am of the loud-mouthed ex-PUMAs now treating Obama like he is “transcended race Ali” now that he is going to campaign for Clinton. He is not running for office anymore so he is all shiny and new!
dogwood
The President is a smart classy guy. He’ll know how to get under Trump’s skin without overdoing it or stooping to Trump level of grade school taunting. I take the President at his word when he said that his job in this election is to communicate the seriousness of the job itself and the real issues that are at stake.
LAC
@Major Major Major Major: More like Holy “who the fuck are you cutting and pasting instead of your own thoughts?” Batman!
BillinGlendaleCA
@catclub: Ike didn’t like Tricky Dick, so no he didn’t campaign strongly for him. The only case I can think it might have helped would be Bill Clinton helping Al Gore, but he was discouraged from doing so.
Betty Cracker
@DCF: On behalf of tens of millions of American women who will be joyous when the “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” sign is torn off the White House after 229 years and on behalf of the overwhelming majority of Democrats who know President Obama has done a terrific job and are ecstatic that the successful “policies of the last eight years are to be the policies of the next eight,” allow me to say two words to Mr. Frank: Fuck you!
Miss Bianca
My God, Thomas Frank is an even bigger douche bag than I had thought. I’m now embarrassed that I ever read “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”. He’s the lefty-scold version of David Brooks – smug, clueless, convinced he’s the smartest guy in the room, and utterly oblivious to his own reek of privilege.
patroclus
@Chris: Well, they didn’t have a lot of immediate effect, it took about 25 years for them to really have an impact, but the New Deal non-discriminatory laws ultimately have had a tremendous effect. It developed the African American middle class and upper class because AA’s can now invest and deposit and save and speculate just like everyone else. And have access to utilities and transportation and employment. And it was Southerners like Sam Rayburn and Claude Pepper and Alben Barkley that got them enacted, in coalition with FDR (and Hopkins/Ickes/Wallace/Perkins et al.). The key, though, is that all of the later Civil Rights Acts were based on the non-discriminatory provisions of the Motor Carrier Act (1935) and the significantly broader interpretation of the Commerce Clause, which enabled the 1964 Civil Rights Act (post-Boynton). The efforts really started in the 1930’s – it is to that era that historians must look to for the origins of much of current civil rights law. Truman was good too – desegregating the military and vastly expanding Social Security, but you can be proud of 1930’s era Democrats too; even FDR.
Chris
@DCF:
I was able to go on Medicaid when I moved back to Maryland earlier this year at a time when I rather needed it, thanks to a certain expansion that most definitely wasn’t there before “the last eight years.” Working temp jobs, I’m not on it anymore, but still get assistance thanks to the ACA in paying my medical bills. The ACA badly needs expanding, but I can certainly think of worse things than the politics of the last eight years on that count alone.
If the Nine (or five of them anyway) hadn’t kneecapped the Medicaid expansion requirement in half the country by returning the issue to the states, I could even have gone on Medicaid earlier (when I was in Florida), and gotten government help with a whole lot of bills from doctor’s visits and hospital visits I had last year, as well. Since the best way of preventing that sort of thing from happening again is by making sure the next nominee is picked by a Democrat not a Republican, that’s a pretty major incentive to vote Hillary, as well.
slag
@DCF: Every time I see a lecture on what a Hillary campaign or presidency will be like, this is the phrase that pops into my head: http://media.tumblr.com/4e20c3e943da8607a0f4773d282f933b/tumblr_inline_mh17duqNop1rqli3p.gif. Every time. I can’t stop it, and I have no idea where it comes from.
OK, I have some idea where it comes from. Still. Weird.
Cacti
@DCF:
Synopsis of Thomas Frank:
Bro has a sad that the girl won, it must have been because the AP cheated (by doing what they’ve always done).
Major Major Major Major
Can anybody explain to me what self-funding a campaign is? How is it legal?
satby
@DCF: my goodness, the white boys do have a sad.
slag
@satby: #NotAllWhiteBoys
MisterForkbeard
@Turgidson: I have a cousin now whom I generally respect but is acting an awful lot like a child for being a 45-year-old man.
He’s busy re-posting memes about how we shouldn’t be excited for Hillary-As-First-Female-Major-Nominee because there was a lady who was the nominee for a small party in the 1880s that only lasted for that election. (Which is great for that woman, but he clearly didn’t care about her at all and was just using it to attack Hillary). This is in addition to reposting memes about how she’s corrupt, rigged the entire election, and will take DWS as VP because DWS helped her steal the election. He’s also parroting Jill Stein’s ridiculous shtick about how Hillary isn’t a feminist. And he’s a big Bernie supporter.
I just don’t know how to deal with someone who’s that determined to be a fucking child.
gogol's wife
GO HILLARY
GO BARACK
CRUSH TRUMP
@Mnemosyne: OT, LMM was in the NYTimes crossword puzzle today.
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: Maybe that’s why BiP loves him.
Cacti
@satby:
Frank has reason to be extra sad. The idea that the particular concerns of women, as well as racial and ethnic minority groups could be ignored in favor of a generalized economic message (i.e. speaking to the anxieties of working class white males) was soundly defeated.
MisterForkbeard
@Humboldtblue: Do you have a source for that? I can’t find it, but would absolutely love to show that to someone who’s been throwing Uyguy videos at me all day to prove Hillary is corrupt and you should never vote for her if you’re a principled person.
batgirl
@D58826:
My charitable interpretation of this is that he isn’t going to “fight” for the presidency to the convention; he’s going to take the fight to the convention over his issues, policies, message, etc. I think the choice of the word “fight” is unnecessary and unfortunate.
gogol's wife
@Jeffro:
Chewbacca Mom, absolutely! Although she may think it’s beneath her.
gogol's wife
@robert thompson:
They paved Brush Creek too! More better concrete!
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Tried to respond twice, but my more detailed comment has vanished. If you don’t take matching funds, you can spend as much as you want from whatever source, including your own checkbook (as the candidate.)
D58826
@Cacti: Easy for Bernie, Sachs, Frank, etc to throw spitballs from the cheap seats and complain about what the democrats haven’t done over the years. They seem to be living in a left wing bubble just like the rwnj’s live in the faux bubble. It’s hard top get anything done in our system. There are all kinds of veto points. Just one choke point is the filibuster. It only take 41 votes to stop the Senate in it’s tracks. Six of the 7 smallest states are deep red and usually send GOP senators to Washington. These states have a combined population of about 3 million people. The city of LA has 3.8 million. They have 12 senators whereas California.has 2. Expand that across all of the red/blue states and a minority of the population can send enough senators to Washington to make the filibusterer effective.
In addition one senator can put a hold on legislation/appointments/etc and it requires unanimous consent to override that. The democrats, even when controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Ave have rarely had the ability to overcome the filibuster. So maybe rather than saying how much the democrats have failed to do it might be more accurate to say look what we HAVE gotten done.
Geeno
@catclub: Eisenhower loathed Nixon on a personal level and didn’t do much to help him.
glory b
@Chris: I always thought that too.
He can’t run against him, and probably knows he would lose to him, but the best he can do is try to win the same prize so he can say, “Oh, that? That was easy. Don’t know why the black guy made such a big deal of it.”
Of course, it doesn’t seem to be working out like that.
MisterForkbeard
@DCF: Wow, what a childish and thorough narcissistic view of the election. Yikes.
SiubhanDuinne
MSNBC just announced that Elizabeth Warren will endorse Hillary on Rachel’s show tonight.
geg6
@catclub:
Late to the thread, although I was technically around for the 1960 election, I was only 2 years old, so this isn’t based on actual lived experience. But I’m pretty sure that things were toxic enough between Nixon and the General by that time that Ike refused to do anything to push for Tricky. I’m almost 100% sure about that.
aimai
@batgirl: He’s an asshole. He can’t help it. And his followers are delusional. Over at Kos they headlined the meeting as “Bernie honored by the white house with a visit.” And they see no problem with forcing Obama to broker their issues for them with the Clinton Campaign. The balls on these assholes.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: So it’s the no-matching-funds thing that circumvents the $2700 (etc.) limits?
D58826
@batgirl: news flash – Elizabeth Warren will endorse Hillary on Maddow tonight according to Chuckles Todd.
Even if he is just pushing his ideas and not running for president it is still a distraction. The press will continue to ask Hillary why are there differences between her and Bernie. It would sound like ‘democrats in disarray’ again.
After his meeting with Reid, Bernie was asked about endorsing Hillary. answer – crickets. This could be a long drawn out process.
Mike J
@Chris: (quoting DCF, quoting a nimrod)
I was 90% pro Clinton before, but when Bernie said that a Clinton presidency would just be a continuation of the Obama presidency, I was 173% sold.
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca:
Did you know that Democrats used to stand for economic populism but now they stand for equality and social justice, which makes the over-educated white liberals who think they stand for economic populism feel sad? What’s that, you’ve seen that for 50 years and heard it talked about in exactly that way for at least 25? Hmm. Well, I guess Thomas Frank isn’t really all that necessary to you, me, or anyone except BiP and DCF, who flog him harder than a schoolmaster with a fetish.
gogol's wife
Two conversations I had today:
I said to a local woman, “Are you excited about Hillary?” She said, “What? Did she get the nomination?” I said, “She has enough delegates that she’s going to be the nominee.” She said, “I thought so, but then this guy at work got out his phone and said, ‘No, look at this, Bernie Sanders is going to fight until the convention.'”
A colleague sat down with me at lunch. He said, kind of scared, “Do you support Hillary Clinton?” When I said yes, he seemed so surprised and relieved. I guess he’s run into some Bernfeelers lately or something.
Bobby Thomson
@Miss Bianca: he was a much bigger douche in high school, back when he was pro-Reagan.
The common thread in the people who want Democrats to focus on white men is that they seem to not have started out as Democrats.
Betty Cracker
@Mike J: Yeah. When I read that quote, I wondered who the hell he thinks he’s speaking for? It sure ain’t Democrats, whose approval rate for PBO generally hovers around 90%. And the millions who were cheering Obama’s election were Democrats, not the small, kvetching band of dead-enders who might find that screed compelling. Presumptuous asshole!
gwangung
@D58826: Self righteous progs tend to flog Obama and liberal Dems for the obstructionism Republicans threw up to block progress.
Exurban Mom
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, tonight, on Maddow. (Not joking.)
slag
@D58826: The worst part is that they tend to turn process disagreements into attacks on principle.
It’s not enough to just admit that a politician is no Green Lantern, they have to go further and claim that said politician is some sort of Bizarro Green Lantern. Like politicians somehow Will their opposition to oppose them because they don’t really want to do the things they say they want to do and are just looking for an excuse to not do them while maintaining the pretense of wanting to do them.
It’s as if their favorite hobby is making whirligigs out of Occam’s razors.
Corner Stone
@Miss Bianca: Thomas Frank is the fucking worst.
No, check that. Ted Cruz is the fucking worst.
nutella
@DCF:
Christ, what an asshole.
hovercraft
Yay !
I’m late to tis party, but I just watched Jeffrey Sachs say that in order for Hillary to get Bernie to support her and bring his people on board, she needs to give him a say not only on the platform, but also on the VP, policy , and on cabinet appointments. She is apparently just the nominee not the president so if she wants to win she has to form a coalition government between the centrist party and the progressive party. This is bullshit.
SHE FUCKING WON.
Major Major Major Major
@Exurban Mom: See? I’m psychic.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: So. Freakin’. Much. of the Bernie Sanders phenomenon, online/social media division at least, is driven by the people who think Barack Obama is a conservative and a disappointment. They think that (1) the young people excited about Bernie Sanders as a breath of fresh air and (2) the older people who really hate Hillary Clinton and think Obama is too liberal, both of which are large components of the Bernie Sanders crowd, _also share their views about Barack Obama, conservative disappointment_. This is why they have such a fondness for saying that they stand for nearly half of Democrats. They don’t. They’re like _a quarter to a third of_ a half of Democrats. And they have no idea of that disparity.
GOVCHRIS1988
@DCF: Oh, go suck on your Mommy’s tit,Tom. You privileged grunge hippies really are somethin when you don’t get your way.
Corner Stone
Thomas Frank. Tom Friedman. Hmmmm…Have they ever both been seen in the same taxi cab in Kansas?
FlipYrWhig
@slag:
I see you’ve read the postings of our friend NR.
batgirl
@D58826: I totally agree with you. I am sick of Bernie and his Bernie or bust followers. Just thought I’d try to be charitable. I’m excited to hear Warren is endorsing tonight!
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: I saw that Sachs BS earlier and I’m like, huh? She needs a man to tell who her to pick in HER FUCKING CABINET?
Jeffery Sachs, go make me a fucking sammich.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: “Thomas Francis Friedman is the author of ‘Kansas is Flat’ and ‘Listen, Lexus.'”
NonyNony
@Kay: Oh my god Kay – I love that link. Jones is a wingnut whackjob and she can’t support Trump? That’s awesome.
And as far as the idea that they might kick King John out of the party? Man I would love to see it. The man is one of the worst examples of Republican available but he hides it really well. To imagine him getting booted out because his ability to mask his vile nature fooled Republicans is like some kind of O Henry story come to life…
gwangung
@FlipYrWhig: The Sanders supporters were expecting dramatic change under Obama; getting incremental change with the obstructionist Republicans was a major disappointment to them. Clinton supporters were OK with any progress (particularly minority voters).
Incremental change is not OK with Sanders supporters; we saw that with the healthcare debates. They want the whole ball of wax. That they are not satisfied with increments (which is what civil rights activists have fought for, on arguably far more contentious ground) betrays what some people have called the privilege of easy disillusionment.
slag
@FlipYrWhig: I know people like this personally. If they’re capable of it, they’ll reason through a conversation enough to talk themselves off the ledge. But then they find themselves back on social media and all bets are off again. The dissonance is strong with those ones.
hovercraft
Warren to endorse tonight on Maddow
different-church-lady
@gogol’s wife: The primary weapon in the Sanders Army arsenal has been the Reality Distortion Device. From the very get-go they tried to psych-ops their way to the nomination, and they almost pulled it off.
The thing that drove me nuts about a hard-core Bern-feeler is not the passion, not the political views, and not even the Clinton derangement. The part that really got my fur up was the shameless, relentless insistence that they had some kind of special grip on reality that the rest of us didn’t, and we were all going to be sorry and shocked and depressed when they were right, and the only way to avoid that doom was to cross over before it was too late.
And the amazing thing is they’re still at it.
nutella
@hovercraft:
Christ, what an asshole.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Ahh, but who is his muse for these penned works? A Palestinian immigrant Uber driver with his own tornado alert business on the side? An unemployed man panhandling in downtown Wichita?
Bill Arnold
@Chris:
I’ve also suspected without any justification that if Trump were elected, he would try to sic the Federal investigative apparatus on B. Obama and that there would be a leak and major scandal, maybe including talk of impeachment.
FlipYrWhig
@gwangung:
Oooh, I love that!
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: I wish I could edit this because I would add, “A man she kicked the fucking pants off of, and who came in second in a two person contest” to tell her…yada yada yada.
Corner Stone
“Listen, Lexus”
That’s fucking comedy gold, Jerry. Gold!
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I hear someone saw him in the vicinity of the Applebee’s salad bar.
J R in WV
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Thanks, Botsplainer. Great horses make me cry sometimes. He was the greatest, just like Ali.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: You complete me, Corner Stone.
Chris
@Bill Arnold:
I hadn’t even thought of that. My main thought was “and therefore he’ll do everything he can to torch Obama’s legacy, including repealing the ACA, not necessarily because he’s actually against it but simply out of spite towards his predecessor.”
Xboxershorts
I understand that beating up on Trump has been rather simple, like shooting fish in a barrel.
But if y’all publicly shred He, Drumpf enough before the GOP convention, they will plug someone else in
Corner Stone
Haley Barbour, you are hilarious.
Corner Stone
@Xboxershorts: I can’t decide. Being beaten about the head and shoulders by a *shutter* woman? Or being unceremoniously dumped by R party elite?
Hmmmm…
Corner Stone
God dammit, Chuck Todd. Tell Haley Barbour he’s a fucking idiot.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Oh, I see. Is Elizabeth Warren supposed to get Bernie’s and Jeffrey’s permission before endorsing HRC tonight? Even my asshole is protesting that these guys don’t deserve to be called assholes. I’m not sure what epithet *is* appropriate for them.
@FlipYrWhig: you are freakin’ hilarious.
Corner Stone
That the vote in CA was “closer than you may think” may be the funniest thing I have heard all election.
Wait…Bill Kristol is on MTP Daily now…he may top it by accident.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
So what if it actually is closer, not that it will be, but if it was what difference would it make?
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: Well…*putting on my berning math hat*…if, say, it were down to a 9.5% margin let’s say. Then we could say Bernie actually *won* CA because HRC only had single digits more than BS!
You see? It’s quite simple actually, when you really take the time to…ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!
Miss Bianca
@Corner Stone: I posted this in another thread, but I can’t resist the temptation to ask present company assembled here: Is it wrong that I find myself hoping a recount would just *broaden* the gap between Clinton and Sanders?
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I think it’s like how when one basketball team closes to within single digits of the other, they start thinking they have a chance. Only this time there’s 5 seconds left in the game, they’re down by 12, they just threw up a brick with one foot on the line, and they’re complaining that they were fouled and should get three shots.
Corner Stone
@Miss Bianca: I don’t think that’s wrong, necessarily. But if you’re down freakin 12.5% or so what in the absolute hell do you think is going to happen?
AAACCCKKK!! RON FOURNIER! NoooOOOooOOOooOoo!!
J R in WV
@joel hanes:
Yes, indeed, you remind me. The John Birch Society claimed and believed that Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was a communist agent, I imagine some still do, after he sent Federal troops to Arkansas to integrate a school. So the Rs needed their “cold warrior”, Dick Nixon.
What a waste… I was walking with friends in northern Illinois back in 1970, and when it started to rain, we went into a little book store, and after a few minutes we gradually each realized that it was a John Birch Book Shop. Amazing stuff, if it hadn’t been a super-thunderstorm we would have left sooner, as it was we waited for the weather to blow over.
Crazed is all I can say. No telling what they thought of 19 y o military guys dropping by, so obviously not an accident, except it was. We went to the Dunes State Park, got rained out.
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
No you are not wrong. Everytime I try to be a big girl and let bygones be bygones, these fucking assholes drag me back in and negate all those anger management classes. We can’t be expected to forgive if they keep attacking. I said stay in til after DC, I said you don’t have to endorsr till all the votes are counted, but will they accept that no they keep on being assholes.
MisterForkbeard
@Miss Bianca: It might actually broaden the game. A big chunk of what’s left to count is provisional ballots (which tend to be used for younger/less experienced voters who’d tend to vote Bernie, I’d think. And which also tend to get tossed out) and absentee ballots, which break Clinton by a pretty large margin.
Counting more absentee ballots gets you more Clinton votes. And counting more provisional ballots doesn’t get you much movement in either direction.
GOVCHRIS1988
@nutella: Jeffrey Sachs can kiss my and probably her ass. No, you didn’t win. You can make suggestions, but its the decision of Hillary Rodham Clinton to follow them. NO.ONE.ELSE. You can’t handle that, go to Trump.