Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Consistently wrong since 2002

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

I was promised a recession.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

Tick tock motherfuckers!

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / “Progressive Independent” Open Thread: Death Wish

“Progressive Independent” Open Thread: Death Wish

by | 124 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

… AWAY & SHUT UP, if I get my wish.

If we Democrats do as well as projected in 2018, St. Bernie will be scrabbling for figurehead position on the bandwagon. If we, Goddess forbid, don’t, he’s all set to work the “Buy my book, and make a token $27 contribution to my exploratory committee” circuit, right across the aisle from Newt Gingrich. Except, as ever, the man’s timing is impeccable…

Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blamed Hillary Clinton for not doing more to stop the Russian attack on the last presidential election. Then his 2016 campaign manager, in an interview with POLITICO, said he’s seen no evidence to support special counsel Robert Mueller’s assertion in an indictment last week that the Russian operation had backed Sanders’ campaign.

The remarks showed Sanders, running for a third term and currently considered a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, deeply defensive in response to questions posed to him about what was laid out in the indictment. He attempted to thread a response that blasts Donald Trump for refusing to acknowledge that Russians helped his campaign — but then holds himself harmless for a nearly identical denial.

In doing so, Sanders and his former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, presented a series of self-serving statements that were not accurate, and that track with efforts by Trump and his supporters to undermine the credibility of the Mueller probe.

“The real question to be asked is what was the Clinton campaign [doing about Russian interference]? They had more information about this than we did,” Sanders said in the interview with Vermont Public Radio.

After being contacted by POLITICO about the interview, Sanders issued a lengthy statement calling the Russian involvement a “direct assault on the free democratic systems that stand in contrast to the autocratic, nationalistic kleptocracy of Vladimir Putin and his backers in the Russian oligarchy” which “deserves unconditional condemnation.”…

A former Clinton campaign staffer said it was nonsense that Sanders’ campaign had reached out to Clinton’s about potential Russian interference. “No one from the Sanders campaign ever contacted us about this” — not in September, and not in “April and May.” Sanders said in the radio interview that he noticed “lots of strange things” during those months in 2016…

Asked why Sanders would blame Clinton for not intervening, Weaver said, “Uh, I don’t know. They [Clinton’s campaign] did have more information.”

As for Sanders’ claims of having gone to Clinton’s campaign about possible Russian meddling, Weaver said Sanders was “speaking broadly.”…

The Vermont senator was adamant that he did not benefit from Russian bots urging voters to support him. “I did not know that Russian bots were promoting my campaign. Russian bots were not promoting my campaign,” he said…

Sanders repeatedly refused to say why he didn’t call out Russian involvement during the campaign. Clinton’s campaign regularly raised suspicions of Kremlin-backed activity during the home stretch of the race…

Speaking of Mr. Mueller (may his shadow never grow less), notice that Jeff “Comic Book Guy” Weaver is still hanging out with St. Bernie, but for some reason his 2016 campaign twin, seasoned political professional Tad Devine, seems to have disappeared from the media agora?

Way back in 2017…

Never forget:

Reader Interactions

124Comments

  4. 4.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    All I want for my birthday is (1) Expletive Deleted to go away. (2) A Mueller indictment of Jared.
    (and a pony and a margarita. Or a pony drinking a margarita).

  8. 8.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?

    “..I understand that guns in [Vermont] are different than guns in Chicago or Los Angeles…”

    Oh dear god, please croak already! Here’s hoping the gun control issue will damage him this time around.

  9. 9.

    Ryan

    Is Sanders aware that Clinton was out of the government for more than three years during the campaign? Or is that a minor detail and I am clearly a neoliberal shill?

  10. 10.

    condorcet runner-up

    currently considered a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020

    Interesting proposition to just throw out there without any sources cited …

    ETA: I see Gin & Tonic beat me too it.

  16. 16.

    glory b

    From Politico: “Two dudes sitting in a hole somewhere support Bernie Sanders — tell me what they did to support Bernie Sanders,” Weaver added later.

    Are they sitting next to Trump’s 400 lb guy in the bedroom?

  17. 17.

    The Moar You Know

    By whom?

    @Gin & Tonic: Last polls I saw showed him at 18%, right behind Biden. Of course, at this stage that is meaningless.

    But I’m concerned as all fuck this guy is going to do the same schtick as last time, including refusing to concede after the primaries, and give us four more years of the least-deserving and most incompetent president we’ve ever had. Hopefully the criminal old fucker will keel over and die before then.

  18. 18.

    No Drought No More

    I once again appeal to both Clinton and Sanders to hold a joint press conference to announce they will not seek the presidency in 2020 or ever fucking again. Or a martini press conference even, I don’t care. I just want to see it happen, because it would be good news for both party and country.

  19. 19.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)

    What, for realz? Does he really think this shit is going to help him somehow? I can’t see how this is going to vault him to the top of the 2020 heap.

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    Bernie blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference

    Wow. I dismissed Sanders early on as a potential presidential candidate. Now he is on my permanent shit list. This is Trumpian level stupidity in its inane, wrong-headed finger pointing.

    Does he honestly think he will get any traction from this?

    @No Drought No More:

    I once again appeal to both Clinton and Sanders to hold a joint press conference to announce they will not seek the presidency in 2020 or ever fucking again.

    This is as dumb ass as the Sanders statement. Something in the air?

  21. 21.

    Fair Economist

    @Gin & Tonic: Available polling shows Biden to be the frontrunner, with Bernie a very close second, so I think it’s legit to call Bernie “a” frontrunner. It’s mostly name recognition, to be fair, but there it is.

    (polling is buried under a button in the democratic nomination section).

  28. 28.

    Fair Economist

    @Brachiator:

    Bernie blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference

    Wow. I dismissed Sanders early on as a potential presidential candidate. Now he is on my permanent shit list. This is Trumpian level stupidity in its inane, wrong-headed finger pointing.

    Two years ago I mocked suggestions Sanders might be actively supporting the Russians. But he just keeps coming up with reasons to think he is:

    Voted against Russian sanctions, twice
    Had the Russians act to prop him up.
    Knew it was happening and said nothing.
    Now blames somebody who couldn’t have done anything about it.

    At some point you have to stop suspecting wrong-headedness and start suspecting malicious intent. It’s like with Glenn Greenwald, although admittedly not nearly so far.

  29. 29.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Ryan: he has no response to the Russian bot thing and it will be deadly to his online credibility. So in classic Trump fashion, he tries to blame someone else, only he doesn’t have the guts to blame Obama. It’s not like his bitter enders really care.

  31. 31.

    Aleta

    “Of course we wanted to cause divisiveness in the Democratic Party. That’s no great secret. The real question … is, why didn’t the Clinton campaign” step aside, because I would have won.

  34. 34.

    patrick II

    Bernie is running. That has been clear since his acolytes began pushing states to have state open primaries and caucuses.

  35. 35.

    d58826

    Putin owns Bernie and Jill Stein just as much as he does Der Fuhrer.

    And speaking of disgusting human beings. Dana Lorach blistered the MSM for loving the rating hits that they get from, ‘white mothers crying for dead kids after a school shooting’ She then complained that she needed a security detail in order to protest her from the angry crowd after the Cnn townhall. School kids are not entitled to the same level of protection. She also ranted on the FBI for dropping the ball and not following up on the tip about the shooter. Now the the FBI should follow up on why the tip did not get from DC to Fla., but even if it had exactly what could the FBI do? Local officials were aware of this kid and his problems. Sure the FBI could have interviewed the kid but they have no legal authority to arrest him BEFORE he does something. Local authorities might have had more legal authority to detain/commit him under a danger to the community type mental health law.

    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/22/nra-spokeswoman-attacks-media-government-over-mass-shootings-criticism-421688

  37. 37.

    efgoldman

    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET
    FUCK WILMER WITH A RUSTY MAPLE SYRUP BUCKET

  38. 38.

    randy khan

    @No Drought No More:

    I once again appeal to both Clinton and Sanders to hold a joint press conference to announce they will not seek the presidency in 2020 or ever fucking again. Or a martini press conference even, I don’t care. I just want to see it happen, because it would be good news for both party and country.

    Clinton’s already said she’s not running for anything again. I don’t think I’d make her go on a stage with Sanders for the purpose of what essentially would be intentionally humiliating herself.

  41. 41.

    patrick II

    @d58826:
    Kevin Drum did the math (as usual) on FBI online tips the other day. They receive about 1300 a day with perhaps another one to two hundred tips via hotline or in person. Fully investigating 1500 tips a day would require a much bigger FBI than we have. Not to mention, as you say, what could they do to someone who has not yet committed a crime?

  43. 43.

    germy

    But the question which concerns me most of all regards the money that flowed into Sanders’ campaign. Despite the fact that only one super PAC endorsed him, RoseAnn DeMoro’s National Nurses United, and his constant boasting of his supporters’ average donation of $27.50, the Sanders campaign took in and spent far more money than it was comfortable admitting, much of it centered around a mysterious corporation, Old Towne Media, LLC.

    https://thedailybanter.com/2018/01/bernie-sanders-2020-hard-questions/

    shady as hell.

    This is not the first time Sanders has come under fire for shady money dealing. In 2006, his Republican Senate opponent, Richard Tarrant, accused Jane Sanders of profiting off of Sanders’ media buys during his last two congressional campaigns. While Jane’s name does not appear on the contracts in those campaigns, we do know that her daughter from a previous marriage, Carina Driscoll, received $65,000 for her work, and that Jane’s ad buying companies both used the address of their home in Vermont. None of this is technically illegal, but it does look shady, especially taken in light of Sanders’ future attacks on Hillary Clinton for her speeches on Wall Street.

  44. 44.

    gene108

    @Ryan:

    Is Sanders aware that Clinton was out of the government for more than three years during the campaign? Or is that a minor detail and I am clearly a neoliberal shill?

    Or that he was still in the government and a sitting Senator, still in the Senate, with lots of powers non-Senators do not have?

    *******************************************

    Wasn’t one of Sander’s higher ups a co-worker with Manafort in Ukraine?

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    Then Mayor of Burlington Sanders took an official trip to Russia shortly after his marriage to his second, and current, wife Jane. As an up and coming politician, there is no way, shape, and/or form that the KGB did not ensure that he was surveilled the entire time he was in the Soviet Union. Should Senator Sanders have been the nominee that material would have leaked. Should Senator Sanders become the nominee in 2020, that material will be leaked.

  46. 46.

    Jeffro

    So Bernie’s going to try and co-opt the success of November’s coming ‘blue wave’ – that it’s all about the things he stands for, that it happened because of him? Oh no no no, my Green Mountain friend, we are having none of that.

    The Russian connections alone will doom this clown but if all else fails, it’s important to remember – he already had his shot, and couldn’t win the nomination. He sure isn’t going to get it in 2020

  47. 47.

    The Moar You Know

    Fuck him. And fuck the DNC if they allow him anywhere near the primaries. He’s not a fucking Democrat.

    @TaMara (HFG): I’m aware that there’s not much that can be done to prevent him from registering or running as a Dem, but the DNC should be able to lock him out of the primaries and they damn sure can publicly disown him (like the GOP could have with Roy Moore but didn’t) and they damn well better not give him a dime. Let him get his money from the Russians, like last time.

  49. 49.

    germy

    Jane Sanders, currently under investigation regarding the bankruptcy of Burlington College, has been reluctant to comment on Old Towne. When asked about it by reporters from VT Digger, a Vermont-based news site, she claimed she had no idea what they were talking about and hung up the phone. And it’s true that her name does not appear on the Old Towne contracts that Slate unearthed. But this statement from her husband in the Washington Post casts doubt on her claims:

    “We do not put any TV ads on without Jane seeing it… she looks at the ads. She’ll make her comments. She’ll talk to Tad [Devine]. Tad will change it, because Tad also appreciates her views…She has very good instincts about what makes sense and what does not make sense, and when I’m moving in the wrong direction, or when I’m moving in the right direction. So yeah, I trust her advice very much.”

    link

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    @d58826: @patrick II: I can only imagine what it’s like for the FBI and domestic law enforcement to be taking all of these tips/calls/whatever on folks’ terrorist suspicions and now domestic shooter suspicions. Their phones must ring non-stop.

  52. 52.

    msdc

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t know, they’ve done a pretty good job holding onto the material on their current asset in the White House.

    A Sanders-Trump election would be a real “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario for Putin.

  53. 53.

    condorcet runner-up

    @The Moar You Know:

    But I’m concerned as all fuck this guy is going to do the same schtick as last time, including refusing to concede after the primaries, and give us four more years of the least-deserving and most incompetent president we’ve ever had.

    I recognize the value of having an issue spotter like old man Wilmer out there making sure certain issues are stated plainly and (rightly) made part of the party platform, despite his lack of realistic and frankly achievable policy solutions, but I also get the impression that his overall impact on the Democractic primary will be a lot lower this time around (despite the dwindling group of his hardcore supporters getting louder and louder as they fade into irrelevance). People heard what he had to say last time, which will blunt the “freshness” of his message somewhat, and now he has a bit more baggage as well. I am not worried at all about his “base,” which still remains — like Uncle Rico — relegated to shouting into the void about what could have been.

  54. 54.

    efgoldman

    @patrick II:

    That has been clear since his acolytes began pushing states to have state open primaries and caucuses.

    I hope at least a couple of state parties deny him ballot access BECAUSE HE’S NOT A FUCKING DEMOCRAT

  55. 55.

    cgordon

    I listened to the Bernie Sanders interview where Sanders is supposed to have blamed Clinton for the Russian interference. He gave a clumsy answer to a stupid question. Sanders said that one of his staffers had contacted the Clinton campaign and told them he thought Russian agents were posting anti-Clinton material on Sanders’ FB page. The Clinton campaign says they were not contacted. Fine. The interviewer asked why he didn’t warn his supporters. (About what?) He said that at that point, the Clinton campaign was in a better position to warn people. Which they were, since they were getting intelligence briefings on Russians.

  56. 56.

    Brachiator

    @Steeplejack:

    Dunno why, but today is National Margarita Day.

    Today is George Washington’s official birthday. The Margarita was his favorite drink. Almost became the national drink, according to the diaries of the Constitutional Convention. Ben Franklin preferred Wild Turkey.

  57. 57.

    BC in Illinois

    Now the years are rolling by me – They are rockin’ evenly.
    I am older than I once was, And younger than I’ll be.
    That’s not unusual;
    No, it it’s not strange: After changes upon changes
    We are more or less the same; After changes we are more or less the same.

    Paul Simon “The Boxer” (as sung by S&G in Central Park)

    January 20, 2021, Inauguration Day

    B Sanders 79
    J Biden 78
    H Clinton 73
    E Warren 71

    Now, I would vote for at least three of these four, if they were nominated. Maybe enthusiastically. But I wouldn’t select any of them, given my druthers. We don’t need our next candidate to be a child of the FDR or Truman administration. Obama was born during the Kennedy administration. Let’s start there.

    BC in Illinois (child of the Truman administration)

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    Hey mods!
    Apparently my heartfelt paean to Saint Wilmer disappeared without even being moderated
    Too may “fucks” I guess.
    Can find and retrieve, please?

  63. 63.

    Aleta

    My anti-Republican bias says that their policies will cause more deaths by gunshot. They’re literally OK with that. Because they assume most of those deaths won’t involve white wealthy stable “responsible gun owners” living with health care and aides in the gated parts of town.

    And it’s only the occasional person who’s killed on their own property by a hunter with a high powered rifle, right Bernie?

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @Fair Economist:

    Two years ago I mocked suggestions Sanders might be actively supporting the Russians. But he just keeps coming up with reasons to think he is

    I like this comment from an old story about Sanders voting against sanctions.

    If we could see his tax returns, we might have a clue.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    @cgordon:

    The interviewer asked why he didn’t warn his supporters. (About what?) He said that at that point, the Clinton campaign was in a better position to warn people.

    When you have one candidate saying that Russia is interfering, a second candidate denying it, and a third candidate who stays silent, people assume that the second candidate is telling the truth, particularly when both the second and third candidate have spent months accusing the first candidate of being a liar.

    Sanders’ silence was assent to Trump’s lies. He can’t weasel out of that now by claiming it wasn’t his responsibility to back Hillary up. He let his own hurt fee-fees take precedence over the good of our country.

  68. 68.

    gene108

    @cgordon:

    He said that at that point, the Clinton campaign was in a better position to warn people. Which they were, since they were getting intelligence briefings on Russians.

    He could’ve given a filibuster worthy speech about Russian interference on the Senate floor or demanded sanctions on Russia or introduced resolution condemning Russia in the Senate for election interference.

    He’s a fucking U.S. Senator, who has been in Congress for over 25 years, and people want to treat him like he’s some kind of outsider, who is taking on the system and has no real power.

  70. 70.

    Miss Bianca

    The Vermont senator was adamant that he did not benefit from Russian bots urging voters to support him. “I did not know that Russian bots were promoting my campaign. Russian bots were not promoting my campaign,” he said…

    Which is it, Senator? “I didn’t know there were Russian bots” or “there were no Russian bots”? Pick one.

  71. 71.

    No Drought No More

    If I was Trump’s attorney, I’d tell me to think of his public unmasking for treason (unto impeachment, imprisonment, and historical disgrace) as a reality T.V. show. I’d then ask him to ponder that every absolutely ear and eyeball throughout the entire world is paying acute attention as the show enters its final season, and there’s no finagling the ending- what will be, will be. Which is to say, there ain’t no Miss Universe judges gonna stop the freight train about to hit his treacherous ass.

  72. 72.

    Chyron HR

    @cgordon:

    So what exactly is Messiah’s game plan for 2020? Will he magically decide on January 1 that he’s not too good for the Democratic party (again), and then quit the party immediately after the convention (again) because he’s too good for us?

  74. 74.

    Paul Gottlieb

    This is not a rhetorical question: Is anyone mounting a credible primary attack on Sanders, and can you tell me how I can contribute to that campaign? The thought of replacing that repulsive bag of narcissistic hot air with an actual Democrat who wants to make life better is so enticing!

  80. 80.

    Amir Khalid

    @Fair Economist:
    No one can meaningfully be called a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, because no one — not even Wilmer — has formally declared their candidacy. There is polling that looks good for him, yes, but so far away from 2020 that is meaningless. Bernie was ill-prepared for the job in 2016, in so many ways. What we’ve learned about him since then doesn’t inspire confidence in the man or the candidate. He doesn’t escape the Russiagate taint except if Mueller’s team were wrong about what they’ve found so far — not likely, I think. Unless Wilmer fixes all that for 2020 (and the last item is out of his power to fix) he doesn’t merit consideration.

  81. 81.

    bobbo

    This means that the Berniebots will be lining up with the Glenn Greenwalds to explain to us that the “Russia thing” is just a smokescreen to protect the neoliberal Dems’ agenda. Unless they’re doing that already?

  84. 84.

    J R in WV

    I don’t think we will have to worry too much about Sanders once the currently sitting Grand Jury finishes its examination of the bankruptcy of Burlington College under MS Sanders’ management. Her daughter made a lot of money off that management, which is a very clear case of conflict of interest and an example of the Sanders family profiting from the ruin of a well regarded institution, now destroyed. Job destroyers, anyone?

    Old Towne Media LLC appears to be another example of an obscured activity by Sanders and his campaign, a very traditional method for skimming personal cash from campaign contributions, which IIRC is stone illegal graft. This is piled right beside Sanders’ support from Putin’s intelligence services, stinking to high heaven. I bet Mueller knows more about Old Towne than Sanders will admit. If so, we don’t need to worry about Sanders’ influence in the 202 election campaign.

    So much conservative-appearing greed by all the Sanders family!!

  85. 85.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The Clinton campaign says they were not contacted. Fine. The interviewer asked why he didn’t warn his supporters. (About what?) He said that at that point, the Clinton campaign was in a better position to warn people.

    Yeah, if there’s one thing we know about Wilmer, he hates media attention. And anyway the media never gives him any

    He said that at that point, the Clinton campaign was in a better position to warn people. Which they were

    Yes, because if there’s one thing we know about Wilmberbots, it’s that they react to thing Hillary Clinton says like thoughtful, self-aware people

    Clinton or Reines or Mook or somebody needs to dump that oppo file

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    kinda surprised we aren’t seeing more of the screaming meemies descend on this thread. Has the bat-signal been refitted to attacking teenaged activists?

  87. 87.

    Citizen_X

    “The real question to be asked is what was the Clinton campaign [doing about Russian interference]? They had more information about this than we did,” Sanders said

    “Plus, they have a global team of assassins doing her bidding, right?”

  88. 88.

    RemindsMeOfThatMovie

    This is why Sanders and Sandernistas are all toxic. He’s not a Democrat and stop trying to pretend he is! Go form your own party, call yourselves independents. I don’t care. You are not Democrats.

    All Sanders does is make Democrats jobs that much harder. This latest nonsense of trying to blame Hillary and therefore helping the Republicans re-enforce their nonsense is a perfect example.

  90. 90.

    Ruckus

    @opiejeanne:
    You know that saying “Crist what an asshole” covers lot of republican ground, with the exception of the republicans that require the phrase “Crist, what a fucking asshole,” don’t you?

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    This seems an appropriate place to leave this:

  95. 95.

    J R in WV

    @efgoldman:

    Hey mods!
    Apparently my heartfelt paean to Saint Wilmer disappeared without even being moderated
    Too may “fucks” I guess.
    Can find and retrieve, please?

    Not enough fucks to give? Just as likely, this is the ravening pack of Jackals, after all!!

  97. 97.

    Shalimar

    If Bernie actually contributes his money and time to help those running this year and earns a place heading the party, then good for him. I still won’t support him again, and have reached the point of actively loathing him, but still, good for him. At least he wll be helping Democrats.

    If he mostly sits on the sidelines with occasional visits to Iowa to start his own 2020 campaign, Bernie is going to find that no one buys his post-election book. He will recede into the past where he belongs.

  98. 98.

    different-church-lady

    …as the ’20 cycle begins

    Just kill me.

    Misread: thought it meant the 20 cycle began now.

  99. 99.

    different-church-lady

    In 2016 I had no qualms with Sanders’ running for the Dem nomination, even if his declaration of joining the party was one solely of convenience.

    But this motherfucker does not get to un-join the party, and then have the gall to run for the next nomination. You’re either in, or you’re out, asshole. And the party should not fall for it this time.

  100. 100.

    different-church-lady

    It’s either foolish or ballsy to publish a book just after the midterms — so much of what’s in it could look idiotic if the results overhaul the landscape.

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    Watch this space: @StMartinsPress announces @BernieSanders will be publishing a new book called “WHERE WE GO FROM HERE” exactly one week after the midterms…

    — Gabriel Debenedetti (@gdebenedetti) February 21, 2018

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah: “WHERE WE GO FROM HERE” – away from you, asshole!

    Not ready to forgive and forget. At this point, lefty purity ponies who want Socialism for White People and are prepared to overlook Saint Bernard’s manifold dogwhistles just because he says other stuff they like to hear, are pissing me off almost as much as MAGAts.

  103. 103.

    Captain C

    @The Moar You Know:

    including refusing to concede after the primaries

    I don’t think he’ll last that long. At least one rival candidate will attack him without kid gloves this time, and when you add in the Russia denialism (and possible other related problems, including scads of potentially laundered $27 donations) and NRA skeletons to his parade of “I don’t know how to accomplish my agenda” statements, his wife’s probable grifting, and a ton of other problems, I think he’ll have no support save his hardcore cultists by February of 2020.

    I mean seriously, us jackals here could probably come up with an ad campaign which would wreck him. I suspect the pros could do so even more.

  104. 104.

    Captain C

    Bernie blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference

    In more ways than one, this reminds me of Trump babbling “No puppet! No puppet! You’re the puppet!” in the debate.

  105. 105.

    different-church-lady

    @Captain C: It really is amazing how nobody bears any responsibility for the attacks against Hillary other than Hillary. Truly amazing, I tell you…

  106. 106.

    Captain C

    @schrodingers_cat: I can already see the 2020 ads: “Bernie Sanders claims to be Mr. Transparency, the only honest politician. But for years, he has refused to release his own tax returns. What is Bernie Sanders trying to hide? Call Bernie Sanders and demand that he release his tax returns; after all, what’s good for everyone else must surely be good for Bernie, too.”

  109. 109.

    Captain C

    @Adam L Silverman: But what material would there be? Embarrassing videos of Jane beseeching Bernie to stop talking shit lecturing about politics and please come to bed to consummate their marriage?

    Unless, of course, he actually agreed to work for them then.

  111. 111.

    Captain C

    @Mnemosyne:

    He can’t weasel out of that now by claiming it wasn’t his responsibility to back Hillary up.

    Somehow, it’s never Wilmer’s responsibility. This is a great quality to have in a would-be leader.

    ETA:

    He let his own hurt fee-fees take precedence over the good of our country.

    Sounds like textbook narcissism. He only ever looks happy when getting applause or praise.

  117. 117.

    J R in WV

    @Captain C:

    I think it is pretty obvious that Sanders has been in the pocket of Russians ever since he visited them on his honeymoon. All of his public life points that way. He would have to prove that he isn’t before I would allow him to talk to Democratic voters as a candidate. Yes, I know that you cannot prove a negative, that’s my point.

    Sanders and his wife and daughter are all grifters as bad as Wayne the Peter and the rest of the NRA. In fact he grifts FROM the NRA, quietly. He fights gun control, and most of his political agenda is parallel with the RWNJ agenda with a couple of exceptions, which are the economic Marxist agenda items he has confessed that he has no idea how to achieve.

    He isn’t very bright, either.

  119. 119.

    StringOnAStick

    @different-church-lady: I read Al Franken’s last book at about 3 weeks after he resigned (that’s when it arrived from the library). There was a part of me that really felt bad for him as he was being sincere about being a good senator and getting things done for people in MN, like getting a eye doctor into a reservation area because the Native Americans had zero access to that kind of care. I also came to the conclusion that the mainstream-always-wanted-to-be-a-politician types in DC never accepted him or took him seriously, and they certainly didn’t feel like he belonged in the their “club”. Maybe that had something to do with the rush to get him out of office.

    St. Bernard of the top 25 NRA contribution recipients club may find that his book will come back to bite him in the ass, especially as the Mueller investigation grinds along. I would be pleased by that, but judging from the idiot Bernie bot in my office (soon to be moving to India to “immerse mah self in the deep spirituality of all these impoverished people”) there is nothing they could ever pin on him that they would”t explain away. Deep state, neolibs, whatever excuse is handy. I swear my coworker has some romantic notion that Russia is a socialist paradise and Vlad just wants to help us get there by helping Bernie. It is fucking maddening. For 40 years old she is dumb as a fucking post. At least she’ll be in India and not voting in 2018.

  122. 122.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    535 members in Congress.

    Why is Wilmer the only ONE to vote against BOTH the Magnitsky Act and the recent sanctions on Russia’s election interference?

    Russian lawyer Magnitsky ‘tortured, beaten to death’ – report

    The law at first blocked 18 Russian government officials and businessmen from entering the United States, froze any assets held by U.S. banks and banned their future use of U.S. banking systems.

    The Magnitsky Act, rather, is about money. It freezes certain Russian officials’ access to the stashes they were keeping in Western banks and real estate and bans their entry to the United States.

    Why would he vote against a law the punishes torturers, murderers, oligarchs, and their bankers?

  123. 123.

    Marcia

    Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blamed Hillary Clinton for not doing more to stop the Russian attack on the last presidential election. Then his 2016 campaign manager, in an interview with POLITICO, said he’s seen no evidence to support special counsel Robert Mueller’s assertion in an indictment last week that the Russian operation had backed Sanders’ campaign.

    And here I’d thought I loathed that self-serving dick cheese in 2016. What’d I know?

  124. 124.

    Marcia

    @Paul Gottlieb:

    The thought of replacing that repulsive bag of narcissistic hot air with an actual Democrat who wants to make life better is so enticing!

    Well, keep looking. Saint Bernard ain’t it.

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