Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

American History and Black History can not be separated.

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

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

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

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Ah, the different things are different argument.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Monday Morning Open Thread: That NYTimes Endorsement

Monday Morning Open Thread: That NYTimes Endorsement

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This post is in: , , ,

(Kinda contentious for a first-thing-in-the-morning thread, but I suspect it’s what everyone will want to talk about anyways… )

Give them full credit: Only the Thought Leaders at the NYTimes could irk me so much by nominating the same candidates *I* would’ve recommended. They wanted to go with the obvious choice for most of their paid subscribers — but they were terrified of nasty social-media pushback from people who are never voting for a Democrat, such as the Oval Office Occupant. They tried to split the difference, with the usual painful / comic result…

… The Democratic primary contest is often portrayed as a tussle between moderates and progressives. To some extent that’s true. But when we spent significant time with the leading candidates, the similarity of their platforms on fundamental issues became striking.

Nearly any of them would be the most progressive president in decades on issues like health care, the economy and government’s allocations of resources. Where they differ most significantly is not the what but the how, in whether they believe the country’s institutions and norms are up to the challenge of the moment…

Choosing who should face off against Mr. Trump also means acknowledging that Americans are being confronted with three models for how to govern this country, not two. Democrats must decide which of their two models would be most compelling for the American people and best suited for repairing the Republic…

Good news, then, that Elizabeth Warren has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic left…

[Ten paragraphs decently recapping Warren’s message, and campaign to date.]

… Ms. [SENATOR!] Warren’s path to the nomination is challenging, but not hard to envision. The four front-runners are bunched together both in national polls and surveys in states holding the first votes, so small shifts in voter sentiment can have an outsize influence this early in the campaign. There are plenty of progressives who are hungry for major change but may harbor lingering concerns about a messenger as divisive as Mr. Sanders. At the same time, some moderate Democratic primary voters see Ms. Warren as someone who speaks to their concerns about inequality and corruption. Her earlier leaps in the polls suggest she can attract more of both…

[Eight paragraphs dismissing the remaining male candidates.]

… Good news, then, that Amy Klobuchar has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic center. Her vision goes beyond the incremental. Given the polarization in Washington and beyond, the best chance to enact many progressive plans could be under a Klobuchar administration.

The senator from Minnesota is the very definition of Midwestern charisma, grit and sticktoitiveness. Her lengthy tenure in the Senate and bipartisan credentials would make her a deal maker (a real one) and uniter for the wings of the party — and perhaps the nation.

[Six paragraphs on Klobuchar.]

…There has been a wildfire burning in Australia larger than Switzerland. The Middle East is more unstable at this moment than at any other time in the past decade, with a nuclear arms race looking more when than if. Basket-case governments in several nations south of the Rio Grande have sent a historic flood of migrants to our southern border. Global technology companies exert more political influence than some national governments. White nationalists from Norway to New Zealand to El Paso use the internet to share ideas about racial superiority and which caliber of rifle works best for the next mass killing…

[The highlighted sentence, though arguably accurate, has drawn attention as “maybe too reminiscent of ‘sh*thole countries'”.]

There will be those dissatisfied that this page is not throwing its weight behind a single candidate, favoring centrists or progressives. But it’s a fight the party itself has been itching to have since Mrs. Clinton’s defeat in 2016, and one that should be played out in the public arena and in the privacy of the voting booth. That’s the very purpose of primaries, to test-market strategies and ideas that can galvanize and inspire the country.

Ms. Klobuchar and Ms. Warren right now are the Democrats best equipped to lead that debate.

May the best woman win.

Because when everything is fvcked-up and broken… might as well let the ladies deal with it!

Back in 2008, I remember Repubs who ‘joked’ about ‘getting a trapping license, cuz the next Dem candidate will be either a coon or a beaver’ — “Hey, cleaning up after spoiled frat boys who’ve trashed the nicest house in town is something women and Black men have plenty of experience with.”

If I didn’t change their minds, at least they usually changed topics.

NYTimes reporter, not on the editorial staff:

The promo, ICYMI (I sure did):

But on the other hand, watching the blowback on *this* will be… entertaining:

Reader Interactions

283Comments

  1. 1.

    Quinerly

    Good morning from Tulsa! Lift off shortly. Tucumcari bound. If ever in the Tulsa area, check out Nola’s Creole. Yes, I know. Who would have thunk top notch Sazeracs, Garlic Soup with Tasso Ham and Blackened Red Fish smothered in a sauce of lump crab and shrimp would be found in Oklahoma? Also great Irish pub called Kilkenny’s near the restaurant. Have a great day jackals!

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Basket-case governments in several nations south of the Rio Grande have sent a historic flood of migrants to our southern border.

    As I said in the overnight thread:

    Pot? Meet Kettle.

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quinerly:

    Who would have thunk top notch Sazeracs, Garlic Soup with Tasso Ham and Blackened Red Fish smothered in a sauce of lump crab and shrimp would be found in Oklahoma?

    Actually, that doesn’t surprise me at all. Katrina refugees spread out all over. A fair number of them took root in the last places one might expect. It’s a fair bet every one of them every one of them returns to NOLA at least once a year.

  4. 4.

    JPL

    Not a fan of Wilmer’s but there would be a big difference if he were president. The next president will probably fill another Supreme Court seat.

  5. 5.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I watched “the show” and Bernie literally wagged his finger at the Editorial Board and treated them with condescension.

    They asked him how would he get anything passed and he said he would turn public opinion in Kentucky against The Turtle.

    I wished they would have brought up how McConnell won’t face voters again until 2026 when he’s 85 years old, how he’ll be insulated against public opinion by the length of his term and the likelihood that he won’t run for again and how Bern will lose Kentucky by at least 20 pts.

     

    They did ask Bernie what is his biggest weakness and he said he’s not a people person.  He gave a couple of examples, including how he won’t wish people a happy birthday.   Well, for once he was honest.

  7. 7.

    Chyron HR

    @JPL:

    Yes, is giving one of his deranged Twitter stans a lifetime appointment to the supreme court really an improvement?  Bear in mind that they would still rule against the ACA if they got the chance.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    They asked him how would he get anything passed and he said he would turn public opinion in Kentucky against The Turtle Democrats.

    Fixed. If he were president, he and his people would berate and slander Dems to be as loyal to him as the GOP is to Trump.

  10. 10.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly: I actually was thinking along those lines too. Did get some questions answered, though. Well traveled Tulsa native in the restaurant biz owns it… and the Irish bar. Has a knack for creating “authentic” restaurants. Great menu. Speakeasy vibe at the marble top bar with low tin ceilings. Interesting area of an old part of Tulsa.. in the city.

  15. 15.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I’m surprised they endorsed Warren because on “the show” they were hostile to her.

    The Vichy Times being the Vichy Times, they tried to bait her into attacking Biden over his son working on corporate boards and she refused to attack Biden.  Yet when Biden appeared, the Times were too chickenshit to ask him the same questions.

    At another point, Warren said no one in Congress is opposing McConnell and a Times editor rebutted by saying the Dems in the House are opposing him, to which she was unconvinced.   I thought that was bad on her part because Nancy Smash is offering strong opposition and moreover Warren is in her 8th year in the Senate and if no one is offering opposition, it begs the question, why not her.

  16. 16.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Baud: He did that too.  He attacked Dems by name, saying “both sides” had failed the working class.

  17. 17.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    So Biden shows up and he starts chatting up a black, female security guard, and she tells him “he’s her favorite and she loves him”.   And Joe really connects with her and while she doesn’t say it explicitly, you can see how she responds to the only one who took the time to talk to her and treat her like a person.

  18. 18.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @OzarkHillbilly: The question to Wilmer was based on the premise that McConnell is re-elected this year and how Wilmer would deal with him as president.

  19. 19.

    randy khan

    On the Senator v. Ms. thing, that’s the New York Times style.  They refer to Trump as Mr. Trump (which is grating for different reasons) in the editorial, for instance.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    David Olney: acclaimed US songwriter apologizes for dying mid-song

    OK OK, I took some liberties with the headline, but after reading this I had to wonder if he was:

    Respected American singer-songwriter David Olney said sorry to fans before he died during a performance in Florida. The 71-year-old was mid-song when he “stopped, apologised and shut his eyes”, said musician Amy Rigby, who was performing alongside him at the 30A Songwriters festival in Santa Rosa Beach.

    Rigby said: “He was very still, sitting upright with his guitar on, wearing the coolest hat and a beautiful rust suede jacket … I want the picture to be as graceful and dignified as it was, because it at first looked as if he was just taking a moment.”

    Yeah I know, but seriously, for somebody like him what better way to go than doing what he loved? And if he could he probably would apologize for not being able to finish the song.

  21. 21.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I’m listening to this editorial board consider whether they should endorse a woman because “male voters don’t like to be talked down to by powerful women”.

    It was none other than a woman who said that (Michelle Cottle, formerly of the…. checks notes… “even the liberal New Republic”). It took a guy to mention that Hillary almost won (he didn’t mention that she won by 3 million votes, but we sadly we have to grade the Vichy Times on a low curve).

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The wife and I got together with my MSP nieces for breakfast yesterday. On the drive into STL my wife put her latest audio book on the radio. It sounded really interesting so I asked her what it was. She said, “The Big One.”
    I replied, “Ok, it’s a really big book, what’s the title of it?”
    “No, The Big One is the title of it.”
    Whoosh…. It sucks when I have to explain my jokes.

    Anyway, what I heard was very good, very informative. Dr Jones narrates the audiobook herself. I don’t know if that is common or not. Well worth adding to your “to read” pile if it isn’t deep enough already.

  28. 28.

    Anne Laurie

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I’m surprised they endorsed Warren because on “the show” they were hostile to her.

    She fails to entertain them, but they know that Warren is first choice among their paid subscribers — and, even more importantly, the people at their preferred cocktail parties.

    Much as they fear social-media assaults from the MAGAts and the Bernistas, it’s the terror of getting disinvited from NYC’s elite gatherings that really knots their knickers.

  30. 30.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @randy khan: Did they use Senator in their first reference to Warren? I guess we can’t tell from the excerpts. Their style guide says use the title the first time and then Mr. or Ms. or (in HRC’s case apparently) Mrs. Which…I don’t know why the difference.

  31. 31.

    ochone

    sanders fan here. i have problems with him:

    1. his medicare-for-all schtick is purist. there are other, more politically palatable ways to get there.
    2. the democratic socialist label could hurt. he could have called himself an FDR liberal. bad move.
    3. he stayed in the 2016 primary too long, maybe causing some damage.
    4. other

    on the other hand, on this site (which i like, sincerely) i often see visceral loathing which i don’t think is merited. if anyone takes me up on this, i can get into it, but for now,  one salutory thing is this: he is constantly castigated for not working for unity etc, but there is at the same time a constant stream of invective in his direction, with every statement or move parsed for the worst possible interpretation.

    i think it’s probably chicken and egg. many of you probably feel he’s an a**hole so he deserves it, whereas many of his supporters feel he’s more sinned against than sinning.

    either way, everyone HAS to get behind whoever the nominee is, so it would be better to be more charitable all around, starting now. for example, i think warren’s record on votes for military spending is bad, but i will also acknowledge she would be the most progressive candidate since FDR. another example: the berniesphere is up in arms about the leak of the private conversation. i’m prepared to see it as either (a) a misunderstanding due to context, (b) it’s true, and she had an understandable reaction, but crucially he never said this publicly, or in other words, in a way that could hurt a female candidate. in other words, i’m ready to move on.

    point is, there is plenty of space for you to do the same with bernie. the outright (in my view undeserved) animus achieves nothing. if he’s not the nominee, maybe a couple extra percent of his support looks at that and says f*** that and stays home, and if he is the nominee, maybe some will talk themselves into staying home, either way thereby enabling fascism.

    eyes on the prize.

  32. 32.

    Patricia Kayden

    I’m a little surprised the Times didn’t just let every staffer make their own endorsement supported by 200 pages of rural diner interviews.— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) January 20, 2020

  33. 33.

    different-church-lady

    …the party is so polarized between progressive and centrist wing…

    How the heck can something in the middle be polarized?

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @ochone:

    Two things.

    1. 99% of the people on this site will support the nominee.
    2. Bernie supporters need to clean up their own house before advising Juicers on tone.
  36. 36.

    PsiFighter37

    @ochone: He deserves all the loathing we Juicers give to him. The man is a miserable jerk who thinks REVOLUTION! is going to cure all ails.

    As for my opinion – endorsing two people is such a cop-out by the Times. I’m not going to watch their little ‘show’ on endorsements, because it reeks of the same kind of reality-TV crap that Trump has made so commonplace in politics. That being said, they would have earned more kudos from me had they stuck with either Warren or Klobuchar. Typical mealy-mouthed bullshit from the “paper of record”…

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @different-church-lady: The DEM “centrist” wing is not the center of the party, it’s in the center of US politics. I really wonder how it is that the left wing of the DEM party co-opted the term “progressive” as tho the centrists weren’t progressive themselves.

  42. 42.

    Quiltingfool

    Good morning to you all!

    OT:  I want to reply to Satby and some other commenters in yesterday’s garden chat re quilts.  I had to start working on a sewing job (not a quilt, damn it) so couldn’t get back here until late afternoon, and the thread was dead.  Anyway, my Etsy store name is QuiltingByCynthia, if you want to look around.  At one time, I tried to think of quilt designs that would appeal to lots of people, but gave up on that idea – I make quilts that I like looking at!  Well, I do have some deer panel/camo quilts I made that aren’t really my taste, but I got to add details that I like, so there is that.  I like star designs and quilts that feature cat fabric prints or cat blocks.  There are quilts from patterns, and quilts I designed myself.  I’ll be adding a few more, as soon as I take pictures, and I’ve got 3 quilt tops I’ve got to quilt.  Oh, I do have a long arm quilting machine, and I do quilt for other people.  I don’t advertise, but I have a few local clients – my prices are pretty reasonable (i.e. “cheap”) as I don’t have a computer on the machine and the quilting is simple free hand.  I kind of worry that I’m addicted to quilt making – I retired from teaching a few years ago, and I guess I still have the “go to work” mindset that has been applied to quilts!  Well, there are worse addictions, I guess.  I was joking around with the fabric store clerk about selling my quilts to pay for my fabric addiction – kind of like selling drugs to finance using.  I know, tacky!

  43. 43.

    Chyron HR

    @ochone:

    i often see visceral loathing [of Sanders] which i don’t think is merited.

    How dare Democratic voters hate him back!

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @ochone:

    Thanks for commenting about it. I agree that it’s too vitriolic.

    I do have a question though- why doesn’t Sanders or the NYTimes editorial board mention this:

    Sens. Bernie Sanders and John McCain have struck a deal on legislation to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand veterans’ access to health care and make it easier to fire VA officials for misconduct.The compromise measure, announced Thursday on the Senate floor, includes pieces of three VA bills that have been introduced in the Senate.The legislation would allow veterans to see private doctors outside the VA system if they experience long wait times or live more than 40 miles from a VA facility. 

    It seems like a bigger deal with Bernie given both his boasting about never compromising and how central M4A is to his campaign. Arguably he could point to it as an example of him compromising, yet he doesn’t. Sanders fans also ignore it. The VA is an existing public health system and Sanders not only voted to privatize part of it, he “wrote the damn bill”. I just find it amazing it’s never mentioned

    I think Sanders is less ideological than he lets on, and it that way is very much a “typical politician”, he’s certainly been quite “political” and tactical in Vermont, with his machinations to keep a Democratic challenger to his seat out of the running. I’m just amused at how everyone pretends he’s not.

  46. 46.

    PsiFighter37

    @OzarkHillbilly: The blogosphere was actually one of the first areas to use ‘progressive’ as an alternative to ‘liberal’, because the latter has been tarred as a dirty word in U.S. politics for decades.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    it doesn’t matter whom “newspaper of record” The NYT endorses for POTUS. People don’t look to it for guidance on that; at most, they look to it for affirmation of a choice they’ve already made. And, as we saw with Hillary, The NYT’s endorsement comes with no guarantee of fair treatment in their coverage.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @different-church-lady: I disagree. The centrists are the right of the DEM party. The Wilmerites are the left of the DEM party. To say that there isn’t some polarization is to deny reality. There is. I hope it isn’t as bad as twitter portrays it but it wouldn’t be the first time my hopes had been mistaken.

  53. 53.

    Ohio Mom

    I’m not sure you can fully appreciate (if that is the right word) The Times’ endorsements without seeing the actual print copy.

    The back two pages of the first section, the two pages which contain not just editorials but also letters to the editor, the columnists of the day and guest op-Ed’s, all neatly in their places, is instead two pages of solid print around a large headshot of Warren on one page and Klobuchar on the other. No letters, no columns.

    It is visually loud and shocking. It makes a point. Now am I going to slog through all that print, no, I don’t care what they think. But they have made it clear they think they want attention for their great  insights.

  54. 54.

    Barbara

    @Baud: Or maybe looking at the crime bill vote in the rear view mirror shouldn’t be made into a political issue at all, because most of its supporters wildly underestimated how punitive it would be for even the most peripheral participants in the drug dealing chain, as well as how racially biased enforcement would be.  Maybe they should not have, but even African American elected officials way underestimated its calamitous impact.

    The allure of looking at single votes like this in the greatly altered context of now is that the person can’t change what happened, so it is a ready to serve gotcha.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @ochone:

    I think Bernie doesn’t reach out to Clinton voters because he’s very committed to membership in the subset of (mostly) D voters who are “on the Left” and that is a subset with a distinct culture and some very rigid rules about what’s acceptable. I mean “on the ground”. The regular Lefties. They’re pretty rigid people! I think his self conscious caution with them – how he kowtows to say in their good graces- is not only kind of cowardly and weak, but also a real vulnerability in both a Democratic primary and a general election.Bernie has to reach out. He can’t stay inside his “movement”. He has bridge building to do with Clinton voters. Instead he has decided to bridge build with Trump voters. It’s insulting to Clinton voters and they’re right to be insulted.

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ok gonna try again: if you want to use  a word that means “most extreme distance apart” you don’t put ‘center’ in your metaphorical construction. Instead you say something like “The split between the two camps is so extreme…” It’s not about the politics, it’s about the wordcraft.

  59. 59.

    Patricia Kayden

    Another way of looking at dual NYT endorsement:For years, it got to endorse two candidates for president, one in each party. It could present a nuanced front btwn the two.Now, and for foreseeable future, there is no serious GOP to engage with.Solution: two Dem endorsements.— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) January 20, 2020

  60. 60.

    PsiFighter37

    @Kay: I don’t think Bernie has ever built any bridges since he joined Congress. He loves his purity, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find other Congresscritters who think he is pleasant to be with. In a number of pieces you read about Congress, there are plenty of folks who are chummy with each other, even across the aisle (see: Elijah Cummings and Mark Meadows…no idea how that ever happened). But I have never read about folks spending time with St. Wilmer.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    He has bridge building to do with Clinton voters. Instead he has decided to bridge build with Trump voters. It’s insulting to Clinton voters and they’re right to be insulted.

    This is an excellent synopsis.

  63. 63.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @PsiFighter37: Yes, but my point is that the entire DEM party is progressive, not just the so called “progressive” wing.

    I have an aspirational side that is on the left of the left side of the DEM party, but my practical side is in the centrist wing because I know I’m not gonna get what I want no matter how long I hold my breath. I can’t say for certain but I suspect the same goes for a whole lot of the so called “centrist” wing of the party.

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    @ochone: I agree that the anti-Sanders rhetoric around here is often extreme. People who threaten to sit out the 2020 election if Sanders is the nominee are another species of the purity ponies they decry, IMO.

    But there’s no mystery about the origins of anti-Sanders sentiment among Democrats. As you acknowledged yourself, Sanders damaged the party’s nominee in 2016, Since then, he has not only failed to rein in his toxic anti-Democratic Party cult but appointed members of it to key roles in his 2020 campaign.

    Sanders doesn’t want unity; he wants surrender. Hence the tone.

  67. 67.

    Barbara

    @Kay: Yep.  That is exactly how I feel and I believe there is a lot of  bias — perhaps unconscious — inherent in his determination of who he wants to appeal to and whose interests are most worth advocating.  It certainly isn’t me and mine.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @ochone:

    I have rather…lively discussions with my youngest who is a Bernie fan (and will be able to vote in 2020) and it bothers me that Bernie’s online presence so devalues the idea of working together with the whole Party to reach the goal of getting elected. This is basic liberal stuff to me- we work cooperatively and when we’re attacked we show solidarity. I mean, Jesus Christ, this is the ENTIRE THEORY of the labor movement. It bothers me with my youngest because I think Bernistans are misleading him- the fact is any national Democratic win for President is an uneasy and fragile alliance of people who don’t have a whole lot in common. You have to transcend that or, bottom line, you will not win. It’s harder than on the Right. It’s a HUGE lift. He won’t even admit this reality exists.

  72. 72.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: Bernie thinks he can leverage resentment into the Presidency.

    Trump did leverage resentment into the presidency.

    The problem is resentment is going to destroy this country.

  75. 75.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Baud: Agreed, and if I have to hear the phrases “white working class voters”  (Like no one else but white people works?? WTF)  or “the Heartland” (which is basically code for the same thing)  I will barf.  Yes I know it’s a long time until November.  I am just so tired of the cutesy/folksy man in the diner interviews.

  76. 76.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    He’ll just be the mirror image of Trump. Trump only cares about holding onto his base. Everything he has done is to keep their love shining his way.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @different-church-lady: if you want to use a word that means “most extreme distance apart” you don’t put ‘center’ in your metaphorical construction.

    That’s a fair point, but I’d reply that they are working with the terms that the collective political universe has agreed upon. It’s like me complaining above about the left wing of the DEM party being the “progressive” wing when in reality they are only *more demanding of progressive results* from our politics.

    **or at least that’s how I look at them

  81. 81.

    Baud

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:

    white working class voters

    The problem with this group is that Democrats have nothing to offer them. We have policies that will benefit the working class as a whole. We have civil rights policies that will benefit non-whites. But we don’t have anything special to offer white working class voters to induce them to vote for us in greater numbers than they do.

  82. 82.

    JMG

    Worked as a newspaper hack for 30 years. This is what I know. Newspaper editorial endorsements are meaningful in inverse proportion to the importance of the office being contested. County supervisor, they can move some votes. President, they move none. Also, newspaper endorsements reflect the view of one person, the publisher. Editorial “boards” are cover and nothing more. My guess is the board wanted Warren, but whichever Sulzberger is in charge said, “no.” So they split the difference, making their endorsement even more meaningless.

  85. 85.

    Immanentize

    @Baud:. Great insight.  But they already got everything that wasn’t nailed down.  And now it is time to look to the future (not a WWC happy spot) and try to create some justice for all (again), create health care for everyone (again) and especially we need to try to save the planet (which means taking stuff away from people rather than giving it to them).  Roll coal!

    It’s another example that people who are already privileged experience equality as discrimination.

  86. 86.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Maybe the most meaningful parts are the slams on the candidates they don’t endorse.

    Though actually, I’m kind of surprised they chose Warren. I know, as folks say above, that their subscribers probably support her, but MSM has been treating her as radical.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    @different-church-lady:

    Yes, but it’s actually deeper than that.  Before to 1960s, the Democratic Party used to pander to them almost exclusively and now we don’t, and that transition happened amazingly quickly. Whenever you hear a white person using the language of betrayal in relation to Democrats, that is what they are talking about, even if subconsciously.

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Not to mention that getting elected is just the start. After that one HAS to work WITH other members of the party, each of whom have their OWN ideas of what most needs to be done.

    He won’t even admit this reality exists.

    Which is why I think a Wilmer Presidency would be a failure that DEMs would be a long time recovering from.

  90. 90.

    zhena gogolia

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    I couldn’t read the NYT thing. Did they even mention Biden’s support among AA people? Actually I did skim the paragraph about him, and they didn’t.

    If he’s the nominee, look for “clouds of suspicion over Burisma.”

  92. 92.

    HRA

    When the news of who the Times chose to back for the election, I could only think of how I do not trust the Times. It was the 2016 election in their treatment of HRC and the knowledge from relatives and friends in NYC who said Trump can walk into their building any time without getting an appointment plus getting what he wants from them.

  93. 93.

    Galahad Threepwood

    I keep thinking the folks at the New York Times can’t make themselves any more obnoxious and then they do something like this.  A fucking version of The Decision and then a mealy-mouthed endorsement of TWO candidates?  These guys are really trying to burn up any goodwill they have remaining in a blaze of their own self-importance.

  95. 95.

    Amir Khalid

    @ochone:

    Non-American commenter here.

    For what it’s worth, I don’t hate Bernie Sanders. Based on his performance in 2016, I do think him totally unfit for the presidency. He showed then that he lacks the executive, political, and diplomatic skills for the job. His policy knowledge is pitifully narrow and shallow (remember how badly he failed his endorsement interview at the New York Daily News?) and he has made no visible effort to improve in this regard. His integrity is suspect: his post-convention support for Hillary was nominal at best, he has not kept his promise to publish his tax returns, and he will not remain within the Democratic party when not running for President. (Speaking of which, I don’t understand why a politician who will not show even a modicum of loyalty to the Democratic party is still treated as eligible for its presidential nomination; such a person shouldn’t be the Democratic nominee even for town dogcatcher.)

    Being a rock star at campaign rallies, or polling well, makes up for none of these serious deficiencies.

    Like I said, foreign commenter here. FWIW, etc.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @different-church-lady: Not when it’s open for business! My neighbor does quilting with a number of ladies from her church. They all go to her house because she has a big open 2nd floor. She’s a widow and I visit her at least once a week and fix stuff for her as necessary (our other neighbor does the same) but I avoid the quilting bees. Blue haired old lady gossip fests are not for the weak.

  97. 97.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Baud: And people seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot.  I have relatives and relatives by marriage who depend on government programs including the ACA (well, before Trump and his minions took a blowtorch to it).   They see Orange Foolius saying he is going to get rid of it and they vote for him anyway.   My parents both relied on Medicare, Social Security and before that Unemployment insurance but they hated the idea of “socialist” national health care.    Hillary had the audacity to talk about the fact that coal sales are going down and coal mines are closing , so the government needs to make sure those people have health care, training , new opportunities and jobs and no one wants to hear it.  They just want the jobs that have been going away for 2 decades to be brought back (meanwhile the slurry pond and coal tips pollute the water table, but who cares)   Trump promises them a unicorn and a pony so of course they believe him.    I’m tired of being expected to reach out to people who never try to reach out to me.

  98. 98.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Immanentize: When I was getting dressed yesterday, I checked the outdoor thermometer, thought it saw 32 degrees, and put on a short sleeved sweater. Haha. The joke was on me. It was 3.2 degrees. One of those quilts would have been welcome!

  100. 100.

    JGabriel

    NYT via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    [Mr. Sanders] boasts that compromise is anathema to him. Only his prescriptions can be the right ones, even though most are overly rigid, untested and divisive. He promises that once in office, a groundswell of support will emerge to push through his agenda. Three years into the Trump administration, we see little advantage to exchanging one over-promising, divisive figure in Washington for another.

    For Warren’s sake, I’m suddenly finding myself glad that Sanders is still in the race. You know the Times and the media in general were always going to both-sides the election by labelling one candidate The Democratic Trump. If not for Sanders, they’d be giving Warren that label.

    So, since Warren is basically my top choice right now, I’m glad Sanders is still in the race to keep the Overton Window open to her left.

  101. 101.

    Galahad Threepwood

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: See this is what I don’t understand.  How is this guy going to appeal to people in the general election? He seems like an angry old man on his good days.  He won’t compromise and he’s “not a people person”?  I get that it’s probably refreshing to have an unapologetic advocate for progressive policies out there, but we have that in Warren too, without the Bernie weirdness.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Galahad Threepwood:

    His theory is that all Hillary voters will vote for him because they are good people who put country first, and then he will build on that by attracting people who hate Democrats but also hate Trump.

    It’s a theory that applies to me and most of us here, but not every Hillary voter feels the same way.

  104. 104.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @zhena gogolia: Agreed, it’s going to be this years version of “Benghazi/butteremails!!”     I was a Kamala Harris leaner, and now leaning Warren, but would be OK with Biden or Kobuchar. Not thrilled with Mayor Pete but voting for him in the general would not annoy me near as much as voting for Bernie.  FYI my Mom’s family is from Vermont and I have been hearing about Bernie for years…

  105. 105.

    Gvg

    My father thinks the split endorsement is because a board or committee makes the choice, and they must have been equally divided, plus unwilling to change. I am not sure what that implies.

  106. 106.

    sab

    Tried to canvass yesterday, but they don’t use paper lists and clipboards anymore. Now it’s apps on your smartphone. This old dinosaur was the only one brave enough to show up in the cold, and I only have a flip phone. It wasn’t even that cold since you keep moving when door to door canvassing. Oh well. Better luck next time, but we only have 6 weeks to go.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @ochone:

    As I said, I’m less resistant to Bernie than many here, but here’s what I keep coming back to (and this is what I tell my youngest)- you have to get the whole Democratic Party to win. Bernie’s whole theme, his whole “we got the people” thing, is based on a subset of the Democratic Party. It’s a big faction within the Party but it’s not even the whole Party, let alone all these other people we need. When this is brought up Bernie starts frantically handwaving about some mythical white working class who will rise up…I think it’s deceptive.

    Biden has a really easy argument, and it’s a good one too. Biden has 1. African American support, 2. white working class support, and 3. middle class and upper middle class support. He has 3 out of 4. All he lacks are Lefties. Bernie lacks 3 out of 4. Which is why he lost to Clinton in 2016 and he hasn’t done ONE THING to remedy it.

  109. 109.

    JMG

    1. Sanders will not be the nominee.
    2. Whoever IS the nominee is going to have to waste valuable time and energy convincing Sanders supporters to support the Democratic ticket. Not Bernie himself, but his supporters, the online portion of which are so annoying.
  111. 111.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Remember how the WH advisor on Russia (Fiona Hill’s replacement) was walked out of the building the other day because of an unnamed security issue? Here you go.

     

    Rumor inside NSC is that Peek ‘had relations with Russian hookers and could not locate his government cell phone,’ insider source tells me. https://t.co/kOpYcOCSlu— Jeff Stein (@SpyTalker) January 20, 2020

  112. 112.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I agree that the vast majority of Hillary voters will do that, but with a “must I?” shrug because we all know the stakes are so high.  That means a really reduced passion on the ground and if the Sanders passion is driven by the anti-Dem staffers he currently has, he won’t attract anyone new.

    But all that said, he is not going to win the nom.  He has a floor and a ceiling.  And I think he hit his ceiling.

  116. 116.

    Immanentize

    @JMG: Because, re:#2, if past is any indication, Bernie will not bear that burden of rounding up his supporters.

  118. 118.

    A Ghost To Most

    FTFNYT.

    Job’s 1..100 are beating the fascist. Nominate a moderate, not a radical. Fuck ponyism.

  119. 119.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A decade ago we were the one of the most carbon-heavy nations in Europe. Today we’re a world leader in offshore. We regularly generate more of our electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels. And we have almost entirely weaned ourselves off coal.

    But there’s no point in the UK reducing the amount of coal we burn if we then trundle over to Africa and line our pockets by encouraging African states to use more of it.

    We will breathe the same air, we live beneath the same sky, we all suffer when carbon emissions rise and the planet warms.

    So from today the British government will no longer provide any new direct official development assistance [ie, overseas aid], investment, export, credit or trade promotion for thermal coal mining coal or coal power plants overseas.

    To put it simply, not another penny of UK taxpayers money will be directly invested in digging up coal or burning it for electricity. And instead we are going to focus on supporting the transition to lower and zero carbon alternatives.

    -Boris Johnson

    Credit where credit is due, IF he actually follows thru on this.

  120. 120.

    geg6

    @Kay:

    He has bridge building to do with Clinton voters. Instead he has decided to bridge build with Trump voters. It’s insulting to Clinton voters and they’re right to be insulted.

    Perfectly said.

  122. 122.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    I don’t get this strategy. There are far more Dems who supported Clinton than GOP voters who would cross over and vote for him, no?

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @HRA:

    When the news of who the Times chose to back for the election, I could only think of how I do not trust the Times. It was the 2016 election in their treatment of HRC and the knowledge from relatives and friends in NYC who said Trump can walk into their building any time without getting an appointment plus getting what he wants from them.

    I agree. I don’t think they understand the Democratic Party or Democratic voters and I don’t think they even try to understand them, certainly not in the agonized, intense way they seek endless understanding of the GOP base and Trump voters. That’s an expression of who and what they value- they value our voters less than they do the voters on the Right.

  124. 124.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    There’s an alternative universe where Trump offers progressives a few minor sops like that and he’s sitting at 75% approval and considered a better president than Obama.

    In some ways, we’re kind of lucky to be where we are.

  127. 127.

    Immanentize

    Meanwhile, it’s Martin Luther King Day and the gun nuts are poised to descend on Richmond

  134. 134.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Immanentize:

     

    and especially we need to try to save the planet (which means taking stuff away from people rather than giving it to them)

    I wonder if a political marketing campaign were to be ramped up showing how many interesting jobs there would be in an non-fossil-fuel energy future, and how many cool things would be on offer, whether people would come to understand that such a future would be giving them stuff (to paraphrase your comment). It would take a JFK-level, moonshot-aspirational campaign. It would appear initially to be expensive (though in the long run it would be much cheaper), but then as Krugman noted, one thing that Trump has firmly established is that debt and deficit spending in the face of full employment doesn’t cause cataclysmic inflation.

    Fun jobs, cool toys for living and playing, and saving the planet.

  136. 136.

    mrmoshpotato

    There will be those dissatisfied that this page is not throwing its weight behind a single candidate, favoring centrists or progressives. But it’s a fight the party itself has been itching to have since Mrs. Clinton’s defeat in 2016

    Funny.  I’ve been itching to slap everyone at the FNYT since 2016.

  139. 139.

    FlipYrWhig

    @debbie: That’s not how he sees it.  He thinks that (white) working class voters who chose Trump over Clinton, plus all kinds of voters who were disgusted by both Trump and Clinton (and for that matter Obama too), will be so galvanized by his “movement” that he will win and transform politics in the process.

    It’s stupid, but he believes it, with all his shriveled heart.

  141. 141.

    Betty Cracker

    @Immanentize: I think you’re right about Sanders’ floor and ceiling. The unfortunate consequence will be Biden as the nominee, which is both an underestimated risk and huge wasted opportunity, IMO. Oh well. Can we reasonably expect that this will be the last Democratic Party nomination Sanders fucks up, given his age? I hope so.

  142. 142.

    Marcopolo

    Good morning peeps. For anyone wondering, on a thread last night I noted I’d been in brief email contact w/ SteveinATL. That is either proof of life or proof someone has access to his email account & is doing a good job of pretending.

    As for this D Prez primary stuff—well, of course the NYT editorial board couldn’t make a straight up pick. I’d suspect the conflicting opinions among that group would give the folks living in the Middle East & disagreeing a run for their money. Glad they picked women, though, since if anyone is going to pull us through this mess it’ll be women in the lead.

    As for myself, I’m looking forward to voting for Warren in almost 8 weeks exactly.

    Everyone have a good week.

  143. 143.

    Immanentize

    I know it’s a minor thing, but I really like Warren’s seafoam green/red/black advertisements.  They are so fresh, compared to others.

  144. 144.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay:

    The VA is an existing public health system and Sanders not only voted to privatize part of it, he “wrote the damn bill”.

    Yup.  And if this were part of any other candidate’s record the Sandernistas would be howling and screaming about how reprehensible and neoliberal it was.  We’d all have heard about it because they’d’ve manufactured hatred for it.

  145. 145.

    Nelle

    It’s minus 6 F with a windchill of -14.  Warren will be at the high school four miles away this afternoon and I’m signed up yo be there.   With the impeachment trial beginning tomorrow,  this may be the last hurrah here before the caucuses.

    On the other hand, I’ve not been out in the cold air for several days.  My husband, who was more healed than me, was out and about yesterday and went into coughing spasms last night so hard that he started throwing up.

    I have been to one of her in person events.  I’ll wait to decide until this afternoon.  Maybe if the temp crawls above zero?

    Meanwhile, my young more radical friend is working for Klobuchar.  All the Minnesotans I know are convinced she’s what we need. (Still missing Harris, though.)

  147. 147.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker: You know I am not ready to be resigned to Biden — just yet.  But I will not feel horrible if that is the conclusion.  The voting hasn’t started yet, and as they say,

    “Many a slip between cup and lip.”

  149. 149.

    rikyrah

    ???

    Allow me to translate what Bloomberg is saying: My name is Mike. Blk ppl, I would like to purchase your amnesia over stop-and-frisk. I will stand on a sacred site of the black massacres in America to do it. I am cynical. I shamelessly pander. I have the money. I have the gall… https://t.co/cySzBXsOzi— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) January 19, 2020

  150. 150.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Betty Cracker:

    Since then, he has not only failed to rein in his toxic anti-Democratic Party cult

    This. Speaking as a county party chair, I have to deal with this toxicity constantly. It is exhausting. They started signalling their “rigging” shrieks over a month ago, in preparation for a Bernie loss at the nominating convention. I’m hearing it already with respect to our upcoming grassroots elections — “establishment!” “rigged!” “super-delegates!” — which don’t even involve the presidential candidates. So I think we can anticipate where this toxic minority will go when Bernie loses.

  152. 152.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    I am wondering when my state (CT) has it’s closed primary, will there be as many registered Independents yelling at the poll workers when they are not allowed to vote in the DEMOCRATIC primary?

    2016 was fun. One lady almost had to be escorted out by the police because she would not stop yelling at the elderly poll worker.

  157. 157.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Also, upper middle class Democrats should get some credit for being open to raising their own income taxes. That’s what they’re doing when they vote for the Democrat. This isn’t worthy of Bernie’s disdain. It’s admirable and community-minded. I once canvassed for a school levy. I decided to just tell the truth- this is a small town so there’s no point in bullshitting anyway. I know what all the houses are worth so I would just say “you property taxes will go up about 200 a year”. They were like “I know”. Done. Our BEST turnout was in the middle and upper middle neighborhoods- they were raising their own taxes.

  158. 158.

    debbie

    @Nelle:

    It’s probably too late before the rally, but you both should talk to your doctor about rescue inhalers. My lungs totally spasm when it’s that cold out.

  160. 160.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    @Baud: I’m pretty sure far worse things were printed in the Charleston Gazzette in 1859.

    Well, you would be incorrect, WV was still a pioneer state in 1859, and the Gazette didn’t show up for decades… look here:

    The Gazette traces its roots to 1873. At the time, it was a weekly newspaper known as the Kanawha Chronicle. It was later renamed The Kanawha Gazette and the Daily Gazette—before its name was officially changed to The Charleston Gazette in 1907.

    So it couldn’t have happened, not because 1859 newspapers were so universally great, but because in 1859 West Virginia newspapers were still pretty scarce on the round.

  161. 161.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Hmmm… On the one hand I get Hillary. On the other hand I have to abandon Balloon Juice for a few weeks. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    I’ll take the NYTimes advice on the Democratic nominee when they do an analysis of why they so insanely flogged the emails story and what they have done to reduce the chances of such lousy work appearing again. Publish that.

    They could also perhaps explain how it is that the newspaper in Donald Trump’s back yard, the newspaper that has followed him for fifty years, has no additional insight or information on him to contribute. If they’re going to foist this fucking clown on us the least they could do is be a parochial local paper and give us some background on their boy. That’s a NY story. It starts there. Their work on Trump and Guiliani and Barr should be excellent. They should be the experts.

  167. 167.

    Fair Economist

    @Kay:

    [Sanders] has bridge building to do with Clinton voters. Instead he has decided to bridge build with Trump voters

    That’s because he knows his only chance of the nomination is if lots of Republican ratf*ckers vote for him, which is very possible since there’s not a meaningful race on the Republican side.

  168. 168.

    tobie

    Klobuchar earned the shared endorsement, as far as I’m concerned. She’s received little media attention but has quietly worked to build a base of support in IA and NH and I think this is how she would govern as President. A no-nonsense approach is what we’ll need to deal with the multiple disasters Trump and McConnell have created. Whoever the President is, they’re going to have to work with Congress and deal with what Congress can pass. I was glad to hear Warren acknowledge this in the last debate but I believe Klobuchar is considerably more adept at this. This campaign is going to be waged on all fronts: we need to retake the Senate and a number of state houses.

  172. 172.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s just that in the Democratic Party there’s this group of middle aged white voters who are upper income middle and they’re really not objectionable people. They’re also really important in states like PA and OH and WI and MI, and since no one has told me how Democrats win without some of those states I see no reason to hate them so much. I feel like it’s yet another group Bernie has jettisoned and it’s both dumb and too narrow. It’s all so ungenerous. It’s so much about in groups and out groups.

  175. 175.

    ochone

    @Baud:  honestly, there’s the chicken and egg. some of his supporters do the ‘neoliberal shill’ thing etc etc. on the flipside you have people on tv saying he makes their skin crawl etc etc. hate to say it, but it is ‘both sides’.

    sorry if my post sounded condescending re advising on tone.

  176. 176.

    Fair Economist

    @OzarkHillbilly: The European right is moving to really accept the need to stop climate change. The rightists have a coalition with the Greens in Austria, AfD in Germany is talking about serious green initiatives, and now this. It’s bad for European politics since it greatly increases their chance of running governments, but it is good for the planet.

    I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that Europe overall is a massive importer of fossil fuels so they don’t have as much corporate opposition to overcome.

  177. 177.

    Immanentize

    @tobie: although I am pulling for Warren. I agree completely with what you say about Klobuchar.

    Meanwhile, I like the fact that the New York Times put paid to the notion that a woman can’t win any election. ?

  180. 180.

    ochone

    @PsiFighter37: ‘miserable jerk’ is content free. and everyone talks themselves up as the one true solution. biden says he’s the solution to republican sabotage, warren says she’s the unifying solution etc etc.

  183. 183.

    J R in WV

    @ochone:

    You sound like a nice person, so I’ll lay off the invective.

    Senator Bernie Sanders is a Russian tool, as described in Mueller’s large report they want Sanders nominated, in which case his assignment from his Russian handlers will be to lose to Trump.

    Not that it would take Sanders any work towards that

    He wrote rape fantasies as a young Marxist, for fun. I’m sure those stories will circulate towards mid-summer if he’s still involved in Presidential politics.

    His wife had a  Federal Grand Jury investigation suspended by AG Barr not too long ago, for her financial misdeeds regarding the well regarded college she managed into the ground, which investigation could be resumed and publicized at Mr Barr’s command instantly, should Senator Sanders be successful in Democratic primaries.

    And he can’t stop shouting and wagging his finger at people he should be trying to appeal to. Completely unlikable personality to those not already (for some strange reason) attracted to him.

    I will not vote for the Russian tool in the Democratic party, no more than I will vote for the one in the Republican party, unless he is our only non-Republican choice in the General Election. He spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union back in his youth, and I suspect the Russian security folks still have Kompromat on him from back then, obviously we have no proof on that suspicion. But there is a reason they told their professional Cyber–Warfare guys to lay off Sanders in the 2016 election. “We want him (Sanders) to win!” they were told!

  184. 184.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    I’m fine with her. I also think she doesn’t get any credit for being really cutthroat with Trump, and that’s partly cultural. That bluntness and brevity she has is how midwesterners express contempt. It’s not a blizzard of words, like Trump. Blah blah blah, he never shuts up. It’s like NINE really mean words :)

    I think she would be formidable but I have to say this again because I think it’s true and it’s important to understand. There is real resistance to a female candidate among white working class in the Democratic Party. No one should kiss their ass but we do need X number of them in Y states and I am telling you I hear it again and again and again. It’s a real hurdle. This is a Democratic Party problem, not just a Bernie problem.

  185. 185.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @tobie: Only one person can be president (obviously).  If a newspaper bothers to endorse someone, it should be able to endorse one singular person.  If it can’t, what is the point of endorsing?

  189. 189.

    tobie

    @Immanentize: since the Times made a double female endorsement, we should feel free to think about double female tickets! Klobuchar or Warren with Val Demings — that might be something quite wonderful!

  191. 191.

    karensky

    I started reading all the comments and realized that would be late for an appointment if I did.  So, here’s all I got, 2 nominees, wtf.  The NYT has less spine than ,any Republican senators.  Full stop.

  193. 193.

    Another Scott

    @ochone: Lots of people here liked the idea of Bernie running in 2015. I (and many others here) donated to his campaign early on. He lost my support through his actions in that campaign. And his campaign this time shows no signs of having learned the lessons he should have learned.

    My wife J was all in with Bernie last time, and even more so this time. I know the arguments. ;-)

    He’s a spoiler, IMnsHO. Spoilers are dangerous, especially in these perilous times.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  194. 194.

    UncleEbeneezer

    <sarcasm>You see?  This just proves that NYTimes was always in the tank for HILLARY!!</sarcasm>

  196. 196.

    germy

    “The next president will shape the direction of America’s prosperity and the future of the planet, perhaps irrevocably. The current president, meanwhile, is a threat to democracy. He was impeached for strong-arming Ukraine into tampering with the 2020 election. There is no reason patriotic Americans should not be open to every chance to replace him at the ballot box.”

  197. 197.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: So stupid.  I fear the same.  I never saw that unmentionable commenter ever abuse or harass or threaten others with violence which happens around here.  He annoyed me for sure, I mostly just scrolled on down.  But then he had some good insights as well.  If the price of Raven is Ola Azul, I will gladly pay it!  Add in a Corner Stone too if you like.

  199. 199.

    Spanky

    To put it bluntly, I believe Sanders has no more intention of actually winning the Presidency than Trump did. He’s very comfortable lobbing bricks and wagging his finger than actually trying to implement his ideas and getting slagged for failing. And as long as he’s campaigning that cash keeps coming in, which as I understand, is fairly fungible within FEC limits.

    Then add on the suspicion that he may be compromised as well, and there you have the reasons for my visceral dislike.

  202. 202.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @JPL: Oh I agree! Closed primaries prevent the kind of ratf*cking you can get in states where the Republications wants to steer the nomination to the person they think their person can beat.

    But somehow people always forget that political parties belong to their members. Who are choosing their party’s nominee for the general.

    The 2 party system has a lot of flaws, including winner take all and no first, second, third choice voting.  But that’s a different discussion.

  203. 203.

    ochone

    @Betty Cracker: hi. I acknowledge he stayed in too long in 2016, and yes, it may have had a damaging effect. But he also did dozens of rallies on Clinton’s behalf. Now since I try to be honest, I don’t think he was ever full-throated in promoting her. The tenor was more like the least worst evil.

    But the result was that I believe the proportion of Sanders supporters who sat it out was lower than the proportion of Clinton supporters who sat it out in 2008 (i’m open to correction).

    I know it’s not comparing like with like; 2008 was more surefire than 2016. More people could afford to sit it out.

    My feeling is that he is indeed too purist and he should have gotten out sooner, but at the same time the democratic party tolerates damage from other candidates (see some of clinton’s comments about obama), so long as they are not on the left. I think that is the layer of unfairness to this.

  205. 205.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Fair Economist:

    I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that Europe overall is a massive importer of fossil fuels so they don’t have as much corporate opposition to overcome.

    I was thinking that exact same thing, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still some resistance withing the establishment. I read this this morn:
    Extinction Rebellion listed as ‘key threat’ by counter-terror police

    A police force in London labelled Extinction Rebellion one of its “key threats” in a counter-terrorism assessment and provided awareness training on the climate crisis group across the capital, resulting in “intelligence” tip-offs.

    City of London police grouped the environmental protest movement alongside “far-right organisations” in an assessment of its counter-terrorism operations seen by the Guardian.

    The report provides further evidence that Extinction Rebellion has become of interest to counter-terrorism police after the Guardian revealed that the group was included in anti-radicalisation materials alongside violent far-right and jihadist groups.

    Provided to a scrutiny committee of the City of London Corporation, the report detailed the police force’s performance against different measures including “the capability and impact the force is having against countering terrorist activity”.
    ……………………
    The report was discussed at a hearing of the scrutiny committee in June last year. Another paragraph said: “The key issues continue to be threats relating to international terrorism and domestic terrorism. In addition, the high-profile actions of Extinction Rebellion, which centred around non-violent disobedience, results in some disruption in the City, with the potential for the event to be hijacked or infiltrated by more extremist groups.”

    Because non-violent disobedience is just like suicide bombings.

  206. 206.

    ochone

    @Another Scott: hi. i’m not being facetious. i think he stayed in too long, which is major. in addition to that though, what actions? again, i am a sanders supporter, so it’s possible i screen things out. i’m not trolling.

  208. 208.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: So did I but it came up in passing and I asked what happened.(bad Hillbilly BAD!) He said his say in response to some of what others were saying and I haven’t seen him since. Somewhere in my email I have his addy. I think I’ll drop him a line.

  210. 210.

    Juice Box

    @ochone: My dislike of Sanders dates back to when he was in the House. He used to be on Thom Hartman’s radio show every Friday during my lunch break. I thought that he was hopeless and ineffective blowhard who — during W’s presidency — criticized no one but the Democrats.

    HRC was a Goldwater girl 55 years ago, EW was a Republican 35 years ago and BS, at the age of 40, was an elector for a Communist party. HRC didn’t need to use that in her campaign because she was always comfortably ahead, T will use it to smear all Ds as well as BS.

    I also watched the hot mike exchange between Sanders and Warren. “we’re not going to talk about that now.” The use of the first person plural was an example of how men chronically talk down to (more capable!) women. The sexism in his supporters comes from the top. My husband’s nephew voted in his first election in 2016 and was a Bernie to Trump voter explicitly for that reason (he has since recanted with maturity.)

  212. 212.

    Betty Cracker

    @ochone: I was really mad at Clinton in 2008! The difference is, she got on board and worked her ass off to get Obama elected, then went on to serve in Obama’s administration.  Sanders hired toxic people who urged others not to vote for Clinton to run his 2020 campaign.

  214. 214.

    ochone

    @Chyron HR: i actually don’t know ‘sea lioning’. mostly (but not always) i see generic comments like he’s a jerk, he hates democrats etc etc, and i really don’t know where it’s coming from.

    i think it’s a result of each side having its own catechism, where the initiates are versed in the litany of sins and outsiders aren’t actually aware of them.

    i spend most of my time on bernie-friendly sites and they have a catechism too. i stopped by here because it was dumbing me down too much so i thought i’d get a blast from another perspective. so i am sincerely a naif in terms of what you’re talking about.

  216. 216.

    jimmiraybob

    @Quinerly:

    Good morning from STL.  The Silver Moon Cafe in Santa Rosa, NM, has been a must stop for me between here and AZ (Utah if I take the southern ways).   Made it THE destination a few years ago to replace a broken coffee cup. Good times.   If you’re packing scuba gear check out Blue Hole.

    Que tengas un buen viaje.

  217. 217.

    Spanky

    @OzarkHillbilly: Frankly, he seemed more touchy the past few weeks than usual – more ready to go off on people. Hopefully there’s nothing serious afoot, but both dogs have had issues. Or it could be anything.

    Hope he’s dealing.

  218. 218.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @ochone: Sorry, we have done this in multiple threads over the past several years.  I am not (nor, I expect, are many others who comment here) willing to devote my time to another thread about Sanders.  I will not vote for him in the primary, but I do feel safe in being able to say that I will vote for him in the general if he becomes the nominee (he won’t).  Now, if you don’t mind, we would like to get back to discussing the NYT’s pusillaminity in failing to choose when making its choice.

  219. 219.

    Another Scott

    @PsiFighter37:

    TheNewYorker (from 2017):

    Franken: Yes, Senator Norm Coleman. First-term senator. And he would say we have the best health-care system in the world because we have the Mayo Clinic.

    Remnick: [Laughs.]

    Franken: Well, you laugh, but that’s what he believed, I guess! And I’d say, the Mayo Clinic isn’t a health-care system—it’s the Mayo Clinic! No one provides better health care in the world than the Mayo Clinic, but that’s not a health-care system. We have different systems. If you have Medicare, you’re in the Canadian system. If you’re in the V.A., you’re in the British system, socialized medicine. If you get health insurance from your employer, you’re in the German system. If you don’t have any coverage, you’re in the Cambodian system. Bernie Sanders and I were for single-payer then. But you need sixty votes to get anything done—and we were about fifty-five short. The Affordable Care Act was a way to get people from the Cambodian system into one of the other systems.

    Which meant, over twenty million people have gotten coverage. Atul Gawande, who is one of the smartest, if not the smartest person I know about health care, has just written a piece for the New England Journal of Medicine, saying the people who got care, their health improved. Duh! And that your health isn’t about these big, heroic emergency events. It’s about the continuum of care. So, that’s what we did. And, man, I’m so glad. That’s why that vote was so big.

    (Emphasis added.)

    But, but, Bernie is so Pure!!1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  221. 221.

    ochone

    @Betty Cracker: i’m conscious that if i keep going too long i’ll start looking like a troll, so i’m going to check out soon. but bernie did do 30 or 40 rallies for hillary. it’s not like it’s completely black and white. i saw some of the rallies and they left something to be desired. i didn’t think he was affirmative enough about her; instead the focus on the need to beat trump. so he’s no saint. i just don’t think it’s completely black and white.

  224. 224.

    Betty Cracker

    @ochone: I don’t think it’s completely black and white either. But can’t you see how Sanders’ decision to hire people who urged others to sit out the 2016 election is a problem? Not a single Sanders supporter I’ve asked has a good answer to that question.

  228. 228.

    ochone

    @Juice Box:

    “I thought that he was hopeless and ineffective blowhard who — during W’s presidency — criticized no one but the Democrats.”

    i’d be reasonably surprised if that’s accurate. it’s possible that you were more po’d when he was criticizing dems so that registered with you more? but to the extent that it’s true, i think for my own part it’s the disappointment with those who are closest to you. the republicans were always going to vote for the iraq war, deregulation, bankruptcy bill etc etc. it’s those who should have been persuadable that disappoint.

    “BS, at the age of 40, was an elector for a Communist party. T will use it to smear all Ds as well as BS.”

    sure, which is why i have doubts about him. but everyone has problems. some of biden’s votes and rhetoric are horrific. pete’s sexuality and warren’s gender will be weaponized. they all have a challenge.

    “The use of the first person plural was an example of how men chronically talk down to (more capable!) women.”

    you might have a point. i’m a man and i will defer to any woman on this subject. i’ll just say (a) in his public stances as far as i know he’s always been on the side of women and (b) biden said publicly “I won’t have that problem”, ie i am more electable than a woman. how much worse is that?

  229. 229.

    different-church-lady

    @Betty Cracker: I guess for me, after a while the good cop/bad cop routine going on between Bernie and his surrogates can only be resolved by thinking the bad cops represent what’s actually up with these cops.

  230. 230.

    Kattails

    @Amir Khalid: @O. Felix Culpa: Agreed to both. Bernie is not running as a Democrat for his VT Senate seat. As far as executive abilities, he was unable to rein in the nastiness of his first campaign, the misogyny, the booing during the convention, the disinformation that is still poisoning the dialogue four year later. How’s he going to control a much larger administration?

    At a holiday party I had to listen to a couple of people trashing the Dems for not supporting new people, being favorable to incumbents, all the re-warmed leftovers. It wasn’t the time or place for me to get into the argument; but the fact that Wilmer was and is allowed to run as our standard-bearer should put the lie to that, although they denied that these views had anything to do with his campaign. I started to push back and things got tense very very fast, so I backed off, but then left frustrated.

    One of the reasons I’m sticking with Warren is that I believe she’ll run a clean, open administration. I will be able to get up in the mornings without spending half my day worrying about a White House that’s half monumental personality cult and half crushing ineptitude.

  231. 231.

    ochone

    @Betty Cracker: i am going to be 1000% honest about this, despite the pile-on that might ensue. i have heard something to that effect about david sirota? not so much about others. but if true, i am ignorant about it (maybe a product of the bernie bubble).

    if it’s true, sure, awful move. at a minimum, he should have had them make public statements about how they got it wrong (not difficult for political operatives who can massage things).

    to be devils advocate, i know this stuff is written off in these precincts, but there was passionate conviction in 2016 that the primary was “rigged”. sincerely, i never bought into it. my own feeling was that there was a gentle thumb on the scale for the party insider (debate schedules, clinton campaign relationship with the DCCC etc), but that this was understandable and not dispositive.

    but a lot of people felt it was much worse. and in those circumstances, the sheer outrage was real. and given the outrage, sitting out looked like the right (but in reality utterly wrong) option to some.

    and in any case, what matters is (a) how they act now, and (b) bernie himself was not one of them.

    sorry if this comes off as apologetics. i just generally feel things are a bit more complicated.

  232. 232.

    Another Scott

    @ochone: Bernie isn’t a team player.   It’s all about him.

    For example:  Hillary set up a joint fundraising operation with the Democratic Party so that donations would go to her, and donations above the limit would go to the Party to support its efforts, down-ticket races, etc.

    Bernie didn’t do that.  And he argued that it was a sign of Corruption™ for there to be such an arrangement.

    Hillary campaigned for and supported Democrats everywhere.  Bernie only supported a handful of other candidates that signed onto his “OurRevolution” stuff.

    That’s just one example.  There are a multitude of others.  I don’t care to review them, myself.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  233. 233.

    Nelle

    @ochone: 
    Sanders enumerated those he would want to fight when elected. One he mentioned was the Democratic establishment. Keep biting at your host, guy.

  234. 234.

    ochone

    @J R in WV: you’re a vegetarian, hitler was a vegetarian, therefore you are hitler.

    sanders is and was a much more dovish candidate than usual. the russians want america out of their backyard. ergo, they preferred sanders over clinton. which means sanders was wrong/sanders was a russian tool.

  236. 236.

    Betty Cracker

    @ochone: Nina Turner, top Sanders surrogate and 2020 Sanders campaign co-chair:

    2020 Sanders campaign surrogate Cornel West:

    “This November, we need change. Yet we are tied in a choice between Trump, who would be a neo-fascist catastrophe, and Clinton, a neo-liberal disaster. That’s why I am supporting Jill Stein. I am with her — the only progressive woman in the race — because we’ve got to get beyond this lock-jaw situation,” West wrote in an editorial in the Guardian.

    While Sanders was urging civility in the 2020 campaign, his Twitter attack dog, David Sirota, was attacking other Democrats in various publications. He was then named 2020 Sanders campaign senior advisor and speechwriter.

    Sanders 2020 National Press Secretary:

    Sensing a pattern here…

  237. 237.

    WaterGirl

    In the wise words of the Thin Black Duke on a thread last week:

    Remember folks, you don’t have to go to every argument you’re invited to, especially when the other guy has already made up his mind.

  238. 238.

    Juice Box

    @ochone: But I thought that I liked Bernie at the time. However, listening to him repeatedly quickly changed my perception of him. There just was nothing behind the bumper sticker slogans. He gave me the same feeling that T does; drunk at the end of the bar who thinks he has all the answers.

  240. 240.

    Miss Bianca

    @ochone: A lot of people thought it was worse because Sanders EXPLICITLY DIRECTED THEM to do so. He’s the one who promoted that “rigged” nonsense. He’s the one who kept calling HRC corrupt, feeding Donald Trump that whole “Crooked Hillary” line for free.

    Bernie Sanders, and his followers, expected – nay, demanded – a coronation and they’ve been slagging on Democrats and the Democratic Party ever since because they didn’t get one. Remember that whole thing about Bernie calling superdelegates “corrupt” and then running around trying to pry their support away from HRC? I sure do.

    And I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that as soon as the national Democratic Party leadership starts to get a significant number of women and POC in the ranks, that Sanders and the dirtbag left start bellowing about corruption  and the “Democratic Establishment.”

    Actually, I’m sure it’s not.

  241. 241.

    ochone

    @Nelle: i think you’ve hit on the real chasm. it’s not sexism, it’s not he’s a russian tool,  etc etc. it is progressives v the mainstream democratic party. and where you come down on this depends on your weighing of where the establishment is, and how it got there.

    where some or many bernie supporters are wrong is that any one of the top 8 contenders would as president be more progressive than anyone other president in living memory. any of them would be a win. where i believe there is food for thought is how much of that is due to the left pushing the agenda?

    in other words, without bernie criticizing the establishment, would we have even biden pushing a fairly progressive healthcare plan? it’s at least arguable.

    i’ll acknowledge that this may be an argument that bernie’s work is done, that right now he’s not the right candidate.

  244. 244.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ochone: Sanders allowed his crazy, ignorant supporters to disrupt the Democratic convention even as everyone on the podium did their best to stroke him and kiss his flabby ass.  He’s toxic, attracts toxicity, and as far as I can tell *revels* in it because he thinks its manic nature makes it a “movement.”  Fuck him.

  245. 245.

    Betty Cracker

    @ochone: You’ll likely get push-back on the notion that Sanders had anything to do with pushing the party leftward, but for what it’s worth, I agree that he did (though he wasn’t as alone in that effort as his biggest fans claim — lots of progressive Democrats led the way). I was a big fan of his for that reason, right up until he crossed the line and made the perfect the enemy of the good, to disastrous effect.

  246. 246.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ochone: Sanders’s signature piece of legislation was reforming the VA, the most single-payer-ish part of the US healthcare system, by adding “choice.”  That’s *textbook* neoliberalism.  If any other politician had done this Sanders’s howler monkeys would be screeching about it daily.  No Sanders supporter gives two shits about this because it’s not even slightly ideological, it’s entirely based on worshiping the personality of a condescending prick.

  247. 247.

    Juice Box

    @ochone: The recent NYT interview and the older NY Post interview (as well as months and months of .thom Hartman interviews) just demonstrate a politician who is without the intellectual capacity to be a successful POTUS.

  248. 248.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Betty Cracker: I dunno — IMHO the biggest leftward shifts in the 21st Democratic Party have been on gender, sexuality, and guns, none of which have been led or even helped any more by Sanders than by anyone else you could name.

  249. 249.

    ochone

    @Miss Bianca:

    “Sanders EXPLICITLY DIRECTED THEM to do so.”

    you know when someone says what’s the evidence? and the other person says i’m not doing your work for you? this is one of those times. hate to be that guy, but could you point me to the source where bernie told people to sit out the election? if there is a reputable source for that, i will take my lumps. and yes, in that case, he’s an a**hole.

    “He’s the one who promoted that “rigged” nonsense.”

    think it’s probably more nuanced than that. but same request. source? (again, i hate to be that guy).

    “He’s the one who kept calling HRC corrupt”

    my memory is he (as always) talked about money in politics in general, correct? implicitly it’s a slam at hillary and everyone else. but which is the bigger problem? the big money wielding influence, or someone saying it? trump would have weaponized it anyway, with his self-funding schtick.

    “Remember that whole thing about Bernie calling superdelegates “corrupt” and then running around trying to pry their support away from HRC?”

    i don’t remember him saying that, but i do remember him trying to pry the support. not good.

    “And I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that as soon as the national Democratic Party leadership starts to get a significant number of women and POC in the ranks, that Sanders and the dirtbag left start bellowing about corruption  and the “Democratic Establishment.” Actually, I’m sure it’s not.”

    i’m sure it is. he’s been on the frontlines with minorities his whole life, and this time his coalition is very diverse (i think the most hispanic support), and more women have donated to him than to anyone else. your last point weakens everything else.

  250. 250.

    satby

    @Immanentize: “we” didn’t have a dust-up, raven made repeated hostile comments about Cheryl banning ola azul and I repeatedly pointed out that he knows only John can ban (or authorize a ban). I thought the continual blaming of Cheryl was misplaced and said so, and raven got nasty with me about it. I also pointed out there must have been more detail than maybe we know because John doesn’t just ban someone for shitty writing skills. I don’t give a fuck about blue wave, I wasn’t part of the kerfluffle that got him bounced because I long since pied him. But it’s unfair to continue to piss on Cheryl for an action John took.

  253. 253.

    J R in WV

    @ochone:

    i actually don’t know ‘sea lioning’.

    I was gonna tell you to Google it, but I can do that for you:

    Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity. It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”. Wikipedia

    There… does that help? “Pretense of civility” and “bad faith” works for me.

  254. 254.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Aaannnd…the not-a-troll has diverted the conversation away from the two WOMEN candidates to the eleventy-millionth rehash of the totally not-a-misogynist candidate who totally did not dis the female candidate in 2016 and who totally did not dis a leading female candidate in 2020. All righty then. Has anyone learned anything new?

    Back to the OP, Ms. O who is a staunch liberal is ok with the NYT endorsement of Amy and Elizabeth, because in her view it gives both wings of the party an option and maybe moves them to considering the viability of these two candidates. Just providing a perspective from someone who is less involved in the political blogosphere.

    Edited.

  255. 255.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ochone: BTW, the “coalition is very diverse” thing started as a way to spin how he had like 20% support among white people and 20% support among black people into “wow a room full of Sanders supporters would be wicked diverse!”  It’s obvious bullshit when Biden’s support is dramatically higher among black people.  Stop falling for feel good bullshit pumped by nitwits and bad faith merchants.

  256. 256.

    JGabriel

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Rumor inside NSC is that Peek ‘had relations with Russian hookers and could not locate his government cell phone,’ insider source tells me.

    Sounds like the Trumpsters are setting up a malicious cover smear for what really happened – maybe Peek getting removed for disagreeing with Trump or something like that.

    I mean, seriously, if an unsecured cell phone and having relations with Russian hookers were grounds for getting kicked out the White House, Trump would have been gone the first day.

  257. 257.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @ochone:

    one of the top 8 contenders would as president be more progressive than anyone other president in living memory. any of them would be a win.

    Now that’s some sentiment that I can 100%

  258. 258.

    ochone

    don’t want to be accused of being a troll, so i will now revert to being a long time lurker. i lurk because i do enjoy the site. it’s a lovely mix of in depth stuff, sharp takes and cute stuff.

    i only contributed because a chasm seems to be opening up where it isn’t necessary. i get the antipathy towards bernie, i know there is a foundation for some of it and from my perspective not for other parts of it.

    just think it’s important for everyone to not just get behind the eventual nominee, whoever it is, but to really do it with gusto. and that’s tough if we feel the less favored candidate is a bottom feeder.

    and i’m not holier than thou. i’ve absolutely slammed other candidates. but time is now short. whoever your favored candidate is, if they win i will be 1000% percent behind them, and i am sure this applies to all of you too.

  260. 260.

    JanieM

    @satby: Thank you. On a blog where banning is traditionally an extreme last resort, it seems like a wilful failure of imagination not to accept the possibility that something extreme was happening behind the scenes. Which indeed is what Cheryl and Watergirl said, more or less, in the relevant thread. Threats? Hacking? I don’t know and I don’t care. I trust John, Cheryl, Watergirl, and the others to sort this stuff out, and they don’t owe me any explanation. I can always ask for the price of my subscription back if I don’t like what they’re doing.

  261. 261.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Now where is the fun in that?

    I dunno.  Maybe the fun in having a conversation where we’re not dancing to someone else’s tune?  Maybe the fun of talking about the female candidates who actually got the endorsement?

    edit: adding a virtual smiley face so you’ll know that I know you were just teasing in a friendly way.

  263. 263.

    ochone

    @O. Felix Culpa: was the first post i came across and others were adverting to sanders, so i got involved. but yeah, the wrong post to do it on.

    for the record, would be delighted with a warren presidency, not so much klobuchar.

    the default assumption of sexism where none exists is part of the problem. and it is default.

    ok, i really am out of here.

  264. 264.

    J R in WV

    @ochone:

    you know when someone says what’s the evidence? and the other person says i’m not doing your work for you? this is one of those times. hate to be that guy, but could you point me to the source where bernie told people to sit out the election?

    You have become the typing definition of Sea Lioning, right here.

    No one here cares to spend the day looking up “data” for you when you have the same access to Google we all have. You have the questions down pat, now look up the answers. Don’t take our word for it, those answers are out there. Several people have posted pretty serious responses to these questions already, and YOU ARE IGNORING THOSE POSTS!!!

    And the Mueller Report specifically tells us that the Russian Cyber Warfare folks were instructed to support Sanders and Trump, I’m not sure how you can continue to support Sanders with that single datum right in front of you while still claiming to be a patriotic American. Oops, you don’t claim that at all, do you?

  265. 265.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @J R in WV:  Please not to feed trollish behavior. Your points are of course valid and regrettably they do not serve except to derail the conversation.

    What are your thoughts on the NYT endorsements? :)

  266. 266.

    J R in WV

    @FlipYrWhig:

    @ochone: …. Stop falling for feel good bullshit pumped by nitwits and bad faith merchants.

    Now the only question is whether ochone is a bad faith merchant OR a nitwit. But why not both?

    Also they can’t be bothered to use the shift key and capital letters… what’s up with that anyways?

    Now I’m gonna go donate to Klobuchar’s campaign, already signed up for regular donations to Warren!

  268. 268.

    Another Scott

    @O. Felix Culpa: I haven’t read the endorsement or the excerpts.  I’m not at all surprised that FTFNYT messed up something as simple as a presidential candidate endorsement though…

    FWIW.

    In other news, TheHill:

    President Trump, who is backing a court challenge to the Affordable Care Act that would overturn the law and eliminate its protections for people with pre-existing conditions, is now tweeting about how he saved those protections.

    In an election year where Democrats are vowing to focus on health care, Trump’s tweets suggest he is recognizing the political danger posed by his support for the GOP-led lawsuit.

    Trump’s efforts have been undercut not only by the court challenge but also his repeated vows to repeal the 2010 law, including support for a House Republican bill in 2017 that would have allowed for weakening protections for pre-existing conditions.

    […]

    Incompetent who doesn’t understand how politics works is incompetent at politics. Film at 11.

    Eyes on the prize.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  269. 269.

    J R in WV

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    My thoughts on the NYT endorsements… It looks like they set up a show, much like The Apprentice, to make their endorsements, which is stupid. If they’re a newspaper, they aren’t a TV show.

    However, in spite of disliking their show-biz methodology of making their endorsements, I highly approve of both candidates. We back them with our money and our effort.

    The real tell will be whether the National Political News Desk can pull their coverage out of the cesspit where they’ve been for the past several decades to provide objective information about the best candidates and the worst candidates. Reality is out there, now we’ll see if they can describe it to their audience.

  270. 270.

    Marcopolo

    @ochone: Campaigns use the tools in their toolboxes to win elections.  In 2016 D primary HRC had a massive toolbox stocked with 3-4 decades of intra-D party relationship building.  One of Sanders “tools” was the lack of knowledge about politics, the political process, the D nominating process of the vast majority of his supporters.

    As a party stalwart Clinton obviously had a lot of advantages in 2016–ask Martin O’Malley about it.  But that was not rigging the process.  Unless spending your entire life building political capital & then spending it is somehow cheating.

    As an outsider (not even a member of the D party), Sanders used the ignorance of his supporters to create an us vs. them vibe.  He and his campaign hammered this home repeatedly, including the charges that the D party establishment was corrupt.  His campaign did a terrible job of educating his supporters about how the nominating process worked, about open vs. closed primaries, about registration dates, and a lot of other things (a side note here: in 2008 Obama had a better understanding of the nominating process than Clinton which is one of the reasons he won).  Whether this was on purpose or not, his campaign leveraged this supporter ignorance into the “primaries are rigged” narrative.  And high profile surrogates like Susan Sarandon, Cornel West, Nina Turner (now a national co-chair), and Rosario Dawson (yeah, funny that) continually painted HRC as corrupt, evil & no better than Trump–both in the lead up to her winning the nomination and afterwards.  Sarandon & West said not to vote for HRC in the general, Turner said she could not support HRC 8 days before the election.

    Sanders & his campaign created this condition (which yes, was taken advantage of by other bad actors).  He did not give HRC a full throated endorsement at the convention–his campaign actually did everything they could to disrupt it iir.  As far as I know he did nothing to try to tamp it down–there really is no comparison to what HRC did after losing the nomination to Obama in 2008.  And I do hold that against him & this “does not play well with others attitude” does inform my opinion on how he’d be as president.  I also think he is a hypocrite on the “purity” issue vis a vis money in politics but addressing that topic would take a long time.  Let me just remind folks that during the 2016 primary Sanders used campaign money to fly to the Vatican to meet with the Pope for some reason.

    I will vote for him if he is the nominee but he is well down on my list.

  271. 271.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ochone:

    my memory is he (as always) talked about money in politics in general, correct? implicitly it’s a slam at hillary and everyone else. but which is the bigger problem? the big money wielding influence, or someone saying it? trump would have weaponized it anyway, with his self-funding schtick.

    Yeah, WALL STREET SPEECHES! ! ! wasn’t specific at all

  272. 272.

    Marcopolo

    @Another Scott: I hope every time he tweets this bullshit out people remind him it was John McCain who saved the ACA and the protections it provides.  I’m pretty sure, however, that a lot of the folks who see those tweets will believe them.  As the Nazi’s said, “Make the lie big & tell it over and over again.”

  274. 274.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @J R in WV: Thanks for your reply. I agree on all your points. :)

    I would have preferred a full-throated endorsement of Senator Professor Warren, but with the withdrawal of Senator Harris, I rate Senator Klobuchar as my strong second.

    As for the FTFNYT political desk, I don’t see many signs that they iz learning. Or that they have any desire or incentive to learn. We’ll see.

  275. 275.

    ochone

    @Betty Cracker: hi betty, i had checked out and then scrolled back up, just to peruse, and saw your post. and i knew i wouldn’t be honest if i didn’t respond, especially after ‘sealioning’ you. ok, dispositive. don’t know how i didn’t know. it is kinda unforgivable.

    and yeah, it’s a matter of judgement. at a minimum, if he was going to employ them, they should have to do the walk of shame.

    the ONLY things i can say -and i know it’s possible i’ll be hounded and mocked for this- is that everyone thought 2016 was a gimme, so people felt free to virtue signal. it’s not an excuse. when you’re up against a wannabe fascist, you. make. sure. and they didn’t.

    i love nina turner to bits, so this is really disappointing. and like i say, i was in a bubble seeking out info i liked, so i didn’t know. it’s incredibly immature what they did.

  277. 277.

    ochone

    sincerely last thought. i think you are a cool community. i got the full gamut, including some really thoughtful responses, some of which were genuinely food for thought for me. genuinely. on other forums it would have been all aggression all the time. some of the stuff i have not responded to i don’t agree with or have some quibbles with, but i think i’ve hijacked enough. thanks.

  278. 278.

    Betty Cracker

    @ochone: Thanks. It was really destructive, and putting those folks in top positions this year tells me Sanders is ready to burn it all down again, so there’s no way I’ll vote for him in the primary. But I will in the general if it comes to that (it won’t), and I appreciate you for saying the same.

  279. 279.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Mark Murray‏Verified account@mmurraypolitics
    The day before the Senate impeachment trial against Trump begins, the Bernie Sanders campaign circulates this op-ed attack on Joe Biden

    Teachout, who has endorsed Sanders, cites 3 reasons in saying Biden has a “corruption problem” 1. He represented credit-card industry when he was Delaware SEN 2. He attended fundraiser with health-insurance lobbyists. 3. He attended a fundraiser with a fossil-fuel cofounder

  280. 280.

    noname

    @Ohio Mom: You are absolutely correct that they want attention; I haven’t been able to read a NYT article in months because they block private browser viewers, yet lo and behold I could pull up this article with no problem.

  281. 281.

    MisterForkbeard

    @ochone: My feeling (echoed by my Bernie friends, who approved of this tack) is that Bernie’s rallies in favor of Hillary were something he had to do but did as little as possible to help her, and that’s how he maintained his credibility with his voters. A standard Bernie stump speech, appending with “oh and vote for Hillary”.

    Those same friends who were involved in his campaign attended unofficial ‘campaign’ calls in AUGUST of 2016, where former and some current Bernie staffers were telling their people that Hillary was going to be indicted any day now or would have to drop out for health reasons, and they should keep the faith and remember that Hillary was bad.

    I am not sold on his 2016 contribution to Hillary’s campaign. It was perfunctory at best

    EDIT: Regarding Sanders’ stint on Hartmann, I also used to listen to this. He did actually criticize Republicans and W. But it was sort of assumed that the Republicans were wrong, so he’d spent a minute or three talking about the outrage of the day… and then spend a great deal of time criticizing Democrats about their response.

    It was interesting at the time. He’s kept it up now.

  282. 282.

    VFX Lurker

    @ochone:i am a sanders supporter, so it’s possible i screen things out.

    You’re on the inside, looking out.

    In 2016, I was on the outside, and treated as such.

    People I (thought I) had known for seventeen years suddenly treated me as either the enemy or the little lost lamb who needed guidance into the warm embrace of Saint Sanders. This “guidance” came in the form of near-daily harassment on my Facebook feed and multiple text messages browbeating and berating me.

    I had to unfollow and block several Sanders supporters to escape the religious fervor and misogyny. Friends, co-workers, 10+ year relationships…they all had to go.

    To this day, I cannot separate Senator Sanders from how his most ardent supporters treated me. Based on who he hired for his 2020 campaign, even Sanders cannot separate himself from his most toxic and damaging supporters.

  283. 283.

    Aleta

    @VFX Lurker:

    Based on who he hired for his 2020 campaign, even Sanders cannot separate himself from his most toxic and damaging supporters.

    This x 100.

    Moreover, he doesn’t want to control those hires,  which also happened with 2016 field office leaders.   Or he doesn’t have the skill.   Whether it comes from a hands-off style (It’s Not About Me as excuse to avoid responsibility)  or the hyperfocus of grandiosity or an un-leader-like inattention or whatever, all roads from that would lead to bad situations if he were president.   (BTT+ WWP+ SVD *)  No sign that the flying monkey attacks would stop either, which I believe threatens his own movement most of all.

    * Better than T—Won’t win primary—Still voting Dem candidate no matter who

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