Samwise, via commentor Major Major Major Major, expresses how we all feel right now…
I just hope Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention lives up to Michelle Obama's speech last week at the Republican Convention.
— Daily News Bin (@DailyNewsBin) July 24, 2016
Gail Collins, who’s been covering Clinton for some time, in the NYTimes:
… When Clinton is nominated for president later this week in Philadelphia, we’ll be talking about her as the first woman to get a crack at running the country. But she’d also be one of the most famous people ever to get the honor. In America, she’s been part of the backdrop of our lives for nearly a quarter of a century. We’re watching a very familiar face making a brand-new mark on history.
In 2000, when she first ran for the Senate, the fact that New York had never sent a woman to the Senate was an afterthought, given all the other stuff there was to consider. “It was the first time I’d been a candidate and the first time I’d lived in New York,” she recalled in a phone interview. The very idea of that race was incredible — maybe outrageous. And it didn’t begin well. She had trouble with the carpetbagging issue…
Then she turned everything around. Went on an endless “listening tour” of such anti-glamorous, earnest wonkiness that reporters who trailed after her from town to town began to develop nervous tics and drinking issues. But it was the perfect strategy. By the end, she had worn down her aura of outsiderdom. And she seemed to be enjoying herself. While all politicians at her level have stupendously sturdy egos, Clinton does appear to get a certain relief being in venues where the focus is on somebody else.
The thing I remember most about those trips from Oneonta to Cooperstown to Horseheads — besides the tedium — was the intense reaction she got from middle-aged women, who yelled and waved and begged for autographs. They were the ones who remembered what it was like when the newspapers had separate “help wanted” columns for men and women, who needed a male co-signer when they got their first car loans. I suspected that a lot of them, like me, still had credit cards in their husbands’ names because that was just the way things worked when they first began to charge stuff at Macy’s or use American Express.
And there was something else. Hillary Clinton represented the possibility of a second act. The country was full of women who had come of age with the women’s revolution, who had tried to have it all, raising children while having good — but maybe not spectacular — careers. Now there was the about-to-retire first lady, in her new persona, suggesting they might be able to start a whole new episode in life. Driving around through upstate New York, Clinton was in the home territory of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had broken the old rules about staying home, rearing the kids and then retiring to a rocking chair…
… Young women are not universally crazy about the first-woman thing. Some just see her as an imperfect candidate. For others, it’s because the whole gender thing seems like yesterday’s news. “There aren’t as many overt questions about ‘Can a woman do it? Is it something the country is ready for?’ ” Clinton acknowledged.
That’s probably true, and if it is, she deserves a lot of the credit. You can argue the pros and cons of Hillary Clinton’s character, or her potential to change the nation, or her position on trade policy. But you can never take away the fact that she was the one who made the idea of a woman becoming president so normal that many young women are bored by it…
Whatever her defects, she is a candidate with a very long and event-filled history of toughing things out, who finds solace in stupendously hard work and in doing her homework. She’s one of the best-known people on the planet, but she can happily spend a day listening to complaints about watershed pollution or flying halfway around the world to sit through a conference on sustainable development.
When she was still secretary of state, I asked Clinton about another presidential campaign and she waved the idea aside. Her future plans, she said, involved sleeping and exercising and traveling for fun. “It sounds so ordinary, but I haven’t done it for 20 years. I would like to see whether I can get untired,” she said.
She may never find out.
Betty Cracker
Upside-down animals rule!
raven
Goofy-ass gato!
Keith G
Yay Samwise, which my auto-correct tried to have me type as Same-sex. I guess autocorrect knows more than we think it does.
I know this might be a futile wish, a cry in the wilderness if you will, but we are on the verge of the best four days of Democratic politics that we’ve had in quite a while. I think it would be really cool if we could find a way during the next ninety-six hours to pay most of our attention to the positive aspects of what the Democrats are going to do over the course of the next 3 months and beyond.
Let’s talk of very little about Donald Trump unless it’s reacting to the cool things Elizabeth Warren says tonight. Let’s be positive of the things is that Bernie Sanders says no matter how well or maybe not so well he meets your expectations about how he says them.
Please for the love of god let’s avoid typing the term Berniebro and should one of those folks pop up on a thread and say something unnecessarily exasperating, how about a classic responsive “I really never thought of that” or even a “That’s nice dear, you go on and play”.
I’m looking forward to this. And I want this to be a week of celebration. I am 58 years old and never in my lifetime have we Democrats had the chance of seeing eight years of a successful presidency with the extremely likely event of passing power off to another Democratic president. Add to that that the first president is an African American and the second president mentioned is a woman.
My fucking god this is amazing stuff. So, I’m going to try so awfully hard to be nothing but seriously happy at least through Friday.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?,Everyone ?
rikyrah
That dog pic is adorable ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: They do in our house.
RK
New CNN poll has Trump up by 5% 48-43 and up by 4% in a 4 way. Just saw it on New Day if that’s the right name for the morning show.
Keith G
@rikyrah: I know, right? In that pose he almost looks like a cat.
Another Holocene Human
There’s already a rumor that Trump fans are being bussed in to swell the ranks of BernieBros outside the convention.
And a guy who’s watched Russian troll accounts since Ukraine invasion notes that some of them have switched to right wing accounts supporting Trump.
Both of these from LGF today (top thread).
What the hell is going on?
raven
Pretty funny, one of the DNC emails said “Fucking Joe” and Barnicle said he thought that was the name of the show!!
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: Wait, that’s a dog?
Another Holocene Human
But it has a cat face/nose.
raven
@Another Holocene Human: It’s called an election.
Mustang Bobby
@RK: Convention bounce or real thing? We will soon see. But for the love of Dog, let no one get complacent.
I see Samwise has gone the boneless-animal routine. Amazing and all without a chiropractor.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: It’s an election year.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Or outlier.
@Keith G:
As happy as that dog/cat hybrid in the photo?
Travels with Charley
@Keith G: I agree! Stronger together begins even with us..
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Beat me to it.
Keith G
@RK:
From Sam Wang’s Prinston Election Consortium
In short, when it comes to electoral votes that can reasonably be predicted, Clinton holds a lead.
There are enough electoral votes up for grabs that that lead can disappear. Although that disappearance is not the most likely outcome, it is something that needs to be considered and we have a good fight on our hands. Nonetheless, a better view of all this can be had early next week.
Link
http://election.princeton.edu
Schlemazel Khan
@Mustang Bobby:
It isn’t news, its CNN.
It is also a “poll”, one with no demographic info provided. i’m sure it is good news for John McCain
rikyrah
@Keith G: I see that it is a cat, but I swear, I thought it was a dog….oops.
OzarkHillbilly
Today’s Republican party: Asian-American groups decry ‘xenophobic’ Missouri political ads
Makes me so prououououd.
EconWatcher
I have mixed emotions about Matt Taibbi: When he’s good, he’s very good, but when he’s bad, he’s awful.
But I must say, he’s very good on the Republican convention: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/trumps-appetite-for-destruction-how-disastrous-convention-doomed-gop-w430546
Free sample: “[H]is lineup of speakers, minus the handful of “real” politicians who held their noses through the thing, read suspiciously like an episode of The Apprentice or Flavor of Love. His celebrity guests were a bunch of D-listers ready to eat snails, walk on coals, swap wives or (in this case) publicly support Donald Trump to keep their fading celebrity alive.”
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: needs more coffee…
rikyrah
@RK:
WHO is the poll by, and what are the cross tabs.
burnspbesq
@RK:
Yawn.
Schlemazel Khan
@Keith G:
Take heart in the fact that Governor John Kasich has stated flatly that Drumpf will lose Ohio. The guy who has a very good organization there and knowledge of the state. He is not going to help his party’s candidate. Making up that lose means Drumpf has to flip a couple of states he isn’t going to flip
RK
Sorry, the head-to-head is 48-45 and 44-39 in a four way.
PurpleGirl
@rikyrah: Samwise is cute. IIRC, Major4 has talked about having a cat and that nose is a cat nose not a dog’s snout.
Schlemazel Khan
Forgive me if I am not aware of all BJ
traditionscommentors but RK is new to me & the nym does start with an ‘r’ . . . do we have an early AM troll?Baud
@rikyrah:
Probably as white as Kwame.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
According to Gawker, Ted Cruz’s dad did hang out with Lee Harvey Oswald (photo)
Can you imagine the media orgy if Hillary’s brother was buddies with Oswald.
burnspbesq
@Schlemazel Khan:
I don’t equate the “polls are meaningful” delusion with trollery. It’s more a form of Chicken Little-ism.
YMMV.
rikyrah
@RK:
Read the poll but see no crosstabs.
OzarkHillbilly
This should put a smile on your face, Richard Dreyfuss:
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
Sad!
amk
@Keith G: what he said.
Patricia Kayden
Cute upside downish kitty!! Nice way to start the week. So looking forward to cozying up every night this week to watch the DNC.
And very proud that I am part of the Party which elected the first Black President and is about to elect the first woman President. Nice!!
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: This.
Patricia Kayden
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Or underwear models or presidents of Ultimate Fighting Championships.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel Khan: Yep, right here where I’ve always been.
amk
It IS a cat.
Baud
@amk: I see four lights.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
I tried to get an invite. DWS said no. Glad she’s gone.
Mustang Bobby
@Schlemazel Khan: This is from FiveThirtyEight as of 19 hours ago.
Not panicking. Energized.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch:
Liz is right, just boring folk like the President and former President.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
RK
@Schlemazel Khan: Are you new to the internet? Citing and linking to a CNN poll isn’t trolling. If the CNN poll had been reversed would that be trolling as well?
@burnspbesq: It’s certainly not good news. It’s one poll, after his convention, and you have to believe Trump will get around 47% no matter what due to a divided electorate but it’s not encouraging to see.
Keith G
Yet another Obama legacy. Hope it lasts for a long time.
Schlemazel Khan
@burnspbesq:
Understood and agree but since I am not familiar with the nym I was wondering if it could be concern trolling
Baud
There was a shooting in a Fort Myers night club.
Baud
NYT
Kay
@Mustang Bobby:
There was never going to be 32% third party. You saw that convention. Trump is an authoritarian. Right-leaning mushy voters are not “Libertarians”, anymore than Left-leaning mushy voters are Green Party.
It looks like Clinton increased her share of mushy white/w college and Trump increased his share (by a lot) of mushy white non-college.
She’s running a great campaign. She should change nothing. If white non-college want the idiot douchebag we’ll have to make it up somewhere else.
Mustang Bobby
@Kay: Point taken.
burnspbesq
@RK:
It’s not news at all. There is no useful information there.
Baud
@Kay: Thanks, Kay.
Kay
I usually don’t listen to NPR but I was driving yesterday so I did. I genuinely don’t understand how their political reporting adds value. The whole piece about Tim Kaine was the most rote conventional wisdom- he’s “boring”- by which they mean “qualified and decent” I guess. That speech was really pretty interesting- it was the entire moral and ethical grounding of his political views. It was very meaty. Big ideas. In a way it was ambitious- NOT “pragmatic” or “technocratic”. He has a whole integrated world view. They waved it off with no analysis whatsoever. One could literally read comments on the internet and learn more.
Lounger
amk
Ignore polls and trolls.
Cat48
Samwise is a very handsome kitty. I’ve seen good pictures of him. I do like his pose today. Take good care of him Major
Hal
My local top 40 dj commented this morning on Tim Kaine while doing one of those brief news blurbs between songs saying Kaine had a whole 3 years in the Senate. No mention of Governor or mayor or even the DNC. I always knew the guy was a right leaning douche after he asked who was paying for Michelle Obama’s vacation a couple of years back.
debbie
@Schlemazel Khan:
If it’s true that Trump’s funded anti-Kasich and -Cruz PACs, then I’d point to that as the cause if he loses Ohio. The GOP organization is strong only in comparison to the Dems, which is practically at zero percent. An anti-Kasich PAC would tick a lot of people off, if only for its spitefulness.
debbie
@amk:
Also, stop calling anyone who doesn’t share your viewpoint.
Cat48
@Keith G:
Nah, Politico was tweeting out “Democrats are in Chaos” right after Slate tweeted out “Why Everyone Hates Hillary”. Provocative titles always get the clicks.
Hal
@Lounger: This is one aspect of polling this political season that confuses me. Trump has very little support among AA and Hispanic/Latino voters and is in the basement with support from women but still up in the polls? I’m not going Romney level unskewed polls, but I am suspicious.
NotMax
Sharpen your cortex, because these two pix of HRC from the day of the Kaine announcement simply cry out for clever captions.
#1
#2
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
Good Morning. I asked you a question this weekend, but maybe you never saw it.
You were talking about the religious women calling into the radio program and how they saw Ferret Head. You commented that they didn’t really like Caribou Barbie because her children were out of control.
I asked you – what did they think of FLOTUS, if parenting was their measuring stick.
Kay
@Hal:
Anyone who is supporting Trump has lost the right to talk about substance. They can rant and rave about how they hate Hillary or love Trump, but they should drop the bullshit about “qualifications” or “merit”. They’re discrediting the whole idea of merit. Trump isn’t even a good businessman. He happened to be born into NY real estate and even he couldn’t destroy that inherent value. If had been born into Flint, Michigan real estate no one would know who he is.
burnspbesq
Surprised to see no speaking slot for Kaine on the current DNC schedule.
NorthLeft12
I think Ms. Clinton’s resilience and dogged determination in the face of unrelenting public and personal attacks are what I admire the most about her. She has many other fine qualities that you want to see in a leader [intelligence, decisiveness, a strong work ethic, humour] but for me to see her come back or press on in the face of vicious opposition and after serious set backs is what sets her apart.
She is not a perfect candidate [neither was Pres. Obama], but she should be an excellent President IMO.
Baud
@NotMax:
Avada Kedavra!
Crucio!
rikyrah
@Kay:
Someone here posted about a poll of Latinos daily during the GOP Convention.
The approval rate went down each day. We are getting close to 10% approval of the GOP with Latinos.
RK
@Baud: Thanks. Good piece.
@burnspbesq: So if the poll I cited was reversed you woulda thought I was a troll? Gotcha. And, of course, it’s news.
Joel
@RK: Not great to see a bounce, but what can you do? McCain led Obama after the 2008 RNC.
MomSense
Samwise in his kitteh stretching pose is the perfect way to start the day.
Iowa Old Lady
@Hal: As I recall, Palin’s service as a half-term governor made her hyuugely qualified.
Baud
@Hal: I think it’s strange too.
Barb2
I don’t have a link for this observation by a pollster.
Well known pollster says that the one most important polling number in this election will be Obama’s. As long as Obama’s approval numbers remain high they translate to positives for Hillary.
That’s the number I’ve been watching. We know the orange alien will get a post convention positive bounce, which seems to be happening. Trump is now supposed to be out working to charm ????
Me: Of course Clinton can’t make major errors. She won’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Meh. A lot of undecideds out there.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Blue animal. Or white. One of those.
Lounger
@Hal: When CNN won’t release the demographic details, I think “unskewed polls” suspicions are entirely warranted. Can we really put it past CNN to engineer the poll to produce a desired headline?
satby
What a beauty Samwise is Majorx4! I feel just how he looks after catching up on last night’s threads.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I wonder what the demographics of the undecided are.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I agree about FLOTUS. The Obamas are kind of the conservative ideal of stable married people and consistent parents, yet they get no credit for it. As far as I’m concerned the vitriol directed at Michelle Obama is entirely based on her race. There is no other reason to disapprove of her.
A while ago we ran a great candidate for school board. He won. School board is actually a horrible job so he ended up not speaking to me, but that was later :)
Anyway, he was the single Democrat and the wingnuts on the board objected to Michelle’s “healthy kids” initiative. He was flabbergasted. We were still talking then and he told me “they object to healthy food for kids?” He was an engineer and had that weird cluelessness they sometimes have- where they pretend not to understand irrational people. He quit shortly after that.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Joel: polls are pretty useless right now. They were volatile before the convention so no conclusion can be drawn about a convention bounce according to Nate Silver.
I’m not worried. The Dem convention is all upside in terms of effect on turnout and that’s what will matter most.
burnspbesq
@RK:
Nonsense and more nonsense. Give it up.
rikyrah
I have to admit that I think that I will get a little dust.? in my eyes later on this week when Chelsea introduces Hillary.
Baud
@Kay:
Can you email this to John Roberts?
RK
@Joel: Yeah, that’d be in line with the piece Baud linked to, that polls this far out aren’t very predictive.
satby
@NorthLeft12: I agree, that’s always what I have admired most about her too. She’s a much better person than I am, because I would have said “fuck it” and spent the rest of my life in a comfy retirement if I was her. But she still feels like she has work to do.
I’m with her.
Princess
@Kay: I do read comments from the internet (well, some) and learn more.
Michelle what’s her name, whom I usually like, yesterday got a AA guy in Philly to say that neither party has a full program for urban development, then there was a cut and he said that what would rally help would be a much higher minimum wage. Without ever noting that one party was in favor of it, and one party wanted to lower or eliminate it (I am sure the guy mentioned it but it was lost in the cut).
It has struck me that not thing the Kochs ought to do if they want to take over the country, is basically buy NPR — hide behind some shell foundations and become their biggest donors. Then I sometimes wonder if they have already done that. Their political reporting is worse than worthless.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly:
Feels different this time. The stakes are so damn high. And I don’t recall a foreign power ever making such a naked effort to drive a US election through direct action, unless you count al Qaeda as a foreign power.
But, come on, people, CNN is not skewing their polls. Convention bounces happen (but don’t last long) and it’s probably a little bit of a high outlier too. I said before the R convention started that I would not be surprised if Trump had a small national lead in the weekend gap between the two. He might. Ours is starting, though.
debbie
@debbie:
I don’t know why it’s so difficult to proofread in the morning:
Also, stop calling anyone who doesn’t share your viewpoint…a troll.
debbie
@RK:
Polls at any time should be viewed with suspicion. Remember how Romney was supposed to take Ohio, or how no president with an approval rating less than 50% could possibly win reelection?
debbie
By the way, Major Major Major Major, nice kitty pic. I love how you’ve color coordinated the couch to match him.
RK
@burnspbesq: I thought you were the user who thought I may be a troll so sorry for mixing that up. But the CNN poll is news.
bystander
@Kay: I still wish the President and FLOTUS would urge Americans not to drink drain cleaner. Trump would be losing voters so fast…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Matt McIrvin:
Carter/Reagan 1980.
Baud
@bystander: He did urge people to stay hydrated in the heat. So we’ll see.
rikyrah
Saw a Keith Boykin tweet about the CNN poll where Ferret Head is winning 21% of the non-White vote. I call bullshyt on that. He is at 0 % with Black people and low teens with Latinos. How do you get to 21%?
satby
Supposed to get cooler today, so goal for the day: get out of jammies and put on street clothes.
Yes, I can.
Matt McIrvin
@Princess: The Kochs fund a lot of science shows on PBS and science museum exhibits. Most of the time, they don’t seem to be hugely affecting content–I’ve seen shows funded with Koch money that rang the alarm hard about global warming. But I recall some cases of people wondering if there was some influence, especially on museum exhibits.
Baud
@rikyrah: Asians don’t seem to like him either.
Barb2
@NotMax:
Those are great photos of my favorite jacket. I’m a fiber artist and the jacket looks handwoven. The colors look good on her. The colors in that jacket makes her glow. She looks like a winner.
Captions – something about – light up my world.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@satby:
We got rain in Detroit. Cooler but humid. Lady Thunder really suffers in this weather.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: White.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Uh oh.
satby
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Yeah, I’m with Lady Thunder. My normal state in hot humid weather would remind one of an extra on Walking Dead.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree. The only thing I worry about is Trump driving up white non college turnout with the racist appeals. The Clinton organization so far in Ohio looks excellent and that’s how winning Democrats do it- they go UNDER national media. There have to be more of us voting than there are of them. Non college have lower turnout, so a 10 point margin with college is worth more than a 10 point margin with non college. If she can get urban areas to turn out and get white college majority in suburbs she’ll win this state.
Shawn in ShowMe
@rikyrah:
Every presidential year we get bullshit polls around this time. But a poll that gives Trump 21% of the POC vote when there isn’t any single POC demographic where Trump polls over 20% — that’s some high grade bullshit there.
Michael Bersin
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Bill Casey was a foreign power?
D58826
@Matt McIrvin: They are kind of a false-flag operation. Fund some good science shows in public while destroying the environment in secret. It’s part of the plan. Publicly back some good causes (contributions to traditionally black colleges or criminal justice reform) while working to support politicians who will serve their agenda. They don’t care about mass incarceration but they do want the system changed so that it is harder to send the 1% to jail for criminal conduct. Jane Mayors book Dark Money goes into this in great detail.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin:
IMO, the only thing that is really different is that the racism on the right is openly embraced. As I said to Betty in the previous thread,
With Trump, they can’t pretend anymore.
@Baud: Doesn’t worry me in the least. For 25 years they have been told they have to hate Hillary.
RK
@rikyrah: Favorability ratings don’t necessarily translate into votes?
Kay
I know it doesn’t matter but if I could just vent for a moment. Media spent hours and hours and hours on Obama’s relationship with Wright. One minister. It was wall to wall. The GOP now has a column of open racists at their conventions, people who identify with racist political movements, and all of a sudden “associations” no longer matter.
We don’t know anything about the Trump family other than what was publicly available (litigation) or released by the family itself. When are we supposed to find this stuff out? After he’s elected and running his sleazy business empire from the Oval Office?
THAT is some white, male, rich privilege. The rules don’t apply.
The least they could do is demand the godammned tax returns every day. They spent 6 months on Clinton’s email server, so I know they’re persistent.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Agreed. Which is why BJ is such a valuable site for me. I love the combination of (mostly) witty commentary and useful information. Along with occasional useless but delightful trivia. Thanks to all for making this my daily blogospheric addiction.
Patricia Kayden
@Keith G: Amen!! You said it perfectly. This is an historic moment in time and we need to savor it. We should revel in back to back nominations of tremendous importance by the Democratic Party. (Not sure I can go a whole week without saying anything mocking about Trump though).
satby
Your morning Booman.
Baud
@Kay:
You’ve earned the right to as many IOKIYAR comments as you want.
@satby:
Booman really felt the Bern. Nice to see him speaking out.
amk
@Kay:
As simple as that.
You can freak out over ‘crooked’ polls. Or turn out at the actual polls.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s always a worry when the other side has a direct line to the racial lizard brain.
Kay
CNN sent a reporter to Obama’s grade school in Indonesia. Maybe we could get some comparable diligence on vetting Donald Trump and his family, since he and his family plan on running the country as the latest Trump branding scam?
I can look up lawsuits on the Trump Family scams myself. This cursory review of public records isn’t enough.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
QFT.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly:
And that the candidate is a naked authoritarian who openly sees Putin as a model and is promising purges and crackdowns, and a large fraction of the population thinks this is a good idea. He’s not doing any better than McCain or Romney at various times in their campaigns (Palin-mania actually gave McCain a convention bounce that had him ahead of Obama), but the stakes are too high to let this guy be in shouting distance.
Baud
@Kay: C’mon, Kay. Everyone knows Obama wasn’t vetted.
Aimai
@Kay: NPR political reporting has become Karl Rove’s “politics for people who watch TV with the sound off.” That is fatal for radio! But aside frim the joke I mean that its an imitation of reporting. They cant be honest, or inquisitive–because that would lead all the reporters to conclude publically that the republicans are monsters. So everything else becomes a dumb show, a kabuki like series of patterned gestures.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @Kay: So quoted for truth I copied and pasted Kay’s whole comment on FB with a link. Well said Kay.
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Damn. Failed again.
The Thin Black Duke
Thank you, Booman.
Baud
@satby: Kay needs to front page again for this election. DRAFT KAY!
Quinerly
@Kay:
I heard that too and was so disappointed. They honestly did so much interesting reporting on Kaine when they were filling time before the Clinton/Kaine speech. It’s really ashamed that they couldn’t have worked off of that yesterday. This morning it’s breathless reporting about DWS and EMAILS. Hardly a mention of Kaine.
Aimai
@The Thin Black Duke: it was nice but maybe he could have cut off his lunatic fellow poster StevenD or whatever he was months ago when he took a rabidly anti Clinton and anti Democrat stance. I stopped reading Booman Tribune a while ago because of the ugliness of StevenD’s posts and Booman’s own tendency to fuck up on women’s issues.
gogol's wife
@Keith G:
Nice comment. We’ll try!
Kay
My daughter is a hard worker and she’s not (really) politically engaged but she’ll canvass if she feels threatened :)
She went out to canvass for Obama in Pittsburgh in 2012 because she basically hits every problem with “work harder” and she was feeling nervous. This year I would honestly rather she didn’t because I am afraid she’ll knock on a gun nut door and they’ll either freak because they’re trigger-happy or freak because they’re Right wing nuts. I never even considered it prior to this year.
Matt McIrvin
@satby: A certain familiar name pops up in his comments, whaling away at him…
Baud
@Aimai: Steven D is horrible. But eyes on the prize. Hopefully, given his history, Booman can reach people that may not otherwise be reachable.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I calm myself by looking at the 2012 results (not 2008, getting re-elected after all racial BS the GOP pulled for 4 years was the real test). That is what America is becoming. Trump is what America has been. Things are changing, never a straight line, plenty of downs to go with the ups, and it will never be easy, but I have faith in the end result.
If I’m wrong, it won’t be the first or the last time.
Baud
@Kay: I hope your son in Ohio is only kidding about voting third party. I like you and don’t want to have ill feelings towards any of your spawn.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: Kay, is Nina Turner hurting her political future in Ohio with her Sanders dead-endism?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m more optimistic then pessimistic right now. And frankly, I’d rather peak in November than right now. But given what Trump represents, it’s impossible not to have a little apprehension about how white people will reach to his message.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: Good question. Biggest disappointment this primary season.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: There’s spread in these numbers. I’ve seen national polls with demographic breakdowns where Trump got as high as 30% of Hispanics.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: True. Kay worked very hard to ensure our side’s win in Ohio, which is always a battle state, and it was interesting to read her posts. As someone who only votes and donates money (when I can afford to do so), it’s great to read about people like Kay who actually do productive things to move our democracy forward.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: I agree 1000%.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Kay:
It was necessary for the MSM to subject Obama to the 5th degree so they could have their horse race. If they did even minimal digging into Trump’s background, the race would have been over before the Republican convention even started.
Kay
@Baud:
We’;re all going on a family vacation in August- his sibs and their spouses will be there. He’s very close to my daughter. She’ll convince him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: The GOP has been the natural landing place for authoritarians for some time now, think Nixon, Reagan conspired with Central American right wing death squads, not to mention his dealings with the Ayatollahs. I shrug at Putin (yes it is an issue, a BIG one, but one I can do nothing about so I am not going to get overly vexed over it). The stakes are always high.
I’m just going to do what I can and not worry about it. It doesn’t do me any good and it does do me a plethora of bad. What I do get vexed about is Rex Sinquefield. The man owns the MO GOP and is in the process of turning Misery into his own private fiefdom. I guess that is because it is a wee bit closer to home. I am not at all sure that if I was standing next to him I would be able to resist the urge to bust a cap in his ass.
Denali
Why is there not constant pressure on Trump to release his tax filings from the press. Is there anything we could do to make this happen? After all Obama went through regarding his birth records and after all the Benghazi scrutiny that Hilary withstood, why does Trump get a pass on his financial records? His most powerful appeal has always been his business sense – if his actual records are made public, people would realize that he is a fraud.
Baud
@Kay: Yay.
Kay
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I’m sick of the special treatment for him. Release the tax returns, you fraud. We also have to know who he owes and how much he owes. This is relevant. It’s essential information. The Washington Post analyzed Obama’s home mortgage. Come on.
rikyrah
@Kay:
tell that truth, Kay.
TELL IT!!!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Having lived around white people all my life (to one extent or the other) if there is one thing I have learned, it is to never underestimate the depths they will sink to in defense of their privilege.
kd bart
CNN. Home of the 10 point poll swing, Clinton +7 to Trump +3, in one week. So, 1 in 10 voters changed their minds in a week. Reminds me of when Gallup would have 15 point swings in their tracking polls in 2000 over a 5 day period. I don’t think so.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Ferret Head’s Daddy was in the Klan.
Ferret Head was sued for discrimination.
He refused to disavow support from any of these White Supremacist groups.
Can you imagine if the Nation of Islam came out in support of then Senator Obama, the howls for ‘ are you going to disavow that endorsement Senator?’
Yeah,…
uh huh.
uh huh.
satby
@Matt McIrvin: I never read his comments, even Martin gives them a gentle slam in his post today because they tend to dkos crazy.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Baud:
If the DNC actually does clean house like she requests, that would only strengthen Turner’s standing with the working and lower middle classes in Ohio.
JMG
1. CNN’s polls have been by far the most volatile this year. Last week Clinton was up 7. A ten point swing in a week? Unlikely. I won’t believe them if it swings back, either.
2. I agree with Denali. Trump’s biggest weakness is his business career. If it were me running the convention, I’d have a night of speakers who were just other businessmen Trump has screwed over in deals. Make the mushy voters consider the possibility they’re Trump’s next suckers.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
I feel like smoking a cigarette after seeing this much truth put so simply.
rikyrah
“Progressive” Drama Queens Freaking Out Over DNC Emails Need to Grow Up
Spandan Chakrabarti
July 24, 2016
In the latest of “progressive” poutrage over Wikileak’s publication of stolen DNC data – including what may be hundreds of thousands of innocent individuals’ credit card information and social security numbers – the subject, oddly enough, is not an uproar over the stunning violation of privacy of private citizens that Wikileaks is perpetrating. It isn’t even over the fact that there is evidence that the Russian government was behind the hack, the same government that is protecting American fugitive Edward Snowden.
No, the poutrage, as always, is some high-horse moralization over DNC internal staff emails that happened to not always have given the progressives’ newest savior, Bernie Sanders, utmost adulation. In fact, some emails from some staffers even said mean things about the boyfriend of the self-anointed protectors of all things liberal, and, get this – one conversation even talked about whether to use the Sanders campaign’s DNC data stealing operations early in the campaign against him, although that idea was eventually shot down due to express instructions from the Chair. And if that weren’t enough, one tinsy email talked about asking him about his religious beliefs (again, a fleeting thought that was never actually carried out).
Oh, the horror.
satby
@Denali: That’s why I copy stuff out to FB. I usually get one or two shares of stuff per day. If we all did it and even one person shared from each of us, it starts to reach a wider audience. Push back, every day, on every false meme, every time.
Especially because, as a pale pasty ethnic, it’s important for people to know that #notallwhitepeople are down with that racism. This society has marinated in it so long that it’s important to point out.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Agreed. Again. Here in NM we’re doing a LOT of organizing, registering voters and building a strong volunteer corps to cultivate/identify supporters towards GOTV in November. It’s not sexy, so doesn’t get much coverage, but I hope and trust the same activities are going on across the country. There’s also a lot of focus on downticket races. We aim to take back the state house and keep the state senate. Women, workers, immigrants, minorities, and yes, even white men, all have a lot of stake in the outcomes of these elections. So folks, please do what you can!
Kay
So boring, Tim Kaine’s wife. Obviously she should have been launching a shoe line because why bother with merit? Nothing is based on merit anyway.
MomSense
@Kay:
I’ve had the same fears about canvassing this year. The paranoia is off the charts. As it turns out I will be doing phone banking this year from home because it is tough to canvass much of Maine’s CD2 and because it would take me too long to get to NH and I just can’t be away from home every weekend. I’m going to be calling both places.
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
Dreyfuss also asked what your answer would be if a guy like Trump wanted permission to marry your daughter. I have often wanted to ask Trumpbots similar questions, how they would feel about their children or grandchildren marrying someone like Trump or would they approve of their children or grandchildren if they behaved like Trump. Would they say hell yeah or would it be crickets?
germy
rikyrah
The Democratic Women Who Could Retake the Senate
In 6 of the 12 most vulnerable seats now held by Republicans, the challengers are women.
by Anne Kim
July 25, 2016 7:00 AM
Hillary Clinton is set to make history as America’s first female major-party presidential candidate – and potentially its first female president. But women could also make a defining difference in the U.S. Senate, where female candidates may also help deliver the Democratic majority a President Clinton would need to help support her agenda in Congress.
In six of the 12 most vulnerable Republican-held Senate seats this cycle, the Democratic challenger is a woman. Republicans currently hold the Senate with a margin of 54 to 44, which means that a sweep by these female candidates would be more than enough to put Democrats over the top this fall. The strength among women Senate candidates this year is part of a general trend toward more women running for elected office. The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University reports that the total number of women running for the Senate this year (including primaries) is at an historic high.
Among the women running in competitive races who could help deliver the Senate to Democrats in November:
D58826
@Kay: It’s bigger than that. The media and twitter world spent all of yesterday obsessing over a couple of stupid e-mails, written late in the primary that affected NOTHING. They have also obsessed for a year that Hillary’s e-mail could have been hacked and she could have been blackmailed. And if any one thinks the Russians haven’t hacked the RNC and Trump’s computers I have a herd of pink unicorns to give you
Yet the real 800 pound gorilla in the room is where those e-mails were leaked from and by whom. Russian fingerprints are all over that leak. It is a blatant attempt to influence the election in Trumps favor. And then we have Trump himself and ‘blackmail’. From what I’ve read his entire empire is in hock to Russian moneymen who are tied at the hip to Putin. His campaign manager has at least some ties to Putin and Trump openly admires Putin. If anyone is subject to blackmail it is Trump. Yet the lead stories are DWS and Bernie Bros are chanting lock her up. And the admittedly unrelated polls at this point give him a 6 point post convention bump.
Kay
@MomSense:
I actually prefer live canvassing to phone banking. I personally hate talking on the phone so I’m bad at phone solicitations. She’s in a run down neighborhood in Pittsburgh- she and her husband are graduate students and they have no money. Pittsburgh has the same “urban appalachian” mix as Cincinnati. It’s like this tense kind of truce between black residents and people who originally came from West Virginia and thereabouts.She grew up with it to a certain extent, except no race element. The lower income white people here came for manufacturing jobs, from Kentucky. We have the same kind of split, except class-based and white people. The county east of here is becoming Latino and there’s open hostility between the two groups.
ruemara
@Keith G: Bernie has already whined about his speaking spot because he feels he’s being backbenched for Warren. So, no. When he can stop acting like the nasty misogynistic underbelly of the 60’s and 70’s counterculture, then I’ll stop bringing it up. No one worships Clinton, but the current hyena pack of radicals who’ve been bringing all threads to TBogg units do. I reserve the right to keep talking about shit on the left that pissed me off and that includes such blind hero worship.
Kay
@D58826:
I don’t think ordinary Democrats will care about the DNC machinations. I was helping set up a convention watch party yesterday (on the phone) and no one mentioned it. They only care about local Democratic Party intrigue :)
I figured they would try to even it up in July, drag Clinton down, but I absolutely agree with you about vetting Trump. Who he owes and what he owes and who he associates with is essential information. That stuff is relevant in a county commissioners race. That they’re ignoring it in a President is reckless to the point of insane.
satby
@D58826: The American media has a huge thumb on the scale for Trump; and considering how much he’s talked about his planned retaliation against those media players who aren’t “nice” to him it really make me wonder who else is deeply in hock to the Russians.
sherparick
@RK: All the most recent polls show Trump up. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/ The only good news is that he seems to be capped at 44-48 in a 2-way race and around 40% in 3-way or 4-way and this may be his post-convention high-water mark.
Reactions:
1. I am gobsmacked that 45% of my fellow Americans, and probably 3/5ths of White Americans are so far down the tribal rathole that they will vote for this clown, this racist, this scoundrel, and finally someone who may be the biggest American traitor since Benedict Arnold.
2. Hilary Clinton is a strange combination of strengths and weaknesses. Her relationships within the Democratic Party and its donor class made her appear such a formidable candidate that almost all the other likely frontier candidates bowed out, including the sitting VP. But it also leaves her a in bubble where she makes hideous mistakes (the private E-mail server, accepting speech fees from Goldman Sachs, etc.) and causes a slow, cautious campaign.
Well, its going to be a bumpy ride over the next 3 months. If Hilary does not win, then I guess we better one could say a bumpy ride for the next 10 years.
Kathleen
@Kay: I agree. NPR at best repeats conventional wisdom. At its worst it it engages in actively undermining Democrats.
D58826
@Kay:I’m sure most democrats don’t care but Bernie is still whinning that he was cheated which stokes his supporters.
The issue that should be the lede in a very large font is the possible Russian connection to Trump, even if there isn’t a direct link Putin is trying to put his thu,b on the scale and the media is being trolled if they ignore it
mike in dc
Just saw DWS making remarks to the Florida delegation. She got the Ted Cruz treatment. I hope someone in the Clinton camp sees that and pulls the plug on her making any remarks whatsoever at the convention. Because it will be a shitshow.
aimai
@Denali: Lets start by demanding his birth certificate–and his mother’s marriage certificate. And then work our way down to the taxes. The issue is not getting him to release anything, its getting the press to hammer him.
Kay
@D58826:
I think the Sanders freak out over the DNC is nonsense. They’re the establishment, the DNC. Duh. He’s the insurgent. This fucking WHINING over the reality of his campaign (which was “I’m the insurgent”) is unbearable.
If you’re the insurgent you don’t get establishment backing. If he HAD establishment backing his whole fucking campaign’s POINT goes away. They don’t get to be the insurgents and get the establishment! That’s not how this works! They gleefully hit Clinton for a year on being the establishment. Which she took gracefully, because she is the establishment. They now want to deny her the single upside of being the establishment, because they should have that backing too. Worst insurgents ever. They don’t even know what they are!
MattF
Conservative intellectual Avik Roy faces reality. It ain’t pretty.
delk
Last night’s storm hits Chicago L station.
This is one stop west of the stop I use daily.
aimai
@mike in dc: Jesus Christ. If Bernie and his followers could show some god damned class and stop giving a single individual this creepy, star chamber, bill of attainder treatment we would all be better off. If I hadn’t already been convinced that Bernie would be a CRAPTACULAR president this would have pushed me over the edge. You just do not personally attack someone on your party’s side, in a pivotal position or ceremonial position, on the eve of your party’s nominating convention. You just don’t. You don’t call someone out by name because of rumors or ask someone to fall on their sword because of somethign someone else did. Even if you think its serious (which it isn’t) you brush it off your god damned shoulder and move on to the business at hand.
If Bernie had received a tenth of the treatment the Clintons or the Obamas have received in and out of office he would have gone as bitter, angry, and vengeful as Trump in a heartbeat. That is what this whole sad story means to me. He is incapable of forgiving or forgetting or rising above any perceived slight and everything is a perceived slight that doesn’t make him feel like a winner.
Keith G
@ruemara: It’s your ch’i to use as you wish.
D58826
@rikyrah: remember bill ayers? and the howls
Major Major Major Major
Samwise is a cat, you assholes.
hovercraft
Bernie jackasses refused to shut up long enough to honor the victims of yesterdays shooting down in Florida. DWS has stepped down, she was trying to address the FL delegation, most of the crowd was for her, but the Bernie contingent just booed and jeered throughout her speech. They got your scalp, can’t they go out in public without showing their asses. She was booed the off stage.
Mrs. Greenspan has never see anything like it. Her excitement, I mean concern is palpable while reporting the story.
aimai
@D58826: Is this my chance to say I know Bill Ayres? My favorite moment of the entire Obama years was when Bill trolled the guy in the airport by whispering to him “I ghost wrote Dreams from my father.”
Keith G
@Kay:
A great end to one of the best comments ever on this episode of the ’16 election.
I am bookmarking it for future plagiarism.
catclub
@satby: They do not report much on the positive long view. things like this from Calculated Risk.
The Future is bright.
Wonky!
Kay
@D58826:
I’m a political minority where I live and work. I recognize that reality. I’m not the establishment. I have built a business on not being the establishment. Every judge, every prosecutor, all R’s- The Establishment. Not me. Because I don’t get to be both. It’s harder. If it wasn’t harder I would be the establishment and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
They need to embrace insurgent or stop claiming the status.
catclub
@Kathleen: Credit where due: Mara Liasson said that the DWS resignation is a big thing just like Melania Trump’s speech was a big thing…. Only till something new comes along.
MattF
@aimai: I think the whole ‘Bill Ayers, bogeyman’ story came down in a heap of plywood and duct tape after that.
amk
@Major Major Major Major: I win.
aimai
@hovercraft: This is what I’m talking about. The sooner the convention is over and the Bernie or Buster ass holes are driven from the stage of history the better. They simply don’t know how to behave in public.
That’s not really what I mean–its not a matter of etiquette, exactly, its generosity of spirit, willingness to work with other people, ability to delay gratification, sense of timing and honor. Bernie ran in the Democratic Primary as a Democrat. IT behooved him and his voters and supporters (since plenty of them were non voters in reality) to support the eventual nominee, not make it conditional on a random and shifting set of policy “priorities” each of which is represented as the most important thing evahhhh. But which largely boiled down to what JMM calls the “bitch slap” theory of politics.
Bernie and his voters wanted to take over the Democratic Party in a kind of coup. When they couldn’t do that their egos demanded that they at least be allowed to shit all over the party platform, and piss all over the nominee, and then when they didn’t manage that they needed one or two last punches to land on hate figures like DWS. And all of this is to show, like any domestic violence abuser, that they can be forced out of the house but they will kick the dog, cat, and baby and wreck the sofa and tv before they go.
Paul in KY
Samwise sure is a ham! Great photo!
mike in dc
@aimai:
Which is all fine and good, but at this point the whole thing is a distraction. So letting her speak on camera at the convention is a continuation of that distraction. So as a practical political matter, she’s gotta fall a little bit further down on that sword. Fair or not, those are the breaks.
Keith G
@amk: Hey wait….so do I. My first comment was playfully sarcastic.
D58826
@Kay: yep.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: The collective mass rejection of Tim Kaine based on nothing has made me absolutely lose it with those last remaining diehards. It’s reprehensible.
amk
@Keith G: no backsies.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
I love Kay as a commenter and agree, would also love to see her more active again as a front-pager … BUT, if it comes down to allocating her time either posting at Balloon Juice or working to get Ohio folks registered, fighting voter suppression efforts, organizing poll watchers, and doing all the other vital GOTV stuff … well, I know which I would prefer she does.
catclub
@MattF: Thanks for that link. Much more perceptive than I expected.
Peanut Gallery
Interesting new post by Sam Wang over at PEC: The Polls are Always Bouncing to the Left and to the Right…
aimai
@mike in dc: Sure–Hillary and the grownups did what they have to do to quiet down Bernie’s asshole delegates. But that doesn’t excuse Bernie or his freaks from their responsibility of making this necessary. Again–its the indulgence that is always meted out to cranky asshole white men when they start getting extortionate and demand that their hands be held and their tears be wiped.
This should never, ever, have been allowed by Bernie to get this bad. The constant drum beat of personalized, misogynistic and faux classist attacks on Hillary were simply transferred to DWS and Bernie let his supporters run riot with it. Now he can’t stuff the genie back in the bottle. That is no ones fault but Bernies.
Kay talks about how they want to have it both ways, be the “insurgents” and also have the benefit of the “establishment.” I don’t think that is Bernie’s major sin here, though it is pretty funny. Bernie’s major sin is that he wants to be seen as a leader but he can’t lead for shit. He wants to be seen as a mensch and a political leader and also lead a riotous band of outsider revolutionaries in a quadrenial saturnalia romp where the imaginary bottom rules the imaginary top.
Kathleen
@Princess: Koch Brothers are contributers to NPR, whch featured a nauseating tongue bath of the family.
D58826
@aimai:
They got most of what they wanted in the platform and still weren’t satisfied. Bernie is upset that he didn’t get to pick the VP. He would have preferred Warren but (sigh) will go along with Kaine (sigh sniffle)
amk
@aimai:
when he himself is ‘leading from the front’ ?
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: Me too! Although I’m actually using ‘being mad about the emails’ as my barometer for not paying attention to the rest of a person’s electoral ‘analysis’–there’s plenty to be upset about with the Kaine choice, especially if you’re bit on reproductive rights. He signed some bad bills. I can understand his personal stance on choice just fine, but those bills suck. And it’s not my ox being gored. Etc.
But being mad about the emails is a whole ‘nother kettle of stupid.
@Cat48: Thank you. :)
Shawn in ShowMe
@aimai:
DWS just got booed by her own state’s delegation. That’s all you need to know about her so-called leadership.
mike in dc
@aimai:
I think the problem relates to the nature of the Sanders coalition. Put bluntly, a lot of his supporters aren’t lifelong Democrats. Some of them are lifetime third party people lured in by Sanders’ candidacy. This group includes former Naderites, Paulites and Greens. Some of them are younger voters who are still in the “purity troll” phase of their political awareness. Some are older hippies(for want of a better word) who strangely seem uncomfortable with a female candidate. Some of them are former Republicans who absorbed all the anti-Clinton BS from the past couple decades.
Some of this Bernie could have controlled, and some of it no candidate could control. Because some of his supporters are thinly veiled anarchists, more or less.
aimai
@FlipYrWhig: yes, this.
But also I am just personally very disheartened and disgusted with how easily Bernie’s voters have been encouraged to simply savage Kaine and DWS. Not to get all psychobabbly here but there is just so much “splitting” going on–everyone is always all evil or all good. Every vote is life or death, or, if it doesn’t fit the schema (like Bernie’s votes on guns or funding the Iraq war or Gitmo) just dismissed as irrelevant or non existent.
I hold no brief for DWS but the notion that she is a terrible person, or did a uniquely horrible job because the DNC was not able to overcome midterm malaise, is just bizarre. You’d have to know nothing about US politics and be unaware of how frightened individual democrats were, in red states, to back Obama to think tht the DNC alone could overcome the midterm “shellacking.” I get that Bernie’s voters don’t know anything but Bernie, at least, should have known better.
I just really have been personally horrified by the very sexist and anti semitic attacks on DWS that I’ve seen online. Its all excused, by the people doing it, because she is seen as a “bankster” or as an Aipac Jew**–and these two terms seem to pretty much excuse any level of vitriol aimed at her. Dave Neiwert talks a lot about the use of dehumanization to legitimize atrocities and hate speech. There’s plenty of it going on on the left right now. Just say the words TPP, Trade, or DWS or Kaine and you will get a fucking boatload of quasi violent rhetoric.
**For the record I have always opposed both AIPAC and Israel and I think both those parties are fair game in a political discussion. But there’s a shitload of covert and not so covert anti semitism in the particular attacks on DWS.
MattF
@Peanut Gallery: It takes some practice and effort to really ‘get’ random variation and overcome various intuitive misconceptions. Here’s two rules of thumb I’ve found useful:
1) ‘Random’ does not mean evenly spaced. In fact, typical random sequences look ‘clumped’ to a naive observer.
2) ‘Random’ does not mean lacking a pattern. In fact, typical random sequences contain all possible patterns.
The Thin Black Duke
@aimai: It’s depressing to see alleged “progressives” on the left fighting for their their unearned white male privilege as strongly as the Neo-Nazi Sons of the Confederacy on the right. It’s a two-sided coin of a morally bankrupt currency.
aimai
@Major Major Major Major: Isn’t Kaine’s position identical to Biden’s? I’m more pro choice than most people–as is Hillary Clinton. I just don’t see this as a real problem. To me its more of the manufactured hysteria of the Bernie camp which always gets more puriist than the pure–they say Kaine is “anti union” but the unions support him, they say he’s anti choice but NARAL and PP are supporting him.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@RK:
Can we at least wait until after the Dem convention and associated dead cat bounces before we start flailing? Please?
MattF
@aimai: It’s like the ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ catchphrase. If you don’t use the exact words in the exact order, then you’re a heretic.
Ejoiner
@The Thin Black Duke:
I’ve spent most of the past few days discussing the DNC emails and the state of the race and – sadly – I’m coming to the same conclusion. They really share very similiar models of thinking and processing of “information” that blinds them to reality or their own behavior. Sad!
aimai
@The Thin Black Duke: So very depressing. If I hadn’t grown up with a marxist professor of an Uncle, SDS, and the Weathermen (literally) I would not so easily be able to recognize that peculiar mixture of submission and dominance. These guys use minority rights or women’s issues when it suits them, as a platform for their economic hobbyhorses or international goals, but as soon as women or POC take leadership positions or stake out a separate set of issues they start to get all huffy and angry.
**
Not a real, direct, quote.
Gin & Tonic
@Shawn in ShowMe: Were you there? What proportion of the delegation was booing? Was it everyone, or just a couple of die-hards?
Kay
I’m on vacation and I’m making Adam’s lemon cake. I don’t generally bake, although I cook. We have a vacation house (which is where I am) and we bought it entire from the woman who sold it to us 15 years ago- it has an incredible stock of baking tools- lemon zesters, what looks like “crumpet” pans- just guessing- whole drawers full of baking supplies… She got a divorce and ended up with the house and her whole attitude was “I have to get out of here immediately- take it all, just let me grab my toothbrush, see ya!”. Once a year I move all these items to wipe under them. It’s ambitious because I already told everyone it would be “really good”. My 13 year old looks MIGHTY skeptical.
There won’t be photographs.
magurakurin
@mike in dc:
This sounds reasonable to me.
We have to stay strong, stay together. Donate, donate, get out the vote, and vote. This bullshit with DWS will pass. She deserves a fair amount of this crap…but unfortunately it hurts Clinton who doesn’t deserve it. I blame Obama…he’s the one who picked DWS for the job. Oh well…nobody is perfect.
Kathleen
@Aimai: Also too some obnoxious commenters.
workworkwork
@Cat48: “Today” show this morning:
Chyron: Dems in Disarray
Video: Republican convention-goers jumping up and down and screaming.
hovercraft
@aimai:
These assholes actually believe this is their last chance to get Bernie as the nominee. At yesterday’s protest they told reporters that they feel there is still a chance. DWS was just a start, and if only they are just loud enough, they will prevail. Much like our trolls here, they are a bunch of immature asses who lack the maturity to accept that in life you don’t get everything you want. If they want to throw a tantrum in Philly that is their right, but they are only cutting their nose off to spite their face. If you have alienated the people you hope to convert, you will never convert them. Everyone has bent over backwards to try and appease them, but they won’t accept that victory. They demand the one they did not earn, guess what asshole you’re not gonna get it. Hillary is the nominee.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
I’m really looking forward to the next four nights. Bernie and Michelle Obama tonight, Bill Clinton tomorrow night, President Obama on Wednesday, and Hillary on Thursday.
Then, on Friday, I’m finally going to see A Chorus Line after having had the cast album memorized for 40 years thanks to my dad’s fandom. So, overall, looking forward to a great week.
negative 1
@hovercraft: Maybe they just don’t like bigotry. I know, I know, when a lifelong democrat does it somehow it’s different.
sherparick
@Aimai: All political reporting has devolved since 1972 from racetrack/ballpark journalism to theater criticism to now reality TV. Who knew when Idiocracy was only ten years ahead of its time.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’d never considered it from that angle, but you are 100% right.
@Major Major Major Major: LMAO!
japa21
It doesn’t help when the “liberal” MSNBC runs a chyron stating “Emails show DNC tried to block Sanders in battleground states” when the emails showed no such thing.
Keith G
@Gin & Tonic: Watch …here’s a clip
Kwame
Trump now up +5 in the newest CNN poll. Once again we see how weak and milquetoast center-right Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are.
The speakers at the DNC will blow sunshine up our collective asses about American exceptionalism rather than exposing the racist, sexist, homophobic foundations of this country and proclaiming the need for throughgoing systemic change. White people are a big problem–white people brought us Trump. But there will be no talk about that at the DNC, no challenging white America to examine its privilege and its supremacist assumptions, nor its wealth which was built on the plunder of black bodies and genocide of the Native population of this continent.
The GOP fears its base. The Democrats shit on their base.
amk
@Kay: His constant demand that SD’s should flip for him is the ultimate of his hypocrisy and white entitlement.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
If I may channel rikyrah’s style for a moment: He has been given a slot the same night as Michelle Obama.
Michelle.
Obama.
And he thinks he’s being pushed aside by being paired with her? The most popular First Lady in modern American history?
No wonder he could never manage to connect with POC.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: @Major Major Major Major: There are ways to be critical of Kaine, I’m sure. But insisting that he’s not a progressive because of some stupid Huffington Post story about credit unions and a bunch of nonsense about the Trans Pacific Partnership is beyond the beyond. I guarantee you that an infinitesimal number of the people saying these things have any idea what they’re talking about. They’re being trained to see the words “bank” and “trade” and howl immediately. IMHO there’s an attempt underway to define — and I think to shrink — progressive politics to the point where it ONLY means a set of stances on banks and other things “corporate.” Guns don’t count, race doesn’t count, the once-crucial intersectionality doesn’t count. You just have to signal that you’re angry at all banks, and then you’re in. Witness the popularity of nincompoop blowhard Alan Grayson. This is an impoverished and reflexive view of progressive politics, and if Bernie Sanders didn’t create it, he has certainly been inflaming it. I think it’s absurd to treat one person who cut her teeth at the Children’s Defense Fund and another who cut his fighting for fair housing for people of color as foes of progressivism because Bernie Fucking Sanders issued a fatwa against them. Not just absurd, disturbing, because it’s so thoughtless, so immediate, and so intense. The Bernie Sanders circle declares an enemy and that person is the enemy forever even if you’ve never heard of that person in your life. It’s not healthy.
Gin & Tonic
@Kwame: Damn, and I just needed “kyriarchy” to get to BINGO.
amk
My prediction for furst night.
bs will wag his finger and yell (for the last time). bs bots will yell and then boo (for the last time).
come morn, both will be gone, forgotten and consigned to dust.
So, try to ride out the ‘storm’ with calm.
Agrippa
@Keith G:
I agree !00%.
Excellent comment.
aimai
@negative 1: Yeah. No. That’s not it. Plenty of bigotry to go around with the generalized anti semitism, sexism and racism of the Bernie crowd.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne: Don’t forget that Warren is also tonight in the Key Note spot in the batting order.
A Chorus Line was the transcendent theatrical experience for me. As a young gay guy, I caught the first national tour in 77-78 ish. It’s quite a special thing. A whole body experience, if you will.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kwame: Fake house negro on line #1.
Keith G
@Kwame: That’s nice dear. Now, you go on and play.
aimai
@japa21: Yup. The story has taken on a crazy, “telephone” like life of its own. As it was meant to. I just can’t get over the complacency with which Bernie is allowing his sliver of the voting population to be used by Trump and by his allies (whether the Koch brothers or the russians). The rapidity with which particular hard libertarian anti NSA types have flipped to “hey, any theft of data is ok as long as it hurts democrats” is just jaw dropping.
Kwame
@The Thin Black Duke:
Says Clinton’s Uncle Tom.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: I agree, but the emails are a better barometer.
They’re only followed by Sandersbots, and the type of people who listen to NPR, frown, and say there’s a problem with Washington and the problem is both parties. Both are viewpoints undeserving of my time. So it kills two birds with one stone.
Second, the overlap of the people who are still on about the whole “sanders wuz robbed” thing, and the people who fall into the category you described, is near-total, in my experience.
But this does not fully overlap with the people who read some HuffPo piece about bank regulation and think Kaine is problematic. That’s on the folks who WROTE that article.
mike in dc
@Kwame:
Bless your heart.
Emma
@MattF: That is… remarkably satisfying.
Agrippa
@NorthLeft12:
I agree with you about Clinton.
I think that she will be fine as POTUS.
gwangung
@Kwame: You don’t get to say that.
schrodinger's cat
Trump is a fucking Nazi and Bernie fans are fixated on DWS. Priorities, they has them.
Keith G
@gwangung: Yep, that seems to be worthy of a long good-bye.
BR
I think Kay’s comments about the lack of in-depth reporting on Trump is something we should be bothering media outlets about. The right wing outlets get their viewers into an angry froth and they call congress and TV / radio stations and complain about supposedly left-leaning coverage. Dems never do that. If they felt that there was a groundswell pushing them then they might actually do their jobs.
Also, there are a lot of alternative media outlets that might be willing to do such reporting — TPM, Vox, Buzzfeed, etc. — contact them as well.
gogol's wife
@Kwame:
Tak, vy deistvitel’no negr, ili vrete?
Mnemosyne
@Kwame:
You’re in the wrong thread. Please report to your assigned station. This is not a drill.
gogol's wife
PLEASE GET RID OF THE AUDIO AUTOPLAY ADS
The Thin Black Duke
@Kwame: Better than being the Uncle Clarence Thomas you racist white assholes put on the Supreme Court, boy. By the way, you GOP need a new playbook. I bet you still have a VCR, too.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
We just had an insurgent take-over of a county Party. I went there for a Sherrod Brown event last Tuesday. The establishment opposed them. Hence they were the insurgents. Had they had establishment backing it wouldn’t have been much of an insurgency. Sanders supporters never seemed to understand the essential nature of what they were doing. Insurgencies are risky, by definition. They almost always fail, and this one did.
I wonder about Bernie Sanders, I really do. He’s looking at a legacy of fucking this up and electing Trump. That can’t be how he wanted to go out after a lifetime career. To me he seems to be afraid of his own base. It’s not fun to watch and it doesn’t convince me he could have won a general. Make a decision. Stop equivocating. Christ, it’s been months. At least settle on his own position.
The Thin Black Duke
Why is WP eating my comments?
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Buzzfeed has a copy of BS memo titled “End Game”. Can’t link with my phone but it’s pretty intersesting.
gogol's wife
I wish I weren’t feeling so paranoid. Why is it that BJ won’t let me comment in Cyrillic? When I use Cyrillic, my comments disappear.
Major Major Major Major
@Kwame: May I respond to this? I’m white, so you’ll have to let me know.
negative 1
@aimai: I can’t speak for other people who voted for Sanders, but I don’t like DWS and never have. I don’t know why you would. This article is repellent. Her behavior in this article is repellent. It is religious bigotry. Do other politicians do it? Sure. I don’t like them any more when they get caught, and that doesn’t make me like DWS any more. She also helped some of the most loathsome people on the planet further exploit the poor. So, to me, there is more than enough reason to boo her.
As far as Tim Kaine, I’m not sure about anyone else but as a person who works for a union and votes democratic because of organized labor (and raises money for the democratic party for organized labor) I find it troubling that they picked a VP who declares himself in favor of right-to-work laws. So yeah, I boo that too. (edit — tried to link to The Nation on Tim Kaine’s past and right-to-work in Virginia, it didn’t work, google Tim Kaine Labor Record and it will be your first hit).
I’m still going to vote for HRC, but I don’t support those actions. Hillary won, but her supporters (at least in commentworld) can’t seem to take ‘yes’ for an answer. I’m booing DWS and Tim Kaine because I don’t support either. Hillary’s supporters seem to be finding this as a referendum on themselves and on HRC. I wouldn’t own DWS or Kaine’s views, and to be honest I’m not sure HRC has — I’m sad if she does, but Kaine is a geographic pick and I’ve never read that anyone in the Clinton camp ever wanted anything but DWS gone (they were just concerned about timing). To each their own. But this whole ‘party purity’ test where if you’re a real democrat you keep your opinions to yourselves bit that we seem to be trying this election cycle is troubling. It all feels really… republican.
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: “Lying” is so … harsh. Maybe it’s just creative license?
Mnemosyne
@RK:
See, I look at those polls and think, Trump just got four days of non-stop publicity and still can’t crack 50 percent?
That’s not a bounce, that’s a sampling error.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kwame: I’m surprised you didn’t use the N-word, white boy. Go ahead. You know you want to. Your Daddy Trump says it’s O.K.
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: У меня нет никаких проблем.
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: Sure looked like a cat to me. A very satisfied, happy cat.
hovercraft
@amk:
Buzzfeed reporter Evan McMorris Santoro was talking about a memo found in a hotel room in California, saying what Bernie’s demands for the Fall are. A private plane staffed and payed for by the DNC to fly around the country giving Bernie rallies. You wonder why his fans are such dicks.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@negative 1: How do reconcile Kaine’s ratings from the labot unions ?
Paul in KY
@mike in dc: Agree DWS should have no slot at convention.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@bemused:
I can’t be the only one who’s offended at the notion of “asking permission to marry your daughter.” I’m pretty sure I’ll be about the 10th person to mention it, but WTF? Women have agency, and will marry whomever the fuck they please, without permission their from fathers.
Granted, a choice to marry someone like Trump is an idiotic one, but it’s the choice of the woman who’s getting married. Her father may (and should) be horrified, but he has no standing to grant or deny permission. It’s her choice.
Reading that again just kind of made my head explode. Thanks for letting me vent, especially given my suspicion that it’s a very repetitive rant.
Chyron HR
@negative 1:
Says the guy continuing to complain about Iago Rosenberg Schultz after she was expelled from the DNC.
The Thin Black Duke
@hovercraft: Oh fuck me, please tell me you’re kidding.
magurakurin
@Kwame: that’s interesting. You make some good points. Here is a link that might interest you as well.
BR
@Kay:
The big problem was that Sanders should have started with a level of rigor in his campaign early on. He didn’t. Obama did, and I was proud to be have been part of it — we were on message, tried to avoid being derisive with others, respectful, and didn’t distort the facts to suit our agenda. Sanders could have trained his campaign and supporters to be that way, but he didn’t, and now he doesn’t know how to put the genie back in the bottle.
D58826
@aimai: What is also jaw dropping is watching the gop/rw just totally ignore Trumps bromance with Putin. I came of age politically when Eisenhower was accused of being a fellow traveler by the right. But now it’s ok to be BFF with Putin. Strange political year.
hovercraft
@schrodinger’s cat:
They are tv saying they will never vote for Hillary, and if Trump wins, it’s not their fault, it’s yours for not supporting Bernie, who was the ONE true leader available this year (or maybe ever).
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
DWS’s behavior in that article was to put the kibosh on attacking Sanders’ atheism. Did you mix her up with the CEO, who was the one who responded with an “AMEN”?
I’ve never been fond of DWS, and I wish she had been fired or “resigned due to family issues” long before now, but I’m really uncomfortable with the fact that Russian-financed Wikileaks released emails obtained by a Russian hacker to force this move right before the convention. Are you really so happy with the outcome that the way it came about doesn’t bother you at all?
And I would be way more upset about the DNC emails if someone could point me to an actual action that was taken against Sanders than can be traced to those emails. Not people batting ideas back and forth in a private space, but an actual ad or public speech somewhere that used even one of those talking points.
negative 1
@Chyron HR: Or says the guy responding to a question about why people booed. Unless you have a reason you choose to defend her, but I can’t help but notice your comment seems lite on substance…
Paul in KY
@gogol’s wife: This is Murica, you damned commie!!! Use them Murcan letters or go back to Siberia!
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1: you link to an article that absolutely shows no bigoted actions on her part–in fact, no actions at all in re: the athiesm emails, with no evidence she even saw them–and accuse her of “religious bigotry” as a result. That’s all I need to know about how much to care about the rest of what you have to say, even if I do hate payday lenders.
Kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Along with everything else, Trumpism is giving us a good lesson on sexism. I don’t even know where to start with this. “lock her up” is “burn the witch” to me.
Really telling that the Right wing cable channel is a hostile work environment for women, by the way. Now there’s a shocker. Imagine what goes on with race.
Paul in KY
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I just assumed the lady was a teenager or something. That’s the way we think in KY!
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
Here’s the Nation article. IMO, it’s a lot more equivocal than you seem to think:
So, a campaign press release from four years ago is proof positive that he’s anti-labor despite his more recent Senate voting record that garnered him a 100 percent rating from the AFL-CIO?
Helen
@Baud: Pics or GTFO!
dr. bloor
@hovercraft:
I’m as annoyed by the Sandernistas as anyone, but I really don’t see anything unreasonable here, assuming what you’ve characterized as “Bernie Rallies” are actually Sanders campaigning for HRC and down ticket races.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I caught a rerun of Chuck Todd’s interview with Sanders yesterday and was somewhat reassured by his personal reaction to the email flap — indignant about the incident but not claiming he was robbed, reaffirming the importance of electing Clinton and defeating Trump, etc. But it’s clear he has little influence on his most vociferous supporters, which undermines his importance to the party. Sanders’ own supporters are Boehnering him.
Gin & Tonic
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I am a father of two daughters, who were both raised to be (and are) strong, independent women, coming genetically from a line of fiercely independent women. They are both now married. Both husbands are wonderful human beings, but both of them felt it appropriate to take the time to speak with me and my wife about their plans, and yes, basically to ask permission to marry our daughters. We appreciated this. Maybe the difference is that they spoke with the two parents simultaneously, but given the creation of a new family unit, which at least to some degree supplants an older family unit, I don’t see their actions as offensive to our daughters’ agency.
Please feel free to tell me where I’m wrong, or a sexist douchebag, or whatever.
Major Major Major Major
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: the one where the Sanders folks come up with a divisive, and possibly damaging to the party, strategy for attacking their opponent, and then decide not to use it? Where they do exactly what they’re mad about the DNC over? And then decide to ask for a private plane instead?
It would be about as interesting as toast if it weren’t for the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality. Time to fire DWS for the 4th time I guess.
sherparick
@Mnemosyne: But the problem will be that I doubt Hilary will crack 50% either at then end of this week. I know that about 3% of the vote is going Jill Stein and another 3-5% to Gary Johnson, so people can say that they did not vote for Trump, but wont’ vote for Clinton because (she is not progressive enough, to corporate, to “untrustworthy,” just “to” much whatever). I am afraid Trump is certainly not going to get less than 40%, and may well have 45% based simply on white identity populism. That white “identity” theme being something that can unite the Peter Thiels, Steve Kernan, Lou Dobbs, Ann Coulters, Laura Ingrahams, Steve Kings, and David Dukes and all their respective followers, who have been trained and educated by 25 years of Rush and Fox to see all their problems as result of “to much” Government giving those undeserving Others (Blacks, Hispanics, Uppity Women, Environmentalists, Muslims, “Liberals,” Bankers, and George Soros) to much free stuff, free stuff that only deserving White folks use to get. They see see electing Trump as payback time. That means a pretty thin margin of 46-48% for Clinton and lot will depend on get out the votes of minorities in the teeth Republican Voter ID laws in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Arizona.
negative 1
@Mnemosyne:
I am. I wonder why more people aren’t. Plenty of people from both camps and Elizabeth Warren were calling for her head. Fuck the optics, she’s the kind of politician who needs to be out of politics. If anyone turns a blind eye towards those actions because of ‘optics’ then they are opening up a discussion as to what’s worse — being bad (naked exploitation in an attempt to further a career) or appearing bad.
FYI — The comment I am responding to was her fishing for Sanders heritage saying “My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.” To me, that’s cynically exploiting someone’s religion, which is religious bigotry. If you read that differently than that’s fine.
Major Major Major Major
@dr. bloor: read the article. The memo outlines an attack on Hillary where they double down on everything and drag it out to a floor fight to try and win, but as we know they decide not to use it. so, you know. exactly what they’re mad at the DNC for doing.
aimai
@negative 1: Oh fuck off with that “it feels republican” crap. So, so, very dumb. Do you think that I’m some kind of third grader who can be intimidated into not speaking my mind by trying to tag me with some scary word?
Its stupid to allow the noisiest, least loyal, least effective, most asshole sliver of the party and assorted fake hangers on (greens, nihillists, anarchists, randians, trolls, and mra assholes) to tell the party how it should run itself or who should speak at the convention. Its double plus stupid to allow yourselves to be used by the Russians and by Trump to create an ugly scene, about process and something something emails, at a convention which is in fact a life or death matter for this election.
If you want to be a useful idiot for Trump, the GOP and the Russians be my fucking guest. But I don’t.
Keith G
@negative 1: When I began hearing stuff like this last year:
I wondered how such a piss-poor individual could be the chairperson of my party. Gads, it’s despicable that she is so willing to aid those who are so clear that they have a right to shit on the poor.
Such a stand is similar to opposing Lilly Ledbetter, or ACAA, or Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (2009), or Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.
These are things that make the Democratic Party….the Democratic Party. Allowing Wasserman Schultz to start this year remaining DNC Chair was (in MHO) a spit in the face of the poor.
I guess because there is this Sanders issue, some here feel the need to defend Wasserman Schultz just for spite (I guess). Shame.
Agrippa
@rikyrah:
peoples view is really very good!
Emma
@negative 1: Uh? Schultz is Jewish. (ETA) And she seems to have put the kibosh on whatever these people suggested, because IT NEVER HAPPENED.
Cat48
@workworkwork
Sounds like the “disarray” headline came true since they booed Debbie off the stage. The Bernie Protestors outside are marching to familiar chants–Lock Her Up & Hillary for Prison tshirts & signs. Sigh. There will be no peace for the rest of us
Actually, headline should be Bernie &’His People in Disarray.
Major Major Major Major
@Keith G: I don’t see anyone defending DWS.
aimai
@negative 1: You do know that Sanders and his followers absolutely blamed black voters for being religious and for meeting with Hillary in Churches, don’t you? You do know that this entire question of religion in politics was a huge hot button issue that Hillary’s camp deliberately avoided, as did the DNC, even though it was looming over Sanders all through the primary because it was going to be a major source of exploitation by the RNC if he won, don’t you? Failure to be aware of it would be political malpractice.
Mnemosyne
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Hm. In a weird way, though, I don’t think Dreyfuss is talking to us (meaning women young enough to be his daughters). He’s talking to men of his own generation and trying to get them to see how creepy Trump is by asking them if they’d want a guy like Trump to marry their daughters. So I guess it didn’t really bother me all that much.
(For the record, if G specifically asked my father for permission to marry me, I don’t think I heard about it. But there was definitely a tacit acknowledgement that we were going to get married and that my dad did approve of him, which is why my dad secured my grandmother’s engagement ring for me before we were officially engaged.)
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Mnemosyne: Yeah I didn’t get an answer fromthem on that very question. Tim Kaine taught welding as a missionary, has 100% ratings on issues from many components of the Dem coalition. Sent his kids to public school in Richmond Va., helped POC fight housing discrimination but he’s not good enough. Wow.
Kay
@BR:
Sanders had to win an AA-majority primary state or states. That’s not establishment versus anti-establishment. It’s the nature of the base of the Democratic Party. AA’s in the Democratic Party are not an “interest group”. They are part of the establishment. I genuinely believe he was hurt by not having to put together coalitions to win Vermont. He doesn’t know how to do it.
I’m appalled by how weak he sounds even against Trump. Thank God it’s Clinton. Even if she loses at least she knows what she’s about and isn’t waffling or whining about how it’s not “fair”. They hate the establishment. The flip side of that is the establishment owes them nothing. They really didn’t know that?
rikyrah
@Kay:
I wish you’d do pictures, Kay.
And, tell us how the lemon cake is.
Man, I love lemon cake.
gwangung
@negative 1:
FYI, that was not her. But agreed that was bad (and borderline anti-Semetic in my book).
Comrade Scrutinizer
I wonder, though,how much of the BernieBot thing is like the Puma thing in 2008. If you looked hard enough at the Pumas, a lot of that crap was funded and promoted by the right. Clinton had nothing to do with it. The Bros sound a lot like that to me: not really controlled by Sanders, possibly more influenced and financed directly or indirectly by Trump and his Russian masters. If so, the shrill isn’t going to abate after the DNC, it will only get worse. That’s going to be a problem, because the MM will go for the shiny, like always, and will continue to promote false equivalences to keep the horserace going.
There’s a lot of stuff from the 1932-1933 playbook happening in this election.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1: THAT EMAIL WAS NOT WRITTEN BY DWS
D58826
@Gin & Tonic: today I think it’s more a sign of wanting to join the family than in the Romeo and Juliet sense of I own her
And the article that was quoted it sounded more than a rhetorical hook to ask a question than a literal ‘since you own your daughter’ type of thing.
Major Major Major Major
@Comrade Scrutinizer: they’re useful idiots, just like Jill Stein.
Pretty much literally, if you look at the history of the term.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
SHE DIDN’T WRITE THAT EMAIL. In fact, she wasn’t even cc’d on that email. Why are you directly blaming her for it?
Um, the “optics” here are that you’re blaming DWS for an email that she didn’t write. And you’re perfectly okay with a foreign government ratfucking a Democratic politician right before our convention to try and cause chaos at that convention because, hey, you didn’t like her anyway.
It’s not all about you, son.
negative 1
@Mnemosyne: This is another actual discussion, in my opinion. I’m glad he voted with AFL-CIO, I obviously have his voting record. But if he doesn’t come right out and actually support unions I honestly don’t believe he’s going to push our agenda, and I am obviously not going to believe he’s going to care how the next Supreme would have voted on Friedrich’s (or will on the next attempt). If a politician takes a public stand, then votes in a different direction, do you think that they feel strongly about the votes or the public stand? He’s never said he’s in favor of Fair Share. Or if you say “I don’t know” would you stake your way of life on supporting him/her?
Here’s the thing — I point out to our membership all the time how many times on HRC’s website it says she’s in favor of unions, and likes “good union jobs”. But then she picks a guy whose only public statement about unions is that he doesn’t support them and support legislation that would kill them. If that was your livelihood, how would you feel? The best I’ve got at the moment is “she doesn’t care about his stand on right-to-starve, she just wants to win Virginia”. That’s not the kind of ringing endorsement I like, though, to be sure. It’s certainly not helping our PAC raise money.
rikyrah
@Kwame:
I’ve been hanging out here regularly for 7 years.
Never seen you before this weekend, Kwame.
because of that, you are SU-SPECT.
Begone, troll.
The Thin Black Duke
@aimai: Thank you. Everybody who isn’t a loud angry stupid white guy in this country know exactly what’s at stake in November. It’s not a fucking game.
Mnemosyne
@sherparick:
I disagree. Would you like to make a small bet on it? Loser donates to Hillary’s campaign. Shall we say $25, or would you like to make it bigger?
mike in dc
I think tonight is a potentially killer lineup of speakers. Michelle Obama, Senator Professor Warren giving the keynote, Bernie Sanders giving the closing speech.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I do too. Now I have to go buy a bunch of stuff I’ll never use again, like lemon extract :)
My son just said “who is it FOR?” He means it is no one’s birthday, which is the only time we have cake. Usually he and I just have GummiBears for dessert. Delicious!
aimai
@Keith G: I suppose you mean me? I am defending DWS because I think the job of being head of the DNC is not like being elected pope. A whole lot of shit happens between supporting a bill and the bill being passed–you have no idea what negotiations are happening, why, or with what effect. And I think that being a congressperson and serving a complex constituency is very complicated. DWS, for example, supported President Obama’s Iran move when her own constituents (and Tim Canova) opposed it. I value that kind of support very highly.
But I hold no brief for DWS. I just think that this kind of quadrennial pillorying of the DNC head is getting old. There is always a reason to attack the person in charge of the DNC when the people doing the attacking want to do it. I don’t approve of the kind of hysterical, targeted, hate talk that I’m seeing in which the very real, hard work, that various party functionaries do gets turned into a chance for people to work off their hate. The same damned thing happened to the woman in charge of the Nevada Caucus and she recieved death threats and harrassment at her work place (where she was merely a daytime meet and greeter at a local restaurant).
I can’t believe how easily people are stampeded into mob behavior with respect to a perfectly ordinary bureaucratic functionary. Thank goodness the Obamas, the Clintons, and the DNC are used to the kind of asshole behavior that demands hostages and then shoots one or two before every big event. Because that is what I’m seeing.
Emma
@negative 1: Then enjoy Mr. Trump’s presidency. I’m sure you will enjoy federally enforced right to work laws and federally enforced no-minimum-wage laws.
gwangung
@aimai:
I found that aspect curious. Isn’t it a fact that the black churches, particularly in the South, has long been the nexus of political activity for the black community? And that the lines of political activism always go through the churches in the South? I’ve had Sanders supporters making disparaging comments about using the churches to fool black voters, but it doesn’t seem to match up to what I know about Southern political history.
Emma
@mike in dc: Is that the actual lineup? That’s not on the website.
Keith G
@sherparick:
Come on, dude, have faith and have a wider view:
1. Wait til the after the convention #s before you worry about them
2. The debates will be key to cementing in numbers.
3. General polls are of lesser consequence than state by state polls
4. In projected electoral votes, HRC is leading and her team has strong game.
If HRC does her job and we do ours…..it’s all good.
aimai
@Emma: Oh, don’t bother with logic.
hovercraft
@The Thin Black Duke:
Here’s the article from Buzzfeed
He doesn’t want the adulation to stop.
Bobby Thomson
@magurakurin: I was hoping they would ditch that god awful logo for the combined ticket bumper sticker. It really is hideous and may have something to do with the paucity of Clinton signage.
sherparick
@Matt McIrvin: If you go to Real Clear Politics with all the post RNC polls and 538.com, they all show Trump in front with a lead from 1% to 8% (that last being Rasmussen, of course). It means that we will have to work and donate like hell between now and 8 November because this is the way the country is divided in 2016, with close to 45% of the voters, and more than 60% of the white voters are not only willing, but enthusiastic, to vote a clown, a faker, a fraud, a racist (I am afraid that last is a feature, not a bug to them), and perhaps an agent of a foreign power as long as he is going to be mean to Blacks, Hispanics, foreigners in general, Hippie environmentalists, single women of all colors, and, of course, Muslims.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1:
Hmm, probably like every gay person who supported a democrat until 2013. In other words, I’d feel like a grown-up, roll my eyes, and get back to electing them.
Emma
@aimai: I know, I know. But I keep trying. *sigh* I should know better by now.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
I haven’t seen anyone defend DWS, except to point out that she did not write the offensive email in question, and was not even cc’d on it.
The fact that the Russians decided to ratfuck us right before our convention and that so many ostensible Democrats took the bait hook, line, and sinker makes me very uneasy. What other palatable propaganda are they going to feed us before November to try and tilt the scales to the candidate they’re financing?
rikyrah
@sherparick:
Wisconsin- struck down.
Ohio – struck down
North Carolina – not sure
Virginia – 200,000 will be eligible because of the Governor’s clemency
AZ- not sure.
With the 4-4 tie on the SC, the lower court rulings are gonna stand, until November.
mike in dc
@Emma:
Yep. Warren just got added as the keynote speaker. I assume she will flame-broil Trump.
Seanly
i wanted to smash my radio this morning. First thing I was hearing was some privileged douchebag talking about how he couldn’t vote for Demon Hillary just because of Devil Donald and if he couldn’t vote for St Bernie then it would be St Jill. The douchy NPR host (the one male under the age of 70) blithely introduced this obviously sane person. No comment on if the guy was operating a giant puppet while wearing a “Free Mumia” sweatshirt. Ugh.
Then they had on the DNC county chair from south of Pittsburgh. He was lamenting how all his Democrats were going to vote for Trump. Of course, no mention that Trump is appealing to the worst aspects of many of these older white voters in Rust Belt & rural PA. – their mysogony & racism.
Made me realize that the fix is in. Wikileaks and that Russian hacker are helping Trump while our compliant media does their typical job of painting the Democrats as evil & in disarray.
negative 1
@Mnemosyne: No, the optics I’m referring to is her attempting to block the CFPB’s attempt to destroy the payday loan people.
Do you actually care where the leaks came from? Did you when the torture memos came out? Or were you just glad that people weren’t being abused.
Since it’s not all about me, maybe I can suggest we don’t put The Party over an obligation to use government to help it’s citizenry. I know, I know, sparkle ponies, the only thing that matters is Democrats = Good and all other opinions mean you’re unrealistic because white males, fee fees and all that.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Fox News has had a hard-on for DWS for years now. It got extremely creepy in 2012 and 2014. Many of the anti-DWS folks who are ostensibly on the left end up echoing a lot of what Fox News was saying, which is part of what creeps me out about the whole thing.
gwangung
@negative 1:
This is a valid point. On the other hand, this is done in a state where such laws were in place far before he became governor there. In order to win an election, he stated that he would not push to gut or repeal such laws (that’s what I take from it). Is this problematic?
negative 1
@Major Major Major Major: You mean like where I said I’m still trying to raise money to elect him? Sadly, that doesn’t mean I have to support him, although it’s getting to the point where I don’t look at myself in the mirror much.
Sorry, edit after post — that was actually a great analogy. I’m not gay and only worked tangentially (read: financial only) on the marriage equality campaign, but what did gay people do about picking the lesser of two evils? Incremental improvement or bide their time until a better choice was around and then work like hell to get rid of politicians they reluctantly supported?
Emma
@negative 1: OK, enough of this. Comparing a mealymouthed little memo that led nowhere with actual torture? Grow up, buddy.
Major Major Major Major
@gwangung: Mr. Sanders doesn’t think minority issues are real. They’re just a wedge exploited by the millionayuhs and billionayuhs to prevent the proles from rising up. Of course he doesn’t know shit about AA politics or the south.
Gin & Tonic
@Keith G: I’m willing to bet that Il Donaldo will never agree to debate HRC. There will always be something unsatisfactory about the terms, and he’ll just skate. Just like he’ll never release his tax returns.
I despise him with the heat of a thousand suns, but he has changed the terms of Presidential politics for the remainder of my life, at least.
aimai
@gwangung: Well, yeah, obviously. You’d have to be crazy not to know the all important role of Churches both religiously and as a private/public space where AA people could try to assemble safely since before the Civil War. I say “try to” because, of course, for the same reason that christianity and assembling for worship were important forms of political organizing they were also targeted by white society for repression. That’s the genesis of the Black Church itself as a kind of revolutionary movement. Slaves were at first forbidden to become Christian, because that in itself was a challenge to slavery, and then encouraged to become christian when a faux ideology of slavery was being built on southern white christian theology. After the civil war AA christian churches were, and have remained, a hotbed of political activism–a place where people could gather, educate themselves within the context of segregation, and organize. As such churches and church functions were always under attack–viz the many bombings of churches and the most recent shooting at Mother Emmanuel.
So the outright contempt and even fear that Bernie and his supporters showed w/r/t AA churches and religiosity was really problematic. To me it stems more from Bernie’s atheism and marxist (anti opium of the people) background than his judaism. There is just a strong line of contempt for believers in both those traditions. (Speaking, again, as someone with a totally Bernie like atheist, jewish, anarchist background).
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Speaking of Wikileaks they are now retweeting Anne Coulter.
Davis X. Machina
@Kay: It doesn’t matter any more.
“Bernie” ≠ Bernie.
They’ll just roll on without him. In fact, he just gets in the way.
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
It’s not really about DWS, there are few people who will defend her generally because of her positions on Israel, banks, etc, but in this case she was not the bad guy. As soon as Donna Brazille was named, they turned around and started attacking her just as viciously, they want the head of everyone or entity that did not support Bernie. They will not be satisfied until he is the nominee. Since that won’t happen they will never be satisfied.
Kay
@Seanly:
I know but it’s the same every cycle. How may times have we heard the lament of the rust belt county chairs? Since 1992, every single cycle. The keening of the rust belt county chairs is as predictable as “Democrats in disarray”. We’re always up against this. John McCain was going to carry Pennsylvania too.
The Thin Black Duke
@hovercraft: Call me a mean-spirited bastard, but that actually brings a smile to my face, because after Hillary Clinton defeats Donald Trump and is named President of the United States, Bernie Sanders won’t be on the Big Stage anymore. How can you keep them on the farm after they’ve seen Paris? Vermont is going to feel much smaller when he finally goes back. He’ll be an asterisk, a half-forgotten footnote lost in Hillary’s shadow. And the punch line is, Bernie Sanders did this to himself.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
Then you need to write with more clarity. Do you actually understand now that DWS did not write the email you’re pissed off about?
Really? Revealing that some people at the DNC tossed around potential ideas for political attacks on a political opponent that never got implemented is as important as revelations about actual and ongoing torture by the United States government? Really?
Get some perspective.
aimai
@gwangung: Of course its not a valid point. With respect to negativeone: since just because this is the “only public statement” you have found doesn’t mean its dispositive. If you did a little more homework–like ANY AT ALL–you would see that Kaine is 1) from a union family, 2) in a catholic/jesuit pro worker tradition and 3) very highly rated by the unions during this election and supported by them in public statements. To continue insisting that you are right and everyone else who has done their homework in the union hierarchy has not is just weird. You are passionate about some issues but, in fact, not very well informed. That’s ok, but stop pretending that you know what you are talking about or that your incorrectly informed opinions are some kind of fact that we must all respond to respectfully.
Keith G
@aimai: Not you specifically. I was, I think, saying a similar thing upthread before you commented.
I think it is a very good thing to have the leadership of one’s party speak and act in a way that is concordant with that party’s core beliefs and actions. That test should be applied to Sanders, Clinton and even DWS.
In the Kaine case, he thinks that abortion is a moral wrong, but he he does not act as if it is the government’s prerogative to eliminate a choice of abortion. Kaine passes the test. DWS did not.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1: that sounds like support to me. But fair enough.
dmsilev
@gwangung: Sanders and his advisers never really got race. Didn’t understand racial issues, were actively hostile to people trying to educate them on racial issues, etc.
And that, fundamentally, was why he lost. The African American community is a big big part of the base of the Democratic Party, and you can’t just ignore or blow off their concerns if you want to win a national primary.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
I used the less harsh word, not “lzhete”
Shawn in ShowMe
@sherparick:
Considering how poorly Trump is doing with POC, he would have to something like 64% of the white vote to get 45% of the overall vote. Yet, the only white demographic where he’s garnering those kinds of numbers is white men. The votes just aren’t there.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s what worries me!
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly:
There was always a fig leaf before. Trump is openly saying he’s going to purge the civil service of his opponents and crack down on press outlets that oppose him. One of his campaign slogans is a promise to put his opponent in prison. And people are eating it up.
For the first time since I started following politics, I think there’s a real possibility that most of us commenting here could be dead or in jail within a couple of years, and it seems like a large fraction of white progressives do not get it. They think it’s all a big joke, just normal politics, Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Black progressives, they get it.
aimai
@hovercraft: This. Every person in “the establishment” from Planned Parenthood to the future DNC chair who is as yet just a twinkle in his/her daddy’s eye is going to be declared the enemy because: reasons!
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Ding ding ding! You win the cigar and the kewpie doll, madam!
gogol's wife
@hovercraft:
I wonder if the behavior of the Bernie people might have unintended consequences — like the mushy middle saying, “Hey, if these sochulists hate her so much maybe she’s okay.”
gwangung
@aimai: What was really disappointing to me was that this was coming from a POC (non black).
hovercraft
@dr. bloor:
It depends on why he’s doing it.
gogol's wife
It’s also funny to me that before this “scandal,” I had no idea Bernie was an atheist. Now we all know.
Matt McIrvin
@Shawn in ShowMe:
He doesn’t need a majority of the overall vote; he only needs a majority of Trump-plus-Clinton votes. If enough whites abandon Clinton for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, he wins.
singfoom
@Matt McIrvin:
While I agree with your point that a lot of white progressives don’t seem to get it, I think there’s some hyperbole to the idea that we could be dead or in a jail in a couple of years. Sure, Trump’s proposals are beyond the pale, but even if he does get elected, which I don’t think will happen, then he’d need Congress to pass most of these horrible things.
Without some kind of Black Swan 9/11 like event happening, the idea that we could criminalize the left / liberal politics en masse seems very unlikely. Not impossible, but very very very unlikely. Even then it’s several worst scenarios happening at once to get there.
But the point is not lost. Drumpf has to be stopped. Period.
Cheers
Matt McIrvin
@gogol’s wife: He says he isn’t an atheist. I always assumed he was one, but whatever, it hardly matters at this point.
aimai
@Keith G: Well, this is the problem of having a sitting congressperson running the DNC just as its the problem that we have because, for example, the majority leader in the Senate or the Majority leader in the House is also a sitting political actor.
In reality this is just absurd. The majority of people in this country, and even the majority of the democratic party, couldn’t have named DWS or picked her out of a lineup and certainly didn’t know the details of her bathroom breaks or her voting record prior to this being made an enormously important, make or break, item by bernie’s aggrieved voters. And you can bet your boots that if Bernie had won the primary there would have been no attention paid to DWS at all. This is absolutely nothing more than the spoiled brat behavior of people who are looking for a scalp to feel like they have won something. They took the same attitude towards forcing Obama to call Bernie to try to negotiate his concession.
There’s just so much sublimated and now unsublimated rage at Bernie’s loss. I don’t think it makes sense to applaud it or try to normalize it. They are essentially criminalizing being a working democratic politician. But you know that if Hillary turned around and appointed a career fundraiser and GOTV specialist they would begin whining about that because no one–no one–is going to be pure enough for Bernie unless its a bernie clone who has taken as supposed vow of poverty and who promises to kick the current fantasy enemies in the teeth periodically.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@negative 1:
Well, since you ask, I do care about the source of these leaks, just like I cared about the source of the torture memo leaks. The source of the leaks goes to possible interest of the leaker in the results of the leak. In the case of the DNC leaks by self-admitted Russian hackers, added to the financial ties between Trump and Russia, it’s not hard to conclude that these leaks are attempt by a foreign power to influence our elections.
Since you seem to want to conflate the leak of memos which had no effect on eventual actions or outcomes with memos that did, I can only conclude that you are either stupid and ignorant, or that you are trying to make a connection between something that was innocuous with something that wasn’t. Which means in the first case that no one should take you seriously, or in the second case, that you are an evil manipulative git, and no one should take you seriously.
gwangung
@dmsilev: Yes, this is a big critique, and the fact they kept blacks at arms length was campaign incompetence. Holding a rally at a historically black college and not giving priority to their students is just dumb.
Davis X. Machina
@Matt McIrvin:
They’ve seen the elephant, as the veterans in the Union army used to tell the recruits
dmsilev
@hovercraft: See, that’s reasonable and sensible. Whether or not Sanders is capable of drawing in the holdouts among his supporters (and whether or not they’re willing to listen) is the key question.
raven
@Matt McIrvin:
Hysterical much? Jesus.
Matt McIrvin
@singfoom: He doesn’t need Congress, he just needs the support of enough cops with guns. Laws are a kind of consensual fantasy. (Besides, in the world where he wins the election, he’d probably have Congress.)
Major Major Major Major
@singfoom: if I were ISIS, and I’m not because my cat is so cute and this thread is really about him, but I digress–I’d do my damnedest to make sure there was an October Surprise or twelve.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
If I’m feeling really glum I worry about a kind of contagion. The Republican Party is bankrupt- ethically, policy-wise, governing. It’s a grifter game- they’re all making money so it just keeps going. I worry about systemic rot spreading with real consequences for regular people.
dmsilev
@aimai: Clinton should have publicly nominated Sanders as DNC chair.
Without asking him about it first.
(no, not really, but you have to admit it would be amusing to watch)
hovercraft
@mike in dc:
Thank god, pray to the FSM that the speeches will give the media something else to talk about other than this new e-mail scandal. DWS spoke to the Florida delegation 2 hours ago, and I’ve already seen the clip of her being booed off the stage at least 10 times, they are just eating up the democrats in disarray narrative.
gogol's wife
@raven:
That really is ridiculous. But Josh Marshall might want to hire a bodyguard.
raven
@Kay: Yea and they are going to kill 150 million people! WTF???
aimai
@singfoom: Depends on who you include in the “we.”
LGBTQ people? They are going to end up arrested by the potty police. Equal Marriage could be rolled back or destroyed. Custody disputes involving Gay parents could be reopened and made devastating.
ACA: ACA could be destroyed. Key provisions ended. People will definitely die over that. People will go back to being in massive debt over that. Since we actually do have debtor’s prisons people will end up in prison over that.
Immigrants and undocumented people: Will continue being harrassed and deported at rates even greater than under Obama.
Prison complex: people will continue to be caught in a neverending cycle of for profit arrest, detention, trial, incarceration and parole. No attempt to end the school to prison pipeline.
Women trying to access abortions that have been rendered illegal or unavailable in their states–dead or in prison.
Do I have to go on? A shitload of people–not, of course, white online commenters!–will end up in prison or dead. Trump doesn’t have to round up the Bernie bros (and he won’t) for that to be true.
gogol's wife
@hovercraft:
Step away from the TV!
Mr. Mack
For the record: I knew Samwise was a cat. That seems important.
Also, too, as a POC, I tend not to view everything as a POC. But that’s just me.
Anyone here have experience with ragdoll cats?
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
Romney got 62 percent of the white male vote and 54 percent of the white female vote in 2012, and he still lost by a large margin. Trump is going to need to increase those percentages by at least 2 or 3 percent, and he’s not going to be able to do that merely by having people vote for Stein or Johnson instead.
I don’t want to be complacent, because we’re going to have to work hard to overcome Republican voter suppression, but if our voters are allowed to cast their votes, we win. Period.
gogol's wife
@Mr. Mack:
I know they’re hella cute!
negative 1
@Mnemosyne: My perspective is that you seem to be more upset about where the leaks came from than what was in them, so my response is that I don’t care where info comes from, just whether or not it’s true. Hence my question — did you support WikiLeaks illegal methods to gain information when it was for a cause you supported? If so then it seems hypocritical to hate them now just because the info is damaging to a cause you support. But you can’t seem to do anything but yell at me, personally. I don’t care, I’m a bad person — just check what I said to Major x4.
@aimai: I hope you’re right about Kaine, and like I said — I’m sure the Clinton campaign doesn’t care at all about those statements and Kaine may not either. But that in and of itself is concerning. Unions care very much about people’s support on right-to-work laws, and especially about how much politicians care as we would very much like it to be a disqualifying view for a potential Supreme Court nominee. Your words about Kaine’s pro-union stance are great, and maybe I am ill-informed, after all the news is recent and my daughter had a softball tournament this weekend. So if you care to link to an article where Kaine says he supports unions I’d love to see it. Being from a ‘union-family’ isn’t shit, though, so’s my father and he’s voting Trump.
sherparick
@singfoom: Have you notice who will be running Congress if Trump is elected? As long as Trump lets Paul Ryan eliminate the estate tax and capital gains tax, reduce the corporate rate to 10%, and “reform” Social Security out of existence and “voucherize” Medicare, Trump could lock up all the non-Republican voting parts of the population in “reeducation” camps with the motto “Works Makes You Free” and Ryan and McConnell would appropriate enough money to pay the contract guards their minimum wage salaries.
raven
WE”RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEE!
one fucking way or another
dmsilev
@negative 1: Where the leaks came from is important because if the leaker has an agenda (and this one clearly does), they can choose what to leak and what to sit on to slant things. A lot.
Lyrebird
@The Thin Black Duke: Thanks to you and aimai and evvybody. I am once again late to the thread.
I’ve been thinking for the past few days, okay here – anyone worried about our beating Trump? Anyone white or similar, educated, walking around with some privilege that could be used constructively? WATCH FOR VOTER SUPPRESSION. Sunshine sunshine sunshine is needed in every swing state, in every state like Arizona with known bad actors in the so-called justice system…
And I wake up to this:
Sure enough, Virginia’s conservative court is trying to pry rights back out of the hands of disenfranchised citizens, many of whom are not white…Terry McA is fighting back tho!
I do not want to hear ANY complaining about Kaine, DWS, etc., from anyone who has the time to do that complaining but who hasn’t put in some hours registering new voters or protecting those at risk of dirty tricks and disenfranchisement.
I know I’m about as, uh, peppy a writer as the late and missed General Stuck, but if my point resonates with anyone I will be glad.
AND YES i am involved in helping our local field office GOTV.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
I don’t think that Debbie Wassermann Schultz is as bad as torture, so therefore she should have been hounded from office by any means necessary. You obviously do think that she’s just as bad as torture, which makes me wonder about your sense of perspective.
And, no, I’m not that upset about what was in the DNC leaks, because there’s no there there. A few people tossed around ideas about how to counter Bernie and then … didn’t do anything. They talked big in emails and then took no action. And, for you, revealing that is just as important as revealing torture?
Again. Perspective. You lack it.
mike in dc
@Mnemosyne:
I remember some poll about reparations for slavery. 25% of white males supported it. I am therefore skeptical that there is all that much room for Trump to drive up his percentages among white males, much beyond what Romney got. He might get to 66% of the white male vote, but will be lucky if he gets 50% of white women.
aimai
@negative 1: You are stunningly badly informed. Stop attributing to a very accomplished politician, like Hillary Clinton, rookie mistakes that an uniformed person would make. Stop accepting the baseline, Bernie Sanders view, that she is stupid, or ill intentioned, or crooked, or determined to fuck over progressives.
For fuck’s sake the woman has just campaigned all across the god damned country making hundreds, if not thousands, of small whistle stops and talking to ordinary voters. She has put together an increidbly detailed list of policy goals which are right there, up on her website. She has a multi decade history of trying to do some pretty fucking great things for people, as does Kaine. If you don’t know that, fine, but stop wailing and breast beating and arguing with better informed people that Hillary has to dot one more I or cross one more T before you accept her bona fides.
negative 1
@Mnemosyne: So that’s a long way of saying you only care if you support the cause, and hence yes, you’re a hypocrite. From my perspective.
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft: BTW, I am positive that reason they were up in arms about Kaine is that they wanted headlines that said Clinton did something to placate the party’s left. That is what dictates the reaction to every news item: did it amplify the signal that The Left is important enough to satisfy? If not, it’s a betrayal, an unforgivable one at that. That’s why they identify enemies and make demands. And they almost like it better when the enemy eludes them and the demand isn’t met, because it shows that they CAN’T BE SATISFIED THAT EASILY ANYWAY. The whole thing is pernicious and gross. And that’s what’s becoming the legacy of the Bernie Sanders campaign and the remaining grandees of blogosphere circa 2003 or so. Because they think that’s what the conservatives did to get power in the Republican Party: kick up a fuss in the media whenever they feel slighted. Not what conservatives actually did, which was to organize, run for things, and win. This strategy involves whining and then more whining and then further whining that the whining didn’t work because The Establishment.
scav
@Kay: I absolutely know you didn’t and don’t but “I worry about systemic rot spreading with real consequences for regular people.” but real consequences for non-regular people aren’t exactly OK either.
singfoom
@sherparick: Hysterical claims of FEMA reeducation camps sound just as silly coming from the left as they did from the tea party. It’s not going to happen.
negative 1
@aimai: All I asked for was a source on your Kaine pro-labor statement. Take it down a notch, man.
D58826
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: birds of a feather!
Betty Cracker
@raven: Gyad. Just break it to us like that, why dontcha?
Frankensteinbeck
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
That was my first reaction.
aimai
@negative 1: Hypocrisy is literally the least interesting critique of all time. And, of course, is not what Mnemo is talking about. She is talking about perspective.
japa21
@aimai: Actually, in his appearance with Clinton on Saturday, he specifically talked about growing up in a union family and the importance of unions. So that is his most recent statement on unions.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@negative 1: And from my perspective, you’re either an idiot who has no sense of perspective, or an evil manipulative git (I’m going with the latter, by the way.) Either way, what you say is unimportant, and not to be taken seriously.
aimai
@negative 1: Why should I do your research for you in the age of google? Maybe you should show a little more humility about what you know, or think you know, given that you don’t know basic facts about Kaine after a banner roll out?
raven
@Betty Cracker: I mean really, what a crock of shit.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
So the cause of getting Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step down as head of the DNC is just as important as the cause of stopping torture. Fascinating.
And, yes, I modulate my support of something based on the worthiness of the cause, which is why I get less upset about people’s 2nd Amendment rights than I do about unarmed people being shot in the street by police. I guess I’m just funny that way when I should be touting both increased open carry and stopping police shootings as being equally important.
The Thin Black Duke
@negative 1: As long as you do the right thing and vote for Hillary in November, I don’t care what you think.
Fair Economist
@singfoom:
Several points: First, Presidents have done blatantly illegal things and gotten away with it. Talk to the Cherokees, who won their court case before the Supreme Court and got sent on the Trail of Tears anyway. Second, Trump is currently trying to get absolute control of the Republican party via the attacks on the few who still oppose him like Cruz and Kasich. He might well be able to strongarm a Republican Congress into passing almost anything. Third, the Republicans have gotten pretty vile and he could probably get a purge of the civil service and mass deportations with the current Republicans anyway.
Keith G
@aimai:
Totally agree.
I want to return to the days of Chairs like Robert Strauss and David Wilhelm, political operatives and fixers who had a power base outside of legislative politics. Now someone like Maria Elena Durazo or Sheryl Sandberg would be good.
D58826
@aimai:
One of life’s little chuckles. In NC you have the potty police but in oh so red and concerned about the women folk it is still legal to take up-skirt photos.
gwangung
@singfoom:
Relocation camps. Japanese Americans. Did happen.
I’m not so sure that couldn’t happen again.
(And that’s not even getting to the target practice the police use the black and disabled community for).
aimai
@The Thin Black Duke: I kind of care what he thinks because he is so uncritically spreading or sharing white brogressive attitudes about the candidate and the election.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig:
QFT. Of course, the conservatives worked the media refs too, but organizing and running for every office from school board on up has been the key to their success.
My fondest hope for PBO’s post-presidency period is that he will put his organizer skills to use again for a similar strategy for Democrats. Sanders doesn’t have the juice, but PBO does.
MomSense
Did I just read that Sanders had a tantrum and has now bumped FLOTUS so he can take her scheduled 10:00 p.m. slot???
So flipping mad right now.
Barb2
@MattF:
I just finished reading this Vox article. White identity politics has killed the GOP. Trump is the logical conclusion.
Must read for political wonks.
Miss Bianca
@negative 1: In point of fact, count me as one of the people who thinks that Wikileaks is a contemptible organization, whether they’re leaking news about Debbie Wasserman Schultz OR US torture.
Just because I first heard about Leonard Peltier from reading “Pravda” – when I was indexing an article on “The US has political prisoners too!! So it’s totes hypocritical of them to blame *us* for having them, if we did have them, which we’re not admitting, but look, the US has them too, just saying!!” – does’t mean that I think “Pravda” was a great or worthy news organization. Wikileaks and all its little rat-fucking Russian-backed proles could get blown up tomorrow, and I *might* wipe away a tear. Or might not.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: I strongly suspect that if you described Bernie Sanders’s career accurately, leaving off the name, to a Bernie Sanders supporter, the supporter would denounce him. A career politician from a rural white state who says some nice things about equality, health care access, and the financial sector but has a prickly personality, no particular accomplishments to highlight, and a checkered record on issues like immigration and guns? WHY DOESNT THIS RACE HAVE A REAL PROGRESSIVE FOR A CHANGE IM SO DISILLUSIONED STAB IN THE BACK UNDER THE BUS
BR
@singfoom:
I don’t think you’re appreciating the racist genie Trump has let out of the bottle. I’ve felt it personally — being “questioned” in vaguely threatening ways by people I barely know who must feel the rules have changed. And this is for the first time in my life, in California. If Trump were to win, I don’t think I’d feel safe traveling to the majority of states in the U.S. That makes me sad for the nation — that it would basically no longer be a *United* States.
I think your false equivalence here is misguided.
aimai
@Keith G: They will be hammered just as hard–harder!–because “having a power base” equals “able to talk to funders and lobbyists and both those things are verboten now, in the age of Bernie’s small donations. You just are not accepting that the people making this critique are, basically, nuts at this point. They are trashing the joint just before leaving, after the party is over. The point, for them, is only nominally to “seize control of the means of production.” The real goal, at this point, is simply to try to humiliate the party (as a whole) and Clinton for the perceived rejection of Bernie. After the convention DWS, then Brazile, then whoever will continue to be held up as a source of grievance because the goal is grievance.
Fair Economist
@raven:
Not really. Trump has specifically said he’ll use libel laws to suppress criticism.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mnemosyne:
Ahhh, but there’s the rub. The DNC was not the Hilary Clinton campaign. Or at least, it wasn’t supposed to be. It is-and was-an organization that is to remain neutral and let voters decide who their candidates are. These emails prove to about half the Democratic voters out there that in fact, they were not.
For that, I’d like to see each and every single person in a position of power who wrote those emails or at the very least did not nip that shit in the bud to be frog-marched out the front door of the DNC.
I get that one might not care if one’s favored candidate benefitted from this biased and deceitful behavior on the part of a major American political party. I get how easy it is to rationalize away the total lack of respect these people have for you or I because, again, the candidate you think should have won did win.
But for those of us who care about the future of the Democratic Party, particularly given the current frightening state of the Republicans and the fact that they only need a few extra votes here and there to actually take over our national government, I think we need MORE voters on our side than less.
And you’re not going to engender much confidence in voters if they know, without a doubt now, that the system is REALLY rigged and that they are just pawns in a game of yet again, a small group of powerful insiders.
It’s not THEIR party, it’s OURS.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I hope not, because if so, that just proves yet another point about Sanders being completely tone-deaf towards anyone who’s not white and male.
aimai
@MomSense: What? Are you fucking kidding me?
Miss Bianca
@dmsilev: Bwwaa-hah-ha! *that* is funny! I t would be a disaster, but almost worth it for the lulz!
singfoom
@gwangung: @Fair Economist: Jesus Christ. Yes, the trail of tears happened. So did Japanese internment camps. Lots of other bad things have happened in the past at the behest of the United States Government. No argument there. However, the historical parallels start and and end at the “that was bad / this would be bad” in my opinion.
Sure, these things could hypothetically happen in a future where X y and Z happen, but I’m firmly convinced we don’t live in that continuim. I don’t think the majority of Americans would stand for something like that happening again, especially right now. We might be a divided country in many ways, but you start putting people in camps and everyone else will rise up.
I just don’t think being hysterical helps anything. There’s a lot of challenges and things to be overcome and I think it’s more productive to worry about more likely scenarios. YMMV
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: Of course you’re not any of those! Just surprising able to comment in other alphabets…
But what you describe sounds entirely different from what Dreyfuss was quoted about. Meeting with the parents of the person you plan to marry, to my mind, does not undermine anyone’s agency. It’s gracious and sensible, and sounds rather like a discussion of goals and plans for the couple.
It seems that any “permission seeking” was more pro forma than literal. And the Dreyfuss quote sounds much more literal about “asks permission.”
But I’m not a reliable judge of such things. In part because there was no serious consideration of marriage for me during my parents’ lifetimes.
I do want to know how to post in other alphabets.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s a very good point – and it could be very effective. But it still annoys me.
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: wiki leaks has never leaked about something I didn’t already know. Neither did Snowden, for that matter.
Well, I guess wiki leaks did leak the SSN’s of some people. I didn’t know those.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig:
proceeds to not do that
Jesus folks, LET THE SANDERS HATRED GO WUD YA?
Isn’t there something more important to talk about? I’m pretty sure having Vlad P. sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom is a little more important that one more mutual backslap joke about how ugly Bernie’s hair is.
Mnemosyne
@Ella in New Mexico:
Except that these emails were written in May. After Super Tuesday. You know, the point after which Sanders had mathematically lost.
Was the DNC supposed to deny reality and pretend that there was still some way for Sanders to win, or were they supposed to start preparing to support the winning candidate?
If something released by Russian hackers seems to support your most paranoid fantasies about the primaries, it may be worth looking at the source to see if maybe they might have a motive for trying to make you paranoid, yes? Particularly when they do this right before the start of the Democratic National Convention.
But, hey, I’ve already been told that thinking this is an attempt at ratfucking to divide Democrats makes me just as bad as a torture supporter or something, so it’s probably time for me to leave for work.
The Thin Black Duke
@aimai: I think Lyrebird nailed it earlier when he/she said:
I don’t think we can afford to spend the time arguing with people who have already made up their minds: it’s boring, exhausting, frustrating and counter-productive. And since my folks raised me to be polite, there’s only so much “whitesplaining” I can listen to before I have to walk away.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai:
Exactly so. Well said.
Fair Economist
@Ella in New Mexico:
No, that’s absolutely not true. It’s the DNC’s job to get the best candidates nominated. It would have been a massive failure for them to allow a Democrat with electorally lethal baggage get nominated, because that would have made Trump president. Recently the DNC has taken the position that primaries will pick the best candidate, but that’s a means to an end and not an end in itself.
D58826
@D58826: that should have said the stae of Georgia
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: Yes, which is why it is so incredibly counterproductive of Bernie to have marketed himself as an outsider fighting against entrenched interests, and to have raised ridiculous hopes in his young voting base that large rallies was the asme as actual voters. Bernie’s anti politics politics was always a total lie–not because the establishment was against him but because its hard fucking work turning out voters in red states and elsewhere and he didn’t have the skill or the message to do it. So, naturally, he blames first the voters who didn’t vote for him, then “the establishment”–i.e. people who work in politics for a living, dragging people to the polls for a living, watching press coverage for a living.
Bernie raised some high hopes and made some big, big, promises that he couldn’t fulfill and now he and some of his voters are unable to deal with their dissapointment and basically wailing “you will miss us when we’re dead” like toddlers slamming the door because they didn’t get all the dessert. Sorry about that. But don’t blame everyone else because Bernie pretended it would be easy to win a major primary against a well known and well organized opponent and then, somehow, easy to win against Trump.
Chyron HR
@Ella in New Mexico:
Yes, it’s terrible that the DNC didn’t retain its precious neutrality after Sanders ordered his followers to send death threats to every Democratic party official who “stole” Nevada from him. :^(
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: He’s a loathsome little homunculus with nothing to say and I want him away from everything forever. His people are damaging the Democratic Party and the principles of liberalism they profess to believe in by substituting for judgment and decency an unending spew of grievance. Fuck him and everything he did this year.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Ella in New Mexico:
Show me one, ONE, instance of anything discussed in that memo, which was not written by or cc-ed to DWS, that led to a real-world action in which the system was shown to have been rigged in favor of one candidate over another.
singfoom
@BR: Well, I live in a very small bubble. I’m sorry to hear that you have felt threatened by anyone, especially ignorant racists.
I do agree that Drumpf’s campaign has made racists feel like they can be open with their bullshit and ignorance, but acknowledging that doesn’t mean “OMG INTERNMENT CAMPS FOR LIBERALZ/GAYS/MUSLISMS!!!” which is what I’m hearing when people reference the Trail of Tears and the Japanese internment camps in WWII. I think the response is to challenge people on their racism not freak out and worry about the sky falling. YMMV
Kropadope
Draft Rocky Anderson for President!!!
ETA: Oh, shit, he’s already running. Who knew?
gwangung
@singfoom:
I’m not. I’m more cautious because I HAVE to be. It’s my neck on the line.
sherparick
@negative 1: I am kind of amused by the lack of context in the Nation article regarding Tim Kaine, who was considered very pro-union when he was Governor and spent a lot of political capital trying to help workers and unions in the teeth of a very hostile state legislature. See this contemporaneous link from 2006: http://pilotonline.com/news/local/columnist/roger-chesley/lump-em-all-together-union-members-gays-murderers/article_81e4ca7b-7281-5d4a-b1a5-6bf7845d0b38.html
http://pilotonline.com/news/local/columnist/roger-chesley/lump-em-all-together-union-members-gays-murderers/article_81e4ca7b-7281-5d4a-b1a5-6bf7845d0b38.html
aimai
@Fair Economist: This, by the way, was also an argument made by Bernie–that the party simply couldn’t afford to let the voters decide if they were going to decide for Hillary. The entire late push on the speeches and the supposed FBI indictment led Bernie’s supporters to argue that the DNC and the party were at fault for letting Clinton run/win because “she would lose to Trump.” Bernie kept pointing at fantasy polls showing matchups against Trump and arguing that those should be dispositive and that the primary should be awarded to him on the strength of those polls. So the argument that the party should remain neutral is one that Bernie uses now, because its politic to do so but when the party was remaining neutral between Hillary (who was winning the primary) and Bernie (who had lost it) he was all for the party and the superdelegates overturning the will of the voters.
Gin & Tonic
@Ella in New Mexico:
I suppose it would have been nice if Sanders had, you know, actually BEEN a member of the party whose nomination he was attempting to secure.
The Thin Black Duke
@singfoom: What white people call “paranoia”, black people call “common sense”.
aimai
@singfoom: No one is “freaking out that the sky is falling” but people are trying to tell you that your comfortable conviction that people like you won’t suffer may be correct. But people not like you are legtimately worried about perfectly ordinary but horrific results of Trump’s election.
Emma
@negative 1: Will this do you?
raven
@Fair Economist: Well, you can wet your pants if you want to.
Keith G
@MomSense: Well MomSence, the sensible thing to do when reading such a thing is to give us a link or a reference to where you saw it.
That’s a highly charged , and I dare say seemingly unlikely, occurrence. It needs a reference to be more than a scurrilous rumor.
japa21
@Miss Bianca: Just what I was going to say, at least the part about Wikileaks. To me they are beneath contempt no matter what they expose.
scav
@singfoom: I’d feel a lot more comfortable about which continuum we’re in if I hadn’t been so surprised on the downside about the neighbors seemingly being utterly comfortable with torture. And with the number (luckily fewer than the torture folks) of them being unfazed by police behaviors as captured on tape.
Fair Economist
@singfoom:
So, having admitted that nasty things can happen in the US even when they’re illegal, what makes you sanguine about the current situation? The Republican congress will happily risk debt default to make minor political gains, a Republican majority on the court will happily ignore precedent and the will of the voters to get the result they like, and literally millions of people protesting in the streets didn’t stop the Iraq War. A Republican administration will demand its US attorneys do political prosecutions (remember last time?) Our protections against reprehensible behavior by the President are probably weaker than they’ve ever been. When Trump says he’s going to rule like Erdogan, jailing political opponents, muzzling the press, and purging the civil service, you’d better take him seriously.
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
Any link for that? I sure hope it’s just a vicious rumor.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
EH.
Be careful of what you ask for, Bernie. Coming after FLOTUS and Warren…well….
gwangung
@The Thin Black Duke: Hell. Yes.
Fair Economist
@aimai: touche
singfoom
@aimai: I’m sorry, I’m not just worried about people like me. I’m worried about everyone. I’m legitimately worried about perfectly ordinary but horrific results of Trump’s election too.
I’m worried that any reform of the justice system that preys upon POC will be stopped and more people will continue to be killed by police. I’m worried that women’s access to reproductive services and contraceptives will be curtailed. I’m worried that progress on many things will be stalled. And on and on.
That said, talking about internment camps and mass deportation seems like “the sky is falling” to me compared to more likely things.
negative 1
@Miss Bianca: That’s fair. I’m not saying they’re right. It’s an interesting discussion IMHO. For instance it’s real easy to make my ‘doesn’t matter where the info came from’ policy force me to defend some pretty egregious violations of reasonable search and seizure laws.
My larger point is that to me these discussions were worth having, as discussions about views used to force you to think, if not to make you better at least sometimes for fun. Now during this campaign any time you try and have them the ‘party enforcer’ types yell at you for being insufficiently supportive and personally attack. I should probably just stop coming here for a while.
Gin & Tonic
On the bright side, at least Senator Professor Warren went to Pat’s for her cheesesteak when she arrived in Philly.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Keith G: According to the DNC site, Bernie is still speaking before FLOTUS. No schedule change.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@negative 1:
Promise?
sherparick
@singfoom: No one in January 1933 Germany thought that Hitler and Himmler would be establishing concentration camps just two months later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp
I would prefer not to find out if I am wrong. I don’t see much within the Republican Party or Conservative Establishment that would put any breaks on Trump and the many proto-thugs in his movement. Further, when things start going bad, he and they and all the Trump voters are going to have have blame someone other themselves when the shit hits the fan. (This is already happening in the U.K. where the Exiters, led by the new PM, are blaming immigrants, the French and Germans, and the Scots for the economic downturn and all the other problems leaving the EU is bringing on.
singfoom
@Fair Economist: Not sure where you get the idea that I’m “not taking Drumpf seriously”. I take him as a threat to our system very seriously. Opining that I think that mass deportations and internment camps for his opponents seems unlikely does not equal taking him not seriously.
If you want to worry about those things as possible outcomes, be my guest.
Ella in New Mexico
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s just a non-issue, and it’s certainly no excuse. It had NOTHING to do with his Independent status, everyone knows it. It had to do with the simple fact that the DNC was going to do all it could to keep ANYONE ELSE besides Hilary Clinton from winning this time.
So you’re saying the DNC lied to him when it ok’d his running as a Democrat and they said “Cool, you’re a Democrat”? What if they had just started out the whole thing by saying, “Well, Bernie, here’s the thing. You only caucus with us and help us win in the Senate. You’re not REALLY a Democrat, sooooo–no. Go run as an independent.”
No. They didn’t. They gave him full credentials and opened their doors to him–because guess what? He IS a Democrat in terms of his lifetime of positions and votes. He brought a great deal of energy to the race and the Party. The Party has benefitted by the conversations over the past year, and it will be a better party because of it.
What if they had done the same thing to an Elizabeth Warren? An Al Franken? A Tammy Duckworth? Where would the country and the Party be now?
In the end, I still believe the voters and caucus-goers did speak, and she did fairly win the nomination. I support her and Kaine because they’re a bajillion times better for my nation than anything the Republicans can put up, especially Trump. But I still like things to be transparent, fair and I am pretty disgusted with the current DNC. So should you be.
People can hold those two thoughts in the same mind.
gwangung
@singfoom:
I’m sorry, but that just wreaks of privilege to me.
rikyrah
@singfoom:
Where have YOU been since 2010?
The GOP Congress, which has repealed Obamacare over 50 times?
Personhood – coming to a President Trump’s Desk.
Social Security – privatized and turned over to Wall Street
Medicare – turned into a voucher program
Exactly, what world have you been living in since 2010.
The only reason we haven’t been subjected to this is because of Harry Reid and President Obama.
And, if there is a President Trump, there’s no way that the Democrats would have taken back the Senate and the House.
The GOP in control of all three branches of Government would be the end of this republic.
GET.THE.FUCK.OUT.OF.HERE.
that this man isn’t a threat to this country.
There is no hyperbole.
Folks see it as it is.
And, as a non-White person in this country, quite frankly, I don’t have the LUXURY not to take the GOP and Their Racist, Facist Nominee at their word about what they’ll do to everyone non-White if they win.
bemused
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I agree. It’s an antiquated patriarchal custom that hasn’t been common in America for at least 60 years. I”m over 60 and I don’t don’t ever remember this being done by anyone I knew or knew of. The exception is probably very conservative religious families.
sherparick
For more on Tim Kaine and labor see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kaine-not-liberal-enough-just-ask-virginians/2016/07/24/ff5f6e2a-5
singfoom
@gwangung: Where exactly do I check my “doesn’t have to worry about internment camps / mass deportation” privilege exactly?
Fair Economist
@singfoom:
Dude, Trump has said he’ll deport 11 million Hispanics, to the overwhelming acclaim of Republican voters. Even if he can’t deport all of them he’s going to deport a lot of them, yes, literally millions. Many of them have lived in the United States since childhood and most have nowhere to go in whatever country they’ll get deported to. So, yes, a modern Trail of Tears. This isn’t hyperbole, this is what he’s promised to do and will pretty much have the power to do if elected.
Agrippa
@aimai:
Got it in one.
raven
@bemused: I did 18 years ago.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
It must be gratifying to realize that a morning thread headed by a picture of your cat is approaching T-Bogg numbers! Samwise will be proud (when he wakes up).
gwangung
@Ella in New Mexico:
I think the left is better for it, but I do not think Sanders has aided the Party, as an organization, very much. His focus on one particular issue, to the exclusion of local candidates and infrastructure to get those candidates elected, has not helped the organizational structure of the Party. There’s an implicit deal here that if you get the advantage of organization fundraising and manpower, there should be an equal contribution to the organization. I do not think that has been coming.
Keith G
@aimai: Wait…are you disagreeing with me even when I agree with you?
Mnemosyne
@singfoom:
I tend to agree that mass imprisonment is unlikely. Not impossible, unfortunately, but unlikely, especially when compared to all of the other bad shit that could happen.
raven
@Mnemosyne: Much more likely that we’ll ALL BE KILLED BY DRONZE!
Origuy
Может быт я могу читать по Руссий?
singfoom
@Fair Economist: I know what Trump has claimed to do. Have you considered the logistics concerned in deporting 11 million people?
In 2013, we deported 436K people according to Pew.
Deportation Statistics
So you think the US is going to deport 20 times that in a short time? Think about the logistics of it if nothing else. It’ll cost too much, it’s too heavy a lift. It’s not something that’s likely to happen, it’s like a moonshot of deportation.
The expansion of ICE would have to gigantic. How do they pay for it? I really don’t think it’s going to happen. If you want to worry about it, ok.
Agrippa
@Kay:
They are very close to the worst insurgents ever.
You are right about that!!
The Thin Black Duke
@singfoom: Problem is, what you’re saying is negating the experiences of other people who know what happens when enough loud angry stupid white guys get the power to make the decisions that impact everybody else who isn’t them.
Miss Bianca
@negative 1: “I should probably just stop coming here for a while.”
Or…here’s a radical notion…you *might* stick around. And you *might*say, “gee, maybe these people who are telling me that I’m full of it for defending Wikileaks and equating a couple of DNC emails with torture…have a point, after all. Could it be?”
Davis X. Machina
@rikyrah
For which, see LOLGOP in today’s National Memo.
negative 1
@aimai: Because I can’t find something where he supports unions? This is all asking why people may not support him. I did my research and posted it. If he said somewhere ‘I like unions’ or ‘I support unions’ I didn’t find it. You said he did, so I just assumed you had something. I realize that makes me spreading ‘brogressive’ views or whatever because I disagree with you.
@Emma: No. That’s us praising him, and great, but I get the annoying phone calls of how we’re all sellouts because we use their dues to back our enemies. Hate to say it but I don’t have a ton of backup at this point. Since my job will be harder to do or outright impossible if the right-to-starve people get what they want, I personally am a little concerned since Kaine seems to want it both ways. To me that signals a person who doesn’t seem to care about the issue much at all, actually.
@The Thin Black Duke: Of course, just like everyone commenting will. Once upon a time this internet discussion stuff was fun, a way to talk about our differences within a two party system and what ideals were worth backing. It’s OK to disagree, we’re adults. Shit I’m getting called all sorts of stuff for saying I don’t like a VP pick.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
Look. I want to defeat Donald Trump in November and elect Hillary Clinton. That is my number one priority for the next few months. If your priority is to carp about shit that happened during the primaries or complain about the AFL-CIO not being sufficiently supportive of unions because they gave Tim Kaine a 100 percent rating as a senator, that’s your privilege, but you shouldn’t expect other people to ignore the fact that DONALD FUCKING TRUMP IS THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT and maybe we should, you know, try to stop him from being elected. Process conversations that are interesting in a non-election year are completely irrelevant when DONALD FUCKING TRUMP IS THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT.
The train is leaving the station. Either climb on board or get the fuck out of the way.
sherparick
@singfoom: It may be just a “tail” risk, but it is still a possibility that Trump and his family would bring Putinism to America and I don’t think it can be dismissed. The Founders, flawed white men that they were, understood probably far better than most of us, who basically learn a false “Whig History” of the constant progress toward “liberal democracy,” that Republics were frail institutions and prone to fall into dictatorship or oligarchy (look at the fate all all Republics before the United States). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history
dmsilev
Now these fanatics are booing Nancy Pelosi to her face because she had the infernal nerve to urge party unity.
These are delegates, people selected by the Sanders campaign to represent him. Fuck them.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mnemosyne:
Again, their job was to remain neutral. And prepping to support the winning candidate is not the same thing as coming up with ideas to take down one of them so the other can win. Not sure how much clearer the bias can be.
So, unless we find out these emails are all just “National Enquirer Obtained These Photos of a Real Alien Baby” level of made up, I’m sticking with my assessment of the DNC and this whole fucking mess of a Primary season.
BR
@dmsilev:
They should be embarrassed — Barbara Lee is more progressive than Bernie.
Mnemosyne
@singfoom:
You know who else turned to a different solution when it turned out the logistics of deporting millions of people just weren’t feasible, don’t you?
I’m sorry, but if we can’t Godwin white supremacist-backed Donald Trump, who the fuck can we Godwin?
sherparick
@singfoom: They pay for it like they pay for anything Republicans want to do, whether tax cuts or wars, they borrow it. As Dick Cheney said “Deficits don’t matter.” (Unless a Democrat gets elected then they are the most important thing in the world.)
singfoom
@The Thin Black Duke: All I’m saying is that I think internment camps seems like the “sky is falling”. That doesn’t mean I don’t think Trump is a serious threat. I’m not trying to negate anyone’s experiences.
dmsilev
@Ella in New Mexico: Those emails were from mid-May. By mid May, it was obvious to anyone who could count or who could read 538 that Sanders had already lost and it was just a question of playing out the string. There was no need to “take [him] down”, as the voters had already done that by, you know, voting predominantly for Clinton.
Fair Economist
@singfoom:
The logistics are problematic only because of the complicated legal processes involved in deportation. If Trump’s immigration authority just arrests people, puts them on trains, and rolls them across the border, they can indeed deport millions. And once again, that’s what he’s said he’s going to do.
Keith G
@dmsilev: Pelosi et al are hard core, grizzled veterans of so much political fighting that I doubt such a scene would do much to phase them.
Mnemosyne
@Ella in New Mexico:
Okay, look. You know I love ya, right?
I realize that the Russian-backed Wikileaks and their pet Russian hacker have shoved a big, fat hook full of the tastiest, most tantalizing treat you’ve ever seen right in front of you, but for the love of God, will you please, please, please not take the bait? Pretty please? With sugar on top?
Now I really do have to head out to work.
ETA: Wikileaks is currently retweeting ANN COULTER. Their motive really could not be more clear here.
Emma
I do wonder what will happen when Bernie talks about unity tonight? I wonder if his rabid acolytes will boo him too?
dmsilev
@BR: They _should_ be embarrassed, but somehow aren’t. Since these are delegates rather than random protestors, I’m not suspecting paid ratfuckery, but rather what a different Russian despot famously described as “useful idiots”.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
No underwear models? I’m skipping this convention!
Ella in New Mexico
@dmsilev:
So, what? They’re not supposed to voice their frustration over the latest bullshit antics by the DNC against their candidate–at their own Party’s convention?
Seriously, the deep-seated need to squash any oppositional voices is more suited to Putin’s Republicans, not us. Let ’em get it off their chest so we can all move on.
Mary G
Samwise is a character and very handsome. Aimai and Keith G, you guys are on fire today.
randy khan
@negative 1:
94% rating from the AFL-CIO.
negative 1
@Miss Bianca: I didn’t mean that directed at you. I said I respected your position and why mine made me uncomfortable. I find that kind of discussion fun. I meant it for stuff like @Comrade Scrutinizer:
Speaking of you, Comrade, it’s no skin of your back if my friends and I lose our jobs to right-to-starve, because obviously though republicans have been trying for years to get it passed nationwide, almost succeeding until the fat bigot died before Friedrichs, it’s a democratic position to take since Tim Kaine is unassailable. When wages and worker protections erode just call anyone complaining ‘bros’ and tell ’em we’re better than Trump. After all if they make noise about it they’re insufficiently pure. Your choice of “comrade” is funny, though — your friends must be soooo impressed with how transgressive you are. Fake communist and all that. Funny thing, though — socialists like unions.
FlipYrWhig
@dmsilev: Such a pack of freakazoids. By the way, remember how Democrats had such a hard time getting elected between 1968 and 1992, which led to the birth of the “triangulating” Democrat who needed to distance himself from the popular conception of his party faithful? It was because of antics like this.
negative 1
@Emma: Probably. I’ll take that bet, anyway.
Davis X. Machina
@Emma:
This is bigger than Bernie now.
Bernie is actually a drag on “Bernie” at this point.
He will be repudiated by his supporters.
Listen for the tell-tale “Give us Barabbas” cheers…
Ella in New Mexico
@Mnemosyne:
What’s the bait, though? Is there any doubt the stuff is real? And yet, like I said, she won fair and square and I’ll be fighting for her till the last hour of November 8. But I will still hold my party accountable for it’s bad behavior.
SiubhanDuinne
@Emma:
Certainly some of them turned their backs on him/walked out when he endorsed Hillary a few weeks ago.
Fair Economist
@Ella in New Mexico:
Asking for unity behind the candidate supported by the majority of voters, the majority of states, and the majority of delegates is bullshit? Because that’s what they’re booing.
cokane
DNC emails don’t appear to prove shit to me. I don’t understand the rage about them, and ppl should recognize that journalists like Greenwald are giving a pretty tabloidy picture of them. Dems said some nasty shit behind closed doors. Ok? Most of these emails were after the Massachussetts primary — the key race Sanders had to win early if he wanted a chance to overtake Clinton.
And so far, no dot connecting has happened in any reporting on the leaked emails. Some staffer talked about using Sanders atheism against him. Where’s the political ad showing that they did that? Where’s ANY evidence that ANYBODY in the DNC did ANY chicanery in messing with vote or caucus results?? Seriously the emails amount to some shitty language and that’s it. Get the fuck over it, political ops talk like damn sailors behind closed doors and have for generations.
bmoak
@Keith G: Progressive hero Alan Grayson also signed on to that payday lender bill, something about the federal regs superseding Florida’s already strong laws. Is the Sanders wing of the party going to primary him, too?
Ella in New Mexico
@Davis X. Machina:
I can attest that he still has an incredible level of influence over the folks I know who support him, who heard his plea to vote for Clinton. To a one, they all plan to do that in the fall.
Those remaining folks you’re seeing out there–I really think they were A. All talk and no vote types. or B. Were probably gonna vote third party anyway.
gogol's wife
We went for a few weeks without hearing hardly anything about Sanders. Where were all the trolls during the RNC? It seems to me we were able to have discussions that centered on the actual nominees. Even the day Kaine was announced, we had a good day of discussion.
I hope soon to be able to never hear another word about Sanders. I knew very little about him before this campaign, and now I detest him almost as much as I detest Trump.
Emma
I don’t know how to properly link to twitter but from Michael Isikoff:
Ella in New Mexico
@bmoak:
I fucking hope so, that crackpot.
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne:
Wikileaks is the pet. The Russian hacker is an agent, probably a respected member of their spy service.
gwangung
@cokane: I do note that in wider circles, the impression is that DWS herself wrote all the memos. And the usual twits seem to be fostering that misconception.
Mnemosyne
@Ella in New Mexico:
The bait is that Bernie’s supporters are booing Democratic politicians onstage on live TV to try and make our convention just as much of a shitshow as the Republican one was. And so far, they’re succeeding. Thanks, Putin! That money was well-spent for you and Trump.
If something is taken out of context, its “realness” becomes a little equivocal, don’t you think? Are they real e-mails? Sure. Are they horrible and shocking when you actually look at the dates on them and see that they were written after Bernie lost on Super Tuesday? Only if you’re looking for a reason to be pissed off.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: Do you think there MIGHT be a SMALL distinction between what two people at an organization say to one another and the official views or behaviors of that organization?
Ella in New Mexico
@Fair Economist: Unfair and inaccurate. It’s a different setting and it’s not out of line.
gogol's wife
If only the NeverTrump people had gotten the kind of coverage the Bernie diehards are getting on TV, things might have looked different at the RNC too.
negative 1
@Mnemosyne: I just sort of start with the assumption that if we’re on this board we’re going to vote for the democratic candidate. This isn’t actually a GOTV effort, it’s a blog devoted to liberal politics. Hence why this is a good place for us to disagree when we’re not in public.
I think there are a fair amount of people for whom this is the only political discussion they get, but if anyone is interested in furthering a message by shouting about party unity it would actually make a positive difference if held in, say, CNN’s comment section or their local paper’s online section, where comments pro-the disgusting end of racist republicanism outweigh pro-democratic by 2 to 1. It would help people see those folks are trolls, not indicative of a true sample.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella in New Mexico: They’re not supposed to voice their frustration over the latest bullshit antics by the DNC against their candidate–at their own Party’s convention?
Jesus mother fucking god damn Christ. You mean the “-should we do this?” “-no” antics? Nothing. Fucking. Happened.
How fucking long does that fucking take?
If I had magic powers I would mute every BernieBot who can’t name their congressman and/or didn’t vote (if eligible) in 2014. I suspect the volume would drop considerably.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
I know that, and you know that, but I’m pretty sure that Wikileaks is under the impression that the tiger they’ve got by the tail is merely their tame housecat.
Davis X. Machina
@dmsilev:
¡Berniebros unidos
jamás serán vencidos!
La lucha sigue.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Ella in New Mexico: Bless your heart.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Happened without a hiccup (or notice) have T-Bogg threads become so normalized around here that we no longer even comment on the fact?
gogol's wife
The study of Russian has greatly decreased in this country since the collapse of the USSR. So people don’t have much interest in Russia or understanding of what it’s like to live under Putin. There is no independent media. Journalists are regularly murdered. It’s not like the Stalin purges, but it’s not a free society either. It happened gradually since Putin took office. He gradually eroded democratic processes that had been set up after 1991. It can absolutely happen here.
I am disturbed by the alliance among the Russian intelligence services, Wikileaks, Sanders supporters, and the MSM.
Fair Economist
@Ella in New Mexico:
Beyond third party, I think the large majority of the remaining BernieBros were never Sanders supporters at all. They were Hillary opponents, some Republican, some Libertarians, and some loonie left, who were using the Sanders movement as cover. I think it’s telling that Bernie did relatively better among *conservative* Democratic voters and worse among *liberal* ones. An awful lot of his voters weren’t voting to support his policies.
gogol's wife
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s troll-driven.
FlipYrWhig
@cokane: I don’t even think it sounds like “using it,” honestly. It read to me like a grouse that Sanders hasn’t had to answer questions about his religious views, and a suggestion that answering them might have an effect on his poll standing, but that’s not the same thing as saying “we should get someone to bring it up to help him lose.” Maybe I didn’t read the most incriminating details, though.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: You seem to be missing the point.
DID any of these things that everyone is so exorcised about ACTUALLY HAPPEN? The fact that a couple of people TALKED about Bernie Sanders’s alleged atheism as a point of attack?
DID they actually use it as a point of attack?
Uh…no. No, they did not.
“But, but they TALKED about it! That means they’re EVIL!”
Fuck that stupid bullshit. If Wikileaks could be bothered with “both sides do it”, I bet they could come up with a shit-ton of emails from Weaver et al. talking about what stupid smears they were planning to use against HRC.
You know, shit like “she’s a corporate whore/sell-out/not pure enough” etc.
You know…shit that they ACTUALLY DID.
“But, but the DNC is supposed to be NEUTRAL”!
No, they’re not. They’re supposed to help ELECT THE BEST FUCKING DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT. You’re shocked, shocked, that by May they might have been fed up enough with the bomb-throwing alte kocker who seemed intent on destroying the Democratic Party structure – to the point where he had completely dropped “income inequality” as his major campaign point and taken up “we was robbed” instead – to start fantasizing about ways to take him down? I’m not. Shit, I’d have been talking about dropping the shouty old fucker into the ocean, and letting his fans dive for him.
Which is probably one of the reasons I’ll never be elected to the DNC.
The Thin Black Duke
@singfoom: I know you’re not, and I don’t want to come across like an asshole. But unfortunately, people who aren’t white males can’t afford to give hate mongers like Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt anymore, especially when the Republicans are beginning to fall in line as they always do and the corporate news media is putting their thumbs on the scale.
Keith G
@Emma: Separate topic: Your Danegeld comment last night is my choice choice for Most Spot On Historical Reference for a Contemporary Event Award (MSOHRCE Award for short) Blog Comments Division.
As an English history reader, you had me at, “Hello”.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mnemosyne: Ok, points taken. I’d like to let the Sanders delegates blow off their steam earlier, rather than all throughout the convention, though. I hope the speeches tonight will make a difference.
But my point is that the party had no business doing anything to undermine one of it’s two candidates, no matter if it was Super Tuesday or June 12th–that was not it’s role. After all, he was Bernie Sanders, not Donald Trump. ;-)
So I guess what you’re saying is maybe these issues are better dealt with in the less open environment of Committee meetings or other DNC functions? You’re probably right.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
Given what several long-time posters (not in this thread) have been saying, you are working from an incorrect assumption. That may be part of the disconnect here — you’re assuming that everyone here will be voting for Hillary, but those of us who spend way too much time here know that that’s not the case.
If we didn’t have a group of #NeverHillarys who have been posting here for months, I think the various nitpicks about her campaign would be getting a less overwhelmingly negative response. But they are here, and so that’s why you’re getting that response.
Fair Economist
@Ella in New Mexico:
What’s inaccurate or unfair about what I said? Pelosi did call for party unity. They did boo. Clinton did win a majority of votes. Clinton did win a majority of states. Clinton did win a majority of delegates.
The Thin Black Duke
@Emma: Oh, I’m sure it’s a coincidence. Hail Bernie!
Emma
@Keith G: Thank you! My first college history prof. taught me that one. I find it one of the most accurate of the old saws.
mike in dc
#NeverPurityTrolling
El Caganer
@Kropadope: I’m a Vermin Supreme man, myself.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@negative 1:
See, there you go, spouting more bullshit. Or do you think that the AFL-CIO is full of right-to-work advocates, and their high rating of Kaine is because they are all closet Trump supporters. Tell me, who are you supporting in the general: Trump, Johnson, Clinton, or Stein? And if you aren’t supporting Clinton, how is that anything but a vote for Trump, no matter which lever you pull. If you pull that lever for anyone but Clinton, are you okay with an avowedly opponent to everything but white privilege?
Or are we back to evil manipulating git? I think so.
Miss Bianca
@bmoak: No. He’s a man. That automatically makes him a superior object to DWS, in the minds of the B-Bros.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: Good thing the party didn’t do anything to undermine one of its candidates, then, in that two people talking with no results tends to work against the whole “doing” part, much less the “undermining” part.
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s way too simplistic of an analysis.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca:“
Agreed. ONCE THE PEOPLE VOTE THEIR WILL.
And, so, why are you not angry that these idiots in the DNC had the stupidity to put shit like they did down on paper? THEY PROVED THE SANDERS PEOPLE RIGHT.
For the love of God don’t forget that if it can be done to someone you don’t support, it can be done to the one you do. If reforms are not made, we could find ourselves with an Democratic version of Trump the next time–WINNING. All they got to do is take over the apparatus.
singfoom
@The Thin Black Duke: I appreciate that, but I’m still at a loss where pointing out that internment camps seems hysterical is equal to negating anyone’s experiences or how that means I don’t take Drumpf seriously.
If people want to worry about the super unlikely outcomes, so be it. Cheers
The Thin Black Duke
@singfoom: Oh. O.K. Whatever. Bye.
negative 1
@Comrade Scrutinizer: You do know that Clinton and Kaine aren’t the same person, right? Like I can vote for Clinton but still not like her pick for VP? Maybe just maybe Clinton only picked Kaine to help her in Virginia, and maybe just maybe Trumka backs Kaine because he’s hoping to get the favor returned when it comes time to pick Supreme Court justices. So, like, we could talk about it on a liberal site, about why we don’t like the pick and would’ve preferred Tom Perez, in ways that Trumka can’t. Or, you could shout at the converted because you feel like that’s ‘action’ just like you feel like putting ‘comrade’ in your name makes you liberal.
Seanly
@hovercraft:
I’m not Hillary, but my own thought is that I don’t care who takes credit if the end result is the one that I want. Meaning, if I need to stroke Bernie’s ego to have him campaign and then I do end up winning, he can ride around town claiming it was his big victory. I’d still be president.
Cacti
@Ella in New Mexico:
Sanders was the Democratic version of Trump.
He lost.
Ella in New Mexico
@Fair Economist: Just that this is in the context of the National Convention, where they are ostensibly getting a last chance before the end of the week to express their point of view within the Party.
I don’t have an issue with expressions of disagreement, because I think it will be healthy in the long run and because I also think right now, it’s actually more symbolic than a representation of some kind of mutiny.
I look at it more like a family meeting, where people get to disagree but in the END we all come to agreement on just how we rotate the assignment for who cleans the cat turds out of the box.
It’s ok that it’s not the youngest kid anymore…
Fair Economist
@singfoom:
Internment camps are a red herring, because nobody’s said Trump is likely to do mass internment. It was pointed out as an example of how weak institutional restrictions are on a President who really wants to do something.
On the things people have actually raised, like mass deportations, civil service purges, and press repression, Trump has already *said* he’s going to do these things, and the institutional blocks on him are weak. They are not unlikely.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Seanly: seems to be the mode HRC’s been in for a couple of months, I just wonder how long the old fool has to be coaxed and begged and coddled.
@Cacti: we must reform the Party so that no individual staffer is ever again guilty of a Thought Crime.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig: Except those “two people” were rather powerful, top-level party employees. Not the guy in the mail room talking to the kid who puts flyers on people’s car windshields at the mall.
bemused
@raven:
Without your future wife present?
I’m ok with a couple telling the parents their plans, 2 adults to 2 other adults, but not ok with the guy alone asking daddy for permission to marry me without the future wife there too. Two different scenarios. Absolutely not my style or my spouse’s style and we were quite young, in our early 20’s at the time.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico:
Yup. It’s already happening, in fact – in the form of the BernieBros I know who were determined to get elected to the DNC and do away with evil superdelegates and change all the rules that they didn’t like – all the rules that seemed to be “unfair” to their candidate. Till they weren’t. Then they weren’t so sure. In fact, they weren’t sure of anything except that “the whole system is corrupt, man!”
*THAT’S* how we’ll’ get our version of Trump. He’ll be spouting Bernie slogans. He’ll be enabled by aggrieved white “progressives”. And if we’re lucky he – for it will be a “he” – will lose to a Republican candidate who is, in fact, slightly LESS insane than Trump, rather than MORE.
In other words, YOUR fears appear to me to be groundless. Mine, on the other hand? I’m not so sure.
ETA: Bernie, as someone pointed out, *is* our Trump.
Fair Economist
@Ella in New Mexico:
This was private email, and they had every reason to expect them to remain private. They didn’t realize the Russian spy service would be hacking into their servers. The revelation that Trump is running a cash flow deficit and is already massively in debt to Putin cronies only came in the past few days.
aimai
@negative 1: Utterly masturbatory. Its basically arguing about rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic while some members of the crew are staving holes in the side.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So ready for Bernie to give his lame convention speech, issue a tepid endorsement, then go back to being the ineffectual Senate jag off he’s always been.
Ruviana
@Barb2: I defended that jacket on another blog. I LOVE the fabric!
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: I think because I’m not coming from the perspective of working inside the party I see things a little more clearly from a voter’s point of view. It’s important to do that now and then if you’re coming from a Party worker’s perspective. I also think that I can hold my party accountable and still support it.
@Fair Economist:
Yes, I understand that. But the greater point is that the Party had no business choosing sides in the Primary, while the voters were still making up their minds. After, yes. Before, no. And the fact that it was top-level people who were doing it was wrong.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: Two important people talking and then… doing nothing. I think it’s fine to say that the party shouldn’t continue to employ someone who airs stereotypes about Christians’ reaction to the relative merits of Jews and atheists, because that’s indiscreet verging on offensive. It may even be fine to say that DNC employees shouldn’t be snarking about any of their candidates because neutrality is important. Fine, conceded. But it really doesn’t prove anything about rigging, insofar as rigging involves the doing of things, none of which seem to have been done.
negative 1
@aimai: Um… isn’t commenting on a blog by definition masturbatory? It’s almost like it’s a magazine with real time letters to the editor. You actually think any of this shit is accomplishing something?
MomSense
@Keith G:
I’m unable to link to tweets here but it was reported by Nancy Cordes of CBS News. She is a Congressional Correspondent who is covering the DNC Convention.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella in New Mexico: “the Party” is not one person saying, “should we do this?” especially when one other person says, “no”.
You want I should type that slower for you?
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: Yeah, its way, way, out of line. Politics, as John Cole points out upstairs, is not all about people needing to vent their feelings and shout at people on stage. Unbelievable that you keep defending this crappy behavior because of some vague notion that “she deserved it.” The mob, if it is poorly led enough, will always find a reason that its object of hate deserves it. Rather than clutching your pearls about how some people in the DNC thought that Bernie wouldn’t be a good president you might stop and think about just how crappy a president Bernie would have been if he can’t excercise minimal control, like No Drama Obama, over his excitable fans. If he had rebuked his own riotous supporters over Nevada, instead of basically blaming everyone else, he’d have more control right now.
aimai
@negative 1: Well–its not the only form of politics in which I am engaged so that is neither here nor there. For me its a little light entertainment while I do a ton of other shit. But, no, I don’t argue over anything irrelevant, even online.
D58826
I guess because it’s Monday but did we just blow thru a TBOG w/o anyone noticing?
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: But this wasn’t two people making decisions for or as The Party. The Party didn’t do squat. Two party staffers said snippy things about Bernie Sanders. Show me how it translated into decisions or deeds. I don’t think anyone can. This is why it’s a story about insensitivity and indiscretion, not a story about skulduggery and malfeasance.
Ella in New Mexico
@aimai: Seriously, aimai, in my esperience here, you read WAY too much into things people write, and then project a lot of stuff that’s just not there. So there’s no way to sanely or reasonably respond to that paragraph. I just can’t right now.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: So, are you cool with Sanders campaign shenanigans? Funny how we’ve forgotten that his campaign considered DNC data its personal poaching preserve, ain’t it?
From the point of view of a voter, I find selective outrage over Sanders being “unfairly treated by the DNC” and silence on the ethical lapses of the candidate *and* his campaign to be hypocritical at best, actively damaging at worst.
japa21
@Ella in New Mexico: Show me how the Party chose sides and did anything to promote that choice and I may agree with you. They gave Bernie the benefit of the doubt over and over, despite his criticisms of them.
The mere fact that the suggestion was not acted upon shows the Party disapproved and considering their position in the Party, the person who made sure that it didn’t happen is almost undoubtedly DWS.
Yes, this is probably the last chance to get their views, which are almost identical to Clinton’s views, out there, but what they are really doing is working to make sure the policies they favor will never happen.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig: So, there’s no chance that these top-level folks had no agenda or culture in which Sanders was perceived as an enemy during the entire Primary season? And that the stolen emails just reflect a really, really bad day of snark?
Then were were the responding “That’s just not appropriate, that’s not our job, you shouldn’t be talking like that” emails? Which is what I would have sent. Particularly if I was praying to Dog that Hilary won.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: Well, the problem with your analogy is that the entire family discussion is happening on prime time tv and being watched and commented on by lots of other people including, you know, VOTERS.
The weird thing about your argument is that its supposedly all for the benefit of Democratic voters, voters who have been lied to and put down and whose only hope is Bernie or Bernie’s platform argle bargle the super delegates/rpocess shit/dws/tpp. But the convention is actually aimed at a whole lot of OTHER voters–the voters Bernie pretended he could get (angry white male working class voters) and democratic/independent voters who were not yet paying attention to the ins and outs of the primary. There are tons of people who don’t vote in primaries at all, not because they are dissaffected but because they don’t think about politics all the time and they vaguely trust their party to throw up an ok candidate. Which it did.
So the convention and the run up to the convention were all times that the party, for very good reason, wanted to display joy and unity to the country, a sense of purpose and a sense of optimism. Bernie and his fans have pissed all over that as much as they could, supposedly for the benefit of the future revolutionary party voters but at the same time, when you point out how bad this looks, people just turn right around and say no one is watching, or its all healthy fun, or just typical rough and tumble play which will end with the convention.
Well–Bernie’s leaked emails and his refusal to stop pillorying DWS and Kaine for improper revolutionary bona fides just pissed all over Hillary’s roll out of Kaine. And we still have to go into the convention fighting over DWS–that’s not Hillary’s fault, that’s Bernies. He whipped people up into a frenzy of unjustified hate at a purely functionary position and now he can’t get his voters to back down.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well, there you make a good point. They haven’t proved their innocence.
JudyinSD
@MomSense: Here is the link to Nancy Cordes tweet re Bernie moving to 10pm speaking slot. https://twitter.com/nancycordes/status/757535086006956033
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: Again, I think it’s useful to see this situation from the framework of a family.
How can Mom and Dad claim they want to create an environment in which all the same basic rules apply to all the kids, and so if they punish one for doing something wrong all of the kids can expect that if they avoid that behavior, they’ll stay out of trouble? How do you create a system that is perceived as just, predictable, and stable if they overtly spoil or indulge or otherwise prefer one of the kids?
Organizations, from the smallest boy scout troop up to the biggest corporations and institutions, are simply public versions of the family. The same roles, the same rules, the same kind of emotional environments that make a family dysfunctional make organizations dysfunctional. And they can’t work if they’re dysfunctional.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: How is that reading anything at all into anything? Its obvious that Bernie’s voters–although you think its all outside agitators or something–are shittign all over the party and the convention and that if Bernie were a better leader he could control them. “Who me? I didn’t do it” is really not a good look on a politician, especially one who has prided himself on the enthusiasm of his supposed millions of hard core supporters.
MomSense
@JudyinSD:
Thank you.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: But its not because this is not happening within a family. As I pointed out upthread. And to the extent that Bernie wants to use the family analogy he’s more like a distant cousin who comes to the house, takes all the food, complains about the service, refuses to kick in his fair share, and then bitches and moans about how the other siblings like each other just fine and don’t cater to his every whim.
aimai
@MomSense: Yup, there you go. Bernie needs alllllllll the attention.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig:
Thank you. That’s all the point I was trying to make and you summed it up nicely.
D58826
Enough with the d*****m e-mails and DWS. Do you want something to REALLY worry about:
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: It’s NOT useful to look at the DNC in the framework of a family, because it’s NOT A FUCKING FAMILY. It’s a political organization that is working, yes, to promote CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE. And if a couple of higher-ups decide, in emails that should have remained private, but for some rat-fuckers deciding to make them public, to discuss tactics, that’s their prerogative, and no matter whether I might personally find these tactics distasteful, I’m not prepared to get my knickers in a twist about it. Particularly if they don’t actually USE those tactics.
ETA: And no – organizations are not just “a public version of the family.” That’s BS. You don’t hire, fire, swap out family members. And anyone who views themselves as “parents” or “children” in the framework of an organization has some serious mental issues.
D58826
well I could not edit the previous comment.
more from the article:“Never have we had a candidate so tied to a foreign power, especially one that is so hostile to the U.S. in many ways, and one that is actively messing with our election,” said one former senior intelligence official. “Many [in the intelligence community] don’t care about U.S. politics and pride themselves on being nonpartisan, but the ties to Russia are deeply disturbing.”
Former intelligence officials say that Trump would not be briefed on covert actions or learn about sensitive sources or methods of collecting intelligence, but he could have access to information that would be highly valuable to Putin.
That could include briefings on U.S. strategy in Syria or Ukraine; the CIA’s assessment of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad or the Russian leadership; or U.S. spy agencies’ knowledge of Russian military movements.
so here is the link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/putin-trump-national-security-briefings_us_57963cd6e4b02d5d5ed2476b
Emma
@Ella in New Mexico: What you would have sent expresses only your own style of management. When I was a manager I was REQUIRED to not put anything in writing until the second or third problem arose. When I put something in writing it was official, so many of us resorted to unofficial ways of handling the problem. Maybe she just pulled them into her office and said, “we won’t do anything like this ever, so cut it out,” because they were good at their job and she wanted to minimize the damage.
Whatever happened, it worked, because NOTHING WAS DONE.
Emma
@D58826: My Dad, who is a big diplomatic history buff, is having serious kittens. Enough that the old Republican has promised to vote for Hillary this time around.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: I don’t know about you, but I complain about coworkers behind their backs A LOT. Even over email. And yet when I have decision-making power that affects them directly, I am scrupulously fair, because I may have to be able to justify that decision, and I can’t very well say that the reason was spite. This strikes me as a pretty common workplace phenomenon spanning any number of professional cultures.
catclub
@D58826: This theme is getting legs – NYT coverage. another place where Josh Marshall gets there first.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: Pretty much all the research and accepted thinking on the subject is that organizational dynamics reflect the “original organization”, the family. No, they’re not related. No not exactly. And no, thankfully, I won’t be putting all their members kids through college.
They just interact like one, and as the individuals within them tend to see them through that framework, their psychology and social dynamics are more easily understood by using the analogy.
@Emma:
Maybe, and I’d certainly hope so. I wouldn’t have used “email” for that lecture, either. Out of context of my rhetorical comment above in which people were communicating by email about the topic. DWS did respond in a non-committal/non-approving email, from what I’ve seen so it was possible she did exactly that.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca:
Well, there’s an entire branch of Psychology devoted to it’s study, and a lot of pretty healthy thinkers who would disagree with you there…;-)
Captain C
@hovercraft: Apparently The Revolution requires a private plane for its Leader, paid for by someone else. This will only speed up the end of income inequality. (How? Don’t ask questions!)
Gvg
@Ella in New Mexico: no their job actually was not to remain neutral. You stating it does not make it true. Their job is to get as many democrats elected as possible because they believe democrats support them as human beings. The most important democrat to elect whose popularity impacts all the other democrats trying to get elected is the president. A bad candidate who appeals to most primary voters but who has terrible negatives in the general is a threat and they should try not to be in that position. Democrats have a past where this happened and I think the GOP is going to have one next. The super delegates were invented to try and prevent it from happening to us again. Bernie’s maybe atheism probably would have been a serious problem in the general and I am afraid the socialism and honeymoon in the USSR would be too. I wish atheism wasn’t a problem because I am one, but my experience is that it is.
In addition the email quoted to me implied that the actual suggested was bothered by it for his religious reason and knew others in his circle would too. That is exactly what I would expect actually just not the same degree everywhere.
Lastly Bernies spent a lot of time attacking the actual party including average voters. That pissed me off and in a normal year I might not have voted for him. I don’t have that luxury while the whole GOP is full of angry nuts but maybe various employees of the DNC didn’t like being insulted? Maybe they are right too.
You also are attacking an institution that has protected my rights and interests for decades. You and Bernie are not being persuasive. In the end Bernie lost because more voters wanted Clinton and there are good reasons she is better. Blaming the DNC is silly scapegoating. Really more people thought differently that you and thus chose differently. Maybe we are wrong but we all got to vote. I usually haven’t gotten my first choice. I don’t go around bothering everyone with conspiroucy excuses.
NorthLeft12
@sherparick: The groups that you listed that have been slurred by Trump should be aligned against him pretty strongly don’t you think? And I would also say that those groups make up a very, very large minority of the US voting population, right?
So do the math and I think you have to come to the conclusion that Trump will have an awfully difficult path to victory, unless those groups do not vote. The Dems need to identify these people and get them out to vote. Personally, they should be very well motivated to vote for Clinton and especially against Trump.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: I do not now, nor have I ever, viewed organizations I work for as “a family”, a boss as a father or mother. I don’t care what organizational psychology says or doesn’t say to justify it. Organizations are not “families”, and whether or not people think they are, they’re not. A “family” you can be hired into or fired from is not a family.
J R in WV
@amk:
“It IS a cat.”
No.
Just no.
That’s a badger. Look at how gray it is!
;-)
I just thought this giant thread should end with a punch line…