According to CNN, the Bernie Sanders campaign told supporters the senator is assessing his 2020 bid in light of last night’s results. Sounds like he’s gonna hang it up, then. It’s for the best. Open thread.
ETA: Here’s more complete info from The Post:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will spend the next few weeks talking to supporters to “assess his campaign,” his campaign manager said Wednesday following decisive victories Tuesday by former vice president Joe Biden in Florida, Illinois and Arizona that gave him firm control of the Democratic nominating contest.
“The next primary contest is at least three weeks away,” Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s manager said in a statement. “Sen. Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign. In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.”
So, probably not today or even this week, but in all likelihood before another primary. Again, that’s for the best given the insurmountable delegate lead and danger of asking people to cast ballots during a pandemic.
CNN on Biden’s speech last night:
Biden said he and Sanders “may disagree on tactics, but we share a common mission” on issues like health care, income inequality and climate change.
“Sen. Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues, and together they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country,” Biden said.
“So let me say especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Sen. Sanders: I hear you. I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do. Our goal as a campaign and my goal as a candidate for president is to unify this party, and then to unify the nation.”
That’s a smart approach. Good for him.
Baud
I hope so, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
PenAndKey
You know, we could all use a little good news today. This would do it.
dmsilev
Let’s hope. If nothing else, that would let the remaining states shift their primaries for all the downticket races to the late spring or early summer, giving time to ramp up a pervasive vote-by-mail system.
Lapassionara
Cue the Twitter harpies.
Good morning, everyone, since I must have missed the morning thread.
MazeDancer
Three weeks of assessing means 3 weeks of grifting.
zzyzx
That would indeed make things better.
Baud
@dmsilev:
It’s why the unnecessary several week delay is not helpful.
PST
I sure hope he pulls out. My dog Bernie has been asking for a name change lately, but that would probably calm her down. She’s young and adaptable, but I’m too old to get used to calling her something different.
marklar
“That Sanders guy sounds like a bootlicking capitalist shill rat snake. Bernie or Bust!!”, said the Bro.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Same here
dmsilev
@Baud: (optimistically), it could be sooner. Notice what the spokesman said. “The next primaries are three weeks away. We are assessing the campaign”. Two separate sentences. It gives the impression that Sanders is going to take those three weeks to do the reassessment/post-mortem, but it doesn’t explicitly say “we’re fighting on to the next primary” like he did last week.
I have to find hints of optimism wherever possible these days. Don’t ruin my fond dreams, please.
Don Beal
Vote by mail works. We have a wonderful example right here in Oregon.
Please raise your hands if you think the House under Pelosi will prevent the looting that the Republicans have planned under the banner of stimulus. She has all the cards but she and her corporate friendly peers (moderates) will bail out business after business and require nothing in return. See how quickly sick leave provisions got gutted. Dean Baker has more this morning.
different-church-lady
It’s amazing how little I feel bad for Sanders.
Chyron HR
Translation: He’s going to keep the grift going for three more weeks* during which we’re not allowed to call on him to drop out because he’s assessing his campaign, man.
* After which he will refuse to drop out.
Immanentize
Bernie wants to assess? Here’s an assessment. He lost.
Now get with the Democratic Party program and support Biden. Or at least do what Warren is doing — don’t endorse, but work closely with Biden on issues of great importance to you. If that is healthcare, work with Joe now.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Three weeks of grifting means another vacation home for the socialist Jesus.
different-church-lady
@Don Beal: Oregon, huh? That explains a lot…
MattF
’I’ll think about it for a few weeks’ isn’t good enough. Sanders should stop taking contributions now and donate what he’s got to other causes.
different-church-lady
@Chyron HR: Maybe he just wants to see if Joe’s gonna catch the Coronas.
OzarkHillbilly
I am choosing to interpret the wording as “I am taking 3 weeks to let my supporters down gently. I don’t want them walking the country off a cliff in a suicide pact.”
I know, hope springs eternal.
Amir Khalid
@PST:
Maybe you could compromise and call her Bernice.
Baud
@Don Beal:
You never have all the cards when you actually care about people’s lives.
Chyron HR
@Don Beal:
Have you considered the possibility that Bernie is lying to you, in order to gain money and political power for himself? You know, like a politician does?
O. Felix Culpa
Nor do you have all the cards when you’re one-half of one of three branches of government. But let’s blame the woman (not you, the other guy). Sheesh.
Aziz, light!
@different-church-lady: Yeah, we have a surfeit of Berners here.
PST
@Amir Khalid: Her full name is Bernadette, but you know how it is with a child. If you use the full name they think they’re in trouble.
Shalimar
Isn’t that close to the same language they used after Super Tuesday too?
zzyzx
This tweet came up in my feed in one of those “other people you know follow him” things. It’s a good sign that some are moving to bargaining.
Kathleen
@different-church-lady: Like he and Lady MacGrift were waiting for Hillary to be indicted in 2016.
Chyron HR
@zzyzx:
Can someone with a stronger stomach than me explain the difference between #NotMeUs and #WWG1WGA?
Calouste
A president who takes weeks to make a decision might not be what people are looking for in the current period of crisis.
NotMax
“After exhaustive study, we’ve determined that the votes of 300% of the college students forced out of state before the primaries would have had us run the field, so it would be an insult to them to give up now.”
//
MomSense
@Don Beal:
Fuck off.
dr. bloor
@Don Beal:
As the kids say, LOL.
Chyron HR
@dr. bloor:
She’s got all the cards, and they’re all full houses.
dnfree
News reports and speculation about Bernie dropping out always seem to adds that if he dropped out, the rest of the primaries could be canceled. But in Illinois, at least, there are other national (senator Durbin), state, and local races on both the Democratic and Republican ballots, as well as nonpartisan local issues. Are there actually states where the sole purpose of the election is the presidential primary?
Another Scott
“So, you’re saying there’s a chance!!”
He should withdraw within the week. In 3 weeks time the vast majority are going to be thinking, “OMG let me out of the house!! Bernie who? Is that the congresswoman from Hawaii who likes Assad?? Help me out here…!!”
Cheers,
Scott.
Don Beal
If you really care about peoples lives you don’t hide behind Republican intransigence to plead your case. A little “Shock Doctrine” education right in front of us and you know how it will play out.
different-church-lady
@zzyzx: I’m pretty sure bargaining is not one of the five stages for Bernie Bro grief. It’s more like anger, anger, anger, extorting, anger.
zzyzx
@dnfree:
Yes.
Our Seattle ballots usually have all sorts of random stuff in them, but the primary was just the presidential races.
Don Beal
@MomSense: Are you a Biden bro? I call on Joe Biden to make you be civil.
A Ghost to Most
@Chyron HR: One Is for earth, the other is for earth2.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: I think it is clear that “the other guy” only performs compassion as a way of firing up his anger. It is really sorta sad. And super annoying.
Don Beal
@dr. bloor: Read Dean Baker
Baud
@Don Beal:
That was civil. You don’t want to see MomSense be uncivil.
different-church-lady
@Don Beal: “I called on your mother last night, Trebek!“
different-church-lady
@Baud: I do.
NotMax
@Don Beal
Yup, Pelosi is 100% responsible for Republican stupidity and cupidity. What a witch.
“I’d like to buy a clue, Pat.”
Betty Cracker
@dnfree: Yeah, in FL (or at least in my district and the districts of some friends I spoke to) yesterday’s vote was presidential primary only. They’re having primaries for other races in August. Because Florida I guess.
Another Scott
@Don Beal: I do, quite frequently. I’ll bet the Speaker’s staff does as well.
Nancy isn’t the enemy.
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chyron HR: She has all the cards in a deck 8.66666666667.
Gin & Tonic
@dnfree: Yes. In RI the “Presidential preference primary” is in April, and the primaries for all other offices are in September.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott: Oh honey, whey you don’t get your revolution, everyone’s the enemy.
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott:
Go fuck yourself, you neoliberal shill.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Misery does the same. Because if we held them all the same day we could expand Medicaid or something with the savings.
different-church-lady
@zzyzx:
Don’t.
Because that’s pretty much what that thread amounts to.
dnfree
Here’s my concern about widespread “unsupervised” voting such as by mail or online. People talk about in-person vote fraud, but what would prevent buying votes, watching to be sure the voter filled out the ballot correctly, collecting it, and mailing it in or clicking the “enter” button?
O. Felix Culpa
@dnfree: We have multiple offices on the primary ballot in New Mexico, a number of which are contested. I think our Secretary of State is exploring ways to move to a statewide mail-in ballot (our primary is June 2nd). We already have no-excuse absentee balloting, so the biggest challenge would be logistics at this point.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: How did the koftas turn out?
schrodingers_cat
Bolshie Don only appears in posts about BS from Vt, coincidence? I think not.
Betty Cracker
@zzyzx: Daou is a clown, IMO. He was an insufferable scold on Hillary Clinton’s behalf in the 2008 primary, an absurdly mawkish defender of Sarah Palin during the 2008 general election, a tiresome whiner during Obama’s tenure (not that he was always wrong, but he was always tiresome and always whiny). I laughed my ass off when I realized (also via other people’s Twitter) that he’d become a Sanders convert and was applying his extra-special brand of priggishness to that effort.
OzarkHillbilly
Maybe we should just do away with this whole democracy thing. Then we could all argue about the important things in life like, “Cats or Dogs, which is better?”
satby
Deleted
satby
@Don Beal: just because you don’t seem to be able to grasp the math of how legislation passes and becomes law, or of how voters determine elections, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t understand it. And like sane people, we blame Republicans, not Pelosi and the Democratic Party.
NotMax
@dnfree
“Someone at the USPS tested positive, so in the interest of public safety we’re burning all the mail-in ballots. Bonfire to be telecast on pay-per-view.”
//
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: Don’t know if you’re a Pod Save America listener, but Katie Porter (D-CA) was on a recent episode, and she had some interesting things to say about the House bill and the strategy going forward. Made me feel a little better about the whole thing.
PenAndKey
So, does that also come with the bad early 90’s hair cuts and obligatory little kid like the sci-fi show of the same name?
Don Beal
@Chyron HR: I listened to Bernie Sanders for years on the Thom Hartman show. He is genuine and his record is consistent. Your fits of pique because he dared run against Hillary are obvious to the rest of the progressive world.
Chyron HR
@Don Beal:
So… anything at all to say about The Chosen One’s failing campaign? Doesn’t it bother you that everything you stand for has been crushed by Joe Biden, a man that Bernie claims is suffering from BRAIN DAMAGE?
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: No, I’m a luddite that doesn’t listen to podcasts of any sort. ;-) I understand Katie is a treasure.
My rep, Don Beyer, is vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee. They’re working on several sensible proposals, but they know that nothing will happen if it can’t be passed and signed into law.
Incremental progress…
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Don Beal: Knock it off, Doug J.
Immanentize
An always consistent record in a time of change is the first ingredient of disaster. I never understood why this was a compliment instead of a put down.
Thank God Sanders still wears an onion on his belt!
Don Beal
@satby: I know a phony plea of helplessness when I see it. When you go into negotiations with no demands of any significance you are signaling what you will accept. The weak tea of her solutions are clear to anybody who pays attention. Where is the demand for continued employment of laid off workers if the airlines get bailed out? Where is the demand for guaranteed jobs for willing workers? A limited payout of thousand dollar checks to qualified workers… please!
Immanentize
@different-church-lady: Doug J has a child now. He can understand priorities outside of himself.
MomSense
@Don Beal:
We know he is genuine and consistent. It’s the ineffectual, uncompromising, and frankly not well versed in the policy details we don’t like.
Gin & Tonic
@Don Beal:
So is Lyndon LaRouche.
Another Scott
@Don Beal:
AlFranken.com:
Yeah, his record is consistent. Uh, huh. Only Bernie is pure enough to say that only Bernie’s M4A and Single Payer is good enough.
Except when, away from the adoring crowds, it isn’t.
You need to up your game quite a bit. So far, it’s not working. ;-)
Don’t paint yourself into a corner. Politics is about finding ways to solve communal problems. It’s not about purity – it requires compromise.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Don Beal: Ah, you learned negotiation from Donald Trump? Only positional dominance negotiation is successful? You really know nothing about alternative dispute resolution, do you?
If Pelosi really was the tool of corporatists as you say, there would have been no bill out of the House until the Senate acted.
Yutsano
@Don Beal: Do me a favour: explain his exact Congressional record. I’ll wait.
EDIT: Another Scott just scored you a solid there. Might want to see if you can expand on that.
Don Beal
@Chyron HR: The media, Micheal Bloomberg and the DNC has worked its magic. It has to get worse before enough people see the current path is unsustainable. When climate change drowns out Florida and one pandemic after another devastates the world due in part to global heating we will either wake up the the system is failing us or, more likely, hunker down in our little comfort zones until we all perish.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Totally, completely, entirely OT.
Finding the denuded upper lip somewhat … weird?
Omnes Omnibus
@Don Beal: I have an idea for an experiment; we can use it to find out if you are right. Let’s elect Democrats to an overwhelming majority in the Senate, House, and state legislatures. Then let’s see what kind of legislation gets approved.
Don Beal
@Another Scott: You all will buy any smiley face statement. Just wait to see what comes out.
Yutsano
@NotMax: Wait…you’re starting Balloon Juice After Dark at 700 Pacific time? :P
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: nope.. He’s on the phone with the Biden campaign making demands. He wants to continue his grifting . Biden should say you get nothing.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Don Beal:
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s “this thing” going around, some kind of virus, we’re trying to encourage folk not to congregate together, you know like what they do when they go to work.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Don Beal: HA! I didn’t think you were a Ruskie troll, just a fool, but that last sentence… it’s a real tell.
Chyron HR
@Don Beal:
Oh, I’m sorry, you’re not mad that you lost to Biden, you’re mad that you lost to CLINTON. My mistake.
A) Being consistently opposed to gun control for decades isn’t something for an alleged Democrat to brag about.
B) He immediately flip-flopped on that “genuine consistent” position after Parkland, and then went back to being pro-school shotings once the political pressure died down.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT, but I had the displeasure of listening to Rick Scott blather on the radio this morning on some RWNJ show. I was stunned at how breathlessly stupid he sounds as he rapidly stammers out bullet points.
I can’t believe that anybody actually voted for him due to vocal quality alone.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic:
I guess dead is consistent.
Yutsano
@Don Beal: You…really don’t know how legislation works do you? Okay I’m done someone call the troll factory. We need a better playtoy.
Gravenstone
@PST:
C’mon, we’ve all been there as kids.
Immanentize
@NotMax: really weird! I first grew a goatee when I started law teaching and I looked like a teenager. I wanted to look older. I have had facial hair since then with some minor exceptions. Now, after shaving, I look older than with my little beard. Aging, not for the timid.
All that said, it really is a huge benefit to keeping me from touching my face. So older looking but safer.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah and do it for more than 2 years at a time.
different-church-lady
@Don Beal: “What a performance!“
NotMax
@Yutsano
Desperate times call for … something something, mumble mumble.
;)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Don Beal:
Guaranteed jobs doing what? Under what management scheme?
All three of my adult children are unemployed as of this week; one lost her TA position as well as her side bartending gig, one lost hers as a server and another lost her distillery guide and retail position. My wife, after a 30 some odd year career in travel and a solid book of luxury clients, just watched her annual commissions go from 150K per annum to zero (and every bit of labor she did from December on to go completely uncompensated, as she doesn’t get paid until departures). Each of those positions relies entirely on discretionary income, which will be in short supply after whatever halfass “recovery” happens, and in my wife’s case, on the availability of rock-solid investment funds, whether retirement or otherwise.
What are they all going to do – learn to code? Work at the census bureau? We’re taking it up the ass because the tests weren’t done and the carriers and vulnerable weren’t isolated.
Matt
My view is Sanders should drop out, but to tell his voters to keep voting for him in the primary as a vote for his policies to show the Democratic party that they can’t ignore the popularity of his ideas if they win the White House.
Biden has been a crappy candidate who has won because of what others have done, not really himself. I hope he can win this thing, in these times we’re counting on him.
artem1s
@MazeDancer:
My thoughts exactly. the next few weeks will be spent grifting and attacking Dems, both Biden and Warren to get donations. He’s never going to stop. He’s addicted to the attention, the rallies, and the money.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Dogs.
Juice Box
@Don Beal: I listened to Bernie Sanders for years on the Thom Hartmann show which coincided with my lunch break. At first I was intrigued, but after a while, I realized that he was really superficial, rigid, impractical. and repetitive. He seemed to have no idea how bills were passed. He also gave Hartmann a wink and a nod pass on the anti-vaccine stuff as well as having a bad pro-gun history. I guess that makes me a neoliberal corporatist shill.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
What a relief to be arguing about Bernie rather than killing off old people, right?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I’m in agreement. Damn. Now what do we argue about?
different-church-lady
@Juice Box:
Well, what doesn’t nowadays?
Marcopolo
Haven’t read the thread yet (that’s next) and am sure someone has said this, but it doesn’t take a few weeks to assess where Sanders is right now. This is just a despicable move that will allow him to further grift his supporters for a couple weeks for millions of dollars.
Asshole.
OzarkHillbilly
I smoked a ham yesterday after having brined it using a new recipe for 2 weeks. Damn, I done good.
Chyron HR
@Matt:
The primary voters have been rejecting Bernie’s ideas for weeks. How is him dropping out going to boost his turnout to the point that DA STABBISHMENT will no longer be able to ignore his voice?
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly:
How do you get those things to fit in the rolling paper?
OzarkHillbilly
Via Liberal Capitalist says: in a thread over at OTB:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: It’s difficult but the buzz is incredible.
Cameron
Sanders should drop out today. At this point his campaign only serves as a distraction from the public health disaster we should be focusing on.
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: You have to shred the pork very finely.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: cats
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Another couple of points:
schrodingers_cat
BS new found love for immigrants is completely hokey as are his reversals on his gun stance. Why is this man considered a “progressive” when all he is, is a Marxist retread from the 60s.
Here is his wife with Joe fucking Arapaio in 2016.
BretH
@dnfree: Nothing, same as buying a walk-in vote. Except the threat of a felony if the scheme was caught because of how many people were bought and how they ALL have to stay quiet, and the difficulty of swaying an election if you don’t buy out a large number of people.
A Ghost to Most
@PenAndKey: No, it comes with Sonic tater tots
NotMax
@Ozark Hillbilly
Extrapolating.
March 31: “So long, suckers. You’re all gonna DIE.”
//
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
What about the seeds and stems?
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Scott really is the most godawful retail politician who ever lived. He has no social skills. Horrible public speaker. The first time I heard him at a debate, I wondered not only how his party managed to nominate him but how he rose high enough in a hospital corporation to steal millions of dollars and get away with it.
He’s so terrible at debates that I am in an agony of embarrassment on his behalf — and I HATE the sumbitch! But he makes up for it by being extremely disciplined and canny in his outreach. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Florida Dem Party has been a goddamn basket case for decades…
satby
@Gin & Tonic: thank you.
Marcopolo
@Don Beal: Okay.
Now what positive action are you taking to try to keep this from happening?
I call my D MoC every week. My Senators are R’s so they don’t care. Do you want us to reach out to Pelosi’s office?
Bitching here & a few bucks will get you a cup of coffee.
Mike R
@Immanentize: Well onions were the fashion, hope he can get white ones.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Oh hell no! Cats are far inferior. They never wag their tails in happiness. They never jump up on you when you first come home. The don’t howl with glee at your arrival. They don’t fetch anything. Home protection amounts to hiding under the bed. They pee on your used undies (hmmmm… I think my old dog did that a time or 2 too).
The only thing my cat ever gave me was the middle toe of an upraised fore paw.
Calouste
@Don Beal:
“The secret to succes is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, thank goodness our government didn’t waste two months being in complete denial and outright lying. Just think about all the preparatory steps we wouldn’t have taken if that were the case!
On the Bernie front, I read somewhere (Politico?) that staying in the race longer might actually hurt Bernie, because the more he gets drubbed in state after state, the more it reduces his leverage.
NotMax
@Mike R
Wilmer? Strictly red onions.
;)
A Ghost to Most
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve never heard of a shit-eating cat. There’s currently a commercial for a shit-eating dog.
Note to Tina Fey: A 70 lb St. Bernard with impulse issues will never be my problem.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: For the soup.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: My mustache is not coming off, ever. It started when I was on some kind of aggressive blood thinners after surgery and was too doped up to even try to shave without the prospect of heavy blood loss, but then when things got normal my dear wife said the beard looked stupid (she was right, of course) but she liked the mustache. Decades later, I don’t know if anyone would recognize me if I shaved it off.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
Hard to understand how he has any constituency at all; I imagine that even his household pets hate him.
On an OT moment, anybody want to pick an over/under on when the first prominent RWNJ commentator or pol gains national recognition for whining about the recipients of any national economic relief efforts being losers who should just fail?
I set it at 3 days.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I just used the new pie filter for the first time. I don’t need extra aggravation. There’s enough right now, thanks very much.
Anonymous At Work
I truly do hope he drops out and lets Biden run against Trump starting tomorrow.
Reasons:
Let’s add to the list.
Marcopolo
Also on the topic of gritting: Tulsi Gabbard. She now needs to win 110% of the remaining delegates to win.
Let’s see if she suspends her campaign.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Our funny little girl cat greets us when we come home, chats with us constantly, wants to be right next to us and plays fetch with hairbands, candy wrappers, used straws and stray bits of plastic. She has the ability to wear us out at fetch before she’s worn out.
JMG
If Sanders wanted to maximize his influence within the Democratic Party, he’d drop out today and go to the Senate to work for his issues there. He’d serve as the grand old man of the left. But Sanders doesn’t WANT to maximize his influence within the party because he’s not in it. It’s sad, or would be if it wasn’t so maddening.
different-church-lady
@Marcopolo:
And I wouldn’t count on the coffee.
OzarkHillbilly
@A Ghost to Most: My sister’s German Shepard thought cat turds were the best part of cats. All Peggy would have to do when she came home is look at Emma and say, “Cat shit.” and Emma would immediately look guilty as hell slinking down to the floor with tail between her legs and refuse to look at my Sis.
I have yet to have such a dog (knock on wood)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: On the one hand, I think it would be less than 3 days, but Dear Leader has endorsed the idea so maybe longer.
kindness
Now if only Sanders would enforce telling his most fevered supporters to be nice to the rest of the Democratic unwashed masses. Bernie won’t. He’ll use this time to continue to collect money and turn a blind eye to his supporters that start trying to burn down the Democratic party. Bernie doesn’t care. He isn’t a Democrat.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve had my beard since I spent a week in the hospital with a collapsed lung. I just decided it was a lot less trouble than shaving every day.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
I had to move all the litter boxes to the basement because my Belgian Shepherd hates those stairs. I’d gotten tired of feeling cat litter on his nose as he nuzzled me awake in the morning to go out and pee.
Jinchi
Are you kidding? If Sanders drops out she’ll have finally made it to the top 2!
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly: CATS CAN SHIT WITHOUT YOUR HELP.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: In other words, she’s annoying as hell.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: HA!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Don Beal:
god, this fucking delusion that Nancy Pelosi can run the government without the White House or Senate. This is just one example of why I have trouble taking so many twitter-leftists seriously.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: On this topic, I can’t go more than 3 days without shaving. It doesn’t look good and I don’t feel clean. I would be a terrible mountain man.
randy khan
@dmsilev:
I am in favor of vote-by-mail, and think that the pandemic is a good impetus to making it happen, but this is not a remotely realistic possibility. It takes more than a few months to set up a vote-by-mail system that will work properly. It’s not just scaling up absentee ballots (although that, in itself, would be a significant undertaking). You need a new voting infrastructure to make it happen. As someone pointed out on LGM, in the states that have adopted vote-by-mail, the transition took years.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
My Fiona? Annoying? That cat adores me – she generally prefers to sleep with me, usually along one leg. If we go to bed and she’s been napping elsewhere or is asleep when we go back, she starts yowling for us until we call out to her to come to bed, and she trots in and hops up.
Mandalay
Completely O/T, but the Dow is down by almost a thousand this morning, and briefly dipped under 20,000.
The DJIA has dropped by about a third in the past month, yet Trump’s polling numbers have barely shifted.
I thought that a plummeting sock market would be guaranteed to crater his support, but it doesn’t seem to matter. WTF?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
I declared “Take Your Dog to Work Day” today. The office staff loves it, and the big furball lays down quietly, minding his own business.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, I think you’re on to something, that line about Thom Hartmann was overplaying the bit. Not as much as citing Michael Moore or Sam Seder as an authority, but… a tell to those who ever listened to Hartmann
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: DO THEY CLEAN THE LITTER BOX? EVER??? AND WHO HAS TO CLEAN IT UP WHEN THEY MISS THE BOX????
Funny anecdote: My neighbors asked me to watch their 2 cats while they were at Sturgis one week. The first day or 2, all was well. Then the older one missed the box. The next day, she missed it again, only by more. (take note, these were very runny shits) The day after, even further. By the time they got home the cat was shitting up and down the hallway.
“Send MY Mama away… I’ll show you!”
I had to laugh even as I cleaned it up.
different-church-lady
@kindness:
“Despite the best that has been done by everyone the primary situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage…”
WaterGirl
In the wise words of the Thin Black Duke:
Oh, and please allow me to take this opportunity to introduce you all to PupCake! I asked Avalune if she might be able to create a PupCake to go along with my beloved CatCake, and she amazed me with her results!
The newest addition to the pie filter. Now might be a good time to check him out! Thank you, Avalune!
edit: Oh my gosh, I wrote Thin White Duke, even though I know perfectly well that it is Black, not White. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Mandalay:
My operating theory is that it takes a fuckton of felt failure for older white voters (and those who think like them) to abandon a white paladin that they’ve placed the entirety of their trust in. They’ve not really felt it yet, and Fox News tells them that he’s doing a fantastic job.
Baud
@Mandalay:
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly: I’d laugh, but I know from a couple of first-hand experiences that missing the box can be a sign of a mortally ill cat.
OzarkHillbilly
@Omnes Omnibus: If it gets too long I have to trim it back (to a goatee) and when I can feel my mustache tickling my lower lip? It drives me nuts. I wish I could say I have a well groomed beard because of this but I don’t. I have unkempt, and “Oh my fucking Gawd, who glued a porcupine to your face?”
Dan B
@dnfree: Washington State has had vote by mail for years. Multiple studies have shown fewer issues than other systems. There are many avenues for ballot stuffing and invalidating ballots (losing them). Our Secretary of State is a Republican and we still don’t have issues.
Anonymous At Work
@kindness: He won’t acknowledge that they are his followers, so he can disavow “any responsibility for any of this.” He can reap the benefit of their fundraising but deny their nastiness to others by denying he has any control over them.
And if he were to call them down, he’d have to address “Why now?” and/or the possibility that they’d ignore him.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Fiona enthusiastically uses her box. So much so, that she kicks the occasional item out.
The other cat simply goes about his business quietly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I feed Miss Kitty morning noon and night and she couldn’t care less. My wife? She adores my wife, worships the ground she walks on.
Elizabelle
@randy khan: Necessity can be the mother of invention, though.
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Bet she can’t catch a frisbee.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hard to say why a cat picks certain people. Berlioz (the male) is all cat – super prickly, but is really attached to my wife. I get the social animals, it seems.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, but hell, neither can I.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: PupCake!
Thanks Avalune and WaterGirl.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Wherever I go, Percy is sure to follow. If I am constructing, he will lay down 10-15′ away and just watch.
Another Scott
@kindness: St. Bernard was questioned about that during the last debate. He said he would support the nominee and work to get him elected and defeat Donnie.
But he conspicuously did not say anything about urging his supporters to do the same. It gave me an unpleasant flashback to the summer of 2016…
Grr…
Uncle Joe, naturally, said everything you would expect and hope a Democrat would say about uniting the party, etc.
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Cats: they’re all alike, but they’re all different.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
You have given me a purpose and task for whenever an order comes down to shelter in place.
Train Fiona to catch a Frisbee, which she’d be completely down for…..
MattF
@Mandalay: Trump thought that rising 401(k)s would persuade people to support him. But now that the 401(k)s have become 201(k)s, it turns out that what his supporters wanted all along really was racism, lies, and assholery.
ixnay
@OzarkHillbilly: Cats. Smaller footprint, except when the cat weighs 14 lbs and stands on ribs (or some more personal part) in the middle of the night.
Eolirin
@MattF: Lets wait and see how people are responding once the reality of this situation has actually set in?
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: It was fortunately normal for her. I forget why but she just had runny shits. Her Mama was very apologetic when I told her, to the point of making me feel guilty for letting her know how much she was missed.
NotMax
@Watergirl
Perfectly nice and maybe it’s just me but looks more like a fox peeking over a daycare center’s picket fence.
Have never seen the fabled catcake and likely never shall.
Central Planning
@OzarkHillbilly:
Somebody has to keep it real at your place.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: The Thin White Duke? I thought Bowie was gone.
scav
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It’s not just older white voters — look at the thread we’re in with stalwarts insisting theirs is the only true way (and where’s their necessary and universal acclaim and adoration!) as the boat lists and the water rises.
Not all Magats wear red hats or root for the red team, Well, ok, technically maybe it’s still a red team, but a different red.
Citizen Alan
@Don Beal: I am So. Fucking. Tired. Of people who have less of an understanding of our system of government than I had at age 11 from watching School House Rock and who genuinely believe that every so-called failure to enact progressive legislation is solely do to the fact that the Democrats are weak and/or evil. Is there anyone in the Bernie camp who understands that it is impossible to pass any legislation with only the leftmost 15% (at most!) of Congress.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: On the subject of litter boxes, my wife picked up an auto raking box for miss Kitty. One still needs to wade thru ankle deep litter but it saves picking up shit off the floor anyway.
NotMax
@scav
“it’s so much easier to stay hydrated when the water is up to nostril level.”
:)
OzarkHillbilly
@Central Planning: I thought that was my wife’s job.
Citizen Alan
@zzyzx: The Mississippi primary was for President and to pick the Senate nominee (though Espy was a foregone conclusion). In my district, the sacrificial lamb who’s going up against Trent Kelly was running unopposed.
(She’s a real winner, btw. An ultraliberal law professor from Ole Miss who’s running as an avowed Democratic Socialist and who has inexplicably shaved one side of her head. I’m told she teaches Int’l Law classes while wearing a sundress and combat boots.)
Amir Khalid
@ixnay:
My Bianca, when she was a kitten, began a habit of standing on my chest every night at bedtime and licking my face. I accepted it as a show of affection, and still do now that she’s an older lady of 16.
Avalune
@NotMax: lol fair critique. It’s a corgi for the record!
Familiarity with catcake would explain the daycare fence – that and I’m not a professional ?
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
You haz internet again?
Aleta
At the State Department
Based on “five State Department officials, all of whom spoke to The Daily Beast over the last week on the condition of anonymity because they fear retribution.”
Mike in NC
Bolshevik Bernie’s campaign assessed as D.O.A.
WaterGirl
@NotMax:
NotMax
@Avalune
Thanks for accepting it in the the lighthearted spirit in which it was offered.
Corgis: For people who haven’t quite fully decided they want a dog.
;)
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I am alternating between embarrassed laughter and face palming. Thank you! I fixed the error, but added a PS confessing to my crime.
edit: I was so fixated on making sure I got the nym right – because for an incredibly long time, I head read that as the Thin Black Dude. So I am super focused on getting “Duke” right. I cannot believe i typed White.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Citizen Alan: I don’t know who the hell Will Stancil is, but he’s gained a following over the past few months with righteous and harping Green Lanternism directed at Nancy Pelosi. He gets retweeted by people I like and who should know better, like Brian Beutler and Jamelle Bouie
WaterGirl
@Avalune: PupCake is adorable, and anyone who doesn’t like him can fight me.
And yes, NotMax, I saw that you said he was fine, so that is not addressed to you.
negative 1
@Chyron HR: How is this different than any other candidate? I mean, Warren never won a single state but kept going through Super Tuesday.
I know, I know — it’s different because Bernie Bros are mean on twitter! Make sure you include all of his supporters as being trash, though https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/19/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-endorses-bernie-sanders/index.html
Elizabelle
@Avalune: I thought it was a corgi!
Do you ever check out the “Disapproving Corgis” group on Facebook? I don’t even have a corgi, and I am looking at it all the time. Some of the most expressive pups out there. They are judging us.
negative 1
@Another Scott: I know, and if he did that he would’ve been evil because he didn’t mention you by name when he did. Christ, grow up. Even Biden said we should be beyond this and that he’d work to include everyone in the party. But he didn’t say his supporters would!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@negative 1: at once so relentlessly obnoxious and such sniveling whiners
it’s funny that they’re not more popular
is that the same Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who attributed Biden’s popularity with African-American voters to lobbyists’ influence? and recently went on FoxNews to say Biden was winning because of voter suppression?
Anya
@zzyzx: I saw a tweet from Obama bro Jon Favreau louding Bernie and his revelution for Biden’s progressive campaign platform. Many of us objected to his discounting of women & women of color. But I guess the Bernie deadenders will not even appreciate this.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle:
And I’m sure we are found wanting.
dnfree
@BretH: the other possibility along the same lines (fraudulent voting) is one member of a family lining up others (spouse/children) to be sure they all vote the correct way. Or an adult casting the vote for their parent who is in a nursing home or care facility. I wonder if any of this has been studied in states where voting by mail or online is in use.
Chyron HR
@negative 1:
“How dare you suggest a connection between the actions of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign and the actions of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign!”
James E Powell
@negative 1:
No, it’s different than the other candidates because of 2016. Sanders and his supporters helped put Trump in the White House and we are rightly concerned that they will do it again.
negative 1
@Chyron HR: You know, I do
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/02/bernie-sanders-defends-hillary-clinton-recording
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Constantly.
VeniceRiley
@Another Scott: Bernie saying he would support the nominee is code for his staying in through the convention. because that is technically when the nominee is chosen.
Anya
@Betty Cracker: I blocked Daou when he was an insufferable Hillary supporter. Although, I was a full-on Hillary stan and overly sensitive because of all the misogyny she faced, I wasn’t able to take his tweets. So, at the risk of taking it out on Hillary, I blocked him. To my utter shock, I found out he transferred all that energy into Bernie stanning. I just can’t imagine how anyone can tolerate him now that he’s been injected with the Bernie virus coupled with his own preexisting condition.
Damien
@negative 1: Come back around and sell your bullshit when a bunch of Biden’s prominent surrogates claim they’d rather burn it all down than support the eventual Democratic nominee if it isn’t him.
Bernie’s done, it’s time for his supporters to come to the same place that Harris, Booker, Warren, and every other candidate’s supporters have had to: Trump and the Republicans are more dangerous than hurt feelings, so we band together and fight them. Then we can fight through our differences once American democracy is back on track.
Uncle Cosmo
@Gin & Tonic: Funny story: From the moment I knew him, Dad always had a mustache (originally grown as a diesel mechanic in the Pacific). I grew a more luxuriant variant when in college, which disgusted him to the point where one day in protest he shaved his off. None of us noticed, so he grew it back.
A few years later I had a full if scraggly beard, which one day I shaved completely off before going political campaigning. I stopped by my folks’ on the way, & when I walked through the door from the basement my mother looked at me. Mom, I said, & she replied, Oh, it’s you. Then when I showed up at campaign central a couple of friends there said, There’s something different about you – did you get a haircut?
Some people recognize others from the nose down, others from the nose up. (And some people – like Mom [RIP] – who nose? ;^D)
negative 1
@Damien: OK. But my point is that all that I seem to be reading is that all of his supporters are sexist bros and assholes. I’m looking up and down this thread and see nothing but that. If we’re all supposed to be lining up — wouldn’t a better use of this be “hey, this is good we can all get together?”
After all, I’m missing where everyone specifically lined up on character attacks for any of the Harris, Booker, et al. or their supporters. Here the best anyone can say is ‘maybe some of them are too stupid to understand what they want’
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hey, remember all the Booker Bros who encouraged Cory to run as a third party spoiler to re-elect trump and teach Dems a lesson if they wouldn’t bend the knee toward Newark?
Anya
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I am always shocked that anyone voted for Rick Scott, Ron Johnson, Louis Gohmert, and Trump. Every time I see them, I just wonder about what is wrong with Americans.
James E Powell
@negative 1:
Check out @kartigl’s tweet “I hate neoliberals more than I hate Republicans” and the thread emanating from it.
I’d call that typical, common. I’ve seen nothing remotely like that from other candidates’ supporters.
Chyron HR
@negative 1:
You forgot that old chestnut, “In 2016 only 10% of Bernie’s supporters voted for the deranged nazi who probably raped his own daughter!”
Avalune
@Elizabelle: I don’t have a corgi either but they are pretty darned cute.
Avalune
@NotMax: Ha well I mean you were not wrong – especially tinified.
Avalune
@WaterGirl: Lol!
negative 1
@James E Powell: Link didn’t come through, but I’ll see if I can respond.
I’m not trying to say who is better or who’s not. It’s pointless. I’m trying to address the idea that Sanders said something akin to ‘vote Stein’. Calling Sanders’ supporters dead-enders who will vote ‘Bernie or bust’ is ironic given that he could walk down every street in America wearing nothing but a signboard saying ‘I apologize for existing’ and it seems the general idea in some corners would be ‘yeah, but it didn’t feel sincere’.
Incidentally just saying it’s because they’re all sexist bros is probably not going to fly, considering Biden’s support among young Hispanics is pretty close to Sanders’ among African Americans.
Chyron HR
Please note that it never occurs to Bernie’s supporters that they could make us eat our words by NOT throwing a temper tantrum after Bernie loses this time. They just yell at us for predicting that’s what they’re going to do.
Dan B
@dnfree: The same intimidation happens in all forms of voting. Apparently it’s a small cohort. It’s easy enough for the “controlled / abused” spouse to fill out the ballot on their own since they arrive weeks before the election. The controlling spouse uses psychological techniques no matter the methid of voting. This was endlessly debated for the first years of vote by mail. It’s not an issue.
The issues you have expressed concern about are broader societal concerns. They are marginally relevant to voting.
negative 1
@Chyron HR: I didn’t, but I didn’t feel like googling ‘PUMA’ stuff from 2008 to say that this goes on every election cycle that has a primary before it (which is to say every election cycle). There are a fair number of people who take stuff like this — I’ll say ‘too seriously’ — absolutely personally and will never vote outside of their primary choice. I’m not one of them. But, I would argue that the people everyone says are ‘Bernie or bust’ are fairly low-info voters. So maybe the message should be a lot closer to Biden’s ‘we understand your priorities and we have them addressed’ than what I read on every blog’s comment section of ‘Sanders is an asshole and anyone who votes for him is an asshole except the ones who are too stupid to understand what they want’.
Betty Cracker
@negative 1: For what it’s worth, it irritates me when people conflate all Sanders supporters with the most obnoxious contingent, and I express that annoyance here from time to time. I’m confident Sanders will drop out soon and endorse Biden and that most of the folks who voted for Sanders in the primary will vote for Biden in the general, if only to get rid of Trump.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: On the other hand, Bernie has has over four years to get his most obnoxious contingent under control, and there appears to be no real progress on that front.
A cynical person might think it was due to disinterest at best.
L85NJGT
The money is drying up, campaign entropy is upon them sooner than expected.
L85NJGT
@different-church-lady:
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
Endorse might not be enough; it wasn’t in 2016. We need enthusiastic, passionate, unwavering, vocal & unqualified support.
Most might not be enough; it wasn’t in 2016. We need all or nearly all.
Geminid
I think most Sanders supporters are good people. They think differently than me, but I have no problem with that. However, (and I’m not saying this about the Sanders fans commenting on this thread), some of his hard core supporters are mouthy and obnoxious and have not helped but hindered his “movement.” Ironically, some of the most vocifrous advocates probably would not vote for Sanders if was nominated. They are anarchists and nihilists who simply hate the Democratic Party.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: There’s definitely that element, and Sanders — very much NOT to his credit — hired some of the worst people for his 2020 campaign. That said, I think Sanders genuinely likes Biden, whereas he had contempt for Clinton, and I think now that Trump is a disastrous reality rather than unlikely abstract threat, all but the very worst Bernie fanatics will show up and vote for Biden.
Yutsano
@Betty Cracker: I actually followed the Daou thread when I wasn’t at work. I kept looking at all the roses saying they wouldn’t vote for anyone but Wilmer, and I had to wonder how many of them were actually registered. If Bernie had actually done some investment in his supporters like outreach about the voting process and getting his followers to the polls maybe things would have turned out different. But he just didn’t do that. And that really is the reason why the revolution lost: lack of actual leadership.
cckids
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: My son, in Reno, got laid off via text last night. His employer (very small company) says they probably will not re-open; they can’t afford to. So there goes his health insurance, just as he got them to pay for a therapist and meds for depression. I’m frankly terrified for him.
NV’s governor shut down the state last night, only essential businesses will be open. For a month. That state is in for a world of hurt. None of the casino employees can work from home.
mrmoshpotato
@MazeDancer:
Hit that nail on the head!
Weeks of consideration? Really? Fuck off to the forest in May – of 2016.
negative 1
@James E Powell: Study after study has shown that primary voters don’t vote for the ‘affiliated’ general election candidate about 10% of the time. https://sites.duke.edu/hillygus/files/2014/06/hendersonhillygustompsonPOQ.pdf
It’s not unique to Sanders. It was true of Clinton’s voters vs. Obama in 2008 during the PUMA stuff also. It also holds true on the other side of the aisle.
Maybe one way to, I don’t know, lessen that impact is by saying we’re not at war with you because you didn’t vote for the same primary candidate. Or calling them names. Or, anything, I guess, other than blaming them for anything you don’t like.
BroD
I’m sorry but “Sanders assessing 2020 campaign” should not be a headline but the last line in an article reporting on yesterday’s primary results.
ballerat
@Mandalay: They believe Trump is the savior of their white privilege, and that’s the only thing that matters.
Trump’s support with his base will only nosedive if he does something like Johnson did with the signing of the Civil Rights Act. Which he won’t ever do. The MAGAs will support and praise him until the day he dies, or they die.
Like their racist antecedents, the Confederates, the MAGAs are willing to harm the nation, destroy it if necessary, and to kill and to die to keep their white privilege intact.
Their willingness to accept or ignore the consequences of his leadership with this pandemic makes that clear.
Another Scott
@negative 1:
Transcript:
(Emphasis added.)
One of these things is not like the other…
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Don Beal:
Hi Don,
WELCOME TO THE PIE SAFE SUCKAH!!!!
BuhBye baby!
Sanders is a Russian tool, and a stone fool! Just like Don, Don Trump! DON BEAL, TOO !!!
And Don, dont bother to reply to me, I won’t be seeing any more of your posts. Maybe a few toggled replys to you, but your posts? Nope.
Hope this was polite enough for you… nope, actually I don’t care about that either.