BLM activists heard your anguished cries: Why only target Bernie? Today, a group of BLM activists from Boston set out to disrupt a Hillary Clinton event in New Hampshire:
Activists from Boston’s #BlackLivesMatter chapter plan to disrupt a Hillary Clinton event in Keene, New Hampshire, on Tuesday afternoon, asking her questions specifically about her platform on drug enforcement. The event, which was scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m., is a community forum on substance abuse. Keene is one of many New England towns being affected by a heroin crisis.
[snip]The activists said they plan to ask several questions including, “Can you give at least one tangible example of how you expect to reverse the health and human services disaster you orchestrated in impoverished, urban, non-white communities through the domsetic [War on Drugs] policy you’ve championed as FLOTUS & Senator?” and “Is it your plan, as POTUS, to finally put an end to the International War on Drugs … you waged as Sec. of State or is your intention to continue to oversee its horrendous expansion?”
Tough questions! But!
Update, 4:17pm ET: Once they arrived at the event, Yancey and her group found the doors closed by the United States Secret Service due to capacity, according to CNN’s Dan Merica. In a phone call shortly after 3:30pm ET, Yancey indicated that they were still making efforts to enter the event, and were in discussions with Clinton campaign officials about it. Merica also reported that Clinton herself noted that there is an “overflow room” at the Keene event.
Update, 4:52pm ET: The #BlackLivesMatter Boston Twitter account tweeted this:
Huge thanks to everyone tweeting about #HollupHillary action. We've gotten the attention of @HillaryClinton's staff & they are working w us.
— BlackLivesMatterBOS (@BLM_Boston) August 11, 2015
I gotta think that event was over by the time they tweeted that at nearly 5 PM, but they don’t sound pissed about it; they say the campaign is working with them.
So, takeaways? BLM wanted the Democratic candidates to address the issues they brought to the fore at Netroots Nation, and that appears to be happening since Clinton, O’Malley and Sanders are now talking about BLM. Sanders supporters wondered why BLM seemed to be targeting Sanders, and lo, a Clinton event was targeted for disruption. Allies! Working together!
And how about Clinton? Secret Service shut the doors due to capacity, wink-wink. Now there’s a woman who could stare into Putin’s soulless, shark-like orbs without flinching, amirite?
Baud
Deleted out of regret for being too cynical.
kc
They announced ahead of time that they planned to disrupt the event?
I mean . . . people . . .
kc
I’m sure there was absolutely no coordination there.
LOL.
sparrow
eh, call me when they don’t let her speak for 20 minutes (I would actually like to see that, and it would make more news than disrupting Sanders).
Gimlet
@Baud:
Did they bring bags of money since money = speech?
kc
@sparrow:
Or get on stage and start grabbing and pushing her.
kc
@Baud:
I saw it; probably not too cynical.
But I for one appreciate your high hopes. :D
Amir Khalid
@Gimlet:
@Baud:
Dang. Now I’m dying to know what Baud deleted.
NotMax
If those questions were any more front-loaded, they’d topple tail over teakettle.
MattF
Via LGF, some Jesus-talk from Ted Cruz:
I’m bothering with this because I was wrong about Cruz– I used to see him as a smart and extremely partisan right winger, but now I see him an odd hybrid of televangelist and lawyer. Not sure if this makes him more or less dangerous, but at least I think we’ve got his number now.
Gimlet
The event, which was scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m., is a community forum on substance abuse. Keene is one of many New England towns being affected by a heroin crisis.
Bummer they couldn’t get in. Hillary probably covered all their concerns in her talk.
kindness
Let us hope these activists were nicer than the ones who took down Bernie’s rally in Seattle. Anyone see Karoli’s thread on that today at Crooks & Liars? Man, that turned ugly fast. Karoli defended the BLM folk and the C&L Commentariat let her have it.
Emma
@MattF: He reminds me, horrifically, of Nehemiah Scudder.
Amir Khalid
I have to say, I’m impressed by the situational chops shown by Team Hillary. They’re way more sophisticated than O’Malley’s and Bernie’s people, and I’m confident they’ll be able to outsmart the Donald’s people should that time come.
NotMax
@MattF
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Cruz’ father is a real piece o’ work.
bystander
I have an idea. Why don’t these BLM people stage their own event to advance their ideas? Because as it is, they seem to be like those Socialist Workers Party people who try to coopt every demo in NYC. You know, the group that couldn’t get the sizable audience that Bernie or HRC can get so they run themselves to the front of the march in an effort to act as if Everyone showed up at their behest. (I’m thinking of some ACT UP demos and some anti-Iraq invasion marches is was in.)
Hope Bernie can manage to stave them off the way HRC did. If I go to one of their rallies, I’m going so I can hear them, not some ad hoc, amorphous bunch of locals
These people are the new firebaggers.
Betty Cracker
@Emma: I think he’s way too creepy to ever get elected. But then I thought that about FL Governor Rick “Voldemort” Scott too, who is now in his second term.
Roger Moore
@bystander:
In case you hadn’t noticed, they do; what do you think has been going on in Ferguson? Unfortunately, when BLM does stuff, it tends to get shut down by heavily armed riot police.
Emma
@bystander: Have you been keeping up with the news? Sanders had some BLM people speak at the beginning of his LA(?) event. All went well, or so I’m told.
MattF
@NotMax: Agreed. I’ve got some suspicions about Rafael… wouldn’t surprise me one bit if there’s something very ugly there under the surface.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
He was able to get elected in Texas.
guachi
Crashing an event on drug addiction? Classy.
Emma
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. I learned from watching Rick myself. ANYONE can get elected in this environment.
NotMax
Suggestion for BLM: talk to the campaigns to coordinate a date and set up an event/venue to which they are invited. Hint: Kickstarter.
Brachiator
@sparrow:
Not going to happen, evah. Secret Service and all that. And the disruption of Sanders should stop pretty soon as well.
Love and support BLM all you want, but rushing the stage has got to stop.
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
eponymous coward
“Why don’t these BLM people stage their own event to advance their ideas? ”
You livestreamed from Ferguson lately? Feel free to check it out. All kinds of things going on outside the Democratic Party primaries for 2016.
“These people are the new firebaggers.”
How many firebaggers got shot by cops during the 2008 primaries?
Maybe that might help you tell the difference.
A Ghost to Most
@Emma:
almost anyone.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: I meant as president. Texas gave us Louie Gohmert. They aren’t my bellwether.
rikyrah
meta
@metaquest
Thoughtful, honest and reflective, President Obama on the #IranDeal, partisan politics, race and justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6aL5TVVRFI …
trollhattan
@MattF:
In his case, ugliness inhabits the surface, too. Just look at the guy–a combination of Joe McCarthy and grandpa Munster. And that voice….
CONGRATULATIONS!
I think any candidate who throws open/unscreened events is asking for all kinds of trouble. The GOP doesn’t let Dems hijack their events, why should we let a bunch of stealth Tea Partiers hijack ours?
Hillary’s done this dance before. She and her people handled it very, very well. I am encouraged.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Cynical, you? I keed, I keed.
Gimlet
So did Hillary cover Mena, Barry Seal, and the CIA or is she saving that for the #BLM get together?
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Heard part of that. Damn, will we miss him.
Baud
I’ve said before that I’ve never been a fan of these type of disruptive protests. I think they are generally hard to pull off successfully. But until BLM I thought I was in the minority of liberals who felt that way. I’ve seen this FDR proverb quoted too many times on blogs.
So my reaction to all this is somewhat tempered.
Brachiator
@MattF:
Is this based on anything substantive, or just noise?
I knew Cruz was a Tea Party type, but I forgot that he had that evangelical thing going as well.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed.
scav
@MattF:
I can not read that except as a call for the zombie crucade.
kc
@Amir Khalid:
It certainly doesn’t hurt when the protesters helpfully telegraph in advance which events they intend to “disrupt” and post a list of questions online.
MattF
@Brachiator: No, nothing substantive. And I don’t want to suggest that I know anything besides what everyone else knows. It’s just the patterns and the personalities that give me the creeps.
rikyrah
A Photographer Is Taking Beautiful Photos Of Black Girls Getting Their Hair Done
Photographer Adama Jalloh is celebrating black British girlhood via the hair salons of south London in her “Identity” project.
posted on Aug. 2, 2015, at 7:57 a.m.
“Rarely do you go to exhibitions and see images of black people, especially when it’s in the UK.”
Adama Jalloh recently completed a degree in photography at the Arts University Bournemouth. “I went to a uni where it was predominantly white people and most of the projects they did tended to be things I wasn’t necessarily interested in,” she says.
So in her second year, she started a project that was personal to her, and would shine a light on her – and other black girls’ – beauty rituals. She began visiting black hair salons around Peckham in south London to find subjects, and named the project “Identity”.
“I thought the way I live, and the way other black girls have lived, should be shown in that same kind of environment, and in a positive light. Because most of the time when you see images of black people, it tends to be quite negative
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bimadewunmi/a-photographer-is-taking-beautiful-photos-of-black-girls-get#.fdYAQWPjrl
Baud
@MattF:
I hope the body of Christ has a valid voter ID.
Cervantes
It’s a bit silly (albeit perhaps self-serving in some cases) to assume that anyone who questions BLM’s tactics must be doing so out of support for any given candidate.
There are more things in heaven and earth, people,
Than are dreamt of in that philosophy.
(With apologies to the Bard.)
Betty Cracker
@kc: I’m not sure that’s what happened. The New Republic piece linked above has been updated, but an earlier version said the author had exclusive access to the info. Also, the updated story now says the activists were admitted to the “overflow area” and will be able to meet with Clinton today.
LWA
“Now there’s a woman who could stare into Cruz’s soulless, shark-like orbs and emasculate him, leaving him curled in a fetal position.”
Lets face it, that’s really what they’re afraid of, isn’t it?
srv
Lil’B Embraces The Bern!
SatanicPanic
Man, I never knew BJ was so full of respectability scolds
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
We are extremely proper.
Brachiator
Very subtly done. The Secret Service did well to keep anything unfortunate from happening. There is no universe in which anyone would have been allowed to rush the stage. And with good reason.
HumboldtBlue
Just about every single person commenting on this blog lives in a state where draconian sentencing laws, unequal sentencing laws and the ravages of the war on drugs has left communities ripped apart.
Clinton doesn’t give a fuck about BLM insofar as she can hire some eager, whip-smart young black men and women and publish plenty of photos of them diligently treading political water for the next 12 months and pretend she is actually engaged. Sanders will do something very similar (but ignore the fact that he actually has a worthy record of social justice, it happened too long ago and a lot of his supporters are young and white so fuck him, amirite?) and who gives a fuck about O’Malley, that lipless Frank Burns dipwad.
This isn’t about the national level. BLM started as a local movement and that’s where any real effect it will generate will be felt. Clinton won’t have a fucking thing to do about policing policies in this country if she is elected and neither will anyone else elected to the White House other than to make noise about not giving up-armored Humvees to Sheriff Dickwad. The issue is wasted at the federal level and it’s difficult to argue its effective even at the state level and I live in a state and a district that is as affected by the war on drugs as any West Baltimore neighborhood.
Local laws need to be amended and then state laws need to amended (see Colorado and Washington and Oregon and soon California) and sentencing laws need to addressed and the tactics of police need to be changed and none of that, not one fucking iota of that will happen because Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders wins an election.
That’s why all this heat and agitation is worthless, the changes must occur at the local level and that means city councils and local DA races and county commissioners and supervisors. BLM has a real message to put forth and despite the firebagging fuckwits who have taken over for the right wing with their “anointed one” bullshit there is a real goal to be striven for and BLM has its torches lit and are in the streets, but this bullshit that massive change will happen because Sanders or Clinton or anyone else makes it to the White House is nothing more than a sideshow.
The impacts vary from region to region and up here the focus has been on legalizing marijuana, reducing the sentencing mandates and if possible, getting rid of them all together. That’s unique to this very rural and very white but also very politically active community and it is line with the demands of BLM in that it addresses issues of crime and punishment and police behavior when it comes to the disastrous war on drugs.
Poverty, access to education and proper medical care, jobs and job training are key issues in this region as well, even if the cohort that needs the most help is a shade lighter than BLM or speaks a different language after immigrating in any fashion possible.
Think local.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Bobby Kennedy’s family agrees.
HRA
They showed up at the door wearing BLM shirts. They were not allowed to go in.
I would have liked to see how Hilary would have reacted to a confrontation.
uhuh
Thoughtful Today
!
I was told in absolute terms that disrupters are to be given the microphone and allowed to control the event until their demands have been met.
Did I miss an update to that memo?
kc
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not sure what happened either, but Smith tweeted a link to the article about the planned “disruption” hours ago – before the event started.
The whole thing just looks like political theater to me, coordinated implicitly (if not explicitly) between Smith, the activists, and the campaign.
I mean, whatever, she’s probably going to be the nominee anyway, and it’s not like I WANTED to see another shitshow with activists manhandling a candidate; it’s just, as someone on Twitter said, don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
I think this is more the “situational chops” of the Secret Service. They have access to much more intelligence and advance information than do O’Malley’s or Sanders’s people—and more resources to monitor whatever information is available—so they’re in a much better position to prevent any disruptions.
This was handled subtlely, however, with more than just a blatant “BLM! You can’t come in!”
And it is a good sign that the Clinton campaign and BLM are “in discussions.”
Cacti
@MattF:
I don’t see Cruz running for President of the United States so much as running for High Priest of the Church of America, F**k yeah!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@bystander:
Bernie Sanders is smarter than you: here in Los Angeles, he added local BLM reps to his rally as speakers —
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/black-lives-matter-activists-open-massive-bernie-sanders-rally-in-los-angeles/
Why make your allies speak at a separate event when you can give them 5 or 10 minutes on the same stage as you and make everyone happy?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Speak for yourself, bud.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Bernie is adapting, and showing a lot less personal pique about it than the Bernistas.
One would assume that you don’t become a US Senator, even in a small state, without some political acumen.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Fuck yeah, we are!
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
However, the priorities and resource allocation of (and by) federal agencies can be altered.
It’s like turning a supertanker in that it is a cumbersome and time-consuming maneuver, but it can be accomplished.
Local, regional, state and federal entities must all be addressed.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: I see you and I are in agreement yet again, Roger.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
An odd reply for all kinds of reasons. I’ll avoid the snark. It’s hard. But I’ll avoid it. No. What the fuck. Do you know your history, or are you trying for a cheap joke?
Let’s review.
And for the record, I was thinking of Malcolm X, where a deliberate distraction was created to pull his bodyguards (the ones who weren’t undercover cops or traitors) away from him so that his assassins would have a clear shot.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
The update is that if the candidate is willing to meet with the protesters and/or give them a few minutes to speak at the candidate’s rally, the protest is subject to cancellation.
Please be sure to update the relevant page in your SOP manual.
David Koch
If she had been disrupted BLM would be universally applauded.
Let’s be up front, people on blogs aren’t complaining about the tactic of disruption, they’re just mad that it’s happening to the candidate they support.
Thoughtful Today
Maybe #BLM protesters couldn’t afford the ticket to get in to see Hillary? Hillary’s Portland meetup cost $2,700 to get in, Bernie’s was free.
Portland’s KOIN6 headline:
“Hillary in Portland for cash, Bernie for votes.”
…
“Sources told KOIN 6 News a donation of $2700 will get a person into Clinton’s event, and close to 150 people are expected.”
http://koin.com/2015/08/05/hillary-in-portland-for-cash-bernie-for-votes
[Sing it with me, choir: “It’s an economic issue!”]
SatanicPanic
@Baud: coulda fooled me!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
Assuming that the end game was to meet with the candidate to discuss the issues rather than the mere political theater of a protest/interruption, I don’t have a problem with it. Was posting the notice of a possible interruption political kabuki with both sides participating or a warning that the Clinton campaign wisely heeded?
David Koch
So they’re receiving support on Twitter for trying to disrupt Clinton, but they were getting attacked on Twitter when they disrupted Sanders.
See.
Davis X. Machina
@Amir Khalid: Many of them have done one before… I expect in NH, that’s especially true.
A Ghost to Most
@David Koch:
Not all. I support HRC.
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax: I agree wholeheartedly and I actually pulled out a reference to the supertanker of state in my comment, but I have seen the effectiveness of local action and its momentum can quickly catch fire and move up the chain.
The Federal level will react when local and state policies have changed, it’s why the US Asst. Attorney General for the San Francisco district has completely backed off her gung-ho prosecute those damn dope growers to hell routine, local DAs and officials were adamant it was counter-productive.
Davis X. Machina
@HumboldtBlue:
Wanted that up again, for people like me who read comment threads backwards.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
Glad you included the parenthetical part.
No less than Malcolm’s security chief was an NYPD mole.
SatanicPanic
@David Koch: nah I think they’re all firebaggers who are mad that BLM protesters aren’t given the same treatment they were
Soylent Green
Downtown Portland a couple hours ago: about a dozen BLM protesters blocked an intersection next to City Hall by stretching banners across it. (I work in the federal building on the next corner.) They spent about half an hour pounding a drum and loudly chanting “Fuck the police.”
This being Portland, the police response was to not to engage them but only to block other streets to keep drivers from approaching the intersection. After the protesters got tired of yelling at the handful of bemused office workers passing by, they dispersed on their own.
I think their slogan needs a little work.
Bobby B
@HumboldtBlue: Therefore they’re not doing it anymore?
Hal
“Why can’t these ACT UP people find a different way? All they’re going to do is piss off their allies and alienate those who are open to their cause!”
BillinGlendaleCA
@HumboldtBlue: The Feds do have a role in controlling policing via civil rights prosecutions of police and via consent decrees towards police departments.
Roger Moore
@HumboldtBlue:
This isn’t entirely true. Drug policies are still largely set at the national level, so there’s a lot that could be done at the national level to tamp down the overall level of the war on some drugs. For example, rescheduling marijuana could do quite a bit. A more radical- and less likely- approach would be to define a new schedule for drugs that lack accepted medical value but are considered safe enough for recreational use. That would do much more to change the war on drugs than anything.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Somehow unable to disrupt the Clinton event.
OKAY.
oldgold
“Now there’s a woman who could stare into Putin’s soulless, shark-like orbs without flinching, amirite?”
That statement makes no damn sense. Like any other politician, Hillary does not want her events disrupted. What does this have to do with dealing with Putin? Nothing.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Soylent Green:
So far, that specific form of protest doesn’t seem to be having much of an effect. Kropdope was complaining about a similar one in Boston that inconvenienced rush hour drivers but not much else. Time to change tactics.
HumboldtBlue
@Bobby B: Doing what? Prosecuting marijuana growers? If that’s your question, they are they are just using a far different metric for who they prosecute.
Locally the DA and the sheriff’s office made a key strategic change to enforcement efforts against illegal grow sites, they focused hard on the environmental impacts — stealing water from local streams and illegal diversion from rivers, the use of pesticides and rodenticides, the trash, illegal grading, removal of trees and flora. Instead of going after Bob Smalltime with 500 plants they have focused on major grows of between 5,000 25,000 plants, grow sites with armed men and that leave vast scars on county, state and federal land.
EthylEster
@scav:
You probably don’t care but “the body of Christ” is Christian-speak for “the Church”. Now WHICH church is a mystery!
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
It’s no fucking joke. Nobody should be able to rush the stage at a presidential candidate at an event. Full stop. The nation’s history was profoundly altered the moment RFK was assassinated, and I don’t want a murder to yet again so greatly change the course of American history. If somebody needs to find a different avenue for their communications, then so be it.
If you find that a “cheap joke” then feel encouraged to go pleasure yourself with a garden implement.
Tree With Water
“Now there’s a woman who could stare into Putin’s soulless, shark-like orbs without flinching, emirate?”.
Maybe. But by my lights, until she acknowledges the Bush-Cheney War was not a consequence of good people being misled by faulty intelligence, she is unfit to be POTUS.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Cacti:
“Bernistas”? C’mon, “Sanderistas” practically writes itself.
Cacti
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The DOJ had to step in to clean up the racist thuggery of the Seattle Police Department, which had gone wholly unchecked by the “progressive” municipal government. And that was way back in…July 2012.
kc
@Steeplejack:
Especially when the protesters tweet out their plans to “disrupt” in advance, wink wink.
Davis X. Machina
@HumboldtBlue: Could do the same thing with a lot of crime — or ‘crime’ — hassling people selling loosies v. interdicting mass shipments of untaxed, or Carolina-taxed, cigs up I-95.
HumboldtBlue
@Roger Moore: You know as well as I do that a national politician even mentioning legalization (notice Obama wouldn’t touch that shit for his first six years) gets immediately hammered from all sides because it makes far too much sense and removes profit and power from far too many people.
The only reason we are now seeing real talk about changing the scheduling of marijuana is because of the work of legalization proponents for the past 20 years. It’s a local, now a state and hopefully soon a federal change, but no ADA or Federal AIC or elected official (who isn’t rock-solid in their district) will move on the issue until the public voice is loud enough. Fortunately that is beginning to happen.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Oddly, these protesters asked that the media be excluded from their meeting with Clinton.
Thoughtful Today
Erm,
There’s partial validity to the local! local! local! notion of politics. But that fails to adequately address a lot of national problems.
Over-incarceration is a national problem, AIDS was a national problem, police murdering unarmed Citizens is a national problem.
Local efforts to make changes are important, but being dismissive of national problems atomizes our ability, as a nation of Citizens, to address national problems.
HumboldtBlue
@BillinGlendaleCA: I understand, but again that will be a glacial change, I suspect it can happen more rapidly at the local and far more personal level.
mtiffany
@Hal:
Difference is that after ACT UP protests when people would get in your face and ask why we were being disruptive assholes, we’d explain to them why — short version: “we’re dying, and it’s your silence that’s killing us, and here’s what you can do to help…” rather than continuing to be dismissive, angry, assholes. Tiny bit of difference when it comes to engagement — actually taking the time to explain things to people when they don’t understand, rather than accusing them of deliberately being bigots.
Cacti
@kc:
You’ve got their number.
BLM is the front for a conspiracy to undermine the one true progressive savior…
And its founders were prescient enough to form it 2 full years before the new white Jesus had even announced his candidacy.
MazeDancer
@MattF:
Two words describe Ted Cruz: Daddy Issues.
This is common among Presidential Candidates and Presidents, alike, of course. (Bush v Gore, for example. Clinton, Obama.)
But Papa Cruz is the Christianist influence, and as BSC as they come.
Baud
@kc:
Why is that odd? How many groups meet with candidates in front of the media?
David Koch
Hillary is heckled alll the time.
lookin it up on You Tube I found at least 100 incidents of heckling. Remember last year some wingnut threw a shoe at her on stage.
Here is how she handled a disruption on stage
jl
If the event was limited to 150 and you need to two and a half grand ticket to get in, as commenter above says, then the Secret Service did not have to do much ‘thwarting’ to keep them out.
It is, by any sane standard, so early in the campaign, that I don’t think any of these incidents so far mean much at all, if the candidates can do good outreach to constructive elements of Black Lives Matter, and formulate good proposals.
Only be insane standards set by the GOP circus, do these incidents look like big campaign make-or-break drama.
And sooner or later, seems to me Black Lives Matter has to confront the GOP somehow, which controls much of state level police policy. But that could get ugly, and I don’t think good to create a pretext for getting blamed for the ugly that GOP types are ready to dole out.
But if/when it happens the VSP pundit response to a demonstration at GOP event will be interesting. If the Obama pattern holds, whichever politician is focus of a protest gets blamed for creating racial divisiveness. Is a standard line for Obama, and already trotted it out for Sanders, and probably will if something happens at an HRC event. Will same happen for a GOPer?
Keith G
@trollhattan: You’re quite correct.
I want Hillary to have ample protection and that (unfortunately) means a well controlled and secured venue. Second to President Obama, I assume she generates a great deal of hatred among a very worrisome population.
sparrow
@mtiffany: ( I just wanted to say that your comments on this have been enlightening, thanks. )
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
Yes, it’s almost like they want to discuss their group’s issues and have a conversation with her rather than have an episode of Protest Theater. It’s crazy, but it just might work!
kc
@Baud:
Why is it odd? How is it NOT odd? They purportedly were going to “disrupt ” the event and present her with a list of demands, then when she says okay let’s meet, they ask to exclude media?
Are you really buying this?
Thoughtful Today
ACT UP tells a narrative. It may be true.
Historic fact seems discordant with that narrative.
ACT UP was started in the late ’80’s with very legitimate issues concerning the gay community.
After ACT UP started ‘acting up’, we elected a Democratic President who criminalized gay marriage national and criminalized gays in the military. His wife was openly supportive of that bigotry until recently.
Republicans subsequently used hating on the LGBT community in order to take over Congress.
Arclite
Attack the people most sympathetic to your cause… WTF?
scav
@EthylEster: No, actually I understand how some choose to interpret the phrase, but take amusement in the fact that it actually has multiple meanings. That simulataneous reading is rather the source of the humor.
Baud
@Thoughtful Today:
Um…no.
David Koch
@jl: that’s already happen. latino dreamers have confronted steve king and orangeman and the media attacked them for daring to be disruptive.
kc
Or it’s almost like they want to head off criticism that they’re selectively targeting Sanders.
I mean, if that’s all they wanted, to meet, they just could have asked her, right? Instead of this bullshit, as you call it, Protest Theater where you announce your “disruption” in advance.
jl
@kc: Yes.
Sanders didn’t speak with Symone Sanders, or select her for his spokesperson in public, nor did he select the BLM speakers at his Los Angeles event in public. Is that suspicious too?
kc
You mean, you didn’t say, “Educate yourself, I’m not enacting that labor for you?”
SatanicPanic
@Baud: yeah, that’s wrong.
Baud
@kc:
I don’t recall ever seeing a group meet with a candidate in front of the media. No union, no advocacy group, no one. If it happens, it’s extremely rare. So yes I’m buying this.
jl
@David Koch: Thanks for info. What a surprise that the GOP was being divisive did not come up.
Another Holocene Human
@MattF: He has the moral compass of a televangelist, that much is clear.
Jerry Falwell with better ______.
Can’t figure out the blank, it’s not his hair.
kc
@jl:
Um, no. Not analogous at all.
A Ghost to Most
@Brachiator:
Does Bernie not rate Secret Service protection yet? (not sure of the rules)
jl
@kc: I must be missing something then. Can you provide a brief explanation in three sentences or less?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@mtiffany:
Yes, because black people aren’t dying so it’s clearly two different situations.
Seriously, I thought you had finally had a breakthrough when you initially made the connection between ACT-Up and BLM, but I guess the we did it better in my day unlike these young whippersnappers mental script was too hard to resist.
Baud
@A Ghost to Most:
I think you have to be the nominee. Clinton has protection through Bill.
Cacti
@kc:
When will these black people stop conspiring to keep the poor white US Senator down?
rikyrah
Probably because he was a ‘rookie’, and on his probationary period.
…………………………..
Arlington PD Chief Terminates Officer Who Shot Christian Taylor
During a 5 p.m. press conference, Arlington Police Chief Will Johnson announced, “I have decided to terminate Officer Miller’s employment with the Arlington Police Department.”
Another Holocene Human
@MattF:
Under the surface? I am finding this amusing right now because I am thinking of his openly urging Congresscritturs to “let’s you and him fight” to shut down the government, undermine his party’s House and Senate leadership, and probably destroy some of his colleague’s careers.
When people are that evil, it’s not hidden … yet we all pretend we don’t see what’s in front of us. We act like it’s not there.
NotMax
As it is an Open Thread, something to chew on.
kc
To be clear, if they’d approached the HC campaign and said “We’d like to meet with you” and agreed to do so behind closed doors, then that wouldn’t strike me as particularly odd or noteworthy.
The part that strikes me as being BS is the timing of it (following the actual disruption of the SS/Medicare event featuring Sanders, and ensuing backlash), the telegraphing of the “disruption” in advance, followed by the request for a closed-door meeting by the people who were, allegedly, going to publicly disrupt.
It looks stagey to me. Y’all can buy it if you want to.
Roger Moore
@Thoughtful Today:
A great explanation, except that it gets the facts wrong. It’s true that DOMA and DADT passed during the Clinton administration, but they were not actually changing anything for the worse. DOMA didn’t “criminalize” gay marriage; it said that states that didn’t accept same sex marriage didn’t have to recognize same sex marriages performed in other states. And DADT both didn’t criminalize gays in the military and wasn’t Clinton’s preferred policy. It was already against military regulations to be gay, and Clinton was trying to get that policy reversed. He was unsuccessful and had to accept a second best policy where the military was not allowed to actively investigate the sexual orientation of its members, which it had been allowed to do until that point.
Cacti
Since it’s an open thread…
36 retired Generals and Admirals submit an open letter to Congress in support of the Iran deal, stating that there is no better alternative for containing their nuclear program.
Chuck Schumer, you are a L-I-A-R.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You are correct. DADT, while a shitty policy was an improvement over the status quo in 1993.
ETA: What Roger Moore said.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Thanks. Didn’t feel like writing all that.
kc
@Cacti:
Says the dudebro who vociferously defends the world’s most powerful man against impertinent criticism of extrajudicial killings.
Geeno
This is good – BLM needs a higher profile than Bernie can give them. There should be more PR about their involvement in other actions like the happenings in Ferguson. I must read bad news sources, but this thread is the first time I’ve heard that they were there.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Because he was caught on video.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: Texas also gave us Junior Bush. Just sayin’.
Hal
@mtiffany: BLM protesters haven’t done that? People don’t have tv’s, internet access or read the paper? No one is ignorant to this movement or the message. The 1980s are over.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yeah, no offense to TT, but he or she got some really bad information from somewhere. As much as we mock Fox’s viewers, I think we need to police ourselves that much more.
jl
@Cacti: As far as I can see, none of these disruptions means all that much so early in the campaign, while candidates are doing their outreach and organizing and policy formation.
If the candidates cannot formulate a good response, or a significant portion of BLM keeps disrupting just to get attention or make some unclear and inscrutable statement no matter what the candidates do, then it might become a problem. I don’t see any sign of either happening so far, so I am not worried about it
It is an important issue. Sanders was certainly not addressing in adequately in his stump appearances, though from following his interviews and statements at smaller conferences, like the SCLC last week, his policy approach to economic and racial justice now is that same as then. He is simply being more public about it and giving racial justice as a separate issue more prominence.
Edit: and making efforts to have more diversity on his team.
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
This.
DADT was a half measure, but it certainly didn’t create the problems of gay service members.
Prior to DADT, your recruiter would ask you point blank in their interview questions if you were homosexual, and an affirmative response would immediately disqualify you. If you were gay prior to DADT and wanted to serve, you had to lie and then worry about ever getting caught.
kc
@Roger Moore:
Thanks; I had forgotten some of that depressing history.
Karen in GA
@Another Holocene Human:
Vital signs?
Cacti
@kc:
Have you figured out what the Constitutional powers of a First Lady are as opposed to those of a US Senator?
A Ghost to Most
@Baud:
Yeah, but didn’t BHO get protection before he won the nomination? I understand why he got it, but I would think any serious candidate could be a target.
kc
@jl:
I did elaborate a bit in a subsequent comment, but I may have used more than three sentences.
David Koch
Trump is on tee vee right now giving a presser and he’s attacking Sanders calling him “weak” and a “disgrace”.
So now, perhaps, Sanders supporters will turn their energy to people who are actually hostile to Bernie.
Emma
@Cacti: But if the scolds acknowledge that, they got nothing to bitch about.
Baud
@A Ghost to Most:
I didn’t know that. Maybe they also do individual threat assessments.
Another Holocene Human
@kc:
Oh, I agree. The group is called Black Lives Matter Boston, I grew up in Boston, and we do political theatre like nobody’s business.
Don’t forget, local activists just killed an Olympic bid that the powers that be were dead set on steamrolling through.
Personally, I think what just happened today is a good thing. Kind of nonplussed by the page after page of pissy reactions by Juicers.
And the guy who said POTUS has no impact on policing, DOJ is an executive agency, POTUS nominates SCOTUS justices, you have no argument, sit down.
Baud
@David Koch:
Interesting that Trump is playing to Sanders. No one else has given him much attention.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti:
No shit. They should take note … but the worst offenders probably won’t. Hopefully they get so disgusted that Holy Bern is kowtowing to people they hate that they ragequit politics for a while (but they probably won’t).
Emma
@Tree With Water: Her or Cruz. Choose.
kc
@Cacti:
Please stop telling people to express their concerns at a time, place, and manner, and in a tone you find inoffensive.
Maybe you’d like them to throw in a foot massage while they’re at it.
Kthxbai.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
Do you really not get the implicit threat part of the equation here?
Your story only makes sense if you assume that BLM protesters have a specific personal animosity against Sanders and they don’t actually believe what they’re saying.
Otherwise, it makes more sense to think that they posted the suggestion that they might interrupt her speech in the hope that Clinton would instead agree to meet with them in private, which is what happened. Blackmail, yes, but polite blackmail is an important part of politics.
It seems that meeting with the candidates is actually more important to BLM groups than Protest Theater. Who knew?
Bex
@MattF: The man is extremely dangerous. If he were at all charismatic we’d have a serious problem.
Cacti
@A Ghost to Most:
A candidate can make a request to the DHS Director for Secret Service protection, who reviews it with a Congressional advisory committee and it is either granted or denied.
Candidate Obama requested it in 2007 and it was approved.
Jesse Jackson requested and received it in 1984 and 1988.
Many candidates avoid asking for it as long as possible, because it restricts their ability to mingle.
kc
@Baud:
Well, I mean, besides the people who crashed the stage at two events where he was trying to speak.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A Ghost to Most:
Obama was apparently receiving more death threats than any other candidate, so the decision was made to give him SS coverage sooner than the other candidates. Nobody wanted to have another Bobby Kennedy situation on their hands before the primary was even over.
Cacti
@kc:
Solidarity broseph!
Black people have been oppressing white Senators for too long now.
We should protest Michelle Obama at once.
A Ghost to Most
@kc:
I see what you did there.
Baud
@kc:
And the thousands who attend his rallies. Obviously, I was referring to the other candidates.
Napoleon
Fuck Black Life’s Matter
By the way, with the story that they announce to the HRC campaign ahead of time they are coming, magically allowing them to keep BLM out, tells me they are nothing but an adjunct to Clinton’s campaign at this point.
Fuck Black Life’s Matter
David Koch
@kc: you realize your hero is a big supporter of dronez and is on record saying he would continue it as president.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I don’t feel like fucking around with everything you said, suffice to say I think you’re misunderstanding me or deliberately misreading, but you have repeatedly said on other threads that Hillary was amenable to BLM and had responded positively.
If you believe half the stuff you posted on other threads, it doesn’t make any damn sense that a “threat” (your word) was needed to get a meeting.
Cacti
@Napoleon:
Slow day at Stormfront?
A Ghost to Most
@Cacti:
Thanks, I was wondering about the mechanics. Seems like an unfair advantage for HRC; she can shield herself from unwanted advances, Bernie can’t.
Emma
My goodness. It’s been a very educational day, hasn’t it? Not very uplifting about my fellow liberals, but definitely enlightening.
kc
@David Koch:
Hey, point to a comment where I indicated that Sanders is my “hero.”
Thanks in advance.
jpe
@kc: They always announce their plans to disrupt shit in advance. That’s why federal agencies watch them.
Thoughtful Today
MattF: “… now I see him [Cruz] an odd hybrid of televangelist and lawyer.”
Yes, that ^ totally nails it.
Cruz = Televangelawyer?
Baud
@Emma:
I thought I shined fairly brightly.
SatanicPanic
@Napoleon: man I’ve been trying to troll these threads all day but you’ve clearly got me beat
kc
@A Ghost to Most:
At least someone does.
Emma
@A Ghost to Most: As someone has pointed out above, there are a number of instances where she has been interrupted while speaking. Including someone throwing a shoe at her.
And she definitely has an “advantage.” If you consider the everlasting poisonous hatred of a large number of Americans, many of whom are one banana peel from the insane asylum an advantage, that is.
Baud
@Napoleon:
I heard Obama facilitated their alliance in Benghazi.
Cervantes
@A Ghost to Most:
There have been exceptions, but for the underlying rule see 18 USC § 3056 (a) (7).
kc
@Cacti:
Hey, please post a list of events, venues, causes, and persons that you consider to be acceptable objects for protest. Thanks, bro.
kc
@David Koch:
Spelling it “dronez” really adds to the lulz. Even funnier if you add extra Z’s and some exclamation points.
A Ghost to Most
@Emma:
Why, because we have the temerity to believe differently than you about certain things? I have often been surprised and dismayed (but apparently shouldn’t be) by black christians who think atheists are not true Americans.
There are a lot of people in this tent. Not all of them think exactly as you do. There are people who are disappointed with your views as well.
If you want a party where everyone agrees, the Republicans are over there.
“I’m not part of an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
-Will Rogers
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
It’s noteworthy, though, that just how aggressive the military has been at policing its members sex lives has been inversely related to how desperately it’s looking for recruits. My grandfather mentioned in his memoirs that there was a gay couple in his unit in WWII, everyone knew, and nobody gave a damn as long as they were doing their jobs. Funny how having a war to win focuses people’s priorities.
ETA: I think some of the Vietnam vets here have made similar comments about gays in the military when they were serving.
kc
@Napoleon:
Lame.
JPL
@NotMax: rikyrah, posted that the other night. It was great that the other delivery person refused to go.
Thoughtful Today
“It’s true that DOMA and DADT passed during the Clinton administration, but they were not actually changing anything for the worse.”
Before the DOMA legislation it wasn’t illegal for states to accept gay marriage, correct?
In my world that made things “worse” for gays.
As for Clinton signing DADT, I apparently missed the memo on how that made it better for gays, but I accept I may be wrong.
David Koch
@Napoleon:
Fuck Abolitionists! Fuck the Suffragettes! Fuck ACT-UP! Fuck union organizers! Fuck the Freedom Riders! Fuck the hippie protesters!
no one should ever confuse Socialists and Populists with Liberals and Progressives.
mtiffany
@Hal:
I must have hallucinated the bit where the woman who grabbed the mic at Sanders’ Seattle event pretty much called everyone in the crowd a racist.
FlyingToaster
@Brachiator: Those numbers don’t stand up.
Per Pew, only 25.4 million Americans self-identify as Evangelicals.
Of those, ~17.9 million are eligible to vote (older than 18, citizens, not homeless, not incarcerated).
I’m pretty sure they’re voting. Just from looking at state legislatures outside of New England :)
However, I think Ted was conflating Evangelicals with white people. Big mistake, Ted. Lots of those white people are women, and if they show up to vote, they’ll be looking to vote against Republicans.
David Koch
@kc: sounds like you’re mind is blown to discover your idol is a fake.
Baud
@Thoughtful Today:
It wasn’t illegal after DOMA. DOMA just said it was the state’s choice.
DADT made the current open policy possible.
A Ghost to Most
@David Koch: And no one should ever confuse Socialists and Populists with effective politicians.
And your strawman that everyone against this action is a Sanders-bot is bullshit.
Emma
@A Ghost to Most: Actually, no. I am quite content with the situation as it was. But what I’m seeing now is a replay of the Occupy reactions. Too lazy to go looking, but in every thread there was at least someone bitching about their methods. There seems to be two subsets of those, then and now: (1) I know better than you about successful tactics so sit down, shut up and listen to me and (2) don’t rock the boat because I get motion-sickness.
And we seem to be drifting into the same partisan rancor the Republicans indulge in, which is sad. At the time we should be actually listening to each other and figuring out an agenda we can all get behind, we’re doing the “my cause is more important than your cause” crap.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
A threat “needed”? Maybe not, but it’s always good to remind the candidates what’s at stake if they decide your group isn’t really important after all.
But, hey, you’ve got your conspiracy theory all lined up, so go for it. How does the Mena airport figure in?
burnspbesq
@Roger Moore:
Requires legislation. Not happening while there is a Republican majority in either house of Congress.
Joel
@Napoleon: The grammatical-typo is the real finishing touch here. Straight out of a newspaper comment section.
A Ghost to Most
@Emma:
That was my point about BLM; they felt that their issue (which is very important) was more important than what Bernie was going to say. And called everyone there a racist to boot (if the reports are true). Truth to tell, there has been more than a little of that here today. Speak your mind, get called a racist. Nice way to treat allies with whom you disagree.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Are you still here?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Always.
Cervantes
@Thoughtful Today:
What you missed was not a memo. It was the fact that, up to that point, the observed discrimination against gays was only military policy; whereas the conservatives [*] threatened to enshrine that policy in federal law unless Clinton agreed to settle for DADT.
[*] I say “conservatives” instead of “Republicans” because the Democrats were still in charge at the time and people like Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) were as bad on this question as most Republicans.
NotMax
@JPL
Good on him/her.
Contrary to what may be the impression, I do have a life and often do not peruse each and every thread.
JPL
I’m listening to Trump and he’s hitting all the right notes for the bigots. (Sanctuary City. Ford and the Iran Deal)
Of course, most of it is misinformation.
A Ghost to Most
@JPL:
The manager who called the driver back was fired.
Thoughtful Today
Erm … Maybe I’m misremembering:
Military policy to exclude gays could have been changed by either the military or the Executive until DADT (Federal LEGISLATION) explicitly criminalized gays in the military.
DADT disallowed the Executive (the Commander and Chief) and the military from changing military policy to allow gays in.
That sure seems worse to me.
Mack
Been following politics for a very long time…don’t think I’ve ever seen a press conference like I just watched. Damn.
JPL
@NotMax: Just wanted to give credit. Lowe’s also sent an executive down to talk to the employees, especially the delivery driver and partner. Hopefully, they got more than talk.
Roger Moore
@Thoughtful Today:
It pays to read all of what people write. Before DADT, the military was allowed to investigate the lives of service members if somebody suspected they were gay. Since they could be dishonorably discharged- and a dishonorable discharge can result in substantial loss of civil rights- that was a very serious threat. When DADT passed, that was no longer allowed. The military was no longer allowed to ask about service members sexual orientation (Don’t Ask), or to aggressively pursue the issue without real evidence, so gay service members were allowed to continue serving as long as they stayed in the closet (Don’t Tell). That certainly wasn’t as the current policy of allowing open gays to serve, but it did make life easier for gay service members.
MomSense
@Emma:
Yup. Wow.
Steve From Antioch
@Napoleon: yep, ratfuckers.
I’m surpris d that a Palin follower is working for Clinton, but I guess the money must be decent.
Or maybe it’s Koch money
JPL
Is anyone else listening to Trump. He’s now on to Kerry being 73 and breaking his leg. He’s saying that he would have negotiated for the hostages first. He’s also saying he would ratchet up the sanctions. The folks love him. How do you ratchet up sanctions?
kc
@David Koch:
Again, please cite any comment of mine indicating that Sanders (or anyone else) is my idol.
Or, just keep being a lying sack of shit.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Made me laugh! I found a fun book on vacation and thought you might enjoy it. It’s a kid’s book The Day the Crayons Quit. Even the crayons are cynical, so you are in good company.
The first letter Duncan receives from his crayons is from Red Crayon.
P.S. I thought the book was quite clever and it reminded me of you.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
Sure, but it’s an example of something significant that could only happen at the Federal level.
Thoughtful Today
Thank you for the correction, Baud.
DOMA made sure state’s could criminalize gay marriage.
Clinton’s signature made that possible.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
So you were talking out of your ass in the other thread.
Got it.
NotMax
@JPLHow do you ratchet up sanctions?SANCTIONS
In a yooge typeface.
:)
Davis X. Machina
@JPL: You non-sell them even more stuff? Until they’re importing less than zero from you?
SIgned numbers — how do they work
Kropadope
Even though I deplore HRC, no, still no.
NotMax
Fixed bad coding.
@JPL
SANCTIONS
In a yooge typeface.
:)
Baud
@Thoughtful Today:
You are dense.
JPL
So if Trump wins the nomination, does he get to see top security information?
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax:
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I do tend to write at a first grade level. And I am overworked.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: So you’re saying, eh, not thoughtful?
NotMax
@JPL
And gets to convert the White House into an ultra-posh B&B and mini-cas1no.
Davis X. Machina
@David Koch:
Immediate abolitionists? Gradual abolitionists? Compensated abolitionists?
JPL
OMG.. He is all over the board. He needs hyperactivity medicine.
Now we are back to the Trump, Trump, Trump
Roger Moore
@JPL:
According to TPM:
That sounds like the kind of response I want companies to make.
gelfling545
@Baud: I hear that can be hard to get once you’ve been declared dead.
WaterGirl
@Baud: See, I knew it was perfect for you! Go get the book, it might even make you smile. Illustrations are fun, too.
Steve From Antioch
@kc: modus operandi
Tree With Water
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Hillary Rodham Clinton made her most forceful defense yet of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran on Monday, saying that “all bets are off” if Congress were to reject the deal and warning of the potential impact to America’s standing in the world.
Bravo, Hillary. I thank you, the democratic party thanks you, indeed, the planet’s humanity thanks you. Now it’s time for Elizabeth Warren to announce that she no longer supports Schumer as senate leader. How does the sound of a Clinton-Warren ticket strike you?*
*(rhetorical question; why? see upthread)
Emma
@A Ghost to Most: I think that you’re missing a point and maybe I can explain it with personal anecdote (and screw the complainers).
I am sometimes accused of having too open a mind, because I can see the other point of view all the time. It’s a gift from a slightly wacky fairy godmother,but *shrug* there it is. I call it “gut understanding”.
What seems to be missing from the critiques of the BLM people is gut understanding. Look at it this way: if your children were daily being gunned down and your communities destroyed, wouldn’t you do anything in your power to stop it? Would you give a shit about civility and proper tactics? The killing of black men has become a spectator sport in this country. I give the AA people credit that there hasn’t been armed insurrection yet. Discussions of health care and minimum wage — why? Dead people don’t need doctors and they don’t work for a living.
I think that until we understand that rage at a gut level, we’re failing them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I thought we were going with Sandernistas?
White Trash Liberal
To those that see it as a local issue:
Voting rights and a democratic platform that embraces prison reform, community policing, body cameras, etc. Affects the party in Toto. It nationalizes and concretizes the debate.
To those who continue to critique BLM tactics and insist on better, more respectful means:
Go out and do it yourself. You’re the ally. Prove it.
To those who are making the claim that this is some Clinton plot to foist black people against Sanders in order to knee cap him:
Seriously? Do you really believe black activism has so little agency? Are you that invested in paranoiac thinking that you are cribbing conspiracy ideas from Game of Thrones?
My general thought on the Clinton campaign:
You had best meet up with BLM. Soon. They will outsmart you. It is oonly a matter of time and will make you look aloof.
And Sanders:
Good on you! An old dog that can learn new tricks is exactly what this nation needs. Please continue embracing a full coalition and trust in your message to unite. Don’t be afraid of white fragility. Be the one who punches it hard and your supporters will snap into shape. Like Thoughtful Today, who now praises what he saw as pointless two weeks ago. People who value victory uber alles will adapt.
sharl
OT inquiry – can any of you folks who follow soccer (aka un-American football) explain what is going on in the video (Vine) in this tweet?
It looks like a…steam cleaning, but in the context of what else is going on in that short video clip, I’m sure that’s not what it is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Thoughtful Today:
No.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
Hey, if you want to cling to your conspiracy theories instead of realizing that political pressure groups may have goals beyond public disruption, be my guest. When are you going to be shooting the watermelons in your backyard?
Kropadope
@Emma:
I just fail to see how any of this addresses that problem.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
raven
yawn
Seanly
@MattF:
I’m looking forward to his eventual declaration that eleventy billion Christians stayed home during the last election. His number goes up every toll he rolls out his debunked BS (apologies for the Politicifact link).
JPL
Trump is f..king nuts but I still think if a republican were elected, the damage he’d do is less than the rest. He is f..king nuts though.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Like Red Crayon, I’m thankfully going on vacation soon. Hopefully it will help.
Emma
@Kropadope: Use your gut. See your own child’s face. See how you feel.
You fail to see it because you’re ignoring (well not ignoring in a malicious sense) the decades behind this. This fight has been going on since freaking Reconstruction! How much more patience? How many more dead?
Baud
@raven:
Don’t just yawn. Post a damn sunset picture.
JPL
@Baud: Make sure you post though.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Kropadope:
Getting presidential candidates to meet with your group and discuss your concerns does nothing to help solve the problem?
BillinGlendaleCA
@sharl:
I’m so stealing that.
A Ghost to Most
@Thoughtful Today:
Much as I agree with you, it was a distinction without a difference. Either way, gays couldn’t be honest about it. They had to lie, and be good at keeping up the lie. Seems like semantics, except that DADT prepared America for full inclusion of gays in the military. Took 20+ years, but now the game is almost won. Hell, BHO had to “evolve” on the issue over 6 years. LBJ had to “evolve” and lay the groundwork for BHO to become president. It took 40+ years.
In terms of the long game, I’d like to thank LBJ, Bill Clinton, and BHO on behalf of my son.
Steve From Antioch
@Emma: so this is why the BLM protests are centered in Chicago or other cities where hundreds of black folks are gunned down every year?
No.
It should be called Some Black Lives Matter (particularly if I can make a buck off of it.)
Who is funding these fuckwits?
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Not a damn thing if your sole focus is on presidential candidates.
Thoughtful Today
“How does the sound of a Clinton-Warren ticket strike you?”
Almost as good as a Bernie / Elizabeth ticket ;)
Baud
@JPL:
Not quite as often, but I’ll have internet access, so I can post some.
WereBear
Geez. And the surface is darn ugly it’s own self.
Jeffro
Oh my.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
You keep saying “conspiracy theory.” Whatevs. I just think it looks a little staged. Perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps we’ll never know. I don’t understand why my opinion of the appearance of this bothers you so much, to the point that you contradict your own posts.
I could pull a David Koch and claim you’re bending over backwards to support “your idol.” But why don’t we just move on instead? It’s not that important to me. You can think what you want.
mtiffany
@kc:
Yeah, no. And it’s depressing that that seems to be the line the loudest self-professed BLM activists on the interwebz seem to be taking.
@Thoughtful Today:
Somebody should invent a time machine and go back to 1973 to tell the people of the state of Maryland they couldn’t statutorily ban same-sex marriage because DOMA hadn’t been written yet.
BruceFromOhio
@HumboldtBlue: This. Finally. Whew that was a long swim, thanks for pointing the way.
Another Holocene Human
@mtiffany: I see lots of engagement going on. Even those anarchist jerks in Seattle posted their demands online in multiple places, such as they were. As for the mainstream #BLM, I think their messaging has been pretty damn clear.
It’s ridiculous to take the end of a back and forth with an asshole on twitter and then say, “See, #BLM activists won’t engage.” Or start concern trolling or sealioning and get pissed when you get blocked. Every twitter feed I’ve been on has talked about the same issues again and again, so if some people aren’t getting it, it’s because they chose not to.
sharl
@BillinGlendaleCA: I was concerned that some people who post here weren’t sufficiently riled up, so felt I should try to do my part.
kc
@Steve From Antioch:
My understanding is that #BlackLivesMatter is a response to the specific issue of armed government agents gunning down unarmed civilians, most of them black, following arrests or stops for petty offenses or on entirely pretextual grounds.
If you’re conservative, which it seems that you are, I would think that would bother you.
Emma
@Steve From Antioch: You’ve decided to dislike them because their actions offend you. When your first question is one so easily answered, ask yourself why. They are going where the cameras are!
Another Holocene Human
@kc:
Yes, and it’s exactly what happened at Netroots, a group formed to disrupt the event, but also tried to get private meetings the candidates. (O’Malley did meet with them, Sanders cancelled all of his meetings with no explanation.)
There’s nothing odd about this at all. It’s almost as if you’re new to this activism/lobbying thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: What gives you the idea that their sole focus is on presidential candidates?
White Trash Liberal
@A Ghost to Most:
But not Stonewall?
Another Holocene Human
@Arclite:
When Black women do it, it’s an attack. When white people do it, it’s called activism.
Okay.
Doug R
@rikyrah:Umm….she was already secretary of state so didn’t she do that already
Another Holocene Human
@kc: lololol, let the paranoia flow within in you, padawan
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
It’s almost as if you aren’t paying any attention.
Thoughtful Today
Erm …
“Discussions of health care and minimum wage — why?”
Lack of health care is as deadly as a bullet. Unaffordable health care the same.
Staying alive is often an economic issue. The ACA partially corrected for that, now only, what, 30 MILLION people don’t have insurance instead of 46 million?
I don’t minimize that a full 1/3rd fewer are living without insurance. It’s wonderful.
But don’t gloss over 30 million that still don’t have health care, those lives matter. Lack of life saving healthcare disproportionately hurts Blacks and Hispanics.
I don’t see Hillary moving that dial as fast as Bernie intends to with his avid support of Single Payer / Medicare for Everyone.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
Yes, and … ? I guess I have a higher tolerance for political theater. Sanders having local BLM activists onstage in Los Angeles was fucking brilliant political theater and took the wind out of the sails of any future interrupters at his events. Hillz was probably feeling left out.
Thoughtful Today
corrected:
I don’t minimize that a full 1/3rd fewer are living with insurance with the ACA. It’s wonderful. but 30 million still don’t have health care. That costs lives.
Bernie’s single payer plan would give health care to those 30 million.
Hillary’s plan is for those 30 million to buy insurance.
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
Depends on who’s doing the calling. For example, a white or Hispanic woman will be called a “heckler” by many people here, not you, though, I’m sure.
A Ghost to Most
@White Trash Liberal:
Sorry, wasn’t thinking popular culture, but political actions by presidents.
And I’m playing catch up on gay history. Used to be pretty oblivious.
Or perhaps you’re just continuing to be a dick. If so, my mistake.
Sly
@Hal:
JPL
@Baud: Have a wonderful vacation.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Oh, you think it might have been staged? Quite the conspiracy theorist, there, aren’t you? Tell me about the black helicopters.
Baud
@JPL:
Thanks.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, I’ve found just two instances of BLM protests at city councils, a handful of police stations, not one Congressperson. No disruptive protests of any mayors, but they did have a planned meeting with the mayor of Los Angeles, wasn’t that a wonderful idea?
So, OK, maybe not sole focus, just waaaaaay disproportionate.
BruceFromOhio
@David Koch:
Yeah! Wanker!
WaterGirl
@Baud: Traveling somewhere fun? Spending time with family? But, most importantly, will you still be here at BJ???
Edit: Hmm, I assumed you have siblings, but maybe that’s not the case?
A Ghost to Most
@BruceFromOhio:
Took all day, but we have a winner!
Roger Moore
@A Ghost to Most:
That isn’t quite right. Before DADT, gay service members had to lie because the military was allowed to ask. Under DADT, they no longer had to actively lie because the military was no longer allowed to ask; they just weren’t allowed to come out and speak the truth. That’s a small improvement, but it is an improvement.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I’ll still be here on and off.
Steve From Antioch
@kc: I ain’t conservative. I generally despise th police. Police abuse their authority every day.
It amazes me that even after a prominent BLM mouthpiece is shown to be nut job Palinite, people still want to argue that she is acting in good faith.
mtiffany
@Another Holocene Human:
Concern trolling and sealioning, the “judicial activism” of the interwebz.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Who takes care of the pups when you are gone?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s great. How’s he going to pass that plan through Congress?
A Ghost to Most
@Roger Moore:
Yes, I agree. Not only ask, but if security clearance was involved, deep dive. I don’t know how security clearances were handled during DADT.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
They are coming with.
A Ghost to Most
@Steve From Antioch:
I think you need to do some more research; the prevailing opinion here is that she emulated her Teabagger parents in 2008, but now has grown.
Another Holocene Human
@A Ghost to Most: Here’s the problem: you keep calling the anarchist who disrupted the Seattle event “BLM” as if she is equal to and one with all BLM organizers in hundreds of local communities across the country. That just isn’t true. I’m sure people are defending her but for the most part I haven’t seen full throated defenses of her or her actions from anywhere. What’s happening is that you, and others, keep attacking #BLM in general based on something Marissa Jenae Johnson said. It’s not clear that she speaks for anyone but herself. (She posted an anarchist manifesto online that does not at all comport with #BLM’s stated goals.)
Please, let’s stop the “all Hewmons look alike” fallacy. We’re better than this.
And mtiffany, you should know very well that each metro has its own franchise/group that affiliates with the greater organization (which is probably quite loosely affiliated, like the new SDS in the 2000s). Here’s the facts:
A Bernie rally in Seattle was disrupted by individuals claiming to be Seattle BLM.
A twitter feed and facebook page purporting to be Seattle BLM disavowed the action.
A group called BLM Boston announced the intent to crash a Hilary event in Keene, NH.
They couldn’t get in but negotiated a closed-door meeting with the candidate.
I don’t think the group in Boston and the two young ladies in Seattle have any contact or knowledge of each other outside of news reports.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Yay!
Patricia Kayden
@David Koch: I don’t like the idea of hassling allies. Period. I’ll support whoever wins the Dem primaries. I don’t support BLM disruptive tactics.
As an aside, it’s dangerous to allow folks to get so close to Sanders anyways. I’m fearful of someone hurting him. He needs some body guards.
Cervantes
@Thoughtful Today:
Here’s my last (public) good deed for the day … (and you know what they say about good deeds … ).
“Criminalize” is probably not what you mean to say. What you probably mean is “continue to criminalize.”
Anyway, first recall that in 1993, in Baehr v. Miike, Hawaii’s Supreme Court had ruled that if the state wanted to ban gay marriage, it had to demonstrate a compelling interest in doing so.
Naturally, this decision upset conservatives across the nation because they could see what was coming — and that is how, in 1996, we got DOMA: a law that, inter alia, allowed any given state to refuse to recognize marriages that had been performed legally in other states.
Until that point, given the “Full Faith and Credit” Clause of the US Constitution — whereby each state is obliged to recognize the “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state” — the general practice had been that, even though marriage laws differed from state to state, each would recognize marriages performed elsewhere.
So again:
Not exactly.
By the way, I agree that it was bad law — which is why the US Supreme Court eventually threw it out in US v. Windsor. (That opinion was joined by two Clinton appointees, two Obama appointees, and one Reagan appointee, with the usual suspects dissenting, of course).
OK now? Have a good night.
Doug R
@HumboldtBlue: I disagree
Another Holocene Human
@Thoughtful Today:
Same sex marriage has never been criminalized in my lifetime.
Look up what happened to the Lovings of Loving v. Virginia fame. That’s criminalization.
Gay sex WAS criminalized by various states and the SCOTUS failed to ban that in the 1980s when they had the chance. Finally corrected their mistake in Lawrence v. Texas.
Bitter Scribe
Why do these assholes think they’re so much more important than everyone else that they get to take over someone else’s event? Those people went there to hear Hillary Clinton, not BLM.
A Ghost to Most
@Another Holocene Human:
No, Sorry. I have a problem with the tactics, not the people or the movement. I may have used BLM as an inaccurate shortcut. That is my bad. I hope BLM is successful, but I question the effectiveness of the tactic. Does this really help the long game? Does it keep a Republican out of the White House?
Has the larger BLM movement disavowed the action? If so, I haven’t seen it. I have seen a lot of people getting very cranky with anyone who dares to speak against the tide.
Another Holocene Human
@Seanly: I’m imagining him saying “Eleventy billion Christians stayed home” over and over on a Vine or something.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: Ooo, going all Alex Jones on me, nice touch.
Kropadope
@A Ghost to Most:
Another thing, if I want to get involved in protesting institutional racism and I’m looking for an organization with which I can do that, I’m reluctant to join a BLM event because it seems like I’d be engaged in the political equivalent of beating my head against a wall. There aren’t any other prominent groups working predominantly on this issue, so I really don’t know where to turn.
So, I’m stuck just talking about racial justice to friends and family, then trying to vote for the right people (all of which also feels conspicuously like banging my head against the wall).
Thoughtful Today
Jim, Foolish Literalist, had we had a President use the Bully Pulpit, we would have had a Single Payer option pass through Congress in 2009.
Corporate insurance salespeople condemn such thinking as “Green Lantern’ism.”
“Green Lantern’ism”: The crazy notion that you can use your imagination to find successful solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
Using the Bully Pulpit to push Senators and Congress-folk to use appropriations to circumvent the filibuster would have worked if that President had been willing to show up in those Senator’s States and Congress-folk’s Congressional districts and make it Primary worthy issue.
But we didn’t have a President do that because … yellow.
A Ghost to Most
@Emma:
When Matthew Shepherd was found dead on that fence in Wyoming, did it wrench you to your core? Would you have done anything to prevent that from happening again? Did you? I Try to understand your experience, but cannot as you wish. Can you understand my experience? Do you care?
Lots of people suffer from the evils of this country and world. Stop acting like only your issues count.
I am on your side, but sometimes wonder if the commitment to social justice ends at skin color, or religious belief, or sexual orientation. I have seen evidence of all three today.
Baud
@Thoughtful Today:
Oh shit. You’re DougJ!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ah, you’re a moron.
Another Holocene Human
@A Ghost to Most: The main group put out a tweet that was open to interpretation but seemed to throw some shade on Ms. Johnson.
No, they haven’t disavowed the tactic because it’s working.
Also, their long game is not to further the goals of the Democratic Party. Obviously some people respond to that in a viscerally negative manner. They are engaged what we call single issue activism (although it isn’t really a single issue, is it, more of a cluster), and they are putting pressure on those they think are most likely to be responsive and help their cause.
The DREAMers went after GOP figures because they wanted to address for one thing the way they were being talked about so they got right in Steve King’s stupid face. They also were playing the long game, as you call it, to expose GOP polls for the world to see.
But in another sense both groups have targeted the party in power. The GOP controls the Congress and therefore any national immigration reform agenda (and you’d better believe they went after Obama with both barrels as well, it just hasn’t gotten the press), while the Dems control the office of the President and executive agencies such as DOJ and DHS.
Corporations give more money to the party that’s in power and expected to be in power … activists focus their lobbying efforts the same way.
El Caganer
It appears that Clinton, O’Malley and Sanders are now engaged with BLM in a positive fashion. If all I had seen today was the vast tsunami of butthurt still washing over the intertubes, I wouldn’t believe it. Isn’t it a bit pointless to keep complaining about BLM’s lack of civility or Sanders’ lack of awareness or whatever now? I doubt that any of the candidates would be be grateful to people who keep shoving this crap out there – they have campaigns to run, and “Dems in disarray” is not a theme any of them would happily embrace.
Botsplainer
If somebody rushed a stage of my event to shout a bunch of sophomoric bullshit like that at me, I’d beat them half to death as a matter of principle, “activist” or not.
Shit like that doesn’t rate civility.
Mark Ikarus
I think it’s hysterical that this protest went awry because they couldn’t be arsed to get to the event they were planning to hijack on time.
Another Holocene Human
My take on the Seattle thing is that the BLM org called for “acts of civil disobedience” in honor of the one year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death. So while the original BLM organizers were involved in preparing for that in Ferguson, Marissa Jenae Johnson gathered up the one friend who was the Marcy to her Peppermint Patty, and, being aware of the call to action, crashed the Bernie event over the weekend and tried to tie it in. But since it was sui generis, what she did and said made little sense. She hasn’t made too many friends, and going online is probably a bit scary for her right now.
Maybe she is just young and dumb and this is a terrible learning experience.
Maybe she has a personality disorder and we haven’t heard the last of Outside Agitators 206.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
No, I think Clinton’s campaign responded to a Twitter post. But I realize that, in your mind, responding to a group that you know has targeted other candidates is OMG CONSPIRACY!
Not all political theater is planned and rehearsed. A lot of it is improvised. But, again, I realize that doesn’t fit into your preferred paradigm of they planned the whole thing together from the start!
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
To the thread, dipshit.
mtiffany
@Botsplainer:
Now that would be the PR win BLM needs.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Fuck off, thanks.
Kropadope
@Botsplainer: Those are actually really good questions. If their intention was to go on stage, ask those questions, and get an answer; that would mean they were stepping their game up. They failed to get on stage because HRC has much better security; but in all of these cases, couldn’t they have approached the candidate in a less confrontational way first, just to see how it went. Then, go for the disrupt if the candidate does, in fact, choose to ignore them. Not only would that look less bad, but it would give the candidates more time to put some thought into BLM’s concerns.
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
LMAO!
mtiffany
@Mark Ikarus: CPT strikes again!
kc
@Botsplainer:
LOL.
Here’s O. Willis’s take.
kc
@mtiffany:
Well, Donald Trump has apparently vowed to fight anyone who tries to seize his mic, so . . . will anyone take one for the team?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@El Caganer:
I’m very happy with the way Sanders has responded to the pressure from BLM and feel much more positive about his candidacy.
His supporters, not so much. Jaysus, people, learn to take “yes” for an answer.
gwangung
@Botsplainer:
Death by police, death by idiot. Since it makes no difference, may as well rush the stage.
Fuck respectability politics. You seem to forget the first is way more probable than the second.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@kc:
Wevs. Peddle your conspiracy theories somewhere else, we’re all full up on crazy here already.
kc
@Kropadope:
The last question isn’t too bad, since it’s at least asking about her plans and the war on drugs has been a costly disaster for everyone except law enforcement agencies.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
What part of “fuck off” do you not understand?
Kropadope
@kc: Shit, that troglodyte thinks the police are already too constrained. If we can get a functional plan to get me up there, I’m in. Assuming, of course, we make at least once attempt first to schedule a proper meeting.
kc
He seems to be partial to SC; you can come stay with me the next time he comes here. I’ll drive you to the event and help post your bond, if necessary. :)
A Ghost to Most
@Another Holocene Human:
So they have declared themselves as hostile to the Democratic Party?
And I am supposed to support their goals why? I am all in on supporting the Democratic Party (shitty as it is) because I can understand the Electoral College and the Supreme Court.
Bon Voyage to them. We are not working in the same direction.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I don’t see a whole lot of supporters of any candidates who were affected by these protests trying to hold their candidate above any criticism whatsoever the way the BLM supporters do the protesters. Anyone who disagrees with these tactics is told they don’t care about black people, only care about their votes, are happy to wait patiently while black people die, or are full-on racists.
These “disrupt” protests are lame and off target, but some of you thin-skinned protest defenders **cough**Cacti**cough** are being downright odious. This stopped being about the candidates long ago, for me it never really was.
mclaren
@Botsplainer:
Let’s be clear on what this “shit” is:
Why is that “shit”?
Sounds like a completely legitimate and in fact straightforward question to me.
Of course, I would have put it a little differently:
Read The New Jim Crow, law professor Michelle Alexander’s detailed analysis of the evidence showing that current drug laws and drug sentencing policies are nothing but the reinstatement of a racial caste system designed to crush black people economically, socially, politically and institutionally. Current drug laws conveniently remove the voting franchise from millions of convicted black drug offenders — despite the fact that 80% of drug criminals are white, 80% of the people in prison for drug crimes are black.
This is not coincidence. It’s deliberate. White people hate and fear blacks and want to keep them economically and socially enslaved. The current American drug laws and prison system are the way they’re doing it.
This isn’t “shit,” buddy. It’s the reality on the ground in the United Snakes of Amnesia in 2015.
You know, this kind of no-neck anti-intellectual know-nothing sneering reaction to documented facts is all too typical of the mouth-breathers and slope-browed pithecanthrepoids who misname themselves “liberals” on this forum. Don’t bother to engage the actual evidence showing that blacks are 5 times more likely to receive hugely longer sentences than whites for drug crimes, don’t even address the documented fact that blacks are stopped by police 20 times more often than whites for minor traffic issues like “tail light out” or “registration sticker covered by the license plate holder” than whites. Don’t even pretend to deal with the grotesque fact that 35% of black people between age 17 and 35 are unable to vote because of felony convictions. No, don’t discuss any of that — just vomit out some trash talk about “that shit” and crack your knuckles and walk away smirking.
Kropadope
@kc: Let’s try to set up a meeting first. How does one go about that? Start a petition maybe?
kc
@Kropadope:
I dunno;I could try to find out who his SC campaign staff is and send them an email request.
Or we could be cool and just tweet a request at him.
What if he said yes, though? Shit . ..
mclaren
@Kropadope:
I was at the Bernie Sanders rally in Portland on Sunday. Didn’t encounter any of that. There was no disruption. Record-breaking crowd, at least 28,000 people. Bernie had a black woman introduce him and he spoke at length about the importance of dealing with institutional racism.
As far as I can see, for Sanders’ campaign going forward, this is a non-issue. He’s addressed it. There doesn’t seem to be further disruption.
As to why Hillary’s speeches haven’t been disrupted, I’m guessing we can chalk that up to the Secret Service. They’re pretty hardcore about these kinds of unplanned disruptions.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Kropadope:
Yes, it’s almost like “presidential candidates” and “protest groups” are two separate groups that have different goals and standards applied to them, isn’t it?
Now I have to go — my swimming lesson is starting. #WhitePeopleProblems
gelfling545
@Kropadope: In the end, it may not. Desperate people do not take time to count the cost because the cost is already so high. The need to make some response at any time & place available to you is quite understandable and, in context, reasonable. Still, many said Occupy would do no good & look: income inequality is suddenly the hot topic.
I completely understand using the Sanders events. They’d probably risk their lives or at least arrest at a GOP venue (though that may come) and seriously 150 wealthy folks at a Clinton fundraiser guarded by the Secret Service or 30,000 folks from a cross section of the community at an open Sanders event – which will most likely be noticed?
Kropadope
@kc: NH is more my speed/travel range.
mclaren
@Thoughtful Today:
Don’t know if we would’ve had a single payer option in 2009. But back when Obama had a supermajority, we damn sure did have an opportunity to push the health care debate much farther toward the single payer option. Instead, Obama pre-emptively dismissed single payer by saying it was “off the table” before he even started coming up with health care reform.
That’s a very poor negotiating tactic.
What you want to do as a negotiator is to press forward with the option that your opponent hates and fears most, and then only moderate your position once your negotiating adversary gives in and starts weakening his position.
Obama should have and could have threatened to ram through Single Payer, especially by using his powers as Chief Executive to declare a national health care emergency and sign an executive order forcing doctors and nurses to work at minimum wage as drafted military personnel for X number of years after they graduated medical school, unless the AMA and its corrupt thieving cronies gave some real concessions on health care. Like immense expansion of medicare, caps on doctors’ salaries, effective cost controls on medical device costs and medical procedures, civilian review boards with real oversight power on cartel health care restraint of trade and hospital-doctor collusion and Big Pharma bribery of primary physicians and so on.
Obama should’ve threatened to nationalize American medical schools by executive order unless they toed the line.
There are fewer medical schools in America today than 1965, yet the population is enormously larger. Want to know why America has the world’s highest health care costs? Start there.
Obama did none of that.
Thoughtful Today
LOL @
kc: “Well, Donald Trump has apparently vowed to fight anyone who tries to seize his mic, so . . . will anyone take one for the team?”
“Third Party Trump! THIRD PARTY TRUMP! THIRD PARTY TRUMP!”
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): It may have escaped your notice, but no one here is a presidential candidate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mclaren: I always thought you were nut. You’re a spoof? after all this time and all that marathon typing?
A Ghost to Most
@gelfling545:
Sorry, don’t get this. Your enemies are too dangerous to fuck with (which I agree with), so you go fuck with your friends? And this is productive why?
Thoughtful Today
mclaren:
Bernie’s Portland rally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2lgcQ1ZSu8
Black lives activist Symone Sanders’ introductory speech opens Bernie’s speech, but was truncated in the video. I’m hoping to find video of the other introductory speakers, they were good. But Symone was incredible.
Thoughtful Today
Jim, Foolish Literalist, I get you’re from the Neoliberal / Frightened of the Color Yellow crowd (Yglesias/Krugman/Klein and blogs like LGM, etc.), but that crowd often disregard how much Obama gave away to the corporations (insurance corps, banksters, MIC, etc.).
It’s why I’m so uncomfortable with Clinton, she’ll continue that neoliberal servitude to money begun under her husband and continued under Obama’s Presidency.
If that’s what the D’s cough up, I vote for them, because, sure, the other team’s insane.
But I’d prefer to vote with someone I trust shares my values /cough/Bernie/cough/.
Anne Laurie
@Cacti:
I believe the term for which you search is “God-King”.
Cruz wishes to be God-King of the Talibangelicals — and he’s got a good chance of achieving that. He’d accept the Presidency, at this point, but only if it were offered to him in a suitably deferential manner and on his terms. Until that happy day (his father promised it!), he’ll consolidate his reign by leaching serfs from the other “Christian” candidates, those without his well-honed gifts for oratory (bloviation) and leadership (empty threats from a stylish platform).
Thoughtful Today
!
NEW HAMPSHIRE UPDATE:
“Sanders leads Clinton 44-37 percent among likely Democratic primary voters, the first time the heavily favored Clinton has trailed in the 2016 primary campaign, according to the poll of 442 Granite-Staters.” … “a new Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll shows.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/us_politics/2015/08/bernie_sanders_surges_ahead_of_hillary_clinton_in_nh_44_37
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Nothing at all passive aggressive about those questions.
Tell me, is Black Lives Matter objective to bring attention to the concerns of African Americans or just relive their pre-teens?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Thoughtful Today: He cam lead all he wants, he isn’t eligible to make the ballot on enough states to get the nomination. That “I am to pure to be a Democrat” thing.
Applejinx
So fine, Bernie was the target for actual #BLM disruption which needed to happen at least once (it is THE most important issue to a lot of people, rightly so)
And fine, Hillary’s either paying them or using them intelligently against Bernie knowing he’s more disruptable. You have to pay $2700 to get into HER event and she is a machine pol with heavy Secret Service protection and ain’t nobody gonna disrupt her: only Bernie has to deal with that. GOOD. It shows his quality and that he’s not manufactured or playing off a script, give him a day or a week and he’ll work out what is right and do it.
Bernie can beat Hillary in the primary, so all’s fair and the END result is more awareness of black issues, hopefully in a way we can sell to semi-racist whites. No more preaching to the choir, it’s time to convince literally all America and move on it.
At the time of the disruption, it was shove Bernie offstage and insist that people chant ‘Sandra Bland’. hashtag Say Her Name!
Now Bernie is talking about this. I would like to see him do THIS:
Bernie: “#SayHerName!”
Crowd goes ‘Sandra Bland!’
Bernie: “STOP. You need to understand something. That was LAST MONTH. Yesterday (fill in new outrage, we are sure to have one)”
Crowd: *off balance. what, new hashtag?*
Bernie: “We have many challenges and I’m happy to talk about them and my solutions for them. But you need to understand I’m talking about this because I’ve come to learn it’s an emergency. This is not about Sandra Bland. It is still happening. You need to give me the power to stop it. I’m pretty good at sticking to my word and my beliefs. I’ve come to believe this is urgent and I’m inclined to be a little stubborn, a little ‘radical’ about it!”
Bernie: “Because you know what else is radical? When one percent of Americans control sixty percent of the income in blah blah blah pivot back to economics, that being also fundamental to my platform…”
He could do this. He’s smart enough to. #SayHerName is a moving target, that’s the whole point! It is OBSCENE how we have come to be comfortable with a new black face murdered by police every few days. Sandra is one small entry in a very very long list that is being added to even while it becomes a matter of public outrage.
Sanders can say the real outrage is that Sandra Bland was last month’s headline. The real outrage is that it doesn’t stop with Sandra Bland. The real outrage is the next life snuffed out, and the next, and the next: we have to act, and it’s urgent.
How many more Sandra Blands do we tolerate?
Thoughtful Today
@ Enhanced Voting Techniques
Dems aren’t going to look good if actual Democratic Party members vote for Bernie and the only way Hillary wins is through disenfranchising those Democratic Party members’ primary votes.
Hillary came out strong against disenfranchisement, but that’s at odds with her own superdelegate “base strategy” that abandons many American states to Republicans.
Bernie’s BUILDING the Democratic Party with a solid 50 state plan that’s growing fast. He has better policies, he’s an excellent messenger, and he’s proving to be an extraordinary and vigorous campaigner.
https://BernieSanders.com