Just to keep it straight: Hillary was baited 3 times to call Bernie "unqualified," and she gave it a hard pass https://t.co/lBRPCcKWKC
— Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) April 7, 2016
Bernie just crossed one:
Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that Hillary Clinton is not “qualified” to be president, a sharp escalation in rhetoric in the Democratic primary.
“Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little bit nervous,” he told a crowd in Philadelphia. “And she has been saying lately that she thinks that I am ‘not qualified’ to be president. Well, let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don’t believe that she is qualified, if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.”
That’s kind of an unforgivable bit of rhetoric given what is at stake in 2016.
As a side note, I guess this is just a microcosm of how Hillary is where she is. Even with all her faults, she’s a prize fighter. She just rope-a-dopes her opponents, let’s them punch themselves out, and moves on- think of the 11 hour hearing. Yeah, it’s bloody and ugly and hard to watch, but it works.
Corner Stone
Christ, what an asshole Sanders is.
Baud
Compared to me, they’re all neophytes.
John Cole
@Baud: Baud/Cole Unity ticket?
PST
Can anyone identify an instance of Hillary saying that Bernie isn’t qualified to be President? I can’t.
Misa
I just donated $75 to Hills that I don’t have. I’m so angry and Bernie.
RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac
Fuck you, Bernie.
BlueDWarrior
Does he really think driving this hyper-purity angle is going to get him the 10%+ in NY, PA, and MD he needs to truly bite into Hillary’s lead, or is this something else going on?
Corner Stone
She’s not nervous, because unlike your ignorant ass campaign she learned the maths over the last eight years. She’s annoyed that a person outside the Democratic party keeps trying to appropriate the infrastructure and identity of a long established party without working one fucking second in his miserable fucking existence to push that party identity forward.
Comrade Mary
Sanders’ team is saying that Clinton called Sanders unqualified because of the Daily News interview. Anyone find anything resembling a direct quote like that from her or her team?
dmsilev
So much for Sanders’ original intent of not going negative.
JPL
Bernie has become unhinged. I miss the dreamer.
Baud
@John Cole:
The Juicetariat would go wild. Like panty-tossing wild.
I wish we had connected before American Samoa.
Comrade Mary
Ah.
Comrade Mary
His team also sent out a fund-raising email this morning saying that Clinton was trying to disqualify him, yadda, yadda. See also the Laughing Hillary video posted earlier today.
andy
Fuck you Bernie, especially since everybody knows your campaign has to have told you you’re done.
Of course, if they haven’t, then they’re either incompetent True Believers or grifters holding out for more Bernie Bucks.
redshirt
Sanders needs to go back to Vermont and eat some Ben and Jerry’s.
El Tiburon
Wait – let’s play the tape back.
“Asked whether she believes Sanders is qualified for the presidency, Clinton declined to say that he is”
So Bernie jabs at Clinton after she jabbed at him about qualifications? And this is “crossing the line”? Ha. Bullshit. Crossing the line is bringing up Monica Lewinsky or some other horseshit.
On a side-note, since Sanders is back on-topic. There’s this:
“Let’s Dispel Once and for All With This Fiction that Sanders Doesn’t Know How to Break Up Banks”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good for you, Cole.
No matter how much my contempt for Sanders grows, he keeps running out of it.
Talking head on O”Donnell making a point for me, Sanders said “quote/unquote” and there is no quote.
Also, we’re seeing how Sanders reacts when things get even a little bit tough. Somebody tell me again how great he’d do in a general election.
Peale
@Baud: Yeah. But I’m trying to figure out where the Unity part would be. Isn’t that supposed to imply a difference of opinion? Or different consituencies? Maybe you are the champion of the commentatortariat, and he brings the Twiiterati?
Chyron HR
@El Tiburon:
So Friday, then.
MomSense
@John Cole:
Yes we can!
Miss Bianca
@Baud: @John Cole: You guys could still do a whistle-stop tour. It’s not too late!
El Tiburon
@PST: Go here and read this
:Asked whether she believes Sanders is qualified for the presidency, Clinton declined to say that he is
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
Baud/Cole 2016!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Sanders is right:
Uppity women like Hillary just don’t get it.
She just doesn’t have the right necessities for the position.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
She’s unqualified because she’s a woman. Everyone knows that. This isn’t women’s work.
Mandalay
@El Tiburon:
Well said. What a bunch of whining pearl clutchers.
Corner Stone
@El Tiburon: B Crack, let me make sure you once and for all understand the El Tiburon Group JSF and myself warned you about lo those many heartfelt months ago during the heady Snowden days on this blog.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
anybody notice that all the trolls who used to tell us Obama was a weak failure, secret Republican, etc, and who blessedly went away for a while, are now coming back to telling us that Bernie! is the Way, the Truth and Light?
AliceBlue
Blow it out your butt you sanctimonious old prick.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is the first time he has gotten any serious follow up questions (I don’t even think NYDN editors gave pushback) and he couldn’t handle it.
redshirt
It’s refreshing that there’s a new BernieBro with some fresh hot takes.
Baud
Baud!/Cole!: Tire Rims and Anthrax!
SarahT
@PST: Was just gonna add that. Hillary’s too smart to go there, but if she did, she’d be right. The longer this primary goes on the less respect I have for Bernie & his obnoxious spokespeople, paid or not.
japa21
Sanders has, since about New Hampshire, been extremely negative in this campaign,making strong insinuations about Clinton’s character, honesty, etc. This is not the first time he has crossed the line. And despite what El Tib says, she has never even implied that Sanders is not qualified. That is, after all, for the voters to decide.
I have never had my view of Sanders impacted by things some of his supporters say or do. I have had it impacted both by things Sanders has said and done and by the way he allows his supporters to say ludicrous things without ever correcting them.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
We have to applaud Sanders for moving Overton’s Window to the left on this matter.
*
He’s a Truth Teller, who is above politics.
Corner Stone
Woah, woah, woah.
Explicitly saying it several times on a stump speech is now = to not explicity saying it on Morning Joe? When that is the ultra-fucking nugget that he wants to come out of your mouth?
You people are fucking nuts.
Linnaeus
@Comrade Mary:
She didn’t directly say that he was unqualified, but very strongly hinted that he wasn’t.
El Tiburon
So Sanders can’t jab back at HRC if she started on about Bernie not being qualified? Oh my – clutch at those fucking pearls much y’all?
HRC may not be getting nervous, but the HRC fan-club is about to piss their britches.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Cole would be your Palin.
George Hayduke
She’s certainly qualified. She’s over 35, and a natural born citizen. also, she’s likeable enough.
MomSense
@Baud:
You can’t toss your panties if you’re not wearing any.
tastytone
One shit interview and in a matter of days he goes full-on kamikaze. Helluva a way to go out, old chum.
Corner Stone
@MomSense: Haaayyy-OOOO!!!
El Tiburon
@japa21: I didn’t say shit. I linked to and quoted DIRECTLY from an article. Now, if Eric Levitz, the author or the article, characterized her statements incorrectly, then so be it.
Alex
@El Tiburon:
Let me quote that for ya-
That is clearly is Hillary Clinton saying that Bernie Sanders isn’t qualified.
If you define saying someone isn’t qualified as “The voters should decide”.
Comrade Mary
@Linnaeus: She failed to defend him whole-heartedly. That’s par for the course for competitors. But if the claim is that she called him unqualified, then the claim is false.
Chyron HR
@El Tiburon:
Mandalay
@japa21:
Beyond parody.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bernie doesn’t want to see Newtown politicized. Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn and Wayne La Pierre say amen.
Joel
Stylistically, Bernie reminds me of Mike McGinn, former mayor of Seattle.
Not a compliment.
redshirt
@El Tiburon: Too late! I’m soaked. Terrified of the Bern!
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: he does read all the papers.
@MomSense: are you trying to be the scandal that brings down my administration?
Corner Stone
That NYDN interview was a fucking dumpster fire. Period. I find it amusing that every single article written (and overly linked, desperately) explaining how it *wasn’t really a fucking dumpster fire* somehow seems to take about the same or less space than the NYDN interview to intimately detail what “Bernie was really trying to say”.
Amazeballs!
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
I take it you approve of commando blogging.
hamletta
Sanders presented it as a direct quote when Clinton said nothing of the kind.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes.
dr. bloor
@Corner Stone: I need a cigarette after reading that.
MomSense
@Baud:
Hey I warned you that Maplethorpe would be the pg13 version of the National Endowment for the Arts once you handed it over to me.
Baud
@Alex: Thanks for the quote. That’s too weak a sauce to support Sanders’ reaction.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Are you getting a tingle up your leg yet?
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: Not true. You can’t toss them while wearing them.
Chyron HR
To be fair, Sanders sent one of his boys out today to warn Clinton that she would destroy the Democratic party if she didn’t concede. Any reasonable person can see that whatever happens is on her head.
Linnaeus
@Comrade Mary:
Clinton is a smart enough politician to know how to say things without saying them.
And that’s fine. If Clinton thinks that Sanders is unqualified and wants to say so, directly or indirectly, that doesn’t bother me. When she says that Sanders doesn’t really understand the issues, that’s tantamount to saying he’s unqualified to hold office. I’m okay with her taking that approach. That’s politics.
Baud
@MomSense: I expect you to make them want to defund you.
geg6
I’m so infuriated, I could seriously go postal. Was at a Hilz event today at CMU, harassed by Berniebros for hours while waiting in line to get in. What disgusting, creepy little shits, yelling and screaming at women, minorities and old people, calling them names and just being the most horrifying examples of white mostly male privilege I’ve ever come across. And now this. Fuck Bernie and all his acolytes, fuck them with rusty chainsaws sideways.
That said, Hilz was great and there were a lot of young people there, mostly women and minorities. Very enthusiastic crowd and many more people than the room could hold (probably 1500-2000). She was very sincere and empathetic and the college kids sitting around us were nodding their heads. After the zoo out front, I felt much better after being there in that crowd.
lamh36
So basically Joe Scar tried to get HRC to directly say “Bernie Sanders is NOT qualified to be President” and HRC didn’t take the bait. That’s what a PRO does…
So what does Sanders to…not leave it to his ugh campaign mgr Weaver, or his latest celeb surrogate but Joe Scar and the media gets the direct quote they tried to get from HRC…from the candidate himself.
Now media headline can quote Sanders directly, no need to insinuate or outright make up/misinterpret a quote as Joe tried and media did with HRC.
Oh and the Bernie supporter’s defense is “well she started it”…like a bunch of children, when no…she really didn’t in this case.
Corner Stone
@MomSense:
*fanning self rapidly*
Oh my!
/Takei
Jeff
And this is why I’ll be sitting the rest of the primary out. Call me when we have a Republican candidate to beat up instead of a circular firing squad.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’d be amazed what one can do. Haven’t you seen zoolander?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder if this will cost Bernie! some his tote-bagger support, the self-congratulatory who were trying on some radical chic for the primary assuming they, and everyone else, will get serious when the time comes to put away childish things.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
If Hillary some how becomes President, hopefully she’ll be paid far less than a qualified man. That would only be fair.
RaflW
I am f*king fed up with Mr. Sanders. He can just piss off home to Vermont and take a nice long grandpa nap. Clearly he’s exhausted and running his mouth with no restraint because he knows he’s close but cannot realistically clinch the deal.
What a dickish way to run the last lengths of the race. I hope New Yorker voters tell Mr. Sanders the message he needs to hear, in exactly the elegant terms he deserves.
Mandalay
@Comrade Mary:
Really? From post #46:
Is your argument that because she didn’t use the word “unqualified” that comment from Clinton about Sanders doesn’t count? Really?
gogol's wife
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m surrounded by these people. They wear their Bernie buttons to church, for God’s sake. I hope something makes them wake up.
dr. bloor
@El Tiburon: Your flop sweat is coming through on my Internets Smell-o-vision. As Jeff Goldblum said in Independence Day, “Good Night!”
El Tiburon
@Jeff:
Yeah looks like I picked the wrong week to start reading BJ in depth again. Some things never change…
eemom
The only line that matters is whether he urges his supporters to support Hillary when the whole mess is over.
You know, like she WHOLE-HEARTEDLY told hers to do for Obama when the ugliness of 2008 finally came to an end.
If he doesn’t do that, I will officially hate him. However, I’m still hoping that my belief in his fundamental decency will be vindicated.
MomSense
@Baud:
Get Cruz to read Dr. Seuss and threaten to shut down government levels of defund. I’ll just arrange the timing to help with the midterms.
Mnemosyne
One of the hardest things to learn as a politician is how not to take the bait when your opponents dangle it in front of you. It seems like Hillary has learned that lesson and Bernie has not.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense:
I have yet to drink enough to permanently erase it from my memory.
Aqualad08
@El Tiburon:
Wait, is Marco Rubio writing headlines for Bernie now ;)
Gin & Tonic
Wow, 80 posts in 25 minutes.
dr. bloor
@Baud: I’m going to get a kickstarter going for however many D cell batteries she may need to make Mapplethorpe look “PG13.”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@geg6:
You’re just mad because Sanders is right — women aren’t qualified to do a man’s job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mandalay: to quote St Bernard: “quote/unquote”, or are those words which, like revolution, he doesn’t really mean.
Corner Stone
@Jeff: I was largely sitting it out, also. But this is some nuts ass shit going on.
I’m not large about one of the primary contestants in the D race coming out and explicitly saying that not only is the other candidate corrupt, which has been the message now for several weeks from the BS campaign, but that she is not qualified.
Comrade Mary
@Mandalay: Calling out your opponent for a poor performance describing his position on some matters is bog-standard campaigning. Stating outright that someone is unqualified because of [unchangeable aspect of history] is, umm, escalating things just a tad.
WarMunchkin
The reality marble is fun. Clinton didn’t say that Sanders was qualified -> Sanders thinks Clinton called him unqualified, so he responded by calling her unqualified. And Sanders didn’t outright say “she’s unqualified”, he did the sneaky “if”. This is what I call reality marbling.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@eemom: His fundamental decency? Like his position banning widows and orphans from filing wrongful death suits against gun corporations?
Baud
@WarMunchkin:
“She could be unqualified. It all depends.”
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: Or to put it another way, “This article will go into detail in order to clarify all the ways Sanders was perfectly clear in ways that you were just too dumb to understand.”
Alex
@Mandalay: That’s a relatively benign comment. I wouldn’t blink if Sanders said something similar about Hillary (and I’m sure that he has). Attacking your opponent’s policy plans as being incorrect or under-thought in some way is really really common in primaries and no one cares.
“Unqualified” is a much bigger jump — it’s a direct attack in a contested primary. Notice how none of the Republicans say that Trump is unqualified — even the ones who have dropped out and desperately beg everyone to not vote for Trump. Instead, their argument is about how Trump will lose the general election.
Anne Laurie
Cole, this post doesn’t deserve the “Democratic Stupidity” tag. Sanders only jumped on the Dem train, after years of free-riding, because he couldn’t get a national platform otherwise. (I didn’t post Ralph Nader’s op-ed congratulating Bernie for his crafty move, because that was a couple weeks back & I was still trying to be civil to the Sandernistas.)
Bernie’s clearly out of his depth, and every day he hangs on after this is only going to increase the comparisons between him & Trump. If he doesn’t get pulled up fast & hard, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a “Trump/Sanders” ticket floated by some of their more creative supporters!
Gin & Tonic
@Mandalay:
Question: is this false?
SarahT
@geg6: Great to hear about the crowd, but sorry you were harassed by a bunch of pissants.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I splurged on a copy of “The Jane Austen Handbook” as research for my novel, and in explaining Regency-era fashion, the author points out that women generally didn’t wear underpants until hoop skirts came into fashion. So, yes, Jane Austen almost certainly went commando full-time.
amk
turd blossom would be so proud of bs.
And lecturing the sandy hook victims? Fuck him and his ‘core of decency’ bs.
RaflW
@Alex: I think she is pretty clearly saying what a bunch of people here, and in many other venues, have been saying since the Post interview transcript:
Sanders comes off as unprepared and unrealistic. Now, since Trump is leading the GOP, you could argue that unprepared and unrealistic makes one highly, hugely, super-classy qualified to be a nominee. But that way leads madness.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: Unprepared and unqualified are two different things.
TheMightyTrowel
@Misa: I’ve been holding off donating until the general but the comments on her ‘ambition’ put me over the edge. 3 days ago I got pulled into an office with my boss’ boss to be told that i’m too ambitious and abrasive because of it. Fuck that misogynist bullshit. I bought a Hilz shirt and dropped $100 in the donate box.
seaboogie
@Baud:
Just the image of all of those granny-panties with clapped-out elastic and no longer-tighty-whities, makes me want to cover my head with my arms….
Mandalay
@Comrade Mary:
But that wasn’t what she said. You are sanitizing her words. Sure, he has escalated things absurdly, but she certainly started it.
When asked if he was qualified Clinton was spoon fed to give an anodyne response such as “Well, he is certainly far more qualified than any of the Republican candidates…” or “Yes, he is qualified, but I am more qualified because…”.
But she chose not to do that. She brought this on herself. I have no idea whether she is playing eleventy-dimensional chess, or just being an asshole. But the notion that did absolutely nothing to provoke Sanders having a meltdown is nonsense.
Peale
So where’s the happy place you’all go to when you’re not here?
amk
@Anne Laurie: It wouldn’t surprise me either if such a ticket happens.
MomSense
@geg6:
Do those mad Bernie supporters really think that kind of behavior helps their case? Terrible.
It sounds like Clinton’s calm, confident presence made the contrast that much clearer.
Miss Bianca
@seaboogie: Hey now…some of us still rock bikini briefs. I ain’t saying who, I’m just saying…
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Clinton really needs to drop out – immediately. Sanders has exposed her lack of
genderqualifications.David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@MomSense: Sanders says things everyone else is thinking (ie women are unqualified).
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady: I honestly thought the article by Konczal should embarrass any Sanders supporter.
guachi
Bernie’s a dick.
I don’t think I want one of these overly emotional men as President.
Davebo
Well so much for the “it was just a surrogate/campaign manager” excuse.
I’d like to think Bern is getting some really bad advice from people in his campaign but even if that’s true it doesn’t bode well for his judgement especially when he hopes to seat a cabinet someday.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: HOW DARE SHE NOT COMPLIMENT HER OPPONENT WHEN PROMPTED TO INSULT HIM!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay:
A qualified candidate doesn’t have a meltdown.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
My grandmother didn’t believe in underpants and she was the one running the household. My mom insisted we wear them for school and church. It did make me wonder if all the grannies were sans panties.
Kay (not the front-pager)
I just sent Hillary $1000 I had to take out of savings until I get my SS check (not that my SS will replenish it). I don’t care, something has to be done.
Maybe it’s time to ask if Bernie is on the grift for those small donations, as we’ve been saying about Ben Carson. After all, he’s been bragging about how he is pulling in millions in small donations… Sure we all thought he was pure as the driven snow, never ran a negative campaign in his life (hah!). Maybe now it is time to reassess.
OK, I admit I’m bitter.
SarahT
@Anne Laurie: Seconded.
RaflW
@Mandalay: I’ll bite. She really didn’t say he’s unqualified. She noted that he seems unprepared and that some of his bedrock campaign promises don’t have realistic plans behind them.
I’ll venture to say she called him, in effect, kinda lame and surprisingly unready. But as we know from 240 years of US history, being kinda lame and surprisingly unready are clearly not disqualifying attributes for being our President.
Aqualad08
@Mandalay:
Where have I heard this line of defense before? ;)
Davebo
@Corner Stone:
Some of them are beyond the ability to be embarrassed.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@George Hayduke: That still cracks me up; it’s so totally accurate. He really didn’t quite look obnoxious saying
but damn, it sounded bad.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: No, Donny, these men are nihilists.
Calouste
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Sanders even thinks his own wife is unqualified to keep track of where their tax returns are.
Anne Laurie
@andy:
A lot of the not-Bernie Democratic analysts I read have said that Tad “I Invented Superdelegates, But Now They’re A Bad Idea” Devine is a grifter — his agency bills by the week & it’s taken a big chunk of Bernie’s small-donor cash. Jeff “Comic Book Guy” Weaver seems to be deluded, in that he believes all the BS about enthusiasm counting more than votes (he’s the one responsible for some of the nastiest ‘it doesn’t count if HRC only gets black votes in the South’ crap).
Mike J
Baud
@MomSense:
Grannies-sans-panties is my new band name.
WarMunchkin
@Baud: Look at it this way, in team Sanders’ reality marbling, team Clinton crossed the line by refusing to say that he’s qualified. So he responded, in their view, fairly. Cole says this is rope-a-dope, and I believe him, but I also think that this is yet another instance of policy and record not mattering in an election, and I’m sad about that.
Mike R
@different-church-lady: That was truly uncalled for, she should be ashamed making that old geezer huff and puff. Man it might bring on a stroke, he doesn’t look healthy.
Corner Stone
@Mandalay:
This is fucking nonsense. It is absurd. She is in a primary campaign against BS. Why in the fuck would she make affirmative remarks of any variety? There is no credible way you can come close to saying she opened the door for BS to repeatedly say she is not qualified. And that is after weeks of him outright stating she is corrupt.
Peale
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep. At least not publicly. He’s going to have this kind of stress for four straight years, eight if he runs again. Its not like his enemies are going to go away.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: OH NO YOU DINNANT!
Mandalay
@Alex:
But that is because saying that Trump will lose to the Democrats is the most damning argument you can make against him, and not because saying he is unqualified is beyond the pale.
Losing to the Democrats stomps all over any argument about qualifications, because winning is all that really matters.
Uncle Ebeneezer
A-freakin-men!! And that is why despite agreeing more with his positions, I have never felt the Bern. Frankly, that was a pretty kind way of putting it, so good on her for resisting the bait.
different-church-lady
Just my opinion, but sending a candidate money you can’t really spare doesn’t actually do much to spite the opposition.
Mandalay
@Corner Stone:
In that case STFU whining about what Sander said in return.
Elie
@JPL:
He is not unhinged — well, maybe a little — he is old, narcissistic and very tired. He has no one in his advisers who can give him the advice — the ballast to balance him. He may not be able to be balanced. I think Hillary is doing the slow kill… letting him twist himself into the sword…. or rope a dope — pick your analogy. She has to be ultra careful in not offending his followers who will vote for her in the future. He said what he said to continue to make her the evil one and deprive her of any growth and support. Its not the measure of a confident opponent, so his reaction signals weakness. We’ll see what the next phase brings, but he needs one more interview like he had for the NYDN and another pop off and he’s done…
Corner Stone
@Mike J: Holy fuckballs. It. Is. On.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Kay (not the front-pager): You’re wastin your money. Hillary just isn’t as qualified as a man.
I’m not saying a women can’t be president one day. Perhaps in 500 years. But not now.
That doesn’t mean women aren’t valuable: we need a lot of women to cook and clean – which is very important.
We shouldn’t be mad at Sanders. We should be applauding him for having the courage to state the truth.
debbie
@Jeff:
On the other hand, you don’t have to go over to Althouse anymore to get your dose of bile, ammirite?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@eemom: Based on what the evidence of his behavior has demonstrated to me thus far, you’re much more of a hope than I am.
SarahT
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Ha ! Yep. Will serve her right for being so ambitious and all.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: Yep, in black and very light grey.
Corner Stone
@Mandalay: Big fucking difference assface. She did not affirm her opponent. He called the front runner for the D nomination “unqualified”. Multiple fucking times.
MomSense
@Baud:
I like it. I always thought it would be a kick to start a cover band in my senior years and call it The Hip Replacements. Play the assisted living circuit.
eemom
I dunno. I guess I WANT to believe in his fundamental decency, cuz at heart I’m a starry eyed Pollyanna, or something.
Anyway, I still maintain that the REAL test is what he does when the Hillz v. Bernie phase of this nightmare is over.
Mandalay
@RaflW:
Nor is being unqualified. Obama was unqualified by conventional measures, but he has turned out to be a far better president than Bush One, who was probably the most qualified presidential candidate of the 20th century.
Linnaeus
@eemom:
I think that’s a good attitude to have. Pragmatism, yanno?
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: I agree with your fundamental test. We’ll see what happens.
Miss Bianca
Y’know, the Bernfeelers are starting to sound even more pathetic and desperate than usual to me…maybe it’s because Their Hero is starting to sound even *more* pathetic and desperate to me.
Ella in New Mexico
Jesus, what a bunch of pearl clutchers we got here!
I hadn’t read the interview, but today all the Hilary folks were out there repeating the talking points that “Bernie doesn’t know what he’ll do to implement his ideas he’s unqualified to be President”. Then I caught this:
<a href="(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
“>
So, maybe he DOES know what he’d do? And maybe, when running for the highest office in the land and you’re accused by the opposition unfairly, you might come back swinging?
What ever happened to “this ain’t baseball”? I seem to recall Obama saying some pretty tough shit vs. Clinton in 2008–and rightly so. Where is the rule that this year, only nice, humble, perfectly mannered people who know their place and should basically just drop out how dare they even challenge her get to run against her?
Jeezus everyone, calm down. She’s on track to win, she’s strong and clearly she’s no victim here. She’ll deal with it–let it happen. Are you all really worried about stupid shit like this?
Oh, and sorry about the bizarro-world embed. Just click the date.
Calouste
@Corner Stone: Note that Sanders talks about taking gun lobby money for her campaign. Sanders hasn’t exactly said no to gun lobby money for his previous campaigns. And why doesn’t he release his tax returns? Is it because he or his wife took gun lobby money for personal enrichment?
Belafon
@Mandalay: I see you skipped over 95 to make this comment.
geg6
@Mandalay:
She was answering in the context of the interview that everyone but the most blinded and fantasist Sanders worshippers saw immediately as disastrous. And her criticism of his foggy strategies to enact his agenda are well within acceptable limits in a campaign. She sidestepped the trap Squint set for her and Bernie took it and lied through his teeth about it and then called into question her abilities and qualifications. And the best you can come up with is she started it? Seriously, fuck you and fuck him.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: And the great thing is, you could probably play two sets with only one set’s worth of material.
jl
This is all campaign trivia BS from both sides.
I don’t give a shit how HRC evaded dumb ass gotcha attempts from a dumb ass media hack. It means nothing. Neither does the clumsy metaphor Sanders used.
Bad blood between the two candidate would be far more worrisome, and there were signs of that in the 2008 primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The serious and real problems for either Democrat getting elected in November will come from other considerations than this piffle.
different-church-lady
@Ella in New Mexico: Pssst: beanbag. It’s ain’t beanbag…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Except, it is
Thank you, Mr Trump, for trotting out your five year old’s argument again. Thank you for showing us your ass.
AkaDad
Hillary calling Bernie unqualified would be unforgivable. Bernie actually calling Hillary unqualified is just stating the truth.
Amirite?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: They sure as hell don’t, and suggesting one is unprepared for victory is a damned sight different from outright stating a candidate is unqualified. If this isn’t dementia progressing before our eyes, he’s an asshole and unqualified. Which are not mutually exclusive. I won’t cite any examples, out of deep affection.
cbear
@eemom: Wow. After all these years we finally agree on something. Interesting times, in a Chinese-sort of way.
geg6
@Mike J:
Niiiiice. Heh.
redshirt
@MomSense: Oy, the groupies!
Ella in New Mexico
@different-church-lady: ooooops! auto fucking corrected :-P
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Sanders is right, women are toooo ambitious. They don’t know their place.
#TruthTeller
John S.
Perhaps, but your own commentariat (and some of your front pagers) would also be wise to tone down the rhetoric given what is stake in 2016.
I’m not nearly as enthusiastic about either Clinton or Sanders as I was about Obama. I think they both have serious weaknesses, and could be pretty disappointing in their own ways.
But either of them is infinitely preferable to any of the clowns the GOP may puke up.
eemom
@Ella in New Mexico:
um, like what, exactly? The worst I remember him saying is that ridiculously overblown “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”
Man, did the point here go whistling past you. Folks are outraged that Sanders would stoop to this, not “worried” than anybody believes it.
Splitting Image
@Anne Laurie:
So Tad Devine and Jeff Weaver are this cycle’s Mark Penn.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@geg6: So glad to hear about your event. I guess I need to cool down, then first thing tomorrow I need to start making canvass calls. Just like Hillary, I’ll shake off the attack and put down my head and do the hard work of politics.
Corner Stone
@AkaDad:
Close. Let me assist, if I may.
“Hillary not praising Bernie as the most qualified would be unforgivable. Bernie repeatedly stating Hillary is unqualified is not only plain home truths, but courageous in that it has now been said. After calling her corrupt for weeks.”
hitchhiker
@Mandalay:
I’m just going to leave that right there.
Prescott Cactus
@Mnemosyne: Having lunch with Dad at his Independent Living commune tomorrow.
Nightmares tonight.
Anne Laurie
@El Tiburon: From that Eric Levitz article you cited:
… because it’s always the woman (or the person of color) whose job it is to meekly follow the Great White Father and clean up after him.
You and your fellow Berniebros can go fuck each other. It’ll keep you out of the way while the grown-ups are keeping the White House out of the hands of your Repub soulmates.
geg6
@eemom:
To me, the real test as to who is the stand up candidate was answered for me at the event I attended today. She never mentioned Bernie at all. It was all policy, stories about people she’s met who benefit from Obama policies or who would benefit if those policies were expanded and strengthened. All positive, no negative. I know she gets bad reviews on her speeches, but I found her inspiring and sincere, as did the very enthusiastic crowd.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hitchhiker: My god, I didn’t even get that far, so much abject stupidity packed into one comment. It wouldn’t be a surprise from some of the usual suspects, but even though I’ve had my differences with @Mandalay: that is some stupid shit there.
Corner Stone
@Mike J: Man, that twitter feed, doe.
Hillary’s twitter feed is throwin’ all kinds of shade as the Bernfeelers might say.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: Tragedy is when Bernie cuts his finger. Comedy is when Hillary falls in an open sewer and dies.
Ella in New Mexico
@eemom:
What, that Bernie is not just rolling over and refusing to fight for something he wants because Hilary wants it?
HE. IS. RUNNING. FOR. THE. DEMOCRATIC. NOMINATION.FOR. PRESIDENT. OF. THE. FUCKING. UNITED. STATES.
The stakes are pretty high here, and to be honest, NOTHING he has said compares with what Obama and Clinton did to each other in 2008.
Here’s one article, quickly found when I googled “Shit Obama said about Hilary Clinton in 2008:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/22/hillaryclinton.uselections2008
People’s memories really do amaze me.
Everyone here needs to go out and get some sunshine or something. And CTFD.
jl
@Anne Laurie: HRC volunteered to run for the office of president, and she will almost certainty be the nominee. So, yes, keeping support together for the general election is her job, even it means humoring stubborn old coots.
Just as it is Sander’s job, if his word means anything, and his political revolution means anything, and his future in the Senate means anything, to shut down this kind of primary campaign nonsense he and his campaign hacks have been pumping out, and figure out a way to motivate his support to vote for Hillary Clinton in November.
I still think so far, all this stuff is not worth noticing. It will not be remembered and not make any difference when convention time comes, unless one of the candidates wants it to be important. Let us hope neither of them wants that.
MomSense
@Miss Bianca:
That’s good! I’m saving that for the jokes between sets.
Ella in New Mexico
@eemom: Google “Shit Obama said about Hillary Clinton in 2008.
gwangung
@jl:
Hm. I think there are signs of this NOW. And I don’t think Sanders is going to be big enough to uphold his word and unite behind the candidate that beat him, given the statements of the last few days.
NickM
In the Daily News interview, Bernie said something like he knows what’s at stake in this election and will do whatever it takes not to allow the Republican to win. It was pretty heartening.
I wanted to fall in love with Bernie. It didn’t happen. I’m not sure exactly why. I’ve been following him since he was The Nation’s darling in the early 90’s. His supporters including many friends of mine are more cultish than just about anything I’ve ever seen. Smart, caring people writing on FB about Hillary as if she was Satan’s favorite child. Women I thought were feminists calling Hillary a cackling hag. Unionists suggesting Trump might be as bad as Hiltery. I don’t know what to make of such epic stupidity, and for what I’m coming to consider to be a B list politician with bad instincts who’s a bit of a cipher. It’s madness.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@eemom: Here is fundamental decency: Hillary’s tweet to Sanders on his win in Wi.
John S.
How awful it will be for you when myself and millions of others who voted for Sanders happily vote for Clinton in November to keep the GOP out of the White House. Because contrary to the warped reality of this blog, the overwhelming majority of us will.
But you and your fellow Clinton supporters can keep being “grown ups” and telling us to go fuck ourselves.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay (not the front-pager): Note:”Forward” is Wisconsin’s state motto.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: Just footnote me in your memoirs.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: And one day it may actually be applicable again…
dr. bloor
To use the poker analogy, Bernie is plainly going all-in on NY. And it’s not a bad play on his part. He’s playing the short stack, and without some big shift, it’s going to get eroded in NY and the Acela corridor. He won’t last until California.
He’s going to be a very lonely guy in the Senate come January.
RaflW
@Mandalay:
Protip: That is never, ever a winning position.
Ever.
If Sanders hasn’t the cojones to handle direct criticism, he ought to retire to his readily available Senate fainting couch.
The Thin Black Duke
I think that poor Mr. Sanders got drunk on his own kool-aid, unfortunately. It’s sad.
jl
@NickM:
” In the Daily News interview, Bernie said something like he knows what’s at stake in this election and will do whatever it takes not to allow the Republican to win. It was pretty heartening. ”
I wouldn’t say that Sanders crossed a line with his ‘unqualified; talk. Since he can easily shut down future nagging about it by the likes of ol’ Jughead on MSNBC by saying that he meant unqualified in the one respect of financial reform, and that HRC wold be far better than any GOPer at it. But Sanders needs to watch himself better.
As I said above, I would consider signs of real anger or dislike between the two candidates as much more worrisome, and there were signs of that between Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008. If the two candidates are willing to work together after the nomination, all this kind of primary campaign squabbling and venting won’t mean anything. Especially when you have the GOP train wreck in progress. Why will the media waste time on a train with an engine slightly out of tune, when it can cover a real train wreck?
Anne Laurie
@amk:
Nah, their handlers might well promote a Trump-Sanders ticket, but Bernie’s ego is too big to settle for second best. If it ever rises above the level of social media, he’ll do what Al Giordano says has been his modus operandi in the Senate: Bitch & grandstand for as long as he can milk the spotlight, then sit down and disappear until the next earned-media opportunity.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Thin Black Duke: months ago. If that brew affected the liver, he’d have died several weeks ago, as yellow as a June day sun
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
I see that the Sanders campaign is checking their exit polls from Wisconsin and their internal polls from New York, and the flop sweat is coming on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Actually, I think the pro-Sanders result in WI bodes well for left of center voters this fall.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
In that case, she was exceptionally gracious to the people of Wisconsin as well as to Sen. Sanders.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Pressure is going to mount on Clinton to leave the race.
Sanders exposed what we were all thinking: women are unqualified to be president.
No way she survives this. Probably out by the weekend.
The Thin Black Duke
@John S.: The only thing I expect from you is to put down that cross you’re carrying long enough to vote for the Democrat in November, dude. That’s all.
Corner Stone
@John S.: Do you even bother to read to the shit you just typed?
Mnemosyne
@RaflW:
Yep. The point is that Bernie should have been smart enough not to take the bait, not that there was no bait offered.
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.: The only people being told to go fuck themselves are those who say they can’t vote for the eventual Dem nominee.
jl
@gwangung: I think Sanders still has dreams of big unexpected NY and CA landslides that will bring him the nomination. So, he has dreams of repeating an Obama 2008 (who I recall was the one with unrealistic plans, compared to Hillary Clinton back then, Obama’s unworkable ideas on health care reform, for example. He beat up on HRC over her support of mandated coverage).
It is very unlikely that Sanders can pull off the serial landslides he needs. I think he will settle down after he has time to reflect after it is clear he won’t win the nomination.
I don;’t see any signs of personal bad blood between them. I see periodic venting under pressure of the horribly long primary campaign by both that does not mean much.
Aqualad08
@Splitting Image:
Hey now! No need to be that nasty ;)
Anne Laurie
@Miss Bianca: French cuts for life!
cbear
@Mnemosyne: Oh gawd. First I had to agree with eemom, and now you? Shit’s getting weird around here.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Elie
@John S.:
Sorry John, who were you talking about or responding to? I personally value your view and am a Hillary supporter. Not sure who you were talking about. I take this pretty seriously for the Nov election.
RaflW
@eemom: He’ll go back to being the loner, cranky, independent Senator from Vermont. And that will be that.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’ll get 48 hours of really good sleep, something to eat that isn’t road food, and an awesome pedicure, and go out and say some nice “I endorse Hillary” statement. Maybe. Not holding my breath.
Anne Laurie
@Kay (not the front-pager):
Like Carson, Sanders may not have started this for the grift, but his top advisor Tad Devine is making bank every week.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Q. Mr President: do you agree with Senator Sanders that Hillary Clinton isn’t qualified to be President?
A. [Ball crushed into over upper deck stadium bleachers into the parking lot]
Uncle Cosmo
@Anne Laurie:
Why am I not surprised?
Sounds like Devine has parlayed BS’s vanity & Weaver’s credulity into a right remunerative little cash teat for himself. It will be interesting to see just how venal he is (& how deluded the other two are) when the wheels come off the DemSoc cart. I.e., will he pack the suitcase full of Franklins & go home, or look to continue the Big Suck by putting out feelers to (e.g.) the Greens for a third-party run, or try to extort a paying gig for himself in HRC’s general election campaign by threatening that?
burnspbesq
@Chyron HR:
That was priceless.
Mnemosyne
@cbear:
Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll all be fighting like cats and dogs again in no time. ?
Anne Laurie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: You’re starting to enjoy this contrarian schtick a little too much, dude. Know your limits.
burnspbesq
@jl:
And almost immediately, as if by magic, figured out that his proposal couldn’t possibly work without an individual mandate. One of Obama’s endearing qualities is that he’s not afraid to admit it and fix it when he fucks up.
randy khan
@Linnaeus:
Reading the transcript, I think what she was doing was avoiding the question. Reading between the lines, I would guess that she thinks that his responses to the Daily News made him look unqualified but didn’t want to say it.
Marcolin
Yeah, this is going to go over real well when it starts showing up in GOP ads during the general. Bleh.
Davebo
@eemom:
I agree, and I think he’s a good man.
But it’s over already for all practical purposes which makes me wonder why he’s going down this road.
The only answer I can come up with is ego.
Omnes Omnibus
@randy khan: Why would she provide a positive quote for her opponent?
AnotherBruce
So, if Bernie becomes president. Does he nominate an NRA approved Supreme Court Justice?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Anne Laurie: mockery only works if it’s over the top – e.g. Blazing Saddles.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t know that. It makes her tweet even more gracious.
Original Lee
Bernie’s former staffers I have talked to have a lot of stories about what a horrible boss he is, while Hillary’s former staffers I have talked to don’t. I think that’s an indicator of how they would do as President. (Although people at State have some stories about how personnel management isn’t really Hillary’s forte, I think that’s a somewhat different skill set than what the President has to use.)
Partisancheese
Guess you guys think its cool that Hillary tweeted today blaming Sanders for Sandy Hook? Oh, it is only Sanders who is deplorable though right?
Matt
Hmm….I don’t think it’s a bad thing for Sanders to call her unqualified, I voted for Barack Obama over her in 2008 because I thought her vote for the Iraq War disqualified her from being president then, I still believe it now. The shit storm of problems our country has faced externally and internally since that horrible decision is worthy of our derision, and apologies for making that mistake have not changed my mind. She’ll get my vote over a Republican, but I’m glad I’ve had Bernie to vote for, versus having to have had to vote for an O’Malley who didn’t really inspire me
Partisancheese
Also, love how you guys think its over for Sanders after a major win in Wisconsin last night. Sure, what a devastating win for Sanders, he should really pull out, its over for him!
jl
@burnspbesq: Obama did not ‘immediately, as if by magic’ figure that out during the primary campaign. It was part of an extended debate, that prompted worried analysis by the likes of Krugman accusing Obama of supporting unrealistic policies that would hurt chances for reform.
But if Clinton and Sanders supporters want to spend their time snapping towels at each other, fine with me.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: @Kay (not the front-pager): That was point I wanted to make. She fought a good fight here and did nothing to hurt herself here in the general.
starscream
I donated for the first time too tonight. Sanders is a moron and a fraud, and his campaign is a clown show.
mclaren
I’m sorry, but this is inexcusable. Sanders should have known better. And I speak as a staunch Sanders supporter.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for the exchange below. I added a comment or two (you are shocked, I am certain).
And to everyone else in addition to OO, sleep well.
Partisancheese
Latest polls show Sanders surging in Pennsylvania, closing the deficit, but yeah, he must be sweating hard. Hillary totally has this! Her campaign admits last night on CNN that she is going to go super negative on Sanders, and will try to unify the party later, everyone at BJ is, “why is Bernie so mean?” Love it. The cognitive dissonance is incredible.
Corner Stone
@Matt: Wow. Were you honestly old enough to vote in 2008?
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Anne Laurie: I was just thinking how proud I was of everyone for not taking his bait. :-) It’s been fun seeing him get more and more desperate to get a rise out of someone, anyone.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Off-topic, but I’d love to know the local joke about that one!
(i.e., NY’s motto: Excelsior! Or, as the nuns told us, packing material, because you can’t put BULLSHIT on the official shield, not even in Latin.)
cbear
@Mnemosyne: No doubt. lol
Sincerely wishing you the best of luck on your test results.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Matt: What about Sanders’s vote for the Afghanistan war – did that disqualify him? Or is a fuck-up war only okay when it involves Sanders.
What about Sanders’s vote to keep GITMO open – did that disqualify him? Did you read the NYDN interview – he has no idea what to do if he captures any terrorists as president (“I haven’t thought about it a whole lot.”).
How about his repeated votes against immigration reform?
How about Sanders giving the NRA blanket corporatist immunity against widows and orphans filing wrongful death suits?
WarMunchkin
Was talking to some of my friends; the consensus we came to, by accident was that something got mixed up on the way out and most relevant parties mean to use the word “disqualified” rather than “unqualified”.
ETA: We hope that the race gets back to showing what’s good about Democrats rather than what we had in the last few days.
Anyway, for the folks throwing money they don’t have, please don’t. Follow PBO’s example: politics should be something you approach with sobriety and candor, regardless of whatever anyone else does.
kc
LOL at the pearl-clutching over this.
Also, the mobile site is slow af.
CaseyL
Hillary is trying not to burn bridges between herself and Sanders’ supporters. Sanders apparently doesn’t care about that.
Also: remember the 11-hour grilling Hillary endured from the GOP Benghazi Clownshow? She has grit and stamina. Not easy to discombobulate. Sanders, again, seems easily discombobulated.
I’ll say it if Hillary won’t: he’s not qualified to be President. He doesn’t have any depth of knowledge about what’s supposed to be his Big Issue, he doesn’t take in new information easily, and he can’t or won’t control his temper.
Linnaeus
@randy khan:
She handled that question in the way that I’d expect – leaving the viewers to fill in the blanks that she didn’t. The implicit argument, though, was that Sanders isn’t qualified. This doesn’t bother me – if you think that your opponent doesn’t know what she/he’s doing, is not knowledgeable enough, etc., then that’s the message you want to send.
randy khan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, I totally agree – there’s no reason for her to say anything positive about him.
Librarian
@Anne Laurie: Or, as Jean Shepherd said, “Excelsior, you fathead!”
Corner Stone
@Partisancheese: You mean according to Jeff Zeleny of CNN? Or maybe Jeff Weaver of the BS campaign?
It is to larf. Har!
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not so much, buckaroo. Obama is a weak failure on foreign policy. Obama is a weak failure on health care ‘reform.’ Obama is a weak failure on unconstitutional panopticon surveillance, which he seems to love even more than the Republicans. Obama is a massively weak failure for ordering the murder of American citizens without a trial or even charging ’em with a crime, something not even the Republicans dared try. Obama is a hugely weak failure for his ongoing murder of women and children in Pakistan with drones — murders which long since rose to the level of war crimes.
On all these policies Obama has been significantly worse than even the worst Republicans under the Bush maladaminstration.
Obama’s foreign policy boils down to neocon Michael Ledeen’s doctrine:
Obama has been a lot better on domestic policy, except for his inexcusable failure to unleash the DOJ against the Wall Street crime lords who blew up the world economy and then paid themselves lavish bonuses out of the money taxpayers coughed up to save their asses from bankruptcy.
I support Bernie Sanders. He’s not the Truth, the Way, and the Light. Sanders’ policies have a chance at actually fixing our broken economy and our failed military-industrial complex and our collapsed dying medical-industrial complex, though.
Hillary’s economic proposals boil down to failed 90s nostrums: more gov’t funding for education, but stats show more education for workers merely creates degree inflation. As Larry Summers has pointed out, this just creates a cruel game of musical chairs among workers. What we really need to do is increase the rate of job creation…but Hillary has no proposals for doing that.
Hillary also proposes more training for workers. But this is based on a long-debunked myth of “the skills gap.”
Source: “Jobs and Skills and Zombies,” Paul Krugman, The New York Times, 30 March 2014.
Hillary’s other economic proposal boils involves gov’t spending to move manufacturing back to the U.S., a futile effort debunked in the article “Manufacturing jobs are never coming back,” fivethirtyeight website, 18 March 2016. (The jobs have been automated out of existence, so even if we bring back factories to the U.S., we won’t create many new jobs, and they won’t be anywhere near as high-paying as they used to be since all the high-skill jobs have been automated away.)
So all of Hillary’s economic proposals are worthless and useless and pointless.
Bernie isn’t the messiah. He is the only Democrat offering economic policies that have a chance of fixing our broken economy.
We now return you to the regularly scheduled hagiography of Hillary Clinton’s long debunked and useless 90s economic nostrums.
randy khan
@Partisancheese:
Do you mean the Harper Polling poll that has her up by 22?
Corner Stone
@kc: No, come on now.
Lizzy L
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I can’t imagine HRC responding with “I haven’t thought about it a whole lot” to that question, or to any non-trivial question on that subject. She has clearly thought a great deal and a long time about terrorism, about governance, and about what it takes to be President. I’m not happy about all her positions, especially her foreign policy and trade approaches, and I’ll vote for Sanders if he’s the nominee, no question, but as we move toward November, he’s looking less ready, less prepared for the Big Show, and Hillary is looking rock solid.
burnspbesq
@Partisancheese:
Arithmetic is not your friend.
mclaren
@CaseyL:
Nobody is qualified to be president. It’s not a job you tick off check-mark boxes to become ‘qualified’ for. FDR was a “a second class intellect, but a first class temperament,” as Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked. Bernie has a first class temperament.
Hillary Clinton has a first class mind and a second class temperament. Bernie would make a better president. But Hillary won’t make a bad one, just a largely ineffectual president. She’ll continue to try to tinker around the edges with technocratic wonkery and then pout with baffled frustration when America continues to circle the porcelain bowl while the suction draws it down.
“But how can we keep losing all these wars when we’ve got all this marvelous military technology?” Hillary will ask herself. Three guesses, Hills.
“And how can the economy keep crashing even after we’ve tinkered around the edges tweaking the minimum wage a tiny bit and putting a few new financial regs in place (but never jailing any of the thieving bankers who keep crashing the economy)?” Wow, that’s a tough one, Hills.
“And why do less and less of the middle class have enough money to afford medical care even though we’ve passed the ACA which forces people to buy unaffordable private insurance with premiums and deductibles guaranteed to rise limitless forever with no cost controls on the underlying medical procedures?” What a mystery, Hillary.
Omnes Omnibus
@Partisancheese: Scoreboard.
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
That’s okay, burnsie. Logic isn’t your friend.
Technocrat
@Lizzy L:
I mean, that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Despite all the post-facto justifications, all the complaints that of course he knew what he was talking about…he couldn’t be arsed to just give a reasonable, non-flamebait answer.
RaflW
@Partisancheese: Link or it didn’t happen.
Also, too, your next comment: math, how does it work?
mclaren
@Lizzy L:
And (alas) she’s come to all the wrong conclusions.
Hillary has thought long and hard about terrorism…and she has concluded that the way to deal with it is to burn lots more brown babies in third world countries.
FAIL.
Hillary has thought long and hard about governance…and she has concluded that way to do it in America in 2016 is to drag back all her Clinton buddies from the 90s and trot out a bunch of long-debunked canards from 25 years ago, like “more training for workers” and “better education.”
FAIL.
Hillary has thought long and hard about what it takes to become president…and she has concluded that it involves insider crony crap with superdelegates and Debbie Wasserman Shultz shifting far-right to appeal to mythical center-right voters.
FAIL.
Furious activity is not the same thing as understanding.
Long careful thought is not the same thing as competence.
Wonkishness is not the same thing as successful governance.
Aqualad08
@mclaren: Your tears will be especially sweet when this is over ;)
But seriously, that “Obama is a weak failure on foreign policy” paragraph? I REALLY hope you work for the Sanders campaign. Slip that precious little pants-pissing rant into his notes right before a speech and see how far that righteousness gets you…
Matt
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
A. Did you not support the Afghanistan War? I did, for the purpose of finding Osama Bin Laden, and rooting out their haven, that had nothing to do with Iraq, in fact Iraq diverted and destroyed our focus on Afghanistan and sucked all the energy out of the hunt for Bin Laden.
B. That was a shitty vote, but I understand his reasoning which was he wanted Obama’s plan of how he would deal with the prisoners there before the closure began. I don’t support the merits of the vote, and would call him to tell him it was shitty, but that PALES in comparison to the Iraq War vote in money lost, lives lost, terrorists created, and near disaster to American military and foreign policy.
C. I agreed with his vote against Immigration Reform at the time, it was a shitty corporatist bill, and as someone who works with the undocumented immigrant community, they were the biggest reason to persuade me at the time that it was no feasible. If we’re talking about the 2007 bill, if it was votes from before that time, I’d have to hear about it on the merits.
D. I hate the NRA and everything they stand for, they are an abysmal organization of death and destruction. If Hillary wants to persuade me on anything, that would be the issue. I actually think Bernie is right that the only reason to go after Blanket Immunity is if you want to destroy the Gun Industry…I do so I’m fine with it….but again….
The Iraq War vote was the single defining vote of my generation…it has affected:
A. the spawn of terrorism in the Middle East and the destabilization of the greater Middle East
B. the increase of global terrorism
C. a great increase in the deficit and debt of the United States
D. the destruction of thousands of lives in the Middle East
E. the hollowing out of the American military force
F. the ability for Russia and China to create unilateralist interventionist policies (see Eastern Europe and the Ocean around the Phillipines or Tibet) for the purpose of securing the greater state without us having any moral high ground
G. increased speculation in the energy markets for a decade which hollowed out the paychecks of many Americans during a time where income was steady or declining
H. the deaths or injuries of thousands of American soldiers for what….
I knew at the time that the Iraq War was bullshit, and I was a 19 year old college kid. Not only that, but Hillary had a chance to vote on the Durbin amendment to severely limit the scope of the Iraq War and she voted nay, for what reason since it would’ve ended the mission if no WMDs were found, I DON”T KNOW! Her Iraq War vote is still why I think people under 35 are voting against her in such huge numbers, we don’t trust politicians who voted for it.
Matt
@Corner Stone:
I voted for Kerry over Bush if that answers your question ;)
mclaren
@Aqualad08:
I love the way you describe the president of the united states ordering the extrajudicial murder of U.S. citizens as a “precious little pants-pissing rant.”
Historical note: William the Conquerer tried to assert the right to murder his subjects without a trial, but his barons refused to allow it. They allowed as how he could murder subjects without a trial, but demanded that he at least provide some reasons after the fact to justify those murders.
So Barack Obama is claiming a power that not even William the Conquerer dared to assert.
mclaren
@Aqualad08:
I won’t cry if Hillary becomes president. As I’ve repeatedly said, she won’t be a terrible president, just a largely ineffectual one. She might do a tiny bit of good by tinkering around the edges. Stranger things have happened.
But after Hillary’s presidency all our major problems will surely be significantly worse than they are now. We’ll be involved in more endless unwinnable wars, our broken health care system will be much loser to total collapse with the average middle class U.S. citizens less able to afford necessary medical care than they are now, and our financial system will either be closer to final collapse, or will have broken down so badly that things will be at Great Depression 1930s levels of pain for the average person.
Source: “Barry Eichengreen Worries About the year 2020 (and the Next President),” 5 March 2016.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Aqualad08: You’re arguing with someone who has never denied preserving his/her own waste in jars in the room he/she sleeps and types in. Just FYI.
amk
oh great, mclaren is amidst us. 500+ posts, here we come.
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
wtf???
I’ve also never denied murdering women. I’ve also never denied cannibalizing infants.
I’ve never denied an infinite number of things that I haven’t done, just as you have never denied molesting small children. That doesn’t mean any of that crap is true.
If this is the level of “debate” to which Balloon-Juice has sunk, you people are out there on planet Pluto with the Republicans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mclaren: so now you do deny it? What of the other things on this list? I notice you don’t not deny murdering men, or eating larger humans. Why are you trying to not admit to doing these things?
Or are you flip-flopping?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mclaren: and Pluto is not a planet, which says many great deals about your credibility as a hyperbolist.
mclaren
Meanwhile, more deliciousness from the shitshow fail parade that is the Republican primary debacle. From fivethirtyeight: “Ted Cruz, Not Paul Ryan, Would Probably Win A Contested Convention.”
Especially delightful inasmuch as polls show that 34% of Republicans say they would vote for Hillary if Trump is the nominee, while 37% of Republicans say they would vote for Hillary if Cruz is the nominee.
Yum!
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: to be frank, he’s never been big enough to be worth fishing for. Back. Bencher.
tastytone
@Partisancheese:
Some demented people might think that would be cool. However, I believe the tweet you’re referring to stated that he “prioritized gun manufacturers’ rights over the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook.”
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In the words of Dr. Alan Stern, Lead Investigator for New Horizons – NASA’s highly successful “flyby” mission to Pluto: “…Bullshit.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Partisancheese: I notice you never link to any of your arguments
Technocrat
@mclaren:
He spelled “religion” wrong.
dollared
@eemom: You will be vindicated. The evil attributed to Senator Sanders and his supporters on this blog is wholly unwarranted.
Kropadope
@eemom:
If there’s one thing 2014 and 2016 have shown me, it’s that the Democrats are lost. The party was never going to let any other human being within a mile of the nomination. He should’ve run third party, just to pee on the red carpet the Democrats rolled out.
mclaren
@eemom:
Fortunately, Sanders’ supporters don’t need any urging to support Hillary if she becomes the nominee. Almost all of us have better sense than that.
Don’t worry, things will turn out fine. It increasingly looks like a Trump or Cruz run against Hillary, and she’s wipe either of them out without breaking a sweat.
Aqualad08
@mclaren: It must be lonely on top of Sanctimony Mountain… :)
And correct me if I’m wrong, but Barack Obama didn’t seize power based on a flimsy claim and a battle that killed at least 6,000 people.
But like the Editor of the Fabius Maximus website told the guy (possibly you, but I don’t really care that much anyways) who first made this same exact argument on July 20, 2014, let’s try not to personally characterize people’s replies…It’s a natural response but it’s inimical to useful debate…. :)
mclaren
@Kropadope:
So Barack Obama presiding over the collapse of the Republican party means means “the Democrats are lost”?
I do not think that word means what you think it means…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
A Buzzfeeed reporter gets a fundraising call from the Sanders campaign
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
and he wants to be our latex salesman.
Kropadope
@mclaren: They went out like chumps in 2014. They focused on a tiny range of wedge issues, while barely talking about the improving economy or any of their recent successes and let themselves get beat by media blather about Ebola and ISIL, issues with negligible impact on daily American life.
Sorry, guns and the war on women, while important issues, aren’t going to close the deal for everyone.
mclaren
@Aqualad08:
This is the fallacy of the argument by non sequitur. The crucial issue is not how Barack Obama came to power, but what he has chosen to do with the power of the presidency. Ordering the murder of U.S. citizens without a trial and without charges is unconstitutional. This is not my opinion and it’s not “purity-pony sanctimony.” It’s right there in black and white in Amendment five to the constitution of the united states:
amk
@Kropadope:
He didn’t have the guts to go 3rd party and the dem establishment didn’t have the guts to deny him a dem label. A lose/lose.
Aqualad08
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, “no offense” from a kid who will be on her parent’s policy until she’s 26 for SOME UNKNOWN AND MYSTERIOUS REASON…. ;)
mclaren
@Kropadope:
And yet…here we are, facing the total disintegration of the Republicans and two likely Republican presidential candidates who “have graduated in toxicity from strychnine to something like Polonium-210,” in the words of one commenter.
dogwood
@Kropadope:
I’ve never understood the idea that there is always some Democratic Party conspiracy that assures the Clintons are in control of everything. I heard that in 08 as well, yet 7 or 8 candidates gave it a go. Who stopped anyone from running this time? Bernie’s got plenty of money to carry on as long as he wants. This victimhood thing is really kinda silly. The people who are voting and caucusing aren’t nefarious insiders;they’re citizens registering a preference.
Lynn Dee
@Alex:
OMG. Hillary said she thinks she’s more qualified? Outrage! What does she think she’s doing? Running for President or something? Bernie would never say something so awful.
mclaren
@amk:
On the contrary, a win/win. Bernie Sanders is the future of the Democratic party, so the Dems get to hitch their electoral wagon to his agenda — and Bernie gets a much bigger platform for his agenda. It’s good all around.
“Bernie Sanders has made Hillary Clinton a better candidate, says chairman of Texans for Hillary,” Dallas Morning News, 15 February 2016.
Technocrat
@mclaren:
That’s not always true. A sniper in a clock tower, for example.
mclaren
@dogwood:
This is the fallacy of the excluded middle, as well as a classic straw man. No one who supports Sanders has ever said that “the Clintons are in control of everything.” They are, however, very wired into the Democratic party machine. DWS has undeniably done some insider ratfvcking to screw Bernie out of important delegate votes. See the article “‘Young Turks’ Reveals How DNC and 33 States Used Loopholes to Funnel Millions Into ‘Hillary Fund.’”
But, hey! C’mon, folks. That’s rough-‘n-tumble politics out here in the real world. I’m not saying it’s evil and unacceptable, I’m just saying it happens. The Clintons are heavily connected to the Beltway insiders and the DNC power structure in a way that Bernie isn’t, and they’re making use of those insider connexions. You can exult in it, you can deplore it, you can shrug your shoulders at it…one thing you can’t credibly do is deny it.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Obama did try to reform the drone program, Congressional Democrats didn’t have his back and the effort failed. He should still be making every effort to get American combatants out of war zones for to be tried rather than going for missile strikes, but could you imagine the wailing about “weakness” from the media if Obama wasn’t leveraging the drone program to the fullest of his abilities?
Giving in to those pressures is a form of weakness in itself, but every candidate running right now has way bigger blotches on their records, so I can forgive Obama for this.
Aqualad08
@mclaren:
In 1789, yeah, I’ve heard of it… didn’t even apply to Negros back then, you know…amazing how the world kept changing around it…
BTW, what was Anwar al-Awlaki doing in Yemen again? Was it selling Girl Scout Cookies or working in a soup kitchen? I get kinda cloudy sometimes… :)
mclaren
@Technocrat:
Now we once again get the fallacious analog of the police responding to a criminal in exigent circumstances. This bullshit false analogy has been trotted out before, and it failed.
[1] The president is not a policeman on a beat in imminent danger for his life.
[2] No police chief ever says to his officers at roll call: “Here is a criminal. I want to to shoot this guy in the head. Take him out. Kill him dead.” If any police chief tried that, he would be arrested for attempted murder.
[3] A who who makes speeches you as president don’t like is nothing like a bank robber who has got a gun to the head of a hostage.
[4] If Al-Awlaki really was a criminal who was committing actual crimes, why didn’t the president of the United States charge him with a crime and try him in court?
TOTAL FAIL on your false and long-since-debunked fake analogy with a police situation.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
I’ll believe it when I see it. And it doesn’t count if they just repackage the same Confederate ideology under a new party name.
@mclaren:
That doesn’t mean I have to like it
goblue72
@Matt: I’m over 35 and I knew the Iraq War was complete bullshit at the time. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were a blindingly obvious cabal for warmonger corporatists – with Cheney and Rumsfeld having sordid histories going back to Nixon. Democrats voted for that tripe because by and large, the institutional Democratic Party is in as deep into bed with big money and the war machine industrial complex as the Republicans. The next recession is going to come square into the jaw of the next Administration and if its Clinton, she’s gonna have no answer for the electorate.
But whatever – the right wing Boomer Generation (and Boomers are, by and large, a right wing generation as demonstrated by whom they have voted into power from the 1990s through today) are about to gasp their last gasp. This is their Swan Song before senility and the grave. I can last the next 4 years and still have a good 25 plus years or more ahead of me. They’ll just be one step closer to 6 feet under and we can finally put that chapter of American history to rest.
mclaren
@Aqualad08:
Once again the total fail of the bully-worshiping appeal to authority.
We don’t know what Anwar Al-Awlaki was doing in Yemen because president Obama ordered him murdered without a trial, and as a result no one ever got to see any actual evidence of what Al-Awlaki allegedly did.
All we know is what the U.S. government claimed Al-Awlaki did, and those claims are vague, most of them “classified.”
Let’s recall that the U.S. government claimed Japanese-Americans were dangerous spies and traitors during WW II. That claim was bullshit. The U.S. government claimed that Dr. Stephen Hatfil was the anthrax killer. That claim was also bullshit.
The U.S. government has made lots of claims, including claims about yellowcake uranium and WMDs in Iraq. Have you really seriously not learned to avoid believing in vague U.S. government claims shrouded in bafflebag like “national security” and “classified sources”?
Aqualad08
@mclaren:
My computer’s purity filter won’t let me connect to websites run by guys who deny the Armenian genocide… could you just write out the gist of it?
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
I knew it!
Technocrat
@mclaren:
[1] It’s irrelevant whether a policeman’s life is in danger. The key point is that the criminal is a threat to someone.
[2] Speculation. You have no idea what orders were given about the clock tower shooter.
[3] No idea what you mean here.
[4] Same reason they didn’t try the clock tower shooter. They couldn’t reasonably and safely haul him into court.
It’s OK if you don’t like the analogy. The point is that an analogous situation exists, and is not nearly so black and white as you portray.
dollared
@Kay (not the front-pager): You just gave $!000 to a centimillionaire who will raise $1B in corporate donations to run for president. And then you accused the one person who is trying to reduce the campaign spending of being a direct mail fraud. And you think Bernie supporters have logic issues?.
mclaren
@goblue72:
I’m afraid you are correct on all counts.
It’s especially worrisome that Hillary Clinton’s precious daughter Chelsea happens to be married to one of the biggest hedge fund traders at the criminal conspiracy misnamed Goldman Sachs, because when the economy blows and it comes time to really drag the fucking corrupt bankers and Wall Street scammers out by their heels and indict ’em and send ’em to pound-me-in-the-ass prison, Hillary won’t do it. Because it would put her precious little Chelsea’s hubby at the end of a conga line of Aryan Brotherhood rapists.
Aqualad08
@mclaren:
You sure about that? For someone who keeps linking to articles, I’m kinda surprised you haven’t come across one or two that MAYBE describes what he was doing there between 2004 and 2011…
But by all means, type “FAIL” in bold again and you instantly win the argument….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: the things McClaren refuses to deny having done or not done are deeply troubling.
dollared
@Anne Laurie: Actually, I think it’s spot on. Because you are all on the fainting couch because Senator Sanders is engaging in POLITICAL COMPETITION!!! That’s only what Republicans do! Democrats are utterly pure. They only stack their ivy diplomas on top of each other and write competing white papers!!! It’s as if Sanders wants to win this competition! That’s wrong wrong wrong!
Technocrat
@Aqualad08:
To be fair, TOTAL FAIL was kind of persuasive.
Kropadope
@goblue72:
Dude, I mean, Jesus. You’re talking about millions of people who, by the sheer fact of their numbers, are a hugely diverse group. Sure, they’ve been trained to cringe at concepts like “socialism” and a few of the ones here are pretty smug because they’re so much more mature and experienced. Still, these people are many of our parents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, etc. Let’s not be in a rush for them to kick it.
Kropadope
@dollared:
IOKIYHRC
mclaren
@Technocrat:
You’re spouting horseshit and garbage.
So any time anyone is a threat to anyone else, the person in charge is justified in lining up a bunch of people in uniforms and saying “We need to murder this person without a trial”? That’s insane. That’s not how a democratic society works under the rule of law.
If this is really the way you think a society should work, you need to emigrate to North Korea.
Incidentally, your crazy claims are a clear and present danger to American society. if people actually behaved as you suggest, society would collapse into Hobbesian chaos. Therefore you must be summarily shot. How ya like them apples, kiddo?
Provably false. No police chief ever has or ever will give an order like “We need to murder this suspect without a trial.” That’s a felony. Learn the law.
It’s pefectly clear: “A person who makes speeches you don’t like is nothing like a bank robber who has got a gun to the head of a hostage.” Specify the exact crime Anwar Al-Awlaki was supposed to have committed, and provide hard evidence that he committed it. This is what’s required to arraign a suspect in court. If you can’t do that, you can’t even arraign a U.S. citizen, much less try hi/r in court.
Once again, utterly false analogy. A shooter in a clock tower is murdering U.S. citizens in full view of everyone, with plenty of evidence and lots of eyewitnesses. Where is the evidence that Al-Awlaki presented any danger whatsoever to any American? Show it to me. Let me see it.
Anyone can claim any U.S. citizen “presents a danger.” I claim your crazy fascist views on abandoning the rule of law present a grave danger to American citizens, and I have good evidence of my claim — if we adopted your insanely authoritarian practice of murdering any U.S. citizen that we thought might possibly present a danger, we’d be killing Americans left and right. Black kid–bang! Shot in the head! Member of a high-crime demographic, had to do it. White male with a pickup truck–bang! Shot in the head! Might be carrying a rifle, his truck had a gun rack. Guy who criticizes the president–bang! Shot in the head! Might be an anti-government extremist. Guy who’s smoking on the sidewalk–bang! Shot in the head! Second-hand smoke kills. Woman who’s drinking in a bar–bang! Shot in the head! Hey, she might be pregnant, and that would endanger the foetus.
Your idea of how to respond in exigent circumstances is so insane, no words exist in the English language to adequately describe how insane it is.
Your analogy comparing the president of the united states with a police officer is garbage, you know it’s garbage, your logic is knot of scrambled sophistries, and your overall attitude toward the rule of law is something we’d expect from a blackshirt in Mussolini’s Italy, not a citizen of the United States.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that it is OK for the police to simply kill a suspect. They should make every effort for an arrest, even if it entails a bit of risk. But if there is literally no opportunity for an arrest and lives are on the line, an exception has to be made.
mclaren
@Aqualad08:
The problem with these ‘articles’ you’re linking to is that they aren’t evidence presented in court.
Do you happen to remember a bunch of articles written by Judith Miller? Articles that breathlessly described the lakes of sarin gas and mountains of WMDs supposedly stockpiled in Iraq by Saddam Hussein…?
You really seriously are digging yourself in deeper with this horseshit. I can link to lots of articles describing Richard Jewell as a “person of interest” in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996. The articles were crap. I can link to plenty of articles form the late 1990s describing Wen Ho Lee as a “Chinese spy” but in the end the charges evaporated and he plead guilty to one minor count of mishandling classified information. The charges were all junk.
What you are telling us is that we should execute U.S. citizens based on unverified rumors printed in the newspaper.
If you don’t have any idea just how grossly lawless and authoritarian this is, you need to re-read a history of Stalin’s purges, or take a quick look at the Rwandan genocide.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Don’t you know the President is supposed to do it all? I’ve also learned here that the President is supposed to be a prosecutor and a legislator.
Technocrat
@mclaren:
Not anytime. Sometimes. Keep up.
Not provably. Just stop with that. Any number of dangerous actors have been killed sans trial.
I don’t have it – but then again I didn’t order him killed. Since the PResident ordered him killed, you’d have to find out if he had evidence.
No. What does that change? You don’t have evidence, or even knowledge, of every crime. I don’t see how your personal knowledge changes the argument in any way.
The slippery-slope argument is just…lets call it “silly”.
The point is that it is not unconstitutional to kill a citizen without a trial. It’s not. Just let it go.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
No!
We have been over this and over this and over this and over this for years, and the authoritarian opponents of the rule of law keep making the same junkthink bad analogies and logical fallacies.
The issue is not whether “the police should make every effort to make an arrest.”
The issue is not whether “if the police can’t reasonably make an arrest, the suspect must be shot without a trial.
The issue is that the president of the united states is not a police officer, and U.S. citizens for whom no evidence exists that they have committed a crime are not like suspects fleeing from a bank robbery or guys shooting people from a clock tower.
You people just don’t get it. You keep coming up with fake crap like shooters in bell towers. Show me all the U.S. citizens Anwar Al-Awlaki shot. Let me see them. People saw the citizens shot in the head by the clock tower shooter. Show me the people Al-Awlaki murdered.
“Oh, I can’t show you that, but I know it happened because [fill in the blank: I read some rumors in the paper, powerful people in Washington said Al-Awlaki did bad things, various officials made noises with the words “national security” and “danger” in them]”
No!
Don’t you people realize those are exactly the same phony justifications used to execute people in the Salem Witch Trials?
“Oh, I can’t show you the crime those witches committed because Satan used his magic to obscure them from human view. But we, as clerics and expert witch-hunters, know these people committed these evil supernatural crimes. So we must execute them as witches. It’s a matter of public safety!”
The rule of law rests on evidence and the courts. If you cannot produce evidence, you cannot bring a citizen to court. If you cannot bring a citizen to court, you cannot simply order the people in uniforms “Go out there and murder that guy.” That’s not the rule of law, that’s what Al Capone did.
Without evidence and the courts and the rule of law, you are back to gangsters ordering hits.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
I didn’t say anything about a k tower or the nature of the particular criminal. And just like the President isn’t a police officer, a combatant in a warzone is not a bank robber or clock tower sniper in an American city.
@mclaren:
How sure are you that there was no evidence? A court should really be given oversight of the drone program.
Tegdirb
@John S.: I am impressed with Sanders supporters and their constant ability to make it about them.
Luthe
I had forgotten how painful reading the comments sans pie filter can be. *flees before the onslaught of nasty, brutish, and never-ending*
Aqualad08
@mclaren:
No, no… what I’m telling you is that you’re an obsessed, lonely individual working himself into a lather over even the slightest suggestion he might not be as well-informed as he’d like to believe he is, one who overcompensates for his inability to debate the issue at hand by spiraling into an ever-deeper sinkhole of conspiracies and personal insults.
But hey, it’s America… you certainly have the right… :)
Technocrat
@Kropadope:
Yeah, I agree with this.
mclaren
@Technocrat:
So you claim it is “sometimes” legal to order police to commit premeditated murder? That’s just simply false. You’re lying. That’s completely illegal.
No police chief anywhere can line up his men at roll call and tell them “Here is this guy named John Doe. We need you to track him down and murder him.”
If you claim that is legal, you are lying. That’s not how a civilized society works.
That’s not what I said and that’s not what president Obama did.
What I said is `No police chief ever has or ever will give an order like “We need to murder this suspect without a trial. That’s a felony.'” That’s also what president Obama did. He gave the order “We need to murder this guy Al-Awlaki without a trial.” That’s illegal and it’s unconstitutional and not all the squirming and wriggling and verbal calisthenics in the world can make it legal or constitutional.
This is the exact same justification given for Stalin’s genocides. “I don’t have the evidence that those people Stalin ordered purged were guilty — but then again I didn’t order him killed. Since Comrade Stalin ordered him killed, you’d have to find out if he had evidence.”
A recipe for a descent into tyranny.
So you are now claiming that it’s just fine for a leader to order the deliberate premeditated murder of a citizen regardless of whether s/he poses an imminent danger to other citizens.
That’s Pol Pot’s Year Zero.
Once again, a garbage false analogy. I never said “it’s unconstitutional to kill a citizen without a trial.”
Listen to what I said:
It’s unconstitutional for any U.S. leader to order the deliberate premeditated murder of a U.S. citizen without a trial.
Read the fifth amendment. It’s not ambiguous.
Kropadope
@Aqualad08: I often wonder if there is a commenter here who blacks out, loses time, and has no indication of what they did during that time save for the name mclaren in their Name box.
mclaren
@Aqualad08:
Now you’ve abandoned logic and evidence and you’ve descended into personal insults and “responding to tone.”
This is an old old trick.
Source: “How Noam Chomsky is discussed,” Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian< 23 March 2013.
dollared
@RaflW: He responded. So? I just hear a lot of whining on this blog. I seem to recall this was a politics blog, and then when it happens, all the Clintonites demand that the referee……..wait, there’s no referee?
Isn’t there one in the general election? Oh my, whatever will we do?
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Correct. Not applicable in your case.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Completely impractical. How would that work? “Foxtrot Charlie One Niner Three at Angels 30, we have 13 infrared bogies at vector two seven zero. What are our rules of engagement?”
“Foxtrot Charlie One Niner, we need to convene the special drone court. Please wait for three hours for a review of the drone telementary data.”
“This is Foxtrot Charlie One Niner, that’s a negative, the bogies are moving. Am I weapons hot to engage? Repeat, am I weapons hot?”
“Negatory Foxtrot Charlie One Niner, you are not repeat not authorized weapons hot. Wait three hours for the special drone court. Until then, hold on station at angels 30.”
“This is Foxtrot Charlie One Niner, the bogies will be gone by then. So what am I doing here?”
“Sorry, that’s the rules.”
Not going to work.
The premediated murder of probable innocent civilans (94% so far for the drone program) in a country with which America is not at war cannot be made legal or civilized or workable by slapping some ad hoc special court on it.
You must either abandon the drone program, or admit that the president of the united states has now become Al Capone.
Kropadope
@dollared: They can insult, insinuate, and cast aspersions all they want. Insult ’em back and you’re a “bro.” Call them on their bad attitude and you’re a whiner.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Well, for starters, you deal with the court part BEFORE sending people out. That should be obvious. Should be.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
That makes no sense. You’re telling me that a court should…what? Rule “If that drone operator sees some unidentified infrared blogs, he’s authorized to shoot them with Hellfire missiles?”
How is that different from the drone operator just firing missiles at a bunch of infrared blobs that turn out to be a wedding party? “Oops, sorry, we accidentally murdered the bride, the bridegroom, 8 children, and fifteen other innocent bystanders, sorry.”
What you’re talking about is just a rubber stamp for murder. It’s meaningless.
It’s exactly the same as the Stalin-era kangaroo courts that used to hand down rulings like: “The KGB is hereby authorized to shoot the accused deviationist in the head summarily.” That’s not the rule of law, it’s legalized murder.
hitchhiker
@goblue72:
You sound nice. The baby boom is easy for me to track because the birth years begin with my oldest brother Mike and end with my youngest sister Bette. He was born in 48, she in 63. That means he’s 68 now, and she’s a sprightly 53. There were six of us between them, but two of those are already dead.
That’s what you’re rooting for, right? Me and all my siblings to croak so you can usher in your voter’s paradise?
Good luck with it!
Technocrat
@mclaren:
No, it’s is sometimes legal to order police to kill a suspect without a trial. A good example
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gunman-fires-shots-dallas-police-headquarters-cops-n374836
Guy in a van full of explosives. Killed by police snipers:
I certainly am no expert, but I assume snipers have to follow ROE. Someone has to give the order for them to either shoot or go weapons free.
Erisia
Jesus, troll padawan, “I’m gonna go on a hunger strike if Hillary is elected” Kropadope v. Master Sith, “You work in a CIA basement, and YOU work in a CIA basement, and YOU ALL WORK IN A CIA BASEMENT!” Mcclaren are duking it out over who gets to pee on fucking everyone else here! This is the highlight of my year so far!
Just remember… DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS!
Technocrat
@mclaren:
It’s not different. But it would be legal, in a more generally accepted sense.
Kathleen
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I’m surprised he didn’t tell her not to stand next to him, like he did to his wife.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: Look, just because you’re a mentally unstable outcast with serious personality deficiencies doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
balconesfault
Per Bernie, anyone who has to accept political contributions from monied interests is unqualified to hold political office. A nice philosophy if you’re from Vermont … kind of unworkable in general elections in most other places where a Democrat has to run against a well funded Republican opponent.
bin Lurkin'
Given what a bunch of Obots BJ has been for the last eight years I’m surprised that so, so many of you have forgotten how Hillary dissed Obama in 2008, indeed McCain used her words about Obama in one of his own general election ads…
“I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House.. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002..”
BillinGlendaleCA
@hitchhiker: GoBlue will sell you a ticket for an ice floe. We can float off into the ocean and not bother the pure youngens with our Right Wing Boomer stench.
amk
@bin Lurkin’:
clintons were taken to task for trash talking then just like bs is being now.
Larv
I see some people saying that either Hillary started it, or that politics ain’t beanbag, or whatever. To my mind, what makes this different and particularly egregious is specifically the language; directly using the term “unqualified” about your opponent in a primary is really, really dumb or malicious. It makes it much harder to turn around and credibly support your opponent if they win the nom, and it will inevitably be used by the Repubs in attack ads if she’s the nom. She may have been indirectly critical of him, but directness matters.
Aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: wow! The sanders people have been attacking hers as a corrupt, murderous, warmongering liar for months. Sanders himself lies about her on ghe stump to his impressionable fans, and you basically insist he and they be given time and reassurance gor thrir destryctive trmper tantrum because she is winning? The ONLY excuse for sanders going negative is if he can win. Otherwise its pure spite aimed at dragging down the democrat in a future two person race.
Robert Sneddon
@Aimai: For SoS Clinton, the nomination is a sideshow, the real battle is for the Presidency. Absent a black-swan event she will go to the Democratic convention with a cushion of a couple of hundred pledged delegates and a couple of million popular votes, a lot more than President Obama had in 2008 and with no Michigan/Florida disqualified delegates to mess things up. She can afford to be magnanimous and let the silly attacks by Senator Sanders, his surrogates and his more fervent supporters slide off her back. With luck and if she doesn’t diss them too much most of them will support her and vote for her in the upcoming election so she can soft-pedal her own attacks on Senator Sanders and still win the nomination. Eleventh-dimensional chess thinking, basically (I wonder who she might have learned that from?).
For Senator Sanders, his surrogates and his most fervent supporters the nomination battle is all there is so they must go all-out, now and until the convention. Whether he throws his support whole-heartedly behind the presumptive nominee or not at that point is up to him. If he does so some of his current supporters will abandon him but they were never going to vote for SoS Clinton under any circumstances.
SoS Clinton can afford to lose delegates by not attacking whole-heartedly and still win the nomination and hopefully keep a large number of Sanders supporters in the Democratic Party camp for the real battle in November.
satby
@Ella in New Mexico: Nobody’s worried about Hillary. That’s the point.
We’re angry about Bernie running his yap like the ill prepared, bad-tempered, misogynist coot he is.
Kropadope
@Erisia:
No, not until the ill-advised, falsely sold war of choice, and I said that goes for ANY of these clowns. Just because you’re certain she’s going to do it, doesn’t mean you need to rush me toward quitting my job and defaulting on pretty much my whole life, thanks.
over_educated
Here is my thought on the idiots who won’t vote for Hillary: It is the political equivalent of threatening to shoot of your own dick if you don’t get your way.
If Trump is the nom: Clinton doesn’t need Bernie Bros, enough republicans and Independents will vote against Trump to make it a hilarious landslide.
If Cruz is the nom: A fractured democratic party could cost Hillary the election, Cruz has a Republican congress and then appoints a conservative justice(s). Voter restricitons make it difficult/impossible to retake Congress and the power of white conservatives gets more entrenched. The people who are hurt most by this are young people (Bernie bros) and super liberals. Congrats, you get to spend the next 25 years in a christian domininist fiefdom. No skin off my balls, because I’m an old white cis male, but if you are a young woman and get pregnant or a young man and your girlfriend gets pregnant, welcome to a world of hurt.
If someone else comes in at the convention (the white horse scenario): Republican party fractures, Hillary wins without the Bernie Bros.
So basically my response to “I’m never voting for Clinton” democrats is: do it. Even if the dems lose I am going to get my enjoyment form laughing at you morons.
policomic
Yeah, she’s so crafty. Praising the Reagans on AIDS, praising her vacation buddy Kissinger, praising the “superb” journalism of Megan Kelly–so savvy! Remember Crown Royal whiskey and hard-working white people? Such rhetorical/strategic brilliance!
I’m not going to defend Sanders’s statement–it was an instance of bad judgment (not like supporting the Iraq War, but still…), but that “prizefighter” stuff is just a ridiculous description of HRC, the Queen of the Unforced Error.
Sasha
One thing I appreciate about Hillary is that she makes a point of learning from her experiences (she has been clearly taking notes from Obama and how he handles this nonsense).
Keith G
Sanders comments were regrettable. I don’t think they are worthy of spittle flecked pronouncements for the collection of pearls however.
When it comes to this type of campaigning at this high of a level of intensity Sanders is an amateur. I think many of the actions he’s taken are consistent with a bit of an amateurish approach to complicated electoral politics. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t see him as being a capable chief executive of a government as complex as ours.
Joanne Mattera
Bernie: I sent you a campaign contribution in 2014, not because I was planning to vote for you (my vote was and is for Hillary) but because I wanted to encourage the kind of thinking I thought you would bring to the campaign. You’re a disappointment. If only you came with a money-back guarantee.
Paul in KY
@Kay (not the front-pager): Kay, Hillary doesn’t want you to go into debt.
Cleos
@El Tiburon:
Hysterical laughter will do that sometimes.
Cleos
@seaboogie: I would gladly spectate thrown granny panties (and/or grandpa briefs) if it meant being spared the sight of someone who’s wearing a thong or a Speedo and is clearly… well. Unqualified.
Cleos
@MomSense: I’m not in assisted living but would visit such an establishment if The Hip Replacements were playing Led Zeppelin and CCR covers. Explore that option!